The Origin of the Word Dunce

Olivia B. asks: Where did the word dunce come from and who came up with the dunce cap?

dunce-capThe word dunce derives from the name of an extremely accomplished religious scholar- John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308), an influential philosopher and theologian of the High Middle Ages. If you guessed that his ideas and those who touted them were (somewhat unfairly) eventually widely panned as moronic, you’d be correct.

Born near the Scottish village of Duns, from which he took the name, Duns Scotus was ordained into the Catholic Franciscan Order at St. Andrew’s Priory, Northampton, England in 1291. Over the next 17 years, Duns Scotus strongly influenced both religious and secular thought.

One of Duns Scotus’ most notable contributions was the idea that existence was abstract, but it remained the same for all beings and things, only differing in terms of degree. However, he was perhaps most well known for making complex arguments, and in particular to prove the existence of God and the Immaculate Conception. For instance, his long and detailed argument for the existence of God can more or less be summed up as follows:

1) Something, A, is produced.
2) It is produced either by itself, nothing, or another.
3) Not by nothing, for nothing causes nothing.
4) Not by itself, for an effect never causes itself.
5) Therefore, by another; call it B.
6) We return to 2). B is produced either by itself, nothing, or another. The ascending series will either continue infinitely or we finally reach something which has nothing prior to it.
7) An infinite ascending series is impossible.
8) Therefore, a simple first efficient cause exists.

Given his detailed and genuinely well respected analyses in his time, Duns Scotus earned the nickname “the Subtle Doctor,” and an entire school of philosophy, Scotism, was named for him.

Important to the discussion at hand, Duns Scotus was a fiercely devout Catholic who even advocated for the forcible baptism into the One True Church of Jewish children and adults. Along with his extremely intellectual form of reasoning, this strict adherence to Church doctrine and teachings are ultimately what led to him becoming the namesake for dunce, despite the man himself being anything but.

Skip forward approximately 200 years after his death, and in the interim his ideas were still being widely taught and his work still well respected… that is, until the Protestant Reformation had reached England. Even before Henry VIII began the switch from Catholicism to Anglicism, the Reformation was tearing through northern Europe and its ideas, as well as the new thinking that came with the Renaissance, had begun to seep into the island nation.

Nonetheless, traditional Catholics fought back hard, and often relied on Duns Scotus’ theories and way of reasoning in their defense of the Church and its doctrines. However, many of the modern scholars of the late Renaissance saw Duns Scotus’ arguments as “hair splitting” and characterized his philosophy with the pejorative “sophistry.”

Pro-Protestant forces, seizing on this interpretation of Duns’ philosophy began to characterize their opponents who followed him as dupes too stupid to see behind Duns’ specious, deceptive arguments and slavish devotion to Catholic doctrine; and, naming them for their hero, they became known as Duns, such as in Tyndale’s Parable Wicked Mammon (1527): “A Duns man would make xx. distinctions.”[1]

Over the years, Duns changed to duns and began to be applied to those beyond the spell of Duns Scotus, with one of two meanings. The first- one whose study of books has left him dull or stupid- was first seen in J. Lyly’s Euphues, (1578): “If one bee harde in conceiuing, they pronounce him a dowlte, if giuen to study, they proclayme him a duns.”[2]

The second meaning- a dull-witted, stupid person with no capacity for learning- was first seen in F. Thynne’s Ann. Scotl. (1587): “But now in our age it is growne to be a common prouerbe in derision, to call such a person as is senselesse or without learning a duns, which is as much as a foole.”

The present spelling of Dunce was seen as early as 1535, when R. Layton, in a letter, used the word to describe Duns Scotus’s works; it was first applied more generally to denote a stupid person in 1611, in R. Cotgrave’s Dictionary of French & English Tongues: “Lourdaut, a sot, dunce, dullard. Viedaze, . . . an old dunce, doult, blockhead.”[3]

Not all has been lost concerning Duns’ reputation, however, and he is today generally considered one of the more important philosophers of the Middle Ages. Pope John Paul II even beatified Duns in 1993.

johndunsscotusAs for who came up with the idea of putting a silly pointed hat on the heads of a person labeled as a dunce, this isn’t clear. It has been suggested that Duns held that the wearing of conical hats aided in learning, with the shape being a symbol of learning, funneling the knowledge into the head of the wearer. (This is not unlike Abracadabra cones that have been used in healing since at least the 2nd century.)  Hence this idea supposedly championed by Duns ultimately saw those mocking the dunces forcing them to wear such a hat.

However, there appears to be no direct evidence to support such a notion and the first known reference to a dunce cap didn’t come about until the 1840 work by Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, in which it states

Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors, were the cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce’s cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest size.

