Having received his education from the cathedral clergy in Macon, he undertook his higher studies in Paris, about 1220, and shortly afterwards entered the Order of Preachers.
From 1230 he was very active for many years as a preacher and inquisitor in the districts of Lyonnais, Burgundy, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Champagne, Lorraine, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Roussillon.
"[3] It sought to promote the Christian life amongst the "simple" among the faithful, using arguments reinforced by authority and illuminating them by means of exempla (moral examples and anecdotes).
A free use of Stephen's writings was made by a later medieval compiler to form a Speculum morale, for a long time falsely attributed to Vincent of Beauvais.
Stephen was the protagonist of a 1987 French film Le Moine et la Sorcière, by Suzanne Schiffman, in which he was played by Tchéky Karyo.