Brulefer, Étienne

BRULEFER, ÉTIENNE. - Franciscan theologian, b. at St-Malo in Brittany in the first half of the 15th century, d. before the end of the same century. He entered the Conventuals of Dinant. His real surname was Pillet; he was called B. because of his polemical ardor in defending the controversies of the faith. A disciple of the great William of Vorillon, he followed his Bonaventuran-Scotist tendency. A doctor in theology, he taught for several years in Paris, Mainz and Metz. In 1487 he is remembered as a theologian and orator at the synod and in the cathedral of Mainz. It is in this city that he seems to have passed from the Conventuals to the Observants. He then returned to France to seek treatment, or to defend there the Observant reform in Brittany.

The fruit of his not brief teaching are the Formalites in doctrinam Scot (Paris 1480, 1485, 1490); the Tractatus identitatum et distinctionum in doctrinam doctoris subtilis (Basel 1501); the Commentaria in 4 libros sententiarum s. Bonaventurae (Venice s. a., Basel 1507); the Opuscula theologica (Paris 1500). Among these opuscules is also included a Tractatus de excellentissima paupertate Christi et apostolorum eius, of which the Protestants believed they could avail themselves in their attacks against the papacy, but the orthodoxy of B. was already vindicated by Catholic writers.

Giovanni Odoardi