Stephen of Bourbon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen of Bourbon was a writer and preacher, especially noted as a historian of medieval heresies, b. in Belleville (Archdiocese of Lyons) towards the end of the twelfth century; d. around 1261.

Having received his education from the cathedral clergy in Macon, he made his higher studies in Paris, about 1220, and there shortly afterwards, as it seems, he entered the Order of Preachers. From 1230 he was very active for many years as a preacher and inquisitor in the districts of Lyonnais, Burgundy, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Champagne, Lorraine, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Roussillon. In his work for preachers entitled De septem donis Spiritus Sancti, or Tractatus de diversis Materiis Praedicabilibus, Stephen included material drawn from his many years of practical experience. Parts of his work were published in Paris in 1877 by A. Lecoy de La Marche under the title Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues, tirés du recueil inédit d'Etienne de Bourbon dominicain du 13e siecle. A free use of his writings was made by a later compiler to form a "Speculum Morale", which for a long time was falsely attributed to Vincent of Beauvais.

[edit] Sources

ECHARD, Script. ord. proed., I, 184 sq.;
HURTER, Nomenclator, II (Innsbruck, 1906), 375;
LECOY DE LA MARCHE, Introd. to work cited above;
HAUREAU in Journal des savants, 1881, 591 sq., 739 sq.;
MULLER, Die Waldenser (Gotha, 1886), 166 sq.
This article incorporates text from the entry Stephen of Bourbon in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.