CHAPTER IV.

‘great gifts and making of huge feasts of a hundred and many hundred pounds[332].’

Friar William Woodford, Wiclif’s contemporary, started from London to take his D.D. with £40 in his purse[333].

Attempts were made to curtail the expenses of the friars. In his constitutions for the reformation of the Franciscan Order in 1336, Pope Benedict XII decreed[334], that

‘at inceptions[335]of Masters of the Order in theology, or of bachelors beginning the Sentences, they shall not spend in food and drink, except once only, more than would suffice for the moderate refection of the convent of the place where such inceptions take place. Other bachelors, lecturers or other students, both at Paris and at otherstudia generaliaandstudia particularia, shall not spend anything at their own inception or scholastic act or at the inception or act of others.’

It became usual, both among religious and seculars, to commute the expenses of the feast for a fixed money payment to the University. According to the scale fixed by statute in 1478[336], seculars who were able to spend at the University more than £40 and less than £100 (a year), paid twenty marks in lieu of the feast; those able to spend £100 or more, paid £20. A monk’s composition was assessed at twenty marks; a friar’s at ten marks or £6 13s.4d.(equivalent to about £80 of present money). The sums actually paid by the Franciscans varied considerably. Sometimes the statutable amount was paid[337]. Friar John Whytwell (1449/50) paid £10[338]. Friar Richard Ednam (1463) was required to give £15, as well as aliberatato the Regentsex sumptu proprio[339]. More often (especially in the sixteenth century) a reduction of the sum was granted by the University, the concession being usually accompanied by the condition that the friar should say massespro bono statu Regentium[340]. Friar Thomas Anneday was allowed to pay seven marks, ‘because he is poor and has few friends[341].’ Others obtained a reduction of their composition by one half[342]; or the whole sum might be remitted under certain conditions, as in the case of Friar Nicholas de Burgo[343]. Sometimes Congregation refused to allow the full reduction asked for[344].

It was further customary for inceptors to provide robes for masters and others attending their inception. Perhaps a trace of this custom may be seen in the grace to Friar Gonsalvo of Portugal, who at his inception was to

‘give a livery, i.e.cultellos, according to the ancient practice, to all the Regents[345].’

During the period of necessary regency, which followed inception, a secular had the right to attend all meetings of Congregation, and was bound to deliver ‘ordinary’ lectures publicly in the schools for the remainder of the year in which he incepted and the whole of the following year[346]. A statute of 1478 states the custom as enforced in the case of the Mendicants[347]:—

‘Every one of them so incepting shall be bound to necessary regency for twenty-four months to be reckoned continuously from the day of his inception, including vacations, or he shall be regent and pay to the University according to the ancient customs; and although it happen that some other of the same Order incept within the term of the said months, he shall yet be bound to observe the foresaid form of regency, so that however only one of them come to the house of Congregation, according to the custom hitherto in use; proviso, that none of them shall omit to lecture (expendet) more than thirty days in a year by virtue of any grace whether general or special.’

Perhaps the exclusion of the friars, except one of each Order, from the house of Congregation and consequently from the government of the University, dates from the middle of the fourteenth century[348]. In 1454 Friar John David, S.T.P., supplicated for leave

‘to resume his ordinary lectures and exercise the acts of regent excepting the entry to the house of Congregation[349].’

Dispensations from necessary regency were often obtained. In 1452 Friar Anthony de Vallibus, D.D., asked leave to absent himself from all scholastic acts for a fortnight in order to visit his friends who were sick[350]. Friar William Walle was dispensed from fifteen days of his regency in 1518[351]; Friar John Brown from his regency during Lent in 1514[352]. Gilbert Sander and Walter Goodfeld were released from the whole of their necessary regency[353]. John Smyth obtained a similar grace as being ‘warden of a convent and consequently very busy[354].’ Dispensations from the sermon which was to be preached in St. Mary’s within a year of inception were also very frequent[355].

