BRULÉFER, ETIENNE. - Franciscan theologian, born at St-Malo in Brittany in the first half of the 15th century, died before the end of the same century. He entered the Conventuals at Dinant. His real surname was Pillet; he was called B. for his polemical zeal in defending the controversies of the faith. A disciple of the great William of Vorillon, he followed the Bonaventurian-Scotist tendency. Doctor of Theology, he taught for several years in Paris, Mainz, and Metz. In 1487 he is recorded as theologian and preacher at the synod and in the cathedral of Mainz. It was in this city that he seems to have passed from the Conventuals to the Observants. He then returned to France to care for his health or to defend the Observant reform in Brittany.
The fruit of his not inconsiderable teaching are the *Formalitates in doctrinam Scoti* (Paris 1480, 1485, 1490); the *Tractatus identitatum et distinctionum in doctrinam doctori subtilis* (Basel 1501); the *Commentaria in 4 libros sententiarum* of St. Bonaventure (Venice n.d., Basel 1507); the *Opuscula theologica* (Paris 1500). Among these opuscula is included a *Tractatus de excellentissima paupertate Christi et apostolorum eius*, which the Protestants believed they could use in their attacks against the papacy, but the orthodoxy of B. was already vindicated by Catholic writers.