John; called the Resolute Doctor, a learned monk, was born towards the end of the thirteenth century, at Baconthorp, a village in Norfolk. He spent the early part of his life in the convent of Blackney, near Walsingham, in the same county, whence he removed to Oxford, and thereafter to Paris, where, being distinguished for his learning, he obtained degrees in divinity and laws; and was esteemed the principal of the Averroists. In 1329 he returned to England, and was immediately chosen twelfth provincial of the English Carmelites. In 1333 he was sent for to Rome, where, we are told, he first maintained the pope's sovereign authority in cases of divorce; but this opinion he is understood to have afterwards retracted. He died in London in the year 1346. Leland, Bale, and Pitts, unanimously give him the character of a monk of genius and learning. He wrote, 1. Commentaria, seu Questiones super quatuor libros Sententiarum; and, 2. Compendium Legis Christi, et quodlibet; both of which passed through several editions.

BACTRIA, or Bactriana, an ancient kingdom of Asia, bounded on the west by Margiana, on the north by the river Oxus, on the south by Mount Paropamisus, and on the east by the Asiatic Scythia and the country of the Massagetae. It was a large, fruitful, and well-peopled country, containing, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, a thousand cities, though of these only a few are particularly mentioned by historians, of which that formerly called Maracanda, now Samarqand, is the most considerable.