Bassol, John

, a native of Scotland in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, applied in youth to the study of polite literature and philosophy, after which he studied divinity at Oxford, under Duns Scotus, with whom he went to Paris, in 1304. After continuing his studies for some time at that university, he entered into the order of the Minorites, in 1313. Being sent by the general of the order to Rheims, he studied medicine, and taught there for seven or eight years, with much credit, upon “the Master of the Sentences.” In 1322 he was sent to Mechlin, in Brabant, where he spent the remainder of his days in teaching theology, and died in that city in the year 1347. We have of his, “Commentaria seu Lecturas in quatuor Libros Sententiarum,” Paris, 1517, fol. a work which was in such high reputation in his day as to procure him from his brethren the schoolmen, the title of “Doctor Ordinatissimus,” in allusion to his method and perspicuity. In the same volume are “Miscellanea Philosophica et Medica.” ²