GREY FRIARS IN OXFORD

Oxford
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

THE
GREY FRIARS IN OXFORD

PART I
A HISTORY OF THE CONVENT

PART II
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE FRIARS

TOGETHER WITH
APPENDICES OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

BY
ANDREW G. LITTLE, M.A.
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

Oxford
PRINTED FOR THE OXFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1892
[All rights reserved]

PREFACE.

The object of this work is to give an account of the outward life of the Franciscans. This might be fairly taken to include the whole activity of the friars with the exception of their contribution to scholastic philosophy; for that clearly forms a subject by itself. But even with this limitation the account here given of the Franciscans’ work does not pretend to be complete. The documents which remain to us do not by any means cover the whole of the active life of the Franciscans. While for the thirteenth century and the Dissolution the records are fairly numerous, the materials for the intervening period are very scanty. Thus any attempt at a chronological narrative was out of the question. And the almost total absence of all Franciscan records (properly so called) in England, has proved an effectual bar to any completeness of treatment at all. The arrangement here adopted, both in the choice of subjects and in the relative prominence given to each of them, is due simply to the exigencies of the available materials relating to the Oxford Convent. The topographical information derived from records and other sources has been neither full enough nor accurate enough to enable me to supply a map or plan of the property and buildings of the Grey Friars.

A few words will be necessary to explain the plan pursued in Part II. An endeavour has been made to collect the names of all the Grey Friars who lived in the Convent at Oxford or who studied in the University: the list, if complete, would have included all the names which were, or ought to have been, entered in the ‘Buttery-books’ or ‘Admission-books’ of the house. To show how far short of this aim the result falls, it is only necessary to point out that the names of friars actually included in Part II number little more than three hundred: and the connexion of some of these with Oxford is doubtful. The bibliographies, appended to the biographical notices, are intended to include all the extant works of each friar, but not all the MSS. nor all the editions of each work. Occasionally works are added which have not been identified, but of whose previous existence there is sufficient evidence. For this part of the book I have used, besides the well-known mediaeval bibliographies, a number of catalogues of manuscripts; a list of these is given below, with the object of showing not so much what has been done, as what has been left undone.

Among unpublished sources, the most valuable have been various collections in the Public Record Office, especially the Patent, Close, and Liberate Rolls; the Registers of Congregation (Reg. A a, G 6, H 7, I 8), the records of the Chancellor’s Court (Acta Curiae Cancellarii

, , EEE, or ), and Brian Twyne’s collections, in the Oxford University Archives. Further, I have had occasion to consult the Oxford City Archives, some of the old registers of wills at Somerset House, and various manuscripts in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace, and Gray’s Inn; the Bodleian and several College libraries at Oxford; the University (or Public) Library and several College libraries at Cambridge; the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham; the National Library at Paris, and the Municipal Library at Assisi. I have had no opportunity of examining the episcopal registers of the diocese of Lincoln, extracts from which, however, are contained in Twyne’s transcripts.

The Index, so far as it deals with the names of persons and places, will, I hope, be found complete, with the following limitations. The authorities quoted, either in the text or in the notes, the places where the manuscripts cited were written, or were formerly or are now kept, or where the editions referred to were printed, are not mentioned in the Index, unless there is some particular reason for including them. So far as it deals with subjects, the Index is meant to be supplementary to the Table of Contents. The writings of the friars are not classified in the Index, except those which come under the headings Aristotle, Bible, Evangelical Poverty and Sentences.

Finally, I wish to express my thanks to those who have given me aid, namely, to the Rev. W. G. D. Fletcher, Vicar of St. Michael’s, Shrewsbury, author of ‘The Black Friars in Oxford,’ who generously placed a valuable collection of references at my disposal; to Mr. Falconer Madan for assistance and advice; to the Keeper of the University Archives and the Town Clerk of Oxford for allowing me free and repeated access to the documents under their respective charges; and to the authorities in the various offices and libraries in which I have worked, for their unfailing courtesy.

ANDREW G. LITTLE.

30 November, 1891.

CATALOGUES OF MANUSCRIPTS CONSULTED.

For the compilation of the bibliographies in Part II the following catalogues of manuscripts have been consulted[1]:—

Bernard de Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptorum; Paris, 1739, 2 vols. fol.

Haenel, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum qui in Bibliothecis Galliae, Helvetiae, Belgii, Britanniae M., Hispaniae, Lusitaniae, asservantur; Lipsiae, 1830.

Edward Bernard, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti; Oxon., 1697, 2 vols., fol. Vol. I, Bodleian; Oxford Colleges; Cambridge Colleges and Public (University) Library. Vol. II, Cathedral and other libraries in England; Irish libraries.

Catalogues of the following collections in the British Museum:—Royal MSS. 1734, 4to (Casley); Sloane and Birch, 1782, 2 vols. 4to (Ayscough); Cotton, 1802, fol.; Harley, 1808-1812, 4 vols., fol.; Lansdowne, 2 parts, 1819, fol.; Arundel and Burney, 1834-40, fol.; Additional MSS. from A. D. 1783-1887.

A Catalogue of the Archiepiscopal MSS. in the Library at Lambeth Palace, by H. J. Todd; 1812, fol.

Ancient MSS. in Gray’s Inn Library, 1869.

Catalogues of the following collections in the Bodleian:—Laudian MSS., 1858-1885; Canonician MSS., 1854; Tanner MSS., 1860; Rawlinson, 1862-1878; Digby, 1883; Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS., 1845-1866.

Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum qui in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (Coxe); Oxon., 1852, 2 vols., 4to.

A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, edited for the Syndics of the University Press; Cambridge, 1856, &c., 6 vols., 8vo.

Nasmith, Catalogue of the Parker MSS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; 1787, 4to.

Catalogue of MSS. in the library of Gonville and Caius, by J. J. Smith; 1849, 4to.

Catalogus Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae Parisiensis; Paris, 1739-1744, 4 vols., fol.

Inventaire des Manuscrits conservés à la Bibliothèque Impériale sous les Nos. 8823-18613, du Fonds Latin et faisant suite à la série dont le Catalogue a été publié en 1744 par Léopold Delisle; Paris, 1863, &c., 8vo.