These and other graces were usually granted subject to certainconditions. The recipient was often to say masses ‘for the pestilence’ or ‘for the welfare of the Regents’[356]: or he had to lecture gratuitously on some specified book[357]or preach a sermon[358]; or again the payment of a sum of money was imposed as a condition[359]. Thus in 1515 Friar John Flavyngur was allowed to give extraordinary lectures on a book of the Decretals,

‘on condition that he would pay 6s.8d.to the University on the day of his admission and would read two books of the Decretals[360].’

Friar Thomas Frances received permission in 1521 to incept

‘on condition that he would pay 40d.within a month for the repair of the staff of the junior bedell of arts and would preach a sermon at St. Paul’s within two years and an examinatory sermon before his degree[361].’

Franciscan students were maintained at the Universities by a system of exhibitions. These were provided sometimes by private benefactors[362], usually by the native convent of the student out of the ‘common alms,’ with the occasional assistance of other convents[363]. From the few traces which remain of the custom we may infer that the exhibition was generally reckoned at £5 a year, and that this sum covered the ordinary expenses of living[364]. Masters, lecturers and bachelors, as already stated, were supported by the convent in which they lectured[365]:but their allowance was probably not much larger than that of the ordinary student friars. Nicholas Hereford, preaching at Oxford in 1382[366], asserted that those of the Mendicants who had graduated as masters or bachelors, in addition to the ample allowance which they got from their community, begged for themselves, saying, ‘I am a bachelor (or master) and require more than others, because I ought to be able to live up to my position.’ (Quia oportet me habere ad expendendum secundum statum meum.)

It is impossible to say what proportion of the Franciscans at Oxford proceeded to a degree. In 1300 we have the names of twenty-two members of the convent: of these, ten at least were then, or became afterwards, Doctors of Divinity[367]. But the proportion of graduates to non-graduates and B.D.’s in the whole convent cannot have been nearly so large. The following statistics are derived from the University Registers[368]. From 1449 to 1463, five Franciscans obtained or supplicated for the doctor’s degree; five others for that of bachelor only. From 1505 to 1538 (i.e. about thirty-three years, as some pages of the Registers are missing), twenty-five Franciscans incepted or supplicated for the degree of D.D.; twenty-six others obtained or supplicated for that of B.D. (one of them also for B.Can.L.): three more were admitted to oppose: one more supplicated for B.Can.L. The proportion of D.D.’s to B.D.’s would generally be larger than this: from 1532 to the dissolution in 1538 fourteen obtained, or supplicated for, the degree of bachelor, two only became D.D.’s: we may reasonably suppose that some of the fifteen bachelors would have proceeded to the doctor’s degree had not the dissolution intervened.

The following figures will show the relative numbers of the various religious houses in Oxford[369]. The Registers from 1449 to 1463 contain the names of 10 Franciscans, 13 Dominicans, 12 Carmelites, 9 Austin Friars, 44 Benedictines, and 8 Cistercians: from 1505 to 1538, of 57 Franciscans, 40[370]Dominicans, 24 Carmelites, 23 Austins, 169 Benedictines, and 44 Cistercians.

BOOKS AND LIBRARIES.

Absence of privacy.—Books of individual friars.—The two libraries, and their contents.—Grostete’s bequest.—Extant manuscripts once in the Franciscan Convent.—Alleged illegal detention of books by the friars in 1330.—Richard Fitzralph’s statements.—Richard of Bury on friars’ libraries.—Dispersion of the books.—Leland’s description of the library in his time.

It is difficult to realise the external conditions under which the friars produced their works. At the end of the thirteenth and in the early part of the fourteenth century—the period of their greatest literary activity—privacy must have been almost unknown. Only ministers and lectors at the Universities were allowed to have a separate chamber or compartment shut off from the dormitory[371]. But there can be little doubt that, from Wiclif’s time onwards[372], each Doctor of Divinity had his chamber; and every student had some place allotted to him, in which stood astudium, or combined desk and book-case[373]. Every student friar had books set apart for his especial use[374]; these bookswere obtained by gift or bequest[375], by purchase[376]or by assignation by the Provincial[377]or Warden[378], or they had been copied out by the friar himself[379]. Alexander IV expressly declared that they were not the private property of the individual friars[380]; on the death of the friar who had had the use of them, they reverted to the convent, or were distributed to others ‘by the Warden with the consent of the convent and licence of the minister[381].’

