BACONTHORPE (BACON, BACO, BACCONILS), JOHN (d. 1346), known as "the resolute doctor," a learned Carmelite monk, was born at Baconsthorpe in Norfolk. He seems to have been the grandnephew of Roger Bacon (Brit. Mus. Add ms. 19. 116). Brought up in the Carmelite monastery of Blakeney, near Wal singham, he studied at Oxford and Paris, and in 1329 was chosen 12th provincial of the English Carmelites. He appears to have anticipated Wycliffe in advocating the subordination of the clergy to the king. In 1333 he was sent for to Rome, where, we are told, he first maintained the pope's authority in cases of di vorce; but this opinion he retracted. He died in London in 1346. His work, the Commentary on the Sentences by Peter the Lombard, was published at Venice, 1527. While it rejects the doctrine of monopsychism, it contends that the arguments of Thomas Aquinas against Averroes are not conclusive. It excuses Averroes whenever possible, hence, nearly three centuries later, it was still studied at Padua, the last home of Averroism.
See K. Prantl, Ges. d. Logik, iii. 318.