[475]Ibid. 29, 31: in the Phillipps MS. of Eccleston (fol. 75) he is called Wygerius. Jordan’s Chronicle gives 1237 as the date of the visitation, 1238 as the date of the appeal; Analecta Franciscana I, pp. 18-19.
[476]Mon. Franc. I, 30. A chapter was held in London about May 18th, 1238 (Liberate Roll, 22 Hen. III, m. 11), and at Oxford soon after June 30th, 1238 (ibid. m. 15); the latter entry, dated June 30th, runs thus: ‘Rex ballivis suis Oxon’ salutem. Precipimus vobis quod de firma ville nostre Oxonie faciatis habere fratribus minoribus Oxon’ X marcas ad sustentacionem suam et fratrum suorum qui nuper convenient ad capitulum sunm apud Oxon’.’ These are probably the chapters held by the visitor.
[477]Mon. Franc. I, 31.
[478]Ibid. 30.
[479]Ibid.: ‘Igitur cum venissent fratres ad Romam, mox petiverunt ut fratres de cetero in suis locis visitarentur per capitulum generale,’ &c. It is no doubt to these events that Grostete refers in his letters to Gregory IX and Cardinal Rinaldo Conti, Protector of the Order at Rome; Epistolae, LVIII, LIX.
[480]Wadding, Vol. III,sub anno.
[481]Mon. Franc. I, 68. The date is fixed by the entry in Liberate Roll, 32 Hen. III, m. 7 (May 16th, 1248).
[482]Mon. Franc. I, 50; probably an offshoot of the errors of Mendicants at Paris, 1243; see Mat. Paris, Chronica Majora, Vol. IV, pp. 280-3; Martene and Durand, Thesaurus, &c., Vol. IV, p. 1686, § 8.
[483]Liberate Roll,ut supra: ‘Mandatum est Vicecomiti Oxon’ et Berkshire quod ... cariari faciat unum dolium vini usque Domum fratrum Minorum Oxon’, quibus Rex illud dedit de celario quod fuit Roberti Blundi Vinetarii, et eisdem fratribus in die Capituli sui inveniat victui necessaria de elemosina Regis’ (Woodstock, May 16).
[484]Osney Chron. in Ann. Monast. IV, 318; Peckham, Register, p. 958.
[485]Eulogium Historiarum (continuatio), III, 403; Wadding, IX, 499.
[486]Eulog. Hist. III, 405. The diploma of Innoc. VII (in Wadding, IX, 499) gives the names of the commissioners.
[487]Eulog. Hist. ibid.
[488]Wadding,ut supra.
[489]Phillipps, MS. 3119, fol. 87 dorse (printed in Appx. C). This happened before 1269; the names are not given. Perhaps the explanation of the following note to the list of lectors at Oxford in Eccleston’s Chronicle is to be found here: ‘Notandum quod secundum alia chronica quartus magister ... hic non nominatur,’ &c. Mon. Franc. I, 552.
[490]Chron. Majora IV, 279.
[491]‘Viri literati et scolares,’ ibid.
[492]The proselytising fervour of the Dominicans is well illustrated in the letters of Jordan, Master of the Order, 1223-1236,Lettres du B. Jourdain de Saxe(Paris, 1865), pp. 28, 66, &c.; p. 126: ‘Apud studium Oxoniense, ubi ad praesens eram, spem bonae captionis Dominus nobis dedit’ (A. D.1230). But Jordan cherished no ill-feeling against the Franciscans: Mon. Franc. I, 22.
[493]Mon. Franc. I, 56.
[494]i.e. Robert, not Roger, as Leland and others have supposed; even Dean Plumptre makes this mistake; Contemp. Review, Vol. II.
[495]Mon. Franc. I, 56. A Papal letter containing the last clause and addressed to the Friars Minors is printed in Wadding, III, 400; the date is ‘XKal. April. Pontificatus anno xii,’ i.e. 1238.
[496]Mon. Franc. I, 56. See letters of Innocent IV (1244) to the Friars Preachers and Friars Minors in Wadding, III, 433-5. In these the Pope refers to other letters of his forbidding either Order to receive theobligatosof the other; the term is now declared not to include novices during their year of probation.
[497]Fletcher, Black Friars in Oxford, pp. 6-7. John Darlington, one of the King’s nominees in the committee of twenty-four appointed in 1258 to carry out reforms, was a Dominican; Pat. 50 Hen. III, m. 42; Stubbs, Const. Hist. II, 77. The confessors of the English kings were almost invariably Dominicans. Compare also the part which the Oxford Dominicans took in the Piers Gaveston struggle.