There is no reason to suppose that the friars had a chamber specially set apart as ascriptorium; they were comparatively free from the legal routine or ‘office-work’ which the administration of their vast estates imposed on the monks and their clerks. But the transcription of manuscripts was part of the regular work of the Oxford Franciscans; and it is indeed the only kind of manual labour expressly mentioned in connexion with the convent. Roger Bacon’s statement[382]that he could only get a fair copy of his works made for the Pope by writers unconnected with his Order, means merely that there were no professional scribes among the Minorites of Paris.The vellum which Adam Marsh asked the Custodian of Cambridge to send at his earliest convenience[383], may have been intended for original compositions of the friars, but it was probably to be used for a careful fair copy of some work—perhaps a Missal or a book of the Bible. Several manuscripts, containing the works of Nicholas Gorham, are still extant, which Friar William of Nottingham copied at Oxford with ‘tedious solicitude’ and ‘laborious diligence,’ at the expense of his brother, Sir Hugh of Nottingham[384].

It was naturally in the libraries that most of the literary treasures were stored. In the fifteenth century there were two libraries in the Franciscan convent at Oxford, the library of the convent and the library of the student friars[385]. There is no evidence that either was founded by Grostete[386]. The convent probably received its first considerable collection of books from Adam Marsh, to whom his uncle, Richard Marsh, Bishop of Durham, bequeathed his library in 1226[387]. The next book we hear of at the Grey Friars is the volume of Decretals purchased by Agnellus[388]—doubtless theDecretumof Gratian with the additions codified by Raymund of Pennaforte and approved by Gregory IX in 1230. In 1253, Grostete,

‘because of his love for Friar Adam Marsh, left in his will all his books to the convent of Friars Minors at Oxford[389].’

From a rather obscure passage in one of Adam’s letters[390], this would appear to mean all Grostete’s writings ‘both original and translated,’ not all the books which he possessed: on the other hand, a copy of St. Augustine’sDe Civitate Deiis extant which the friars received from Grostete[391]. These works ofLincolniensiswere in the library in the middle of the fifteenth century, when Dr. Thomas Gascoigne was allowed to consult them[392]. He mentions particularly having seen acomplete copy of Grostete’s letters[393], his autograph gloss or exposition on the Epistles of St. Paul[394], two copies (one of them autograph) of his commentary on the Psalter[395], a treatise against luxury[396], and anothersuper textum[397], both written by his own hand. Boston of Bury notices his translation of theTestamenta XII Patriarcharumin the same place. Friar Thomas Netter of Walden refers to a bookDe Studioby Grostete, with autograph notes by the author, which he had seen in the Minorite convent[398]; and Wadding mentions two more treatises, or rather sermons, which Grostete gave to the friars—oneDe Laude Paupertatis, the otherDe Scala Paupertatis[399]. Probably all these were in the library of the convent[400]. Another relic of Grostete preserved there was his ‘episcopal sandals made of rushes[401].’

The statement that all Roger Bacon’s works were in these libraries rests on the authority of John Twyne[402], but it is not probable that his writings were ever collected in one place. No doubt the works of the scholastic philosophers, and chiefly of the Franciscan schoolmen[403], formed the bulk of the library; which also contained a bibliographical compilation of considerable value, namely theCatalogus illustrium Franciscanorum, of which Leland often makes use[404]. St. Jerome’s ‘Catalogue of Illustrious Men,’ was there bound up with ‘many other good books[405],’ his commentaries on Isaiah and Ezechiel[406], a bookcalledSpeculum Laicorum[407], and a few Hebrew and even Greek manuscripts[408].

