John Blund

Who was John Blund?

John Blund was an English scholastic philosopher, known for his work on the nature of the soul, the Tractatus de anima, one of the first works of western philosophy to make use of the recently translated De Anima by Aristotle and especially the Arab philosopher Avicenna's work on the soul, also called De Anima. He taught at Oxford University along with Edmund of Abingdon. David Knowles said that he was "noteworthy for his knowledge of Avicenna and his rejection of the hylomorphism of Avicebron and the plurality of forms.", although the problem of the plurality of forms as understood by later scholastics was not formulated explicitly in Blund's time. Maurice Powicke calls him the "first English Aristotelian."

He was a royal clerk by 1227 and studied at Oxford and Paris, and was at the University of Paris when it was dispersed in 1229. He was a canon of Chichester before 1232. He was archbishop of Canterbury during a brief reign, having been elected on 26 August 1232. He was supported by Peter des Roches, but did not receive papal approval and the election was quashed because of alleged pluralism on 1 June 1233.