[498]Dean Plumptre (Contemp. Rev. II, p. 376 note) identifies the ‘unnamed professor at Paris,’ referred to by Roger Bacon, with Thomas Aquinas, and I am inclined to agree with this suggestion. A passage in Royal MS. 7 F. VII. f. 159 (quoted in Part II,subRichard of Cornwall) would at first sight seem to identify the unnamed professor with Friar Ric. of Cornwall. But there is no evidence that the latter was quoted as an authority in the schools (like Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes) during his lifetime (Bacon, Op. Ined. p. 30), nor could the statement that ‘he never heard lectures on philosophy and was not educated at Paris or any other school where philosophy flourishes’ (ibid. 31 and 327) apply to Richard (Mon. Franc. I, 39). On the other hand, all the facts mentioned about the unnamed professor coincide with what is known of Thomas Aquinas (Quétif-Echard, I, 271). It may then be assumed with some probability that we have here Bacon’s judgment on his great contemporary. ‘Truly,’ he writes, ‘I praise him more than all the crowd of students, because he is a very studious man, and has seen infinite things, and had expense; and so he has been able to collect much that is useful from the sea of authors,’ but he was fatally handicapped by not going through the regular training (Opera Ined. p. 327). His followers maintain that philosophy as published in his works is complete—that nothing further can be added. ‘These writings,’ Bacon continues, ‘have four sins: the first is infinite puerile vanity; the second is ineffable falsity; the third superfluity of volume ...; the fourth is that parts of philosophy of magnificent utility and immense beauty and without which facts of common knowledge (quae vulgata sunt) cannot be understood—concerning which I write to your glory—have been omitted by the author of these works. And therefore there is no utility in those writings, but the greatest injury to wisdom.’
[499]Mullinger, Cambridge, I, 120-1.
[500]Wood, Annals, sub anno 1276, p. 306. Peckham, Reg. III, 852, &c. Kilwardby seems to have generally supported his Order against the Franciscans: see Peckham’s letter to the Prior of the Friars Preachers at Oxford; he is amazed at the ‘cruelty and inconsideration’ of a letter of his predecessor’s, in which the latter apparently made an attack on the Minorites; Register, III, 117-118.
[501]Ibid. III, 866, 898. Wood, Annals, 318 seq.; Annales Monast. IV, 297 seq.
[502]Peckham, Reg. III, 864.
[503]Ibid. 896-901, 943.
[504]Ibid. 867.
[505]Ibid. 852, 866, 901.
[506]Peckham writes: ‘Diversity of opinion among philosophers does not dissolve friendship, but among modern vain-talkers it has passed to the affection of the heart.’ Reg. III, 900.
[507]Ibid. 845-852 (A. D.1284).
[508]Peckham, Reg. III, 977.
[509]Ibid. 956: cf. 952, the Friars Minors and Preachers have more power than the secular priests, beingliteratiores et sanctioresthan the latter. The Franciscans no doubt contrasted favourably with their neighbour, the Rector of St. Ebbe’s, at this time. In 1284 the Rector of St. Ebbe’s was summoned by the Archdeacon to answer to a charge of repeated adultery with the wife of a parishioner, William le Boltere; it was further alleged that to get the husband out of the way he had twice secured his imprisonment on a false charge; the second time, the unfortunate man died in gaol. Ibid. 855. Perhaps there was also a black sheep among the Oxford Franciscans about this time; an unbeliever might suspect human agency in the ‘memorabile factum’ related in the Lanercost Chronicle, p. 136; q. v. (A. D.1290).
[510]Reg. I, 99-100:A. D.1280.
[511]Ibid. III, 838-840:A. D.1284. But see Archiv f. L. u. K. Gesch. VI. 41, 88.
[512]The passage has been somewhat condensed in translating.
[513]Reg. III, 867.
[514]Reg. III, xcix—summary of Peckham’s Liber Pauperis: ‘nihil possessorie sibi intitulatum; mobile vel immobile, proprium vel commune, nil dico quod divicias saperet, vel delicias redoleret, aut secularem gloriam ministraret.’ Among the questions discussed by Peckham and others at this time was, ‘Utrum habere aliquid in communi minuat de perfectione.’ Archiv für Litt. u. Kirch. Gesch. IV, 46, &c.
[515]Phillipps, MS. 3119, fol. 86, dorse: ‘Veniunt ad nos diversi seculares et religiosi comparacionem inter statum et statum facientes, statum vestrum (i.e. Minorum) extollentes, et nostrum (Praedicatorum) in hoc deprimentes, quod nos peccuniam recipimus, vos autem non recipitis, judicantes nos in hoc minus perfectos mundi contemptores.’
[516]Phillipps, MS. 3119 fol. 86-88: printed in Appx. C.
[517]Wadding, III, p. 130. Cf. Nicholas III’s bull, ‘Exiit qui seminat’ (1279), and Clement V’s ‘Exivi de Paradiso’ (1312). Peckham held that the ownership remained with the donors; Regist., Vol. III, Preface, p. c (from Peckham’s declaration of the Rule in the ‘Firmamentum trium ordinum’).
[518]On the whole subject see Ehrle’s articles in the Archiv für Litt. u. Kirch. Gesch. on ‘Die Spiritualen;’ Vol. IV, p. 46 seq. contains a clear exposition of the basis of the ‘theoretischer Armuthsstreit.’
[519]Lyte, Oxford, p. 118; Shirley, Introd. to Fasc. Zizan. p. xlix; R. L. Poole, Wycliffe, p. 41.
[520]e.g. among the followers of Ockham was Friar Adam Godham; among the realists, Friar John Canon, &c. Cf. Wood, Annals, I, 439.
[521]Lechler, Johann v. Wiclif, I, 218 seq. Fitzralph had been deputed by Clement VI in 1349-1350 to inquire into this dispute; see his Liber de pauperie Salvatoris, edited by R. L. Poole for the Wyclif Society, 1890 (p. 273).
[522]Select English Works of J. Wyclif, I, 76. Cf. ibid. p. 20; among the ‘fals lores’ sown by the friars, Wiclif mentions ‘of þe begginge of Crist.’
