DUNOIS, JEAN, COMTE DE
(1402–1468). The bastard of Louis, duke of Orléans, Jean was raised in his father’s home
and became the effective head of the house of Orléans after the capture of his legitimate
half-brothers at Agincourt in 1415. Naturally a member of the Armagnac faction, he
joined the dauphin Charles’s service. His victory at Montargis in 1427 inaugurated a
distinguished military career, and his successful defense of Orléans until relieved by
Jeanne d’Arc in 1429 ensured his fame. Though he was to play an intermediary role in
both the Praguerie (1439) and the Guerre du Bien Publique (1465), he was undoubtedly
the most loyal and effective Valois commander of the era. His campaigns in the Seine
basin culminated in the triumphal royal entry into Paris in 1436. Jean played a major role
in the military reforms of the early 1440s, and between 1449 and 1451 he commanded
major elements of the armies that reconquered Normandy and Guyenne. Made count of
Dunois in 1439 and count of Longueville in 1444, he held important positions in the
government of reunited France, serving both abroad as an ambassador and at home as
royal commissioner in the arrest of the duke of Alençon and the rehabilitation of Jeanne
d’Arc. After a reconciliation in 1465, he served as a key adviser of Louis XI until his
death in 1468.
Paul D.Solon
[See also: ARISTOCRATIC REVOLT; JEANNE D’ARC; ORLÉANS CAMPAIGN;
RECONQUEST OF FRANCE]
Léon-Martin, Louis. Dunois, le bâtard d’Orléans. Paris: Colbert, 1943.
Merouville, M.Caffin de. Le beau Dunois et son temps. Paris: Les Sept Couleurs, 1961.
DUNS SCOTUS, JOHN
(ca. 1266–1308). Born in Scotland, Duns Scotus probably obtained his early education at
the Franciscan convent in Dumfries, where he entered the order by 1280. He was sent to
Oxford no later than 1290 to begin his studies and may have received his baccalaureate
there. He lectured on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard at both Cambridge and Oxford.
Ordained at Northampton in 1291, he went to the University of Paris in 1293 to study for
the master’s degree in theology, but before completing the degree he returned in 1296 to
Oxford, where he commented again on the Sententiae. Duns Scotus went once more to
Paris in 1302 and continued to lecture on the Sententiae. He was exiled in 1303, when he
opposed Philip IV the Fair’s appeal to a general council against Pope Boniface VIII. He
returned in 1304, received the master’s degree in 1305, and became regent master in the
Franciscan chair for the next two years. In 1307, he was sent to teach at the Franciscan
house in Cologne, where he died on November 8, 1308.
Possibly nicknamed “the Scot” early on at Oxford, he engaged in theological disputes
with such skill and subtlety that he posthumously received the scholastic titles Doctor
subtilis and Doctor maximus. Duns Scotus extended the moderate realism of Albert the
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