Blessed John Dun Scotus was born in Scotland in the year 1265 ad. and died on November 8th, 1308. He was one of the most important theologians and philosophers of the high middle ages. He was nicknamed the Subtle Doctor for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought. Scotus has had considerable influence on Roman Catholic Thought.

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The Doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being", that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; "the formal distinction", a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing; and the idea of "heacceity", the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual. Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God, and is especially known for his defense of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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Scotus was born in 1265, at Duns in Berwickshire, Scotland, In 1291 he was ordained as a Franciscan Priest in Northampton, England. The records of Merton College, Oxford, state that Scotus "flourished at Cambridge, Oxford and Paris". He began lecturing on "Peter Lombard's Sentences" at the prestigious University of Paris in the Autom of 1302. Later in that academic year, however, he was expelled from the University of Paris and France for defending Pope Boniface VIII in his feud with Phillip the Fair of France, over the authority of the Pope and taxation of Church property.

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Scotus was able to return to Paris in 1304 and continued lecturing there until he was transferred to the Franciscan Studium at Cologne in October 1307. He died there in 1308 on November 8th. He was buried in the Church of the Franciscans in Cologne. His sarcophagus bears the larin inscription: "Scotia me genuit. Anglia me suscpit. Gallia me docuit. Colonia me tenet." ("Scotland brought me forth. England sustained me. France taught me. Cologne holds me.") He was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II on March 20th, 1993.