[523]Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 121 (7th edition).
[524]Pat. 1 Ric. II, pt. 4, m. 37 (printed in Appx. B). John Welle may have been Warden, though the fact would probably have been stated in the record; I have not been able to find any names of London Wardens between 1368 and 1398; Mon. Franc. I, 521, 523.
[525]This is clearly brought out in the history of the peasant revolt of 1381, if we may trust Walsingham’s account of Jack Straw’s confession (Hist. Angl. II, 10): ‘Postremo regem occidissemus, et cunctos possessionatos, episcopos, monachos, canonicos, rectores insuper ecclesiarum de terra delevissemus. Soli mendicantes vixissent super terram, qui suffecissent pro sacris celebrandis aut conferendis universae terrae.’
[526]‘Two short treatises,’ &c. p. 35 (cap. 17).
[527]Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 442; Lechler, I, 217. His principal opponent was also an Oxford man, Friar Roger Conway; see notice of him in Part II.
[528]Ibid. 220 seq. (full analysis of the speech). The original is printed in Edw. Brown’s Fascic. Rer. Expetend. (1695), Vol. II, under the title,Defensorium Curatorum. A short summary in old English will be found in Mon. Franc. II.
[529]Cf. statute of the University against ‘wax-doctors’ (A. D.1358); Mun. Acad. 207-8; ‘Nam pomis et potu, ut populus fabulatur, puerulos ad religionem attrahunt et instigant;’ (from Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon), quoted on p. 42.
[530]Mun. Acad. 204.
[531]Wood, Annals, I, 475 (W. Folvyle, Cambridge Minorite); Twyne, MS. XXII, f. 103 c (W. Woodford). The Oxford Dominican (?) who writes under the pseudonym of Daw Topias says in answer to this accusation, ‘To tille folk to Godward, I holde it no theft.’ Polit. Poems, II, 83 (R.S.).
[532]Rolls of Parliament, Vol. II, p. 290.
[533]Rolls of Parliament, Vol. II, p. 290.
[534]Ibid. Vol. III, p. 502, § 62.
[535]Lechler, J. v. Wiclif, I, 319, 374, 585 seq.
[536]Ibid. 588.
[537]Twyne, MS. XXI, 502; from Woodford’sQuaestiones de sacramento altaris contra Wyclefum, qu. 63.
[538]‘Quando concurrebam cum eo in lectura sententiarum.’ I do not know the precise meaning of the phrase: cf. Mun. Acad. 393, ‘Statutum est quod duo Magistri in theologia, si velint, possunt concurrere disputando.’
[539]See the curious account in theContinuatio Eulogii Historiarumof the council of bishops and lords held at Westminster under the presidency of the Black Prince in 1374, the subject of discussion being the papal tribute. Four doctors of theology were present, namely, the Provincial of the Friars Preachers, J. Owtred, monk of Durham, an opponent of the friars (see MS. Ball. Coll. 149, ff. 63-5), J. Mardisle, Friar Minor, and an Austin Friar. The Archbishop said, ‘The pope is lord of all; we cannot refuse him this,’ ‘quod omnes praelati seriatim dixerunt.’ The Dominican refused to give an opinion, and suggested a hymn or mass. The monk used the old argument about the two swords. Mardisle promptly retorted with the text, ‘Put up again thy sword into his place,’ showing that the two swords did not mean spiritual and temporal power; ‘et quod Christus temporale dominium non habebat, nec Apostolis tradidit sed relinquere docuit;’ which he proved by a learned appeal to scripture, authorities, and history. The subsequent proceedings are very humorously told; Eulog. Hist. III, 337-8. Four Mendicant B.D.’s were, at John of Gaunt’s wish, present at Wiclif’s trial in 1377, to support him by argument in case of need. Lechler, I, 369, and note.
[540]Mun. Acad. p. 208. He is called merely ‘Frater Johannes ... Doctor,’ the surname and Order being omitted; but his ‘heresies’ are those of the Franciscans.
[541]Lechler, I, 586. Of the twelve doctors who condemned Wiclif’s doctrines at Oxford in 1381 (or beginning of 1382), six were Mendicants; Tyssyngton was the only Minorite. Wood, Annals, I, 499.
[542]These are clearly stated in his treatise ‘De Blasphemia, contra Fratres,’ Select English Works, III, 402 seq.; Trialogus, Lib. IV, cap. 27-32. Ibid. cap. 37, another charge is added, namely, the opposition offered by the friars to the ‘Poor Priests,’ of which Wiclif says: ‘Revera inter omnia peccata, quae unquam consideravi de fratribus, hoc mihi videtur esse sceleratissimum propter multa; emanavit enim integre ex unicordi consilio et consensu omnium horum fratrum.’ The ‘Poor Priests’ resembled the early Friars Minors in many points, e.g. as itinerant preachers: perhaps Wiclif, when organizing the former, was led to look more closely into the ideal which the latter professed to follow; and if so, he may well have been shocked at the contrast between that ideal and the reality. One change in the life of the friars—their gradual approximation to the seclusion of the older Orders, may be illustrated by two passages from Matthew Paris and Wiclif (allowance being made for the prejudices of the writers). The friars, says the Benedictine historian, ‘wandered through cities and villages,’ and ‘had the ocean for their cloister’ (Chron. Majora, V, 529). Wiclif attacks them for living ‘closed in a cloister,’ instead of going about among the people, ‘to whom thy maie most profite ghostlie ... Charitie showld drive Friars to come out amongst the people and leaue Caymes Castels that bin so needeless and chargeous to the people.’ (Two Short Treatises, &c., p. 21.)