Inventaire des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds de Cluni, par L. Delisle.

Catalogue général des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques des Départements; Paris, 1849-1885, 7 vols., 4to.

Catalogue général des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France; (α) Paris: (1) Bibliothèque Mazarine, by A. Molinier, 3 vols. 8vo.; (2) Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, by H. Martin, 1885, &c. (vols. 1 and 2 contain the Latin MSS.). (β) Départements, vols. 1-12, 1886-1889.

Catalogue des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Publique de Bruges (P. J. Laude), Bruges, 1859, 8vo.

Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae Monacensis, Cod. Lat. vols. 1 and 2[2]; Monachii 1868-1874.

Katalog der Handschriften der königl. öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden; Leipzig, 1882-3, 2 vols., 8vo.

Tabulae Codicum Manuscriptorum praeter Graecos et Orientales in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi asservatorum; Vienna, 1864-1875, 7 vols., 8vo. (Codices 1-14,000).

Catalogus Codicum Latinorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae (Bandini), 1774, 5 vols., folio.

Bibliotheca Leopoldina Laurentiana (Bandini); Florence, 1791, 3 vols., folio.

Bibliotheca Manuscripta ad S. Marci Venetiarum (Valentinelli); Venet. 1868-1873, 6 vols., 8vo.

Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Codices Palatini Latini, tom. I, codices 1-921; 1886.

Bibliothecae Patavinae Manuscriptae publicae et privatae opera Jacobi Philippi Tomasini; Utini, 1639, 4to. (Tomasin).

Bibliothecae Venetae Manuscriptae publicae et privatae opera Jacobi Philippi Tomasini; Utini, 1650, 4to. (Tomasin).

ABBREVIATIONS AND EDITIONS USED.

Anal. Franc. = Analacta Franciscana, sive chronica aliaque varia documenta ad historiam Fratrum Minorum spectantia, edita a Patribus Collegii S. Bonaventurae, Quaracchi, 1885-7, 2 vols.

Archiv f. L. u. K. Gesch. = Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, herausgegeben von H. Denifle und F. Ehrle.

Bale, Script. = Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum ... Summarium, 1559, 2 vols.

B. of Pisa = Bartholomew of Pisa, Liber Conformitatum, ed. Milan, 1510.

Bernard = Catalogi Librorum MSS. Angliae et Hiberniae, Oxon., 1697.

Burnet, Reformation = History of the Reformation of the Church of England, Oxford, 1829.

Foxe = The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, edited by Cattley, 1841.

Hist. Litt. = Histoire Littéraire de la France (by the Benedictines of St. Maur, and the Members of the Institute), 1733-1873.

Lyte = Maxwell Lyte, History of the University of Oxford, 1886.

Montfaucon = B. Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum MSS., &c.

P.C.C. = Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Wills proved in the, now at Somerset House.

Q. R. Misc. = Queen’s Remembrancer, Miscellaneous Accounts, now in the Public Record Office.

Q. R. Wardrobe = Queen’s Remembrancer, Wardrobe Accounts, now in the Public Record Office.

R.O. = Public Record Office.

R.S. = Rolls Series, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls.

Tomasin = Bibliotheca Patavinae MSS., and Bibliothecae Venetae MSS. &c. (see above).

Wadding = L. Wadding, Annales Minorum, Romae, 1731, &c.

Wadding, Script. = L. Wadding, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum, Romae, 1806.

Wadding, Sup. ad Script. = Supplementum et castigatio ad Scriptores trium Ordinum S. Francisci a Waddingo aliisve descriptos ... opus posthumum Fr. Jo. Hyacinthi Sbaraleae, Romae, 1806.

Wood-Clark = Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford, by Anthony Wood, edited by Andrew Clark, 1889-1890. [The MS. from which this edition is printed is often referred to in the following pages, namely ‘Wood MS. F. 29 a’ in the Bodleian.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

  PAGE PART I.

HISTORY OF THE CONVENT.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

Arrival and first settlement of the Franciscan Friars at Oxford

1

Their early poverty and cheerfulness

3

Oxford Friars as peacemakers and Crusaders

7

Relations to the University and to the earliest Colleges

8

Their strict observance of the Rule

10   CHAPTER II.

PROPERTY AND BUILDINGS.

First settlement of the Friars was within the City Wall

12

They acquire the houses of William, son of Richard de Wileford (1229), and Robert, son of Robert Oen

13

Increase of the

area

in 1244-1245

14

Grants from the King, Thomas de Valeynes, and others

15

The island in the Thames, 1245

16

Messuage of Laurence Wych, Mayor of Oxford, 1246

17

Friars of the Sack settle in Oxford

17

Their property granted to the Minorites by Boniface VIII, Clement V, and Edward II, 1310

18

Grants from various persons, 1310

19

Inquisitiones ad quod Damnum, concerning properties belonging to Richard Cary and John Culvard, 1319

19

Grants by Walter Morton (1321) and John de Grey de Rotherfield (1337)

20

To what classes did the donors belong?

20

Buildings of the Grey Friars, absence of information about

21

Original houses and chapel

21

School built by Agnellus

21

The stricter Friars oppose the tendency to build

22

Building of the new Church of St. Francis

22

Its site and appearance

23

William of Worcester’s description of it

24

Monuments and tombs in the Church

24

Grave of Roger Bacon

26

Cloisters, Chapter-house, Refectory, and other buildings

27

Conduit and Gates

28   CHAPTER III.

FRANCISCAN SCHOOLS AT OXFORD.

Learning necessary to the Friars

29

The first readers or lectors to the Franciscans at Oxford

30

Nature of the office of lector, as understood by Grostete and Adam Marsh

31

The lector and his

socius 33

Later lectors were ordinary Regent Masters in Theology

34

Appointment to the office of lector

34

Special regulations concerning the lectors

36

System of instruction in theology recommended by Grostete

36

Lectures by the Friars

37

Controversy with the University about theological degrees in 1253

38

Controversy between the University and the Dominicans

39

Study of Arts (philosophy) before Theology, insisted on by the University

41

Roger Bacon on the need for some preliminary training for the Friars

42

Extortion of graces by external influence; ‘wax-doctors’

42

Career of a student Minorite

43

On the numbers of Friars sent to Oxford

43

Course of study before ‘opposition’

44

‘Opposition’ and ‘Responsion’

45

The degree of Bachelor of Divinity

46

Exercises before ‘Inception’

47

‘Vesperies’ and Inception

48

Questions disputed on these occasions in the thirteenth century

49

How far were the statutable requirements as to the period of study really carried out?