The word “dunce” at this point had long been applied as a derogatory term for people labeled as stupid or having done or said something moronic, with no connection to Duns or his work at all. Given the context it was first mentioned, and later continued to be used for (punishment for students), the idea behind it may well have had nothing to do with hats from Duns’ time, whether he actually wore them or not- simply a way to visually let everyone know said individual had done something stupid or acted out via making them wear a silly hat that was easy and cheap to make- just a simple means of humiliation. In fact, long before the idea of a dunce cap seems to have popped up, there was the “dunce table”, referenced in the 1624 play by John Ford, The Sun’s Darling, in which poor performing students were forced to sit.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:

Bonus Fact:

  • Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death (1623), reported that Duns Scotus was not actually dead when he was entombed in 1308. According to Bacon, Scotus was suffering from an undiagnosed coma when he was placed in the tomb, and at some point woke up, as shown by the “wounded and bruised state of the head, by reason of the body striving and tossing in the coffin,” which was learned when the body was later disinterred. However, modern scholars don’t think there is anything to this idea, however.
Expand for References
Share the Knowledge! FacebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailFacebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Enjoy this article? Join over 50,000 Subscribers getting our FREE Daily Knowledge and Weekly Wrap newsletters:

Subscribe Me To:  | 

6 comments

  • Quoted from the article, above:

    “… Duns Scotus was a fiercely devout
    Catholic who even advocated for the forcible baptism into the One True
    Church of Jewish children and adults.”

    This is a self-contradictory statement. Why? Because a person cannot (could not) be both a “devout Catholic” and someone who “advocated for … forcible baptism” of Jews or anyone else. The Catholic CHURCH has always taught against forced conversion — because it is no “conversion” at all — but some INDIVIDUAL Catholics, long ago, gravely sinned by trying to force people to convert. If Duns Scotus was one of these, then he does not deserve to be called a “devout Catholic” today.

    If there was any credible evidence that Duns Scotus actually had a hand in phony/forced conversions, he would never have been beatified. He may have mistakenly believed, as some non-Catholic Christians still believe today, that non-Christians will surely be damned when they die. (The Church’s teaching, to the contrary, may not have yet been clearly enough proclaimed in his lifetime.) For this reason, he may have mistakenly thought that forced conversion was better than none at all … but the Church has never taught that to be true.

    • Electromechanicaldissonance

      So you’re an expert on religious doctrine from the twelfth century? You do realize that church dogma and doctrine have changed RADICALLY over the centuries, do you not? Beyond that, the official church dogma and doctrine of today were SHAPED and CREATED by multiple different people over the centuries … which is to say, that theologians with different ideas and beliefs, JUST LIKE DUNS, over the centuries have constantly and consistently altered the church as time goes on. Many things that are “obvious” or “right” in the church today would have been utter witchcraft or heresy 500 years ago.

      • Dear “Electromechanicaldissonance,”
        The fact that you made a certain totally incorrect statement (“You do realize that church dogma and doctrine have changed RADICALLY over the centuries, do you not?”) lets me know that you are sadly unaware of the facts. Theologians have not “altered the church as time” has gone on. The Catholic Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ does not change or undergo alteration.

        I state the following especially for the benefit of young readers (lest they be misled by your mistakes):

        The teachings [regarding faith and morality] of the Catholic Church have never changed and never will change. They were not “created” or “shaped” over the ages. Instead, they were given by Jesus and by His Holy Spirit to the first Apostles, and they have been handed down faithfully (by the Apostles’ successors, the Catholic Bishops) for twenty centuries, undergoing no deletions, no changes, and no additions. The only thing that has occasionally happened, through the ages, is that popes and their fellow bishops, guided by the same Holy Spirit, have shared their deeper, clearer understandings of age-old faith-related doctrines — and have applied the principles of ancient moral doctrines to changing situations (for example, the total rejection of cloning, in our own lifetimes).

        • Electromechanicaldissonance

          It’s clear you are an anti-intellectual dogmatic reactionary. You do realize that the Catholic Church accepts evolution as the valid explanation of the source of humanity on earth, do you not? And nobody but a recalcitrant poltroon would deny that espousing such an idea 500 years ago would have seen one brutally punished if not simply burned at the stake by the church. I’m sorry you cannot get your head around the truth of modern understanding of reality and instead fall back on trite and ignorant barbarisms and superstitions. Jesus did NOT create the church, he was a jew and never espoused that he should be worshipped as a deity which is exactly what all Christian churches do, Catholic or otherwise.

          • There is no point in my leaving a substantive reply, sir or madam, for two reasons: (1) I need not post anything more for other folks that are reading here. They have seen, by now, how misguided your mind is, how ridiculous your comments are [espoused by fewer than 5% of mankind (the mentally ill, the diabolically possessed, etc.)].
            (2) I need not post anything more for you, because your mind is too closed to the truth. Only prayer (yours, mine, and others’) can open that mind.

    • Yeah, about that… It was actually the official stance of the Roman Church, that Jews did NOT poison wells or ritually murder children… But still, the veneration of “child martyrs” like Simon of Trient was officially tolerated. And John Eck wrote a scathing, over 190 page, reply “Ains Juden büchlins verlegung” to Osiander’s treatise “Ob es war vnd glaublich sey” about the blood libel accusation: While Osiander even used Papal Bulls and Imperial Decrees as argument AGAINST the blood libel, Eck persisted in spreading the heretical notion, that Jews abduct boys to torture and ritually slaughter them for their blood…
      Just because the official doctrine was less hostile towards the Jews, doesn’t mean that theologians and local ordinaries didn’t regularily ignore Rome’s definitive stance on such matters.