[543]Select English Works, III, 424.
[544]Wyclif, Latin Works,Sermones, II, xlvii. Jusserand,La Vie Nomade, p. 186 seq.; Rogers’ Introd. to Gascoigne’sLiber Veritatum, p. 123.
[545]He accuses them, e.g. of ‘stinking covetise,’ of ‘simonie and foule marchandise;’ they are ‘worse enemies and sleers of man’s soule than is the cruel fende of hell by himself;’ some of them are ‘damned divels;’ Two Short Treatises, Select English Works,passim. Latin works,Sermones, II. Cf. Polit. Poems (Rolls Series), I, 266:
‘Ther shal no saule have rowme in helleOf frers ther is suche throng.’
[546]Two Short Treatises, cap. 48 (printed by Vaughan, p. 254).
[547]Polit. Poems, II, 49.
[548]Fascic. Zizan. 292-5: the letter is dated Oxford, ‘sub sigillo priorum et gardiani conventuum et ordinum praefatorum.’ The part which the Franciscans took in the peasant revolt still remains obscure. An undated letter of Richard II ‘to the Minister of the Friars Minors of Dorchester’ refers to an individual friar agitating among the labourers about this time; but whether before or after the rising I cannot say. The letter occurs in MS. Dd. III, 53, p. 97, in the Cambridge Public Library. ‘Nous auons entenduz coment votre Confrere et obedientier du dit ordre ffrere Johan Gorry (or Grey?) fait excitacion et maintenance a les cotagiers et autres tenauntz notre cher en dieu labbe de Midelton, laborers demorantz dedeinz la Seigneurie mesme labbe, de rebeller contre le dite Abbe leur seignur es choses queles ils sont tenuz et deuient fair a lui de reson selonc la forme de lestatut fait des laborers,’ &c.
[549]Fascic. Zizan. p. 305.
[550]Lyte, 264. A Latin version of the sermon is in Twyne, MS. IV, 172-4.
[551]Fascic. Zizan. 287.
[552]Fascic. Zizan. 298, 301, 311, &c.
[553]Lyte, 273; Wilkins,Conc.III, 172.
[554]Polit. Poems, I, 259.
[555]Fascic. Zizan. 343-357.
[556]Twyne, MS. Vol. II, f. 229, letter of Archbishop Arundel to John XXIII, dated Aug. 20 (1410?).
[557]Wood, Annals, I, 481.
[558]Mun. Acad. 289; the statute before it is dated 1431, that after it, 1432.
[559]Mun. Acad. 376; for other references see notice of William Russell in Part II.
[560]Wood, Annals, I, 572.
[561]Ibid. 638.
[562]Twyne, MS. XXIII, 188.
[563]Close Roll, 12 Ric. II, m. 42 (Appx. B).
[564]TheContinuatio Eulogii Historiarumgives the reasons alleged by two individual friars for their support of Richard:—(1) personal: ‘teneor sibi et tota parentela mea quia ipse promovit illam,’ p. 390; (2) legitimist standpoint: ‘electio nulla est, vivente possessore legitimo,’ p. 392.
[565]Eulog. Hist. III, 388 seq.; Stubbs, Const. Hist. III, 36.
[566]Eulog. Hist. III, 392.
[567]Stubbs,ut supra.
[568]Eulog. Hist. III, 391: it is mentioned with less detail in most of the chronicles of the time, e.g. Walsingham, Otterbourne. Adam of Usk’s account differs in some points; ‘undecim de ordine fratrum minorum in theologia doctores,’ &c., p. 82.
[569]Eulog. Hist. III, 391, where his defence before the King, or rather statement of his position, is given. Before his execution he preached on the text, ‘Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.’ ‘Et devote recommendavit omnes qui causa mortis suae erant;’ ibid. 393. His name is given by Wylie,Henry IV, Vol. I, p. 277. He was D.D. of Cambridge (Fascic. Zizan. 287) and perhaps had no further connexion with Oxford than that mentioned in the text.
[570]Nativitas (June 24) or Decollatio (Aug. 29)?
[571]Eulog. Hist. III, 394. The whole description of these events by the anonymous continuator of theEulogiumis extremely graphic and powerful; his sympathies are strongly on the side of the rebels.
[572]Anal. Franc. II, 260.
[573]Ibid. 297;A. D.1435: the Observants in answer to the reproach of the Conventuals ‘quod non haberent magistros in theologia nec vellent studere etc., dicebant, quod studere vellent et desiderarent, sed conqueri de hoc merito deberent, quod ipsi de communitate omnes conventus, in quibus habet Ordo studium generale, vellent ipsi habere et nullum Observantibus dare, nec ipsi vellent permittere, quod ibi promoverentur ad studia, sed promotiones darent illis de sua vita. Sed et propter innumerabiles dissolutiones, quae multo adhuc amplius vigent in conventibus studiorum generalium, sicut Parisius testatur locus, qui dicitur infernus, propter inhonestates tacendas, ne aures audientium tinnire contingeret, et propter exactiones pecuniarias ampliores quam apud saeculares, multaque alia tacenda; dicebant, se cum puritate regulae non posse ibi studere.’
