Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Catton, Walter

1383714Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 09 — Catton, Walter1887Thomas Andrew Archer

CATTON or CHATTODUNUS, WALTER (d. 1343), a Franciscan friar of Norwich, was, according to some authorities, head of the Minorite convent situated between the churches of St. Cuthbert and St. Vedast. He seems to have been an author of some repute in his generation, and was, according to Bale, a great student of Aristotle. Towards the close of his life he was summoned to Avignon by the pope, and died a penitentiary in that city in 1343. The titles of his works have been preserved by Leland, viz. ‘A Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard’ (4 books) and a treatise ‘De Paupertate Evangelica,’ to which Bale adds two other discussions entitled respectively, ‘Adversus Astrologos’ and certain ‘Resolutiones Quæstionum.’ Pits adds that he was a mathematician.

[Leland's Commentarii, 306; Bale, De Script. Brit. i. 420; Pits's Relat. de Illustr. Script. Angliæ, 449, 450; Dugdale's Monast. Anglic. (ed. 1817), vi. pt. iii. 1522.]

T. A. A.