DUNS, John, a schoolman of the highest reputation, is said to have been born in the year 1274, but the place of his birth has been long and much disputed. Dempster has asserted the claims of Scotland by twelve arguments;^[1. Dempsteri Asserti Scotìae Cives esse sui; S. Bonifacius rationibus iχ. Joannes Duns rationibus xn. Bononìae, 1621, 4to. ] but a less formidable number might perhaps have been sufficient. The designation Scotus, which is commonly added to his name, evinces him to have been a native either of Scotland or of Ireland; and the pretensions of the latter country cannot be supported by the authority of a single early writer. Wadding and other Irish authors who claim him as their countryman, persuade themselves that he was born at Dunum, or Downpatrick, and must thence have derived the name of Duns;^[2. Wadding Scriptores Ordinis Minorum, f. 201. a. llomae, 1650, fol. ] but this is obviously a mere conjecture, unsupported by tradition, and carrying with it no great plausibility. Leland claims him as an Englishman, on the authority of certain manuscript copies of his works, preserved in the library of Merton College, and bearing a colophon which describes him as born at the village of Dunstane in the county of Northumberland.^[3. Lelandus de Scriptoribus Britannicis, tom. ii. p. 317∙ ] But if this had been the place of his birth, his surname ought to have been Dunstane. It apparently belongs to the class of local surnames, or those derived from places of birth or habitation; and we have little or no hesitation in supposing him [7:8:284]to have been a native of Dunse in the county of Berwick. This surname is still to be found in Scotland. He is mentioned as a native of Scotland by Trithemius, 1 and likewise by Paulus Jovius, Sixtus Senensis, Possevin, and many other writers of various countries. We are told that when a boy hebecame accidentally known to two Franciscan friars, who, finding him to be a youth of very extraordinary capacity, took him to their convent at Newcastle, and afterwards persuaded him to become one of their fraternity. From thence he was sent to Oxford, where he became a fellow of Merton College, and professor of divinity; but it appears that he had likewise studied at Paris. His lectures were frequented by a prodigious concourse of students. His fame was now become so universal, that the general of his order removed him to Paris, that the students of that university might also have the benefit of his lectures. He went to Paris in the year 1304, where he is said to have been honoured first with the degree of bachelor, then of doctor of divinity, and in 1307 to have been appointed regent of the divinity schools; but as he had taught divinity at Oxford, he must previously have taken at least one degree in that faculty. During his residence at Paris, arose the famous controversy about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. Albertus Magnus maintained that she was born in original sin. Scotus advanced two hundred arguments in support of the contrary opinion, and convinced the university of Paris that she was really conceived immaculate. This important nonsense however continued to be disputed till the year 1496, after the council of Basel, when the university of Paris made a decree, that no student who did not believe the immaculate conception should be admitted to a degree. Duns had not been above a year at Paris, when the same general of the Franciscans ordered him to remove to Cologne, where he was received with great pomp and ceremony by the magistrates and nobles of that city, and where he died of an apoplexy soon after his arrival, in the year 1308, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. Some writers have reported that he was buried in an epileptic fit, and that, upon removing his bones, he appeared to have turned himself in his coffin. The genius of this renowned schoolman, who obtained the appellation of Doctor Subtilis, or the Subtle Doctor, reflects no inconsiderable lustre on the nation to which he belonged: he maintained a reputation almost unrivalled till the scholastic theology and scholastic philosophy were finally exploded. His followers, who were called Scotisis, opposed the opinions of the Thomists, or followers of St Thomas Aquinas. An edition of his works, accompanied by a life of the author by Luke Wadding, was published at Lyon in twelve volumes folio.