Few only of the MSS. seem to have been preserved; very few at any rate can be identified[409]. Caius College possesses two of them, a copy of the Gospels in Greek and a Psalter in Greek[410]. The volume (already referred to) containing St. Augustine’sDe Civitate Dei, with Grostete’s annotations, is now in the Bodleian[411]. A thirteenth-century MS. of some of Grostete’s lesser works, with St. Augustine’sDe Concordia quatuor Evangeliorum, given to Lincoln College by Gascoigne, was perhaps obtained by him from the Franciscan library[412]. The copy of Jerome’s ‘Catalogue of Illustrious Men,’ which Gascoigne saw in this library, appears to be extant among the MSS. in Lambeth Palace[413]. It may be reasonably conjectured that the single copy of Adam Marsh’s letters[414], and some or all of the treatises bound up in Phillipps MS. 3119[415], were also kept, or at any rate written, in the Oxfordconvent. The following interesting notes occur in a Digby manuscript in the Bodleian[416]:—

‘For the information of those wishing to know the principles of the musical art, this book, which is calledQuatuor principalia Musice, was given by Friar John of Tewkesbury to the Community of the Friars Minors at Oxford, with the authority and assent of Friar Thomas of Kyngusbury, Master, Minister of England, namelyA. D.1388. So that it may not be alienated by the aforesaid community of friars, under pain of sacrilege.’... (At the end), ‘This work was first finished on the 4th of August, 1351. In that year the Regent among the Minors at Oxford was Friar Symon of Tunstede, D.S.T., who excelled in music and in the seven liberal arts. Here ends the treatise calledQuatuor principalia, which was put forth by a Friar Minor of the custody of Bristol, who did not insert his name here because some thought scorn of him’ (propter aliquorum dedignacionem).

Sometimes, if we may believe their accusers, the Friars obtained books by less creditable means than gift, bequest, or purchase. In 1330[417]the Sheriff of Oxfordshire received a writ from the King instructing him

‘to command the Warden of the Friars Minors at Oxford and friar Walter de Chatton to give back to John de Penreth, clerk, justly and without delay, two books of the value of forty shillings, which they are unjustly keeping, as he says’;

failing this the said friars shall be summoned to appear before the King’s justices at Westminster. The Sheriff forwarded this writ to the Mayor, but the latter declared that the friars were not subject to his jurisdiction, ‘and therefore nothing was done in the matter[418].’

The friars had on all sides the reputation of being great collectors of books. Richard Fitzralph, the famous Archbishop of Armagh, was fond of exaggeration[419], and no one will accept without considerablemodifications his statement, made before the Pope in 1257[420], that the friars have grown so numerous and wealthy,

‘that in the faculties of Arts, Theology, Canon Law, and as many assert, Medicine and Civil Law, scarcely a useful book is to be found in the market, but all are bought up by the friars, so that in every convent is a great and noble library, and every one of them who has a recognised position in the Universities (and such are now innumerable) has also a noble library.’

Some rectors of churches, whom the Archbishop had sent to the Universities, had even been obliged to return home owing to the impossibility of getting Bibles and other theological books. Perhaps these rectors were not filled with a passionate desire to learn. In 1373 the University passed a statute against the excessive number of unauthorized booksellers in Oxford[421].

Richard of Bury mentions the great help he received from Dominicans and Franciscans in collecting his books[422], and bears testimony to the magnificence of the libraries of the Mendicants which he visited:

‘there we found heaped up amid the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom[423].’

