COWTON (de COUTON), ROBERT. - English philosopher, Franciscan. The life and doctrine of C. are too little known to allow an exact assessment of his importance in the history of Scholasticism. He was with SCOTO at Oxford in 1300 and shortly thereafter commented on the Sentences of Lombard in that university (Pelster and Schwamm, however, assert that C. cannot be counted among the Scotists). His name does not appear in the list of Oxford masters, but it is not excluded that he may have taken his doctorate in Paris.
Almost unknown on the continent, his Commentarium in Sententias was highly esteemed in England. T. Sutton devotes the first three books of his Sententarium to defending St. Thomas against the objections of C., while the fourth is against Scotus.