DAMASUS MAGISTER. - A celebrated Italian canonist, who taught at the Studium of Bologna in the early years of the thirteenth century. Some authors erroneously described him as a Bohemian by birth.
Besides a Summa Decretalium, composed between 1210 and 1215, he wrote 278 Quaestiones, highly interesting and practical, frequently consulted, and Brocarda, or a collection of canonical conclusions drawn from the sources and writers of canon law. There was no lack of scholars who denied D. the authorship of one or another of the works mentioned, but the identity of thought and well-known external arguments have restored these writings to this author.
BIBL.: I. F. Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des can. Rechts, I, Stoccarda 1875, p. 104 sgg.; H. Kantorowicz, D., in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abt., 47 (1927), pp. 332-40; S. Kuttner, Repertorium, I, Città del Vaticano 1937, p. 304; A. van Hove, Proleopheno, 2ª ed., Malines-Roma 1945, pp. 429, 441, 444-45, 447, 450.