But Richard of Bury notices a tendency among the ‘religious’ to subordinate the love of books to

‘the threefold superfluous care of the belly, clothes, and houses[424],’

and the tendency became much stronger after his time. The almost[425]total absence of books in the bequests to the Oxford Franciscans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is the more striking because of the frequency of such bequests to colleges. It is said that the Minorites sold many of their books to Dr. Thomas Gascoigne[426]. Certain it is that in the latter days they parted with them, just as ‘forcyd bynecessitie,’ they parted with their jewels and plate[427]. The exclusion of the Mendicant Friars from the use of the University Library by the statutes of 1412[428], cannot have been any real hardship to the Franciscans so long as their own library was intact. In the sixteenth century however this was no longer the case, and we accordingly find some instances of Franciscans supplicating for admission to the library of the University[429]. The earliest instance is in 1507; but, as the registers from 1463 to 1505 are lost, it would of course be ridiculous to attempt to draw from this fact any inference as to the date of the dispersion of the books of the Minorites. Leland visited the Friary shortly before the Dissolution, and we have from his pen the last description of the once famous library[430]:—

‘At the Franciscans’ house there are cobwebs in the library, and moths and bookworms; more than this—whatever others may boast—nothing, if you have regard to learned books. For I, in spite of the opposition of all the friars, carefully examined all the bookcases of the library.’

PLACE OF OXFORD IN THE FRANCISCAN ORGANIZATION.

Learned friars as practical workers among the people.—Their sermons.—Educational organization throughout the country.—Relations of the Oxford School to the Franciscan Schools of Europe.—English Franciscans teach at foreign Universities.—Oxford as the head of acustodia.—Provincial chapters held at Oxford.

If the Franciscans became leaders of scholastic thought, they were first and foremost practical workers. ‘Unfitted as the works of Roger Bacon or of Raymond Lully might seem to the practical divine, it was for him, not for the philosophic disputant, whether as a missionary among the Saracens or a combatant of error and heresy at home, that these works were written[431].’ In the case of Roger Bacon this is abundantly evident.

‘Before all,’ he writes[432], ‘the utility of everything must be considered; for this utility is the end for which the thing exists.... The utility of philosophy is in its bearing on theology and the church and state and the conversion of infidels and the reprobation of those who cannot be converted[433].... The end of all sciences, and their mistress and queen,’ is moral philosophy, ‘for this alone teaches the good of the soul[434].’

It is difficult to resist the temptation of quoting more passages of this kind[435](illustrating as they do the Franciscan view of life), especially as, in the dearth of records, actual instances are hard to find: one proof however may be brought that it was not all theory. Among the twenty-two Oxford Minorites, for whom in the year 1300 the Provincial, Hugh of Hertepol, claimed the episcopal licence to hear theconfessions of the crowds who thronged to the church of St. Francis, eight were then or afterwards doctors of divinity and theological lecturers to the Friars at Oxford, and among the others were two names of yet greater fame, Robert Cowton and John Duns Scotus[436]. It must however be added that, of the eight friars who were actually licensed by the bishop to hear confessions, none appears as having subsequently lectured or taken a degree[437].

Here however we may see how the Franciscans brought their philosophy to the test of experience in the details of everyday life; and they possessed to a remarkable degree, in spite of—perhaps because of—their learning, the power of appealing to the hearts of the people.

‘It is the first step in wisdom,’ said Roger Bacon, ‘to have regard to the persons to whom one speaks[438],’

and his brethren followed this principle in their preaching. ‘Their sermons,’ says Brewer, ‘are full of pithy stories and racy anecdotes; now introducing some popular tradition or legend, now enforcing a moral by some fable or allegory[439].’ It has often occasioned surprise that the generation which saw the rise of poetry in England, saw also the rise of English prose—that, in a word, Wiclif was the contemporary of Chaucer. When we remember that, for a century and a half, men versed in all the learning of their time had been constantly preaching to the people in the vulgar tongue in every part of the country, we shall see less cause to wonder at the vigorous language, the clear and direct expression, of ‘the father of English prose.’

For the learning of the friars was not confined to the Universities[440]. To the Franciscans Oxford was more than a place for study; it was thecentre of a great educational organization which extended throughout the land.

‘The gift of wisdom,’ to quote Eccleston’s words, ‘so overflowed in the English province, that before the deposition of Friar William of Nottingham, there were thirty lecturers in England who solemnly disputed, and three or four who lectured without disputation. For he had assigned in the Universities students for each convent, to succeed to the lecturers on their death or removal[441].’

