Internal cross-references tell us that John's Compendiloquium de Vitis Illustrium Philosophorum et de Dictis Moralibus Eorundem was written between the Communiloquium and the Breviloquium de Sapientia Sanctorum; and it almost certainly dates from the Paris period of John's life — more specifically from the early 1270s. A number of copies of the work survive: we know of at least 27 MSS. The work was also printed four times, in combination with others of John's works, and an edition was prepared in 1655 by Luke Wadding, together with an edition of the Breviloquium de Sapientia Sanctorum.

The key to the work lies in its title: the lives and moral sayings of illustrious philosophers. The reader who is already acquainted with John's work, and opens this treatise, will find himself in an easily recognisable world. It is noteworthy that John's interest lies in philosophers rather than in philosophy. That he produced this work at all indicates that he had a personal fascination with philosophers, and as one progresses through the work it is easy to see why. W. A. Pantin once remarked that John's philosophers emerged as curiously similar to the ideal friar. Beryl Smalley later suggested that the likeness was the other way about. Whichever way it went, the likeness is strong.