Northumberland: the Scots alledge he was born at Duns, in the
Mers, the neighbouring county to Northumberland, and hence
was called Dunscotus. Moreri, Buchanan, and other Scotch
historians, are of this opinion, and for proof cite his epitaph:

Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit,
Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet.
[Scotland bore me, England reared me,
France instructed me, Germany kept me.]

He died at Cologne, Novem. 8. 1308. In the Supplement to Dr.
Cave's Historia Literaria, he is said to be extraordinary learned
in physicks, metaphysicks, mathematicks, and astronomy; that
his fame was so great when at Oxford, that 30,000 scholars
came thither to hear his lectures: that when at Paris, his
arguments and authority carried it for the immaculate
conception of the Blessed Virgin; so that they appointed a
festival on that account, and would admit us scholars to degrees
but such as were of this mind. He was a great opposer of
Thomas Aquinas's doctrine; and, for being a very acute
logician, was called Doctor Subtilis; [Discriminating (or,
literally, Slender) Teacher] which was the reason also, that an
old punster always called him the Lathy Doctor.

158 q As tough as, &c.] Sorbon was the first and most
considerable college of the university of Paris, founded in time
reign of St. Lewis, by Robert Sorbon, which name is sometimes
given to the whole University of Paris, which was founded,
about the year 741, by Charlemagne, at the persuasion of the
learned Alcuinus, who was one of the first professors there;