[574]E.g. Gonsalvo of Portugal.
[575]The first according to Wadding (XIV, 252) was Greenwich,A. D.1480.
[576]E.g. John Billing, Ralph Creswell.
[577]Mon. Franc. I, lxxi.
[578]Ibid. 8: ‘Unde accidit ut Frater Angnellus, cum Fratre Salomone, gardiano Londoniae, vellet audire compotum fratrum Londoniae, quantum sc. expendissent infra unum terminum anni, cumque audisset quod tam sumptuose processisset vel satis parca fratrum exhibitio, projecit omnes talias et rotulos, et percutiens seipsum in faciem, exclamavit, “Ay me captum!” et nunquam postea voluit audire compotum.’
[579]Acta Cur. Cancell. EEE, f. 124 b (2nd Sept. 1529), printed in Appx.
[580]Wadding (VI, 108) refers to the ‘tabula or index of the brethren who died there (Cologne) such as is kept commonly in the monasteries of the Order.’ See the curious necrology of the Observant Friars of Aberdeen, Mon. Franciscana, II, 123-140. Lansdowne MS. 963 is said to contain notes by Bishop Kennett, ‘ex obituario conventus Fratrum Minorum Guldefordiae, MS. Norwic. 671:’ it is really notes from the obituary of the Friars Preachers of Guildford, now in the University Library, Cambridge; MS. Ll. II, 9.
[581]Polit. Poems and Songs, &c., Vol. II, p. 24 (R.S.). Chaucer’s ‘Sompnoure’ offers an explanation of the disappearance of these ‘tables’ (Poet. Works, Vol. I, pp. 367-8: Bohn’s edition):—
‘His felaw had a staf typped with horn,A payr of tablis al of yvory,And a poyntel y-polischt fetisly,And wroot the names alway as he stoodOf alle folk that gaf him eny good,Ascaunce that he wolde for hem preye.·······And whan that he was out atte dore, anoonHe planed out the names everychoonThat he biforn had writen in his tablis.’
[582]Mon. Franc. II, preface, p. xxxi. Cf. Wills in Somerset House, Holder, fol. 4 (will of J. Tate); Logge, f. 121 (J. Benet); Polit. Poems and Songs, II, 29, 33; Wiclif, Two Short Treatises, &c. (Oxford, 1608), cap. 15.
[583]Wadding, V, 299-300.
[584]Some of those relating to the German provinces are given in Nicholas Glasberger’s Chronicle, Anal. Franc. II.
[585]Specimens will be found in Mon. Franc. II; Surtees, Hist. of Durham, Vol. I, p. 27; Archaeologia, XI, 85; Mullinger, Cambridge, Vol. I, p. 317, mentions a letter of fraternity of a somewhat different kind.
[586]Mon. Franc. I, 552; Appendix C.
[587]The deed of W. Wileford (Appx. A. 1) is not a Franciscan record, any more than the Public Records are. I have not been able to find the seal of the Oxford Minorites. It was attached to the original letter addressed by the four Mendicant Convents to John of Gaunt, a copy of which is printed in Fascic. Zizan. pp. 292-5. This is the only mention of the seal which I can recall. There are a few special references to Oxford in the decrees of the General Chapters; see Index, under Franciscan Order.
[588]See Testament of St. Francis: ‘Oure dyvyne servyce the clerkis saide as other clerkis.’ Mon. Franc. I, 564. An article in the Dominican statutes of 1228 (Dist. 1, n. 4) provides that ‘hours’ shall be said rapidly, ‘ne fratres devotionem amittant et eorum studium minime impediatur.’ Archiv für Litt. u. Kirch. Gesch., Vol. I, p. 189.
[589]Mon. Franc. I, 10-11; Bullarium Romanum, I, 250.
[590]Wiclif, Two Short Treatises, &c., p. 31: ‘and who can best rob the poore people by false begging and other deceipts shal have this Judas office.’
[591]Bullarium, ut supra. Constitutions of Martin V, cap. vi: ‘Item quod omnes fratres vadant pro eleemosyna confidenter juxta discretionem Praelati praecipientis, cujus arbitrio committimus discernendum, qui congrue mittendi sunt pro eleemosyna, vel qui non.’
[592]Wadding, IX, 438; complaint of the Minorites of Cambridge in 1395 that a house of the same Order at Ware was trespassing on theirlimites, and bull forbidding the same. Cf. Polit. Songs and Poems, &c., Vol. II, pp. 21, 78.
[593]In early days they carried the offerings themselves in their ‘caparones’ or under their arms. Mon. Franc. I, 10-11.
[594]Poet. Works, I, 382. This poem, though banished, owing to its coarseness in some parts, from polite society, contains a more lifelike and graphic description of the English mediaeval friar than is to be found elsewhere in literature.
[595]Ibid. 367.
[596]Burney, MS. 325, quoted above, p. 56, n. 2. Cf. Twyne, MS. IV, 173, sermon of N. Hereford in 1382: ‘Cum eorum limitatores satis mendicaverint pro sua communitate, statim mendicant iterum pro seipsis, et sic falsi pravi monstrant (se) esse apostatas et frangunt regulam,’ &c.