However, in practice this rule was not very strictly adhered to. Sometimes a friar would pursue his studies with a view to becoming reader to a particular convent[442]; but usually, when an ‘extra-university’ lectureship was founded or fell vacant, the convent applied to the Provincial Minister for any lecturer they chose[443]. Thus about the year 1250, the brethren at Norwich requested that Friar Eustace of Normanville should be appointed as their lecturer[444]. Eustace, after consulting Adam Marsh, declined the office with the Minister’s permission, alleging in excuse his weak health and his want of the necessary training and experience; and Adam informed Robert de Thornham, custodian of the Cambridge ‘Custody,’ in which Norwich was situated, of the decision[445]. The appointments, like those of the Oxford lecturers, were in the hands of the Provincial Chapter, and the various convents obtained letters of recommendation from powerful patrons in support of their candidate[446]. The lecturer was appointedfor one year, and could be re-elected by the Provincial Chapter at the request of the convent[447]. Nor was it only to brethren of their own Order that the friars were sent. For many years a Franciscan was theological lecturer to the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury, till at length in 1314 one of his pupils was able to take his place. His teaching, wrote the monks, in grateful recollection of their ‘lector,’

‘in urbe redolet Cantuarie, ac plures nostre congregacionis fratres ipsius sedulos auditores ita sacre scripture aspersione intima fecundavit, quod ipsos ad lectoris officium in scolis nostris subeundum ydoneos reputamus; nos unum de fratribus et commonachis nostris predictis loco dicti fratris Roberti ad hujusmodi ministerium exequendum duximus subrogare[448].’

Thus the friars disseminated over the country, from the universities outwards, the ‘New Learning’ of the thirteenth century.

But the fame of the Franciscan school at Oxford was not only English, but European[449]. Friars were sent thither to study not only from Scotland[450]and Ireland[451], but from France and Aquitaine[452], Italy[453], Spain[454], Portugal[455], and Germany[456]; while many of the Franciscan schools onthe Continent, both in universities and elsewhere[457], drew their teachers from England, and, in England, mainly from Oxford. Eccleston mentions a friar who studied with him at Oxford, where his lectures, after some failures, won the admiration of Grostete; afterwards, as his fame increased, he was called by the Minister-General to Lombardy, and enjoyed a great reputation even at the Papal court[458]. Grostete, on his return from the Council of Lyons, was anxious to get Adam Marsh out of the neighbourhood of Paris as soon as possible.

‘It is not safe,’ he writes to the Provincial Minister, ‘to let Adam stay there; for many greatly desire to keep him at Paris, especially now that Alexander of Hales and John de Rupellis are dead; and so both you and I shall be deprived of our greatest comfort[459].’

At another time[460]the General writes to the Provincial Minister of England, requesting him to send English friars to Paris to teach; it was probably on this occasion that Richard of Cornwall[461]left Oxford to win the applause of his hearers at Paris. Peckham received his early education in the schools of his Order at Oxford, and lectured at Paris and at the Court of Rome[462]. Among those whom the Oxford Conventsent to teach in the universities of the Continent, were John Wallensis, William of Gainsborough, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham[463]. All these names belong to the thirteenth or early fourteenth century; from that time onwards international jealousies and wars rendered the connexion of the English universities with Paris far less close, and contemporaneous with this breach was the beginning of the intellectual decline of the Order of St. Francis.

Oxford was the head of a ‘custody,’ which contained, according to the list given by Bartholomew of Pisa[464], seven other convents, namely, Reading, Bedford, Stamford (Linc.), Nottingham, Northampton, Leicester, and Grantham. What exactly the organization of a ‘custodia’ was, it is impossible to determine; it was probably always rather indefinite, and Bartholomew of Pisa points out that in early records the word is used very loosely[465]. Perhaps it was originally intended to hold chapters of custodies[466], as well as of provinces and convents. The Custodian had in early years the right of making and enforcing byelaws in his custody; thus

Back to Index Next