idiotan.

?1548 L. Shepherd Doctour Doubble Ale sig. Avii^v But this I wota that if ye nota How this idiota Doth folow the pota I holde you a grota.]

1566 T. Stapleton Returne Vntruthes Jewelles Replie iii. 109 ^v He is called Idiota, whiche hathe skille onelye of his proper and Mother tounge: But whosoeuer hathe lerned the Common lerned tounge beside, as the Greke in the Greke Churche, the Latin in the Latin Churche, he is no more Idiota, but accompted amonge the lerned.

1663 Hactenus Inaudita 64 I might make bold to put in with that crowd, and venture my rude and crude conceptions of this subject amongst the true Idiotæ, the vulgar of the vulgar.

1786 J. Priestley Def. Hist. Corruptions Christianity i. iv. 28 Surely then we have a better chance of finding the truth on this subject among these Idiotæ, the common and unlearned people, than with such men as Justin Martyr, who had been a Heathen philosopher.

1802 C. Lamb Curious Fragm. in John Woodvil 119 Truth is no Doctoresse, she taketh no degrees at Paris or Oxford, amongst great clerks,..but oftentimes to such an one as myself, an Idiota or common person, no great things, melancholizing in woods where waters are, quiet places by rivers, fountains.

1844 Newman's Lives Eng. Saints, St. Wulstan 28 Wulstan stood up among his cowed and silent colleagues, without embarrassment, as if unconscious that he was a barbarian, an ‘idiota’, in the eyes of most around him.

1957 R. C. Petry Late Medieval Mysticism iii. 119 Here too are the vernacular outbreathings of the little idiota, as Francis [of Assisi] called himself.

1975 H. A. Oberman in J. E. Murdoch & E. D. Sylla Cult. Context Medieval Learning iii. 400 As Calvin points out in his commentary on Genesis, the story of creation..accommodates to and speaks in terms of the unlettered idiota, the common man.

2005 A. Nichols Thought Pope Benedict XVI iii. 60 The Poor Man of Assisi, the simplex, the idiota, will turn out to have more penetration into God than all the learned men of his time.