49

Expenses at Inception

50

Necessary Regency

52

Conditions on which dispensations were granted

52

Maintenance of Franciscan students at the University

53

What proportion took degrees

54

Relative numbers of the various Religious Orders at Oxford

54   CHAPTER IV.

BOOKS AND LIBRARIES.

Absence of privacy in a Franciscan Friary

55

Books of individual Friars

56

The two libraries, and their contents

57

Grostete’s bequest of books

57

Extant MSS. formerly in the Franciscan Convent

59

Alleged illegal detention of books by the Friars in 1330

60

Richard Fitzralph’s statements

60

Richard of Bury, on the libraries of Mendicant Friars

61

Dispersion of the books of the Oxford Franciscans

61

Leland’s description of the library in his time

62   CHAPTER V.

PLACE OF OXFORD IN THE FRANCISCAN ORGANIZATION.

Learned Friars as practical workers among the people

63

Their Sermons

64

Educational organization throughout the country

64

Relations of the Franciscan School at Oxford to the other Franciscan Schools of Europe

66

English Franciscans teach in foreign Universities

67

Oxford as the head convent of a

custodia 68

Provincial Chapters held at Oxford

69   CHAPTER VI.

RIVALRY BETWEEN THE ORDERS: ATTACKS ON THE FRIARS.

Rivalry between the Friars Preachers and Minors: proselytism

71

Politics and Philosophy

72

Peckham and the Oxford Friars

73

Evangelical Poverty

75

Contrast between theory and practice

78

Attack on the Friars by Richard Fitzralph

79

Charge of stealing children

79

Wiclif’s early relations to the Friars

81

His attack on them in his later years

82

Charges of gross immorality made not by Wiclif, but by his followers

83

The University and the Friars; summary of events in 1382

84

Unpopularity of the Friars in the fifteenth century

85

Foreign Minorites expelled from Oxford

86

Conspiracies against Henry IV; part taken by the Oxford Franciscans

87

Relations between the Conventual and Observant Franciscans

87   CHAPTER VII.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE FRIARS’ MANNER OF LIFE AND MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD: BENEFACTORS.

On the loss of Franciscan Records

89

Mendicancy as a means of livelihood

91

Procurators and limitors

92

Career of Friar Brian Sandon, legal

syndicus

of the Oxford Friary in the sixteenth century

93

Charges of immorality against the Friars

94

Their worldly manner of life before the Dissolution

96

Poverty of the Convent

97

Sources of income

97

Annual grants from the King and others

97

Frequency of bequests to the Friars

100

List of benefactors

102

Some other sources of income

110

Classes from which the Friars were drawn

111

Motives which led men to enter the Order

111   CHAPTER VIII.

THE DISSOLUTION.

Attitude of the Grey Friars towards the Reformation in its intellectual, religious, and political aspects

112

The Royal Divorce

114

Visitation of Oxford University in 1535

116

Suppression of the Friaries in 1538

116

Condition of the Grey Friary

117

Expulsion of the Friars; their subsequent history; Simon Ludford

119

Houses and site of the Grey Friars

120

Dr. London tries to secure the land for the town

121

Lease and sale of the property

121

Notes on its subsequent history

123

Total destruction of the buildings

124   PART II.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF INDIVIDUAL FRIARS.

CHAPTER I.

Custodians and Wardens

125-133   CHAPTER II.

Lectors or Regent Masters of the Franciscans

134-175   CHAPTER III.

Franciscans who studied in the Convent at Oxford, or had some other connexion with the Town or the University

176-294  

APPENDICES OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.

A.

Documents relating to the acquisition of land property by the Grey Friars.

1.

Grant of a house by William, son of Richard de Wileford

295

2.

Grant of a house by Robert, son of Robert Oen, 1236

296

3.

Royal license to enclose their possessions and throw down part of the old City Wall, 1244

296

4.

Island in the Thames acquired by Henry III, 1245

297

5.

Grant of the same island to the Friars, 1245

297

6.

Grant of two messuages by Thomas de Valeynes, 1245

298

7.

Grant of a messuage by Laurence Wych, Mayor of Oxford, 1246

299

8.

License to enclose their new possessions; the City Wall to be repaired, 1248

299

9.

Royal grants to the Friars of the Sack, 1262, 1265

300

10.

Grants to the Friars Minors from various persons, 1310

301

11.

Property of the Friars of the Sack conferred on the Friars Minors, 1310

301

12.

Re-grant of the same property to them, 1319

302

13.

Inquiry held at Oxford in 1319 as to the advisability of allowing John Culvard to grant a parcel of ground to the Friars Minors

303

14.

Grant of a parcel of ground by John de Grey de Rotherfield

305   B.

Miscellaneous Documents.

1.

Food for the Friars Minors and others, 1244

307

2.

Adam Marsh as royal

nuncius

, 1247

307

3.

For the same, 1257

308

4.

The Church of the Minorites used as a Sanctuary, 1284-5

308

5.

Royal grant of 50 marcs, 1289

308

6.

Decree of the General Chapter at Paris, 1292

309

7.

Royal grant of 50 marcs, 1323

309

8.

‘Receptor Denariorum’ of the Grey Friars, 1341

310

9.

Goods and chattels of Friar John Welle, S.T.P., 1378

311

10.

Expulsion of foreign Minorites, 1388

312

11.

William Woodford; confirmation of his privileges by Boniface IX, 1396

312

12.

Appointment of a lecturer to the Convent at Hereford, c. 1400

313

13.

Decree of the General Chapter at Florence, 1467

314

14.

Recovery of debt from a Sheriff, 1488

315

15.

Documents relating to the lease of a garden at the Grey Friars to Richard Leke, 1513-1514

316

16.

