Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Canon, John
CANON or CANONICUS, JOHN (fl. 1329), schoolman, studied at Oxford, and became a member of the Franciscan order. Afterwards he attended the lectures of Duns Scotus at Paris, but appears to have returned to Oxford, and to have proceeded there to the degree of D.D. He is distinguished by the biographers for his eminence in philosophy, theology, and law, both canon and civil, and four books of commentaries on the ‘Sentences’ of Peter Lombard, some ‘Lecturæ magistrales,’ and ‘Quæstiones disputatæ,’ are ascribed to him. But the work upon which his reputation rests, a work which was very widely used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is a commentary on Aristotle's ‘Physics,’ entitled in the editio princeps ‘Questiones profundissimi doctoris Johannis Canonici ordinis minoris super octo Libris Phisicorum Aristotelis’ (Padua, 1475). It was reprinted at St. Albans in 1481, as well as several times at Venice between this date and 1492. Another edition appeared at Venice in 1516. In manuscript also the commentary is not uncommon. A copy belonging to Lincoln College, Oxford, cod. cii., which was written by R. Rawlyns in 1482, contains a set of verses in honour of the author (Coxe, Catal. of Oxford MSS., Linc. p. 48). Extracts are given by Tanner (Bibl. Brit. p. 150).
Wadding (Scriptores Ordinis Minoris, p. 195) and Tanner state that Canon is also known by the name of Marbres.
[Trittenheim de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, p. 234, ed. Cologne, 1546; Wharton, append. to Cave's Historia Literaria, p. 28.]