[597]Opera Ined. p. 16.
[598]Familiares homines et pauperes, prob. students or the common people (see ibid. Pref. xx): the word translated ‘friends’ above isamici. Cf. the frequent charges against the friars that they ‘devour poore men’s almes in wast, and feasting of Lordes and great men.’ Wiclif, Two Short Treatises, &c., p. 31; Polit. Poems and Songs, &c., II, p. 28; Peacock, Repressor, 550 (R.S.).
[599]Bull of Martin IV, Kal. Feb. Ao2, recited and confirmed by Martin V, Kal. Nov. Ao10. John XXII by his Bull ‘Ad Conditorem’ forbade the Franciscans to use the Bull of Martin IV without special license of the Pope; Martin V allowed them to use it ‘freely and lawfully.’
[600]Wadding, X, 130.
[601]Twyne, MS. XXIII, f. 266 (Oxf. City Archives): printed in Appendix B.
[602]He is not called ‘frater,’ but the omission of this word before ‘minor’ is not infrequent.
[603]e.g. Placita de Scaccario, 3 Hen. VII, m. 35; Acta Cur. Canc.F, fol. 262 b.
[604]Placita de Scacc. 4 Hen. VII, m. 34 d: cf. Acta Cur. Canc. EEE, fol. 124 b; &c.
[605]Chapter House Books, A3⁄11, fol. 31 b.
[606]Acta Cur. Canc.F, ff. 5 b, 158 b, 159 b, 167, 200 b, 258 b; EEE, 72, 107, 183, 202, 238 b, 251 b, 257, 272 b, 273.
[607]F, f. 159 b.
[608]Ibid. 160.
[609]EEE, fol. 107 a-b.
[610]EEE, fol. 257, action to recover debt.
[611]Ffol. 167.
[612]EEE, fol. 183.
[613]On the same page occurs a ‘W. Gos conductor (ut asserit) stabuli cujusdam juxta collegium animarum.’
[614]EEE, fol. 239.
[615]Ibid. fol. 273.
[616]Ibid. fol. 272 b.
[617]Ibid. fol. 324 b-325.
[618]Denson refused to clear himself by compurgation and was sentenced to three days imprisonment (commuted to a payment of 10s.to the University) for his fornication, ‘to the terror of others.’
[619]And a more serious one against the Carmelites; EEE, fol. 249 b.
[620]EEE, fol. 230 (A. D.1530).
[621]Ibid. fol. 238 b; in the margin occurs the entry, ‘ffryer Robert hora 1axvio’ (sc. die Septembris).
[622]Ibid. fol. 257.
[623]Ibid. fol. 271 b (11th May, 1534).
[624]From this point the entry is crossed out.
[625]Acta Cur. Canc.F, f. 158 b, ‘Friar Brian and J. Loo, tactis evangeliis, swore that Brian had lent Garret Matthew 1 mark.’ EEE, f. 95 b.
[626]Cf.F, f. 210, ‘Notandum quod magister Doctor Alyngdon, ord. frm. minorum promisit se soluturum W. Hows 11s4d,’ &c. (Cf. ibid. fol. 194 b: ‘gardianus ... obligavit se pro vicecustode domus sue quod dictus vicecustos restitueret Ric. Wynslo duas duodenas vasium electriorum 5 ly (?) platers and dyschys and 1 pece more.’)
[627]EEE, f. 161: ‘R. Roberts petiit ... xxvssibi debitos ab eodem Roberto Puller fratre ex causa emptionis et vendicionis,’ &c.
[628]Ibid. f. 74 b (1528). Prob. the same as Friar Arthur above.
[629]Ibid. fol. 270 b-271 a (1534).
[630]Fleur de Lys, near Carfax: see Wood’s City of Oxford. Part of this entry is in Latin, part English, as often.
[631]e.g. Friar Nic. de Burgo. See Chap. iii, on the maintenance of the students. Wadding, IV, 255; VI, 8, on ‘personal annual incomes’ of friars. Bequests to individual friars sometimes occur.
[632]See Part II, N. de Burgo and J. Kynton.
[633]Acta Cur. Canc.F, fol. 212 b; 197 b., 210.
[634]See his will in Appx. B. To receive annual rents from lands was declared illegal in 1302. Wadding, VI, 8. (Cf. Barth. of Pisa,Liber Conform.fol. 98.)
[635]Not Henry III, as often stated. This is conclusively proved by Pat. 1 Hen. VII, pt. 1, m. 4. One entry on this membrane mentions the grant of 25 marcs to the Friars Minors, Cambridge, originally made by Henry III, then follows an entry of the 27th Nov.: ‘Sciatis quod nos intelligentes qualiter dominus Edwardus primus post conquestum et alii progenitores nostri ... concesserint videlicet quilibet eorum tempore suo Gardiano et Conuentui fratrum minorum Oxonie quinquaginta marcas percipiendas annuatim ad Scaccarium suum, nos,’ &c. Cf. Pat. 1 Edw. II, pt. 1, m. 17, 1 Edw. IV, pt. 3, m. 25, &c.