Extracts from the Will of Richard Leke, 1526

318

17.

An ex-warden called to account, 1529

318   C.

Controversy between the Friars Preachers and Friars Minors at Oxford, 1269

320   D.

Supplications and Graces from the Registers of Congregation.

John David, 1450/1, 1454/5

336

John Sunday, 1453/4

336

Richard Ednam, 1462, 1463

336

Walter Goodfeld, 1506-1510

337

John Thornall, 1525

338

Thomas Kirkham, 1527

338  

INDEX

341

CORRIGENDA.

P. 6, n. 5, for tempora, read temporalem.

P. 33. There was no house of Grey Friars at Evesham. Simon de Montfort was buried by the monks of Evesham (see Rishanger). The Miracula Symonis de Montfort, however, bears evident traces of Franciscan influence.

P. 49, n. 3, for Church, Quarterly Review, read Church Quarterly Review.

P. 54, l. 11, for because, read became.

P. 56, n. 5 for quos, read quas.

THE GREY FRIARS IN OXFORD.

PART I.

HISTORY OF THE CONVENT, A. D. 1224-1538.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

Arrival of the Franciscans at Oxford.—Their early Poverty, and Cheerfulness.—Oxford Friars as Peacemakers, and Crusaders.—Relations to the University, and to the first Colleges.—Their strict observance of the Rule.

The Franciscans first arrived in England in 1224[3]. On Tuesday, the 10th of September in that year (to follow the account of Friar Thomas Eccleston, the earliest historian of the Order in this country), a company of nine friars, four of them clerks and five laymen, landed at Dover, under the leadership of Agnellus of Pisa, the first Provincial Minister. After staying two days at Canterbury, four of them proceeded to London; and at the end of the month, two of these, Friar Richard of Ingeworth and Friar Richard of Devon, set out for Oxford. It is perhaps to this place that the well-known story told by Bartholomew of Pisa properly belongs[4]. As they neared Oxford they were stopped by the floods, and finding themselves at nightfall ‘in a vast wood which lies between Bath and Oxford,’ they sought refuge ‘for the love of God’ at a grange belonging to the monks of Abingdon, ‘lest they should perish from hunger or the wild beasts in the forest.’ The prior, judging them to be jesters[5], had them turned out; but a young monk, when the rest had gone to bed, put them into a hayloft and brought them bread and beer. That night he had a dream. The prior and his brethren were summoned before the judgment-seat of Christ; and

‘there came a certain poor man, humble and despised, in the habit of those poor friars, and he cried with a loud voice: “O most impartial Judge, the blood of my brethren, which hath been shed this night, crieth unto Thee. The guardians of this place have refused them meat and lodging, although they have left all for Thy sake, and were now coming here to seek those souls which Thou hast redeemed with Thy blood; they would not, in fact, have refused as much to jesters and mummers.”... Then the Judge commanded them to be hanged on the elm that stood in that cloister.’

In the morning the young monk found his companions dead, and became an early convert to the order of St. Francis.

On their arrival at Oxford, the two friars were received with great kindness by the Dominicans.

‘They ate in their refectory, and slept in their dormitory, like conventuals for eight days[6].’

They then hired a house in the parish of St. Ebbe from Robert le Mercer[7]. Alms sufficient for the purpose were probably already forthcoming, as the new Order did not have to wait long for recognition. Though they only occupied this house till the following summer[8], they were there joined by ‘many honest bachelors and many eminent men’[9]; and it may have been owing to this increase in their numbers that they left their first abode in 1225 and hired a house with ground attached from Richard the Miller[10]. It is significant of the rapid growth of opinion in their favour that Richard

‘within a year conferred the land and house on the community of the town for the use of the Friars Minors.’

Enthusiasm and self-sacrifice were the powerful agents which ensured success and favour to the early Franciscans, and many are the stories of their primitive poverty and its effects; and if the convent at Oxford was not especially distinguished like that at Cambridge by ‘paucilitas pecuniae,’ or like that at York by ‘zelus paupertatis[11],’ the Oxford Minorites, during the time of Agnellus at least, departed but little from the ideal of their founder[12], and lived the life of the poor among whom they ministered. The pangs of hunger were not unknown in the convent; and on one occasion the friars were in debt to the amount of ten marks for food[13]. Their first houses were mean and small—too small for the numbers who flocked to their Order[14]; and the infirmary was

‘so low that the height of the walls did not much exceed the height of a man[15].’

When at length they built their church, the brethren worked with their own hands, and a bishop and an abbat who had assumed the coarse habit of the friars are said to have ‘carried water and sand and stones for the building of the place[16].’

The appearance of the Minorites was no less humble than their buildings. Their habits of coarse gray or brown cloth[17], tied round the waist with a cord, often worn and patched, as Grostete loved to see them, hardly[18] distinguished them from ‘simple rustics[19].’ In the convent at Oxford, pillows were forbidden, and the use of shoes was permitted only to the infirm or old, and that by special licence[20]. We hear of two of the brethren returning from a chapter held at Oxford at Christmas time singing as they

‘picked their way along the rugged path over the frozen mud and rigid snow, whilst the blood lay in the track of their naked feet, without their being conscious of it[21].’

Even from the robbers and murderers who infested the woods near Oxford the Barefoot Friars were safe[22].

‘Three things,’ said Friar Albert, Minister General, ‘tended to the exaltation of the Order,—bare feet, coarse garments, and the rejecting of money[23]’; and the Oxford Franciscans were as zealous in the last respect as in the other two. The Archdeacon of Northampton sent a bag of money to Friar Adam Marsh, and when the latter refused it, the messenger threw it down in the cell and left it:—

‘Wherefore,’ writes Adam to the Archdeacon, ‘the bearer of these presents has at the instance of the brethren taken the said money, just as it was, sealed with your seal, to your lordship, to dispose of according to your pleasure[24].’

