GIOVANNI of Fribourg, called Lector. — Dominican moralist, d. at Fribourg on 10 March 1314.
Probably born at Haslach near Fribourg in Brisgau, G. made the Dominican convent there famous. He probably studied at Strasbourg, which he may have completed at Paris. On 30 Nov. 1294 he drew up the new conventual books for the convents of Fribourg and Basel, rendered necessary by the foundation of the convent at Gebweiler. Apart from teaching at Basel, G. remained faithful to his convent at Fribourg, which he illustrated as reader and as prior.
If G. left behind some sermons in German and Latin, his literary and doctrinal legacy is preserved mainly in his writings for the advancement of practical morality. Besides the *Sum in tūtsch* on the seven virtues, there are the writings of the *Registrum* or *Tabula super textu et apparatu* (Guilénelli Redonensis) *sive glossa Raymundi* (de Peñafort); *Additiones ad Summam Raymundi*; *Quaestiones casuales* (of 1277); *Confessionale*; *Summa confessorum* (1297), also called *Summa Iohannina*; *Statuta Summa confessorum* ex sexto libro decretalium adita (after 9 March 1298); *Manuale*, i.e. an extract from the *Summa*; *Summa abbreviat*; a commentary on the 4th book of the *Sentences* which Quétif attributes to him and which is probably spurious.
The *Summa confessorum* embraces, like the *Summa* of St Raymond, four books. While Raymond proceeds as a canonist, G. is a moralist. G. exceeds by two-thirds the bulk of the *Summa* of Raymond, basing himself on the theologians Albert the Great, St Thomas, and also on Peter of Tarentaise, Ulrich of Strasbourg and others, and on the canonists William of Rennes, Geoffrey of Trani, Hostienis, Innocent IV, Bernard of Botone, William Durand the elder, Monaldus, Hermann of Minden, Barcardo of Strasbourg, various glossators, and on the papal decretals from Gregory IX to Boniface VIII. The *Summa Iohannina* provides confessors with a complete moral teaching, enriched by the doctrines of Albert and Thomas and other authorities. The *Iohannina* has eclipsed the *Summa* of Raymond.
The manuscripts are listed by Quétif-Echard, Schulte and Dietterle, though not exhaustively. The earliest printed edition of the *Summa confessorum* is from 1476 at Augsburg. A disciple of G., Fra Bertoldo, translated the *Summa confessorum*, perhaps already before 1300, or at least between 1300 and 1310, into German and secured its extraordinary diffusion in the age of manuscripts and incunabula. The *Tabula super Summam*, the *Summa ridium*, the *Summa casualum abbreviata* of William of Cayeu, the *Règle des marchands* are summaries or abridgments of the *Summa Iohannina*.