[636]The grant is mentioned in the following records:—Exchequer Q. R. Wardrobe,4⁄7(17-18 Edward I); Patent Roll, 32 Edw. I, m. 13; Liberate Roll, 34 Edw. I, m. 1; Pat. 1 Edw. II, part 1, m. 17; Liberate Rolls, 8 Edw. II, m. 3 and 5; 9 Edw. II, m. 2; Treasury of the Receipt,3⁄35(16 Edward II); Liberate Rolls, 10, 11, and 12 Edw. III; Issue Roll of the Exchequer, 44 Edw. III, p. 78 (printed in 1835); Pat. 1 Ric. II, pt. 6, m. 21 (referring to Pat. 1 Edw. II, and 1 Edw. III); Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 21; Rolls of Parliament, Vol. IV, 195-6 (A. D.1422, referring to the grant by Henry V); Pat. 31 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 32 (referring to Pat. 1 Hen. VI); Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt. 3, m. 25; Pat. 17 Edw. IV, pt. 2, m. 28; Rolls of Parliament, Vol. V, 520, 597; Vol. VI, 90; Harl. MS. 433 (1 Ric. III); Pat. 1 Hen. VII, pt. 1, m. 4; Pat. 1 Hen. VIII, pt. 1, m. 7; Cromwell Corresp. 2nd series, Vol. XXIII, fol. 710 b.
[637]Regist. Palat. Dunelm. (ed. Hardy), Vol. II, p. 980 (11th Dec. anno 7).
[638]Ibid. p. 1065, ‘in partem cujusdem annuae eleemosynae, quam de nobis percipiant annuatim.’
[639]Ibid. pp. 1027-8. Cf. Stubbs, Constit. Hist. II, 130 (3rd edition).
[640]The Durham Register contains six writs on the subject.
[641]Ibid. p. 1085.
[642]Pat. 1 Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 21.
[643]Pat. 31 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 32: ‘Que quidem littere nostre (Pat. of 10th Dec. Ao1) ... ratione cuiusdam actus in parliamento nostro sexto die Novembris anno regni nostri vicesimo octavo editi vacue existunt et adnullate.’ Stubbs, Const. Hist. III, 143, 150 (2nd edition).
[644]Pat.ut supra.
[645]Placita de Scaccario, 6 Edw. IV, m. 20.
[646]Ibid. 3 Hen. VII, m. 35.
[647]Ibid. m. 35in dorso.
[648]Ibid. 4 Hen. VII, m. 34in dorso.
[649]In the first three of these pleas, Jacobus Bartelet was attorney for the friars; in the fourth Ric. Salford appeared all through ‘in propria persona.’
[650]Twyne, MS. XXI, 812.
[651]Wood, MS. D 2, p. 344.
[652]Valor Ecclesiasticus, Vol. II, p. 191.
[653]Ibid. p. 223.
[654]Oxf. City Rec. Old White Book, fol. 55 b. The Warden of Merton says, ‘He died in 1351, it is said of the plague.’ Memorials of Merton Coll. (O. H. Soc.), p. 157.
[655]Acta Cur. Canc.F, fol. 250 a.
[656]Ibid. 254 b.
[657]Some of the wills are not complete, e.g. those of Phil. Kemerdyn (1446), T. Cartwright (1532), and E. Standish (1533).
[658]As the Hustings Court was only concerned with freehold property in Oxford, it is rarely that the whole will is found in the Old White Book. About thirty date from 1348-9, but I do not think that any one of them is entire. Two Oxford wills of this date are among the ‘Early Lincoln Wills’ (p. 39), those of Ric. Cary and Alice his wife, but contain no bequests to the friars. This is perhaps the Ric. Cary who granted land to the Franciscans in 1319; his son, who died 1352, was old enough to make a will (Old White Book, f. 54).
[659]Cf. Mon. Franc. II, pp. xxvi-xxvii. ‘An analysis of a considerable number of wills ... from the Registers of the Norwich Consistory Court ..., shows that at a time when the Grey Friars were falling out of favour, every third will conveyed a gift to them.’ The wills proved in the court of the Archdeacon of Oxford (now under the care of Mr. Rodman at Somerset House) begin in 1529. Between 1529 and 1538 I found twenty-nine wills, in which the town of Oxford, or some person or persons resident in Oxford, are referred to; of these, thirteen contain bequests to friars, nine of them containing bequests to the Grey Friars, either alone or (more usually) in conjunction with other Orders. In the same register, out of forty-three wills, taken at random from the years 1529-30, 1534-5, five only contained bequests to friars, three of them mentioning the Minorites.
[660]Twyne, MS. XXIII, 89. His executors according to Twyne were the Chancellor and Dean (?) of Oxford; ‘sed probatum est illius testamentum ... per A. Archidiaconun Oxon;’ prob. Adam of St. Edmundsbury, who held the office of Archdeacon in 1223 and 1234.
[661]Durham Wills(Surtees Soc.), Vol. I, p. 9.
[662]Wadding, IV, 240, quotes his will (dated 1264) from ‘Historia Guicenonii,’ Tom. 2, fol. 59 and 60-7, i.e. Samuel Guichenon.
[663]Twyne, MS. XXIII, 105.
[664]See abstract in Bp. Hobhouse’s Life of W. of Merton, p. 45.
[665]Hist. MSS. Commission, Report V, p. 560. ‘This Thomas Waldere,’ says Mr. Riley, ‘was probably the wealthiest man of his time in Wycombe.’
[666]Roman Transcripts at the Record Office, ‘Archivio Vaticano Armar. I, Capsula 9, Num. 9.’ Le Neve, Fasti, III, 159.