The evidence of the Public Records, containing scattered notices of grants from the Crown, is striking on this point, and the poverty of these early Franciscans can hardly be better illustrated than by the means taken to relieve it. During the long reign of Henry III, the Patent, Close, and Liberate Rolls contain only three grants of money to the house of the Minorites at Oxford, and all of them are due to exceptional circumstances. They are, ten marks for the support of a provincial chapter in 1238, 60s. for their houses in 1245 in lieu of six oaks which the king had before given them, and three marks for the fabric of their church in 1246[25]. The alms to the house at Oxford are almost wholly in kind, and consist chiefly of supplies of firewood from the royal forests round Oxford. The earliest recorded instance of royal bounty was a grant of thirteen oaks in ‘Brehull’ (Brill) forest for fuel on the 9th Jan. 1231[26]. A few years later they received fifteen cartloads of brushwood from Shotover forest[27], and in 1237 fifteen oaks in Wychwood Forest ‘to make charcoal[28].’ Similar notices occur almost every year—sometimes twice a year—throughout the reign of Henry III[29]. In 1240 the keepers of the wines at Southampton were ordered to deliver one cask of Gascon wine, of the king’s bounty, to the Friars Minors at Oxford ‘to celebrate masses[30].’ In 1248 the Sheriff of Oxford received orders to

‘give to the Friars Minors of Oxford one cask of wine of the six casks which he took into the king’s hand of the wine of those who lately killed a clerk in the town of Oxford[31].’

But a fortnight later the king repented of his generosity and assigned the same cask to one of his numerous relatives[32]. Of more interest, as showing that the friars were really classed with the poor of the town, is a royal brief of the 12th of Dec. 1244 to the bailiffs of Oxford, bidding them

‘give of the ferm of their town to Friar Roger, King’s Almoner, on Wednesday the morrow of the feast of St. Lucy the Virgin, ten marks, to feed a thousand paupers and the Friars Preachers and Minors of Oxford, for the soul of the Lady Empress sister of the King, on the day of her anniversary[33].’

With all their poverty and holiness they were singularly free from that form of piety which consists in wearing a sad countenance and appearing unto men to fast. We hear indeed of strict silence, of constant prayer, of vigils that lasted the whole night[34].

‘Yet,’ continues Eccleston[35], ‘the brethren were so full of fun among themselves, that a mute could hardly refrain from laughter at the sight. So when the young friars of Oxford laughed too frequently, it was enjoined on one that as often as he laughed he should be punished. Now it happened that, when he had received no punishments in one day, and yet could not restrain himself from laughing, he had a vision one night, that the whole convent stood as usual in the choir, and the friars were beginning to laugh as usual, and behold the crucifix which stood at the door of the choir turned towards them as though alive, and said: “They are the sons of Corah who in the hour of chanting laugh and sleep.”... On hearing this dream, the friars were frightened and behaved without very noticeable laughter[36].’

Grostete said to a Friar Preacher, ‘Three things are necessary to temporal health—to eat, sleep, and be merry[37].’ Excessive austerity was discountenanced by the authorities of the Oxford convent. Friar Albert of Pisa, who was himself ‘always cheerful and merry in the society of the brethren[38],’ compelled Friar Eustace de Merc, contrary to custom, to eat fish, saying that the Order lost many good persons through their indiscretion[39]. Grostete again

‘commanded a melancholy friar to drink a cup full of the best wine as a penance, and when he had drunk it up, though most unwillingly, he said to him, “Dear brother, if you often performed a penance like that, you would have a better ordered conscience[40].”’

The friars lovingly treasured up the great bishop’s puns and jokes and wise sayings[41], and were always ready to tell or appreciate a good story. From first to last they had the reputation of being excellent company[42], and were welcome at the tables of the rich or well-to-do[43]. They were allowed by the rule to

‘eat of all manner of meats which be set before them[44],’

a practice which occasionally caused some scandal[45]; and Friar Albert of Pisa ordered them to keep silence in the house of hosts, except among the preachers and friars of other provinces[46]. Like St. Francis himself, the Oxford friars often possessed the courtesy and charm of manner which is born of sympathy[47]; and it was perhaps to this quality that their employment as diplomatic agents is to be attributed. Thus Agnellus was chosen in 1233 to negotiate with the rebellious Earl Marshall and try to bring him back to his allegiance[48]. Adam Marsh was on more than one occasion sent beyond the sea as royal emissary[49], and Edward I sent Oxford Minorites to treat for peace with his enemies[50]. But to the mediaeval mind, there was a cause more sacred than that of peace or good government; and the Franciscans would not have had their great influence—would not have become leaders of men throughout the world—had they not shared the one ideal, which still even in the thirteenth century appealed to every class in every country of Europe. The Crusades attracted the scholastic philosopher no less than the baron with his sins to expiate, or the serf with his liberty to win. It was partly to increase his influence as a missionary[51] that Adam of Oxford, one of the first ‘masters’ who joined the Order[52], took the vows of St. Francis; against the wishes of his brethren in England, who hoped to keep among them so famous and learned a convert, and who indeed feared lest he should come under heretical influences[53], he went to Gregory IX, and at his own prayer was sent by the Pope to preach to the Saracens[54]. When Prince Edward went to the Holy Land in 1270, he took with him as preacher Friar William de Hedley, the lecturer and regent master of the Friars Minors at Oxford[55]. Hedley died before the army reached Acre; but these learned friars did not flinch when summoned to meet a sterner fate. In 1289 Tripoli was captured by the Saracens: an English friar led the last charge of the despairing Christians, carrying aloft the cross till his arms were hewn off;

‘the above-mentioned friar,’ continues the chronicler, ‘who by his example provoked very many to martyrdom, had been no small space of time warden of the Oxford Convent[56].’

The friars of both Orders soon took a leading part in the affairs of the University. As Bishop of Lincoln[57], Grostete continued to exercise a kind of paternal authority over the University[58], and his high character and long connexion with Oxford gave him an influence which was denied to his successors. It was natural that this influence should be reflected on the Franciscans, whom he had taken under his especial care and among whom was his ‘true friend and faithful counsellor[59]’ Adam Marsh. The latter was specially summoned to the congregation to hear and advise on the answer sent by Grostete to some petitions of the University[60], and we find him interceding with the Bishop on behalf of the Chancellor, Radulph of Sempringham[61]. One of the most important stages in the constitutional development of the University is marked by the charter of Henry III in 1244, which constituted a special tribunal for the scholars, and formed the basis of the Chancellor’s jurisdiction. On the 11th of May of the same year, a deed of acknowledgment was executed at Reading and signed and sealed on behalf of the University by the Prior of the Friars Preachers, the Minister of the Friars Minors, the Chancellor of the University, the Archdeacons of Lincoln and Cornwall, and Friar Robert Bacon[62]. Edward I in 1275[63] appointed ‘Friars John de Pecham and Oliver de Encourt’ royal commissioners to decide a suit between Master Robert de Flemengvill[64] and a Jewess named Countess, the wife of Isaac Pulet, which had long been pending in the Chancellor’s court; this however was not to be treated as a precedent to the prejudice of the Chancellor’s jurisdiction.

It is probable that the example afforded by the houses of student friars was not lost on the founders of the early colleges. We know that Walter de Merton was a friend of Adam Marsh[65], and a benefactor of the friars, but it would be dangerous to attempt to trace any direct Franciscan influence in the statutes of his college[66]. There is however no doubt about the connexion of the Franciscans with the foundation of Balliol College. Sir John de Balliol died in 1269 without having established his house for poor scholars on a permanent footing. His widow Devorguila first gave them a definite organisation in 1282. According to an old tradition[67], she was induced to take this step by her Franciscan confessor, Friar Richard de Slikeburne. It is clear that the latter was her most trusted and energetic agent in carrying out the plan. Devorguila urges him by all means in his power to promote the perpetuation of ‘our house of Balliol[68],’ and the executors of Sir John de Balliol assigned certain moneys to the scholars of the house

‘with the consent of Devorguila and at the advice of Friar Richard de Slikeburne[69].’

Nor was the connexion merely a transitory one. The statutes of 1282[70] are addressed to Friar Hugh de Hertilpoll and Master William de Menyl, who are evidently the two ‘proctors’ mentioned in the document. To the proctors (who did not belong to the house but were in the position of permanent visitors) was entrusted the institution of the principal after his election by the scholars, together with a general supervision over the economy of the college. They alone could expel a refractory scholar, and they were constituted the special guardians of the poorer students[71]. Nothing remains to show how long the first proctors held their office, or how their successors were appointed. It is probable however that the office was intended to be a perpetual one[72]—not a temporary expedient to be called into existence from time to time,—and further that one of the proctors was always a Franciscan. Two other documents bearing on the subject are known to exist. In 1325 a doubt had arisen whether the members of the college might study any science except the liberal arts; it was declared to be unlawful to do so and contrary to the mind of the founder, and was consequently forbidden

‘by Masters Robert of Leicester, of the Order of Friars Minors, S.T.P., and Nicholas de Tyngewick, M.D. and S.T.B., then Magistri Extranei of the said House[73].’

The second document[74] is a letter dated 1433 addressed to the Bishop of London by

‘Richard Roderham, S.T.P., and John Feckyngtone of the order of Minorites in Oxford, Rectors of Balliol College.’

The Rectors having, ‘according to the exigency of the office which we discharge upon the rule of the said college and the observance of the statutes thereof,’ inquired into the working of the first statute, decided, with the consent of the majority of the house, that it was prejudicial to the college, and asked the Bishop to consent to the modification of it[75].

It will be readily admitted that in the thirteenth century the Oxford Franciscans deserved their high reputation. It is true, that frequent complaints are heard of the decline of the Order[76]—that many relaxations had been introduced into the Rule. But these were not demanded by the English province. When Haymo was General, orders were issued by the Chapter that friars should be elected in each province to note any points in the Rule which seemed to require revision, and send them to the Minister General. Eccleston[77] gives the names of three friars elected for this purpose in England—Adam Marsh, the foremost of the Oxford friars; Peter of Tewkesbury, Custodian of Oxford; and Henry de Burford.

‘Having marked some articles, the said friars sent them to the General, in a schedule without a seal, beseeching him, by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, to let the Rule stand, as it was handed down by St. Francis, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit[78].’

CHAPTER II.

PROPERTY AND BUILDINGS.

First Settlement inside the City Wall.—Acquisition of the houses of W. de Wileford (1229) and Robert Oen (1236).—Increase of the area in 1244-1245.—Grants from the King, Thomas Valeynes, and others.—Island in the Thames, 1245.—Messuage of Laurence Wych, 1247.—Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ.—Their property in Oxford granted to the Minorites by Clement V, and by Edward II, 1310.—Grants from various persons, 1310.—Richard Cary and John Culvard, 1319.—Walter Morton, 1321.—To what classes did the donors belong?

Absence of information about the buildings at the Grey Friars.—Original houses and chapel.—School built by Agnellus.—The stricter friars oppose the tendency to build, without success.—Building of the new church, 1246, &c.—Its site and appearance.—William of Worcester’s description of it.—Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, buried there, 1272.—Other tombs in the church, especially that of Agnellus.—Grave of Roger Bacon.—Cloisters, Chapter House, Refectory, and other conventual buildings.—Conduit and Gates.

For about a hundred years from the date of their settlement in Oxford, the Friars Minors were gradually acquiring property. We have seen that after a short sojourn in the house of Robert le Mercer, the house of Richard le Muliner became their first permanent abode. The position of the former cannot be at all definitely ascertained; it was in the parish of St. Ebbe’s[79], probably near the church and within the city walls[80]. Wood places it between the church and the Watergate. But he is certainly wrong in the position he ascribes to the second house, namely,

‘without the towne wall, and about a stone’s cast from their first hired house[81].’

The house of Richard the Miller was undoubtedly between the wall and Freren Street (Church Street). In 1244 Henry III allowed the friars to throw down the wall of the town in order to ‘connect their new place with the old one[82].’ Even apart from the fact that the Mercer’s house did not at this time belong to them, it is obvious that the houses which they acquired in 1224 and 1225 would not in 1244 be distinguished as the ‘old place’ and the ‘new place’ respectively. The ‘new place’ refers to lands which came into their possession about the time of this grant, and of which Wood knew nothing, while the Miller’s house formed part of the ‘old place.’

In fact, several years elapsed before the friars obtained property outside the city wall, their first efforts being directed to secure the land between the wall and Freren Street. It was not long before their cramped area was enlarged. In the Mayoralty of John Pady[83] the citizens of Oxford subscribed[84] forty-three marks sterling to buy from William, son of Richard de Wileford, his house in St. Ebbe’s, with all its appurtenances, ‘to house the Friars Minors for ever,’ the said good men of Oxford giving to William one pound of cummin annually in lieu of all service[85]. The next grant of which we find mention seems also to have been an act of municipal, rather than of private, charity. In 1236[86] Robert, son of Robert Oen, had given them a house adjoining their land, on condition that he,

‘having been a free tenant of the prior and brethren of St. John of Jerusalem in England in the aforesaid place,’

should have the same privilege attaching to his new house in the parish of St. Michael at the North Gate. This house of Robert Oen’s in St. Ebbe’s was one of the ‘mural mansions,’ on the occupiers of which the duty of repairing the city wall fell[87]. The obligation, however, was now, when the house came into the hands of the friars, willingly undertaken with the King’s assent by the Mayor and good men of Oxford.

Under the ministry of Agnellus any tendency to accumulate property was rigorously suppressed[88], nor does his successor Albert appear to have been more lenient[89]. But under Haymo of Faversham (1238-9) and William of Nottingham (1239-51) a different spirit began to prevail, and one far less in accordance with the original idea of the Order. Haymo

‘preferred that the friars should have ample areas and should cultivate them, that they might have the fruits of the earth at home, rather than beg them from others[90].’

And under William of Nottingham the Oxford house gained a large increase of territory[91].

It was in 1245 that this took place, and a remarkably full series of records relating to the event is still extant. By a deed dated 22nd December, 1244[92], the King gave the Friars Minors permission,

‘for the greater quiet and security of their habitation, to inclose the street which extends under the wall of Oxford, from the gate which is called Watergate[93] in the parish of St. Ebbe, up to the postern in the same wall towards the Castle; so that a crenellated wall like the rest of the wall of the same town be made round the foresaid dwelling, beginning from the west side of Watergate, and reaching southwards as far as the bank of the Thames, and extending along the bank westwards as far as the fee of the Abbat of Bec in the parish of St. Bodhoc, and then turning again northwards till it joins the old wall of the foresaid borough on the east side of the small postern;’

and they were further allowed to throw down the old wall which stretched across their habitation. But in 1248[94] this grant, as far as it related to the wall, was cancelled; the old wall was to be repaired, and the proposed new wall was not mentioned.

There can be little doubt that in December, 1244, the friars did not possess the land which they were then allowed to enclose; it is indeed very doubtful whether they had any property south of the wall. Possibly they may have acquired already the place which they held in 1278,

‘of the gift of Agnes widow of Guydo[95], which the said Agnes had by descent from her predecessors, and they pay thence to Walter Goldsmith one pound of cummin[96].’

The value was then unknown, nor is the position specified[97]. It was, however, no doubt situated in the suburb of St. Ebbe’s parish. Two other plots of ground are mentioned in the same document as belonging to the Friars: of one of these (that granted by Thomas Walonges) we have accurate information, and shall mention it in its due place. Of the other nothing further is known than that they held it by grant from Master Richard de Mepham. But the grant was probably of later date than 1244. Richard was Archdeacon of Oxford in 1263, became Dean of Lincoln in 1273, and probably died in 1274 at the council of Lyons[98].

But the royal grant in the Patent Roll of 29 Henry III is explained by the fact that the Franciscans, or rather their benefactors, were already negotiating for the transfer of a large part of the property there described, if not of the whole of it.

In February, 1245, Thomas Valeynes, or Valoignes (or Walonges as he is called in the Inquisition of 6 & 7 Edward I), carried into effect a plan for the benefit of the Friars Minors which it must have taken long to bring to a successful conclusion[99]. It consisted in begging or buying out a number of holders of property in the south-west ‘suburb of Oxford,’ and granting in one case at least tenements in another part of the town as compensation. Thus, in exchange for two messuages with their appurtenances on the south-west of the town, Symon son of Benedict and Leticia his wife, received one messuage outside the North Gate, together with a building then held by Hugh Marshall,

‘which same messuage and building were formerly held by Benedictus le Mercer father of the foresaid Symon.’

One messuage with appurtenances was acquired from John Costard and Margery his wife, two from Warin of Dorchester and Juliana his wife, one from William ‘le Barbeur’ and Alice his wife, one from Henry ‘le Teler’ and Alice his wife, and a little later[100] one curtilage ‘in the suburb of Oxford in the parish of St. Budoc,’ from John Aylmer and Christiana his wife. All these eight tenements Thomas de Valeynes, ‘at the petition’ of the former owners, assigned

‘to the increase of the area in which the Friars Minors dwelling at Oxford are lodged in pure and perpetual alms free and quit of all secular service and exaction for ever;’

and we may reasonably conclude that they filled the space from the City Wall on the north to Trill Mill Stream on the south, and from Littlegate Street on the east to a line drawn from the ‘fee of the Abbat of Bec in the parish of St. Bodhoc’s’ to the West Gate on the west[101].

Shortly after this, namely, on the 22nd of April, 1245[102], Henry III gave the Friars, to enlarge their new area,

‘our island in the Thames, which we have bought from Henry son of Henry Simeon,’

with permission to make a bridge over the arm of the river dividing it from their houses, and to enclose it with a wall, or in any other way which would insure ‘the security of their houses and the tranquillity of their religion,’ On the same day[103] the King ordered the Barons of the Exchequer to deduct from the fine of sixty marks,

‘imposed on Henry son of Henry Simeonis because he was implicated in[104] the murder of a scholar of Oxford, twenty-five marcs, for twenty-five marcs which we owed to Henry Simeonis his father for an island in the Thames at Oxford which we have bought from him, and which said marcs he begged should be reckoned to his son in the aforesaid fine.’

The next grant is dated the 27th of November, 1246[105]. The King announces that he has handed over to the friars, for the enlargement of their premises, the whole messuage, with its appurtenances, which Laurence Wych (or Wyth), Mayor of Oxford, committed to him for that purpose, desiring them to enclose the same as they shall see fit:

‘and the Sheriff of Oxfordshire was commanded to receive the messuage in place of the King for the use of the said friars.’

It is quite uncertain where this land lay, and whether Wych granted it in his public or private capacity.

For the next fifty years, excepting the undated grants of Richard Mepham and Agnes widow of Guydo, which probably belong to this period, there is no record of a gift of land to the Minorites. On the east they had already reached the permanent limit of their property[106], and the Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ settled about the year 1260 on the ground lying to the west. This formed the parish of St. Budoc. In 1262[107] the King allowed these friars to build an oratory here; in 1265[108] he granted them, as patron, the church of St. Budoc (which adjoined their premises, and which, owing to the removal or death of the parishioners, was too impoverished to support one chaplain), ‘to make thence a chapel for themselves.’ With the church they acquired[109]

‘the cemetery and the houses standing in the same and belonging to the said church,’

with the proviso that the cemetery should always be treated as consecrated[110] ground. The value of the church was 20s. a year[111].

At the Council of Lyons in 1274 the Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ, or ‘Friars of the Sack,’ were forbidden to admit new members[112], and the Order came to an end when the old members died out. The Minorites and their friends therefore applied themselves to secure the property. As early as 1296 Boniface VIII wrote to the Bishop of Lincoln, ordering him[113] to allow the Friars Minors to take possession of the house or area of the Friars of the Sack, whenever the five remaining brethren should die or transfer themselves to other religious Orders. At the court of Clement V, the first of the Avignon popes, the claims of the Minorites were urged by John of Britanny, Earl of Richmond; and Clement issued a Bull in their favour, dated the 27th of May, 1309 (VI Kal. Jun. A^o IV)[114].

‘In a petition exhibited to us on your part,’ runs the document, ‘it is contained that owing to the narrowness of your place at Oxford, you and other friars, there flocking together to the University from divers parts of the world in great multitude, do endure manifold wants and various inconveniences. Since therefore the place of the Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ of the same place of Oxford adjoining your place, is shortly, as is believed, to be relinquished by the said Friars, to remain at the disposal of the Apostolic Seat, according to the tenor of the Constitution published by Pope Gregory X, our predecessor, in the Council of Lyons, it is humbly prayed us, that we deign to concede to you that place for the enlargement of your place aforesaid.’

This prayer the Pope goes on to grant ‘of his special favour,’ mentioning the earnest supplications of John of Britanny[115] on behalf of the friars.

The King, however, also had a claim to dispose of lands which his grandfather had granted, and which, in default of heirs or successors, legally escheated to the Crown. By Letters Patent dated the 28th of March, 1310[116], Edward II assigned to the Friars Minors the property which Henry III had previously given to the Penitentiary Friars, with the same stipulation as to the cemetery. The land is accurately described; it was contiguous to the place of the Friars Minors, in the suburb of Oxford, twenty and a half perches long from north to south, six perches wide at the south end, two and a half at the north, and four perches seven feet in the middle.

Letters Patent of the same day[117] confirmed the grant of four other parcels of ground to the Friars Minors: some of these may have been previously held by the Friars of the Sack. The ‘plot of ground in Oxford,’ five perches two feet from east to west, two perches and a half from north to south, conferred on the Minorites by John Wyz and Emma his wife, may have been within the walls, near the West Gate; the others were in the suburb. Henry Tyeys gave land measuring six perches by five, and lying between the site of St. Budoc’s Church and the Thames (Trill Mill Stream); Richard le Lodere’s land, measuring fourteen and a half perches five feet, by four perches and three feet, and stretching from the Thames to the above-mentioned place of Henry Tyeys, was included in the grant, as was a larger plot[118], measuring sixteen and a half perches from the Thames to the ‘royal way,’ and ten perches in breadth; which seems to have included the south part of Paradise Gardens[119].

All these places are described as adjoining the property of the Warden and Friars Minors of Oxford.

It was probably at the instance of the Crown and as a protest against the papal claims that the Minorites a few years later formally surrendered to the King the area which had belonged to the Penitentiaries, ‘in its entirety as it came into their hands,’ and received it back of the King’s special favour in pure and perpetual alms[120].

One fragment of the Penitentiary Friars’ property came into the hands of the Franciscans somewhat later. In October, 1319, an Inquisitio ad quod Damnum[121] was held in Oxford to decide whether Richard Cary could, without prejudice to the King or others, bestow on the Friars Minors a place in the suburb of Oxford, adjacent to their property, and measuring five perches in length and five in breadth. The jurors declared that the grant would not be injurious to the King or others, and that Cary possessed sufficient property in the town to discharge all his civic duties. The place ‘at the time when it was built’ was worth 20s. a year, but now, owing to its ruinous condition, only 2s. Cary held it for a rent of 8s. a year of Johanna, wife of Walter of Wycombe, Agatha her sister, and John son of Alice, who was wife of Andrew Culvard, the heirs of Henry Owayn; they held it of the Prior of Steventon, paying 4d. a year in lieu of all services. The plot was therefore the fee of the Abbat of Bec mentioned above, and is probably the same as

‘the place which the Friars of the Penitence bought of Walter Aurifaber, and they pay thence to the Prior of Steventon 2s.[122]’

A few months previously a similar inquisition[123] was held at Oxford, which resulted in an addition to the Minorite property on the east side within the wall. This was a plot of ground of the annual value of 2s., five perches by six, granted to them by John Culvard. The town, however, claimed the right,

‘at all times when it shall be necessary, to have free entry and egress thence to restore, repair and defend the wall of the said town.’

In 1321[124] Walter Morton obtained leave to grant in mortmain to the Franciscans a place with its appurtenances, measuring five perches by five, in the suburb of Oxford; and similar licence was given to John de Grey de Retherfeld[125] in 1337 to bestow on them a tenement, six perches by five, lying next their habitation on the east side within the town. This brings us to the end of the list of grants of landed property to the Oxford Minorites—a list which we may claim to be fairly complete. It is interesting to note from what classes the donors were drawn. Most of them were men of business—the leading tradesmen of the town[126]. Three of them, Laurence Wych, John Culvard, and Richard Cary, were at various times Mayors of