GIOVANNI di BURGH (Johannes de Burgo). – Theologian of the 14th century. In 1384 he was appointed rector of the University of Cambridge; and the following year he wrote a manual of canon law in catechetical form, Papilla oculi (Paris 1510 and 1518, Strasbourg 1514), which became widely known as a practical guide to law for priests. He died in 1386 at Collingham in Nottinghamshire, where he was rector.
Together with Lyndwood (d. 1446), G. bears witness to the thoroughly papal character of canon law in England. His manual was printed in 1510 and 1515 in Paris, and in Strasbourg in 1514.
BIBL.: J. Pitts, De illustribus Angliae scriptoribus, Paris 1610, p. 548 s.c.: F. W. Maitland, Roman canon law in the Church of England, London 1898, pp. 40-41: T. B. Scannell, Doctrine, in Cath. Enc., V, p. 78: R. S. Nolan, Seal. ibid., XIII, p. 651: Enrico G. Rope