[667]Wood, MS. D. 2, p. 61 (Lincoln Coll. Archives).
[668]Sharpe’s Cal. of Wills proved in the Court of Hustings, London, Vol. I.
[669]Wood, MS. D. 2, p. 59 (Lincoln Coll. Archives).
[670]Wood-Clark, II, 388 note. Wood, MS. D. 2, p. 540.
[671]Lambeth Registers; Islip, fol. 105-106; proved in the court of the Archbishop in Oct., in that of the Bishop of Lincoln in Nov. 1354.
[672]Twyne, MS. XXIII, 68; he belonged to the parish of St. Mary Magdalen.
[673]Ibid. 758, ‘ex munimentis Coll. Merton, B 7. 13.’ Twyne says he was Mayor in 29 Edw. III; but J. de St. Frideswide was then Mayor, and J. de Bereford a leading burgess. Twyne, MSS. Vol. II, fol. 8.
[674]Nichols, ‘Royal and Noble Wills,’ pp. 46-7.
[675]Balliol Coll. Archives, B 17. 2.
[676]Norfolk Antiq. Miscell. Vol. I, p. 400 (Early Wills from the Norfolk Registry). Sharpe’s Cal. of Wills, &c., Vol. II, p. 205.
[677]Oxf. City Records, Old White Book, fol. 69 b.
[678]Ibid. fol. 71.
[679]Lambeth Registers; Arundel, Part I, fol. 155, where a memorandum is added to the effect that he was not buried at Oxford.
[680]Twyne, MSS. Vol. XXIII, 427.
[681]P.C.C. Rous, fol. 32 (at Somerset House).
[682]Register Arundel, Pt. I, fol. 198.
[683]A. Gibbons, ‘Early Lincoln Wills,’ p. 94 (from Burghersh’s Register).
[684]Ibid. p. 96.
[685]Regist. Arundel, Pt II, fol. 164 b: he was buried in the church of the Friars Preachers, at Oxford.
[686]Regist. Chichele, Pt. I, fol. 392 b.
[687]Ibid. fol. 425 b.
[688]Old White Book (Oxford), fol. 90.
[689]Mun. Acad. p. 543 (Acta Curiae Cancell.).
[690]Ibid. 557:. ‘pro refectione unius jentaculi sive coenae inter eos habenda,’ &c.
[691]Lambeth Registers; Stafford, fol. 162.
[692]P.C.C. Rous, fol. 129.
[693]Regist. Kempe, fol. 263 a-265 b; and Mun. Acad. 639-657.
[694]Early Lincoln Wills, p. 186.
[695]Acta Cur. Cancell. A a a, fol. 194 b.
[696]Ibid. fol. 213.
[697]Old White Book, fol. 125 b.
[698]Wood, MS. D. 2, p. 61 (Lincoln Coll. Archives).
[699]P.C.C. Wattys, fol. 174.
[700]Testamenta Eboracensia(Surtees Soc.), Pt. III, p. 284. The will was proved at Oxford and York.
[701]Old White Book, fol. 135.
[702]Ibid. 136.
[703]Acta Cur. Cancell.D, fol. 48 b. Memorials of Merton Coll., 238.
[704]Ibid. f. 61.
[705]Ibid. f. 209.
[706]Ibid.Ff. 26.
[707]Acta Cur. Cancell.F, f. 28.
[708]Ibid. f. 59.
[709]Ibid. fol. 96.
[710]P.C.C. Fetiplace, quire 1 (Shifford-on-Thames).
[711]Ibid.
[712]Ibid. qu. 2.
[713]Ibid. qu. 1-2: he bequeaths sheep to various parish churches.
[714]Ibid. qu. 7: Lambourn, Berks.
[715]P.C.C. Holder, qu. 2.
[716]Ibid. qu. 6.
[717]P.C.C. Maynwaryng, qu. 2.
[718]Ibid. qu. 24.
[719]Wood, MS. B 13, p. 14.
[720]P.C.C. Porch, qu. 9: see Appendix B.
[721]Ibid. qu. 19.
[722]Acta Cur. Canc. EEE, f. 283 a.
[723]Ibid. fol. 300 b.
[724]Oxf. Wills and Adminis. Series I, Vol. I, f. 2.
[725]Oxford Wills, Series I, Vol. I, fol. 18 b. He had land in Steeple Aston, Hooknorton, &c.: among his bequests are, ‘Item to our lady of pyte a shepe. Item to seynt Antony a shepe.’
[726]Ibid. f. 36 b.
[727]Ibid. fol. 58 b.
[728]Ibid. fol. 68 b. One of his sons was a canon of Osney.
[729]Ibid. fol. 103.
[730]P.C.C. Hogen, qu. 26. See notice of him in Part II.
[731]Prob. not ‘religious students.’
[732]Oxford Wills, ut supra, f. 119: no date is given; the will seems to have been proved in the early part of 1536; Sowche was an owner of pasture lands.
[733]Ibid. fol. 127.
[734]Wood, MS. D. 2, p. 613.
[735]Ibid. fol. 65. The overseer of the will was Dr. J. London, Warden of New College; the witnesses Alderman Banister and W. Plummer.
[736]Oxford Wills and Adminis. Series I, Vol. I, fol. 87 b: cf. ibid. fol. 5, &c.