John of la Rochelle

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John of la Rochelle (Jean de La Rochelle, John of Rupella, Johannes de Rupella) was a French Franciscan theologian.

He was born in La Rochelle (Latin Rupella), towards the end of the twelfth century and seems to have entered the Franciscan Order at an early age. He was a disciple of Alexander of Hales^[1] and was the first Franciscan to receive a bachelor's degree of theology from the University of Paris. By 1238, he was a master of theology, with his own pupils, for his name is found in the list of masters convoked in that year by William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, to discuss the question of ecclesiastical benefices.

John was among those who declared against the general lawfulness of plurality. He appears to have enjoyed a favorable reputation, and is described by Bernard of Besse as a professor of great fame for holiness and learning, whose writings were both solid and extremely useful.

In dissensions which rent the Franciscan order, John was one of the most determined opponents of Brother Elias, and with Alexander of Hales placed himself at the head of the movement which brought about Elias's downfall in 1239. At the command of Haymo of Faversham, who succeeded Elias as general, he collaborated with Alexander of Hales, Robert of Bastia, Richard Rufus of Cornwall, and several others, on an explanation of the Rule of St. Francis. The work received the approbation of the chapter (probably definitorial) of the order held at Bologna, Italy in 1242, and subsequently became known as the "Exposition of the Four Masters."

The majority of succeeding writers place John of Rupella's death in 1271, but a letter of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, written in Sept. or Oct., 1245, speaks of him as being then already dead: "mortuis fratribus Alexandro de Hales, et Joanne de Rupellis."

His best known work is the "Summa de Anima." Father Fidelis a Fanna says that no work on the same subject is to be found so frequently in manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth century in the many European libraries he searched.