GIOVANNI di POUILLY (de Polliaco). - Scholastic philosopher and theologian, d. after 1322.
A disciple of Goffredo di Fontaines (de Fontibus), he became magister artium in 1295, doctor theologiae before 1307, and taught in that capacity at Paris for approximately two decades. He was one of the professors consulted in the trial against the Templars, and proved to be one of the Order’s most fervent opponents.
Interesting details concerning the trial are recorded in his Quodlibeta. In the conflict over the privileges of the mendicant Orders, which flared up again after the Council of Vienne (in the Dauphiné), he took a position against the privilege of hearing confessions in such harsh terms that he was accused before the Curia and was obliged to retract (1321; cf. Denz-U, 491-93). It seems that after this condemnation he continued teaching at Paris without further incident. His doctrinal position depends greatly on the intellectualism of Goffredo di Fontaines, but also displays many Thomistic features and is not entirely free from the influences of the scepticism and fideism then in vogue. Principal works:
5 Quodlibeta, disputed between 1307 and 1312; 6 Quaestiones ordinariae (all unpublished).