JOHN OF SAINT PAUL. - Benedictine and later cardinal, d. between 1214 and 1215. His identity with the namesake physician of the Salernitan school, author of several books of medicine, appears established.

G. was certainly a monk (perhaps rector or abbot) of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Created cardinal of St. Prisca in 1193 by Celestine III, he had great influence under this Pope, who at his death (1197) seems to have wished him as his successor. Also under Innocent III G. participated extensively in the government of the Church. He was sent as papal legate in 1198 to Marwald of Anweiler, imperial duke of the March of Ancona who was encroaching upon the rights of the Pontiff. In the years 1200-1201 he was papal legate against the Albigensians of Narbonne and Provence and worked also to resolve the question of Philip Augustus with his wife

Ingeborg (Council of Soissons, March 1201). From a testimony of Giraldus of Cambrai of 1200 it is known that G. was at that time penitentiary of the Pope, the first known to hold such an office, in which he remained even after his election as bishop of Sabina (end of 1204). G. is known above all for the valuable support he gave to St. Francis and his nascent Order, having defended before the Pope and obtained in 1209 (or 1210?) the approval of the first Franciscan Rule, perhaps through the intercession of Bishop Guido of Assisi. G. died before the Fourth Lateran Council.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: C. Wenck, Die römischen Päpste zwischen Alexander III. und der Designations-Verzach (Weihnachten 1197, in Papsttum und Kaisertum (Festschrift für P. Fr. Kehr), Munich 1926, pp. 456-74; M. Bibl, De Johanne de S. Paulo, card. episcopo Sabinensi, primo s. Francisci in Curia Romana a. 1209 fantore, in Arch. franc. histor., 19 (1926), pp. 282-85; B. Altaner, Zur Biographie des Kardinals Johannes von St. Paul (1214-1215), in Historisches Jahrbuch, 49 (1929), pp. 304-306; P. Paschini, Il card. G. di S. P., in Studi di storia e diritto in onore di C. Calisse, III, Milan 1940, pp. 108-18.

Stanislao Majarelli

@incollection{ec6_giovanni_di_san_paolo, author = {Majarelli, Stanislao}, title = {Giovanni di San Paolo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {606--607}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/giovanni-di-san-paolo} }

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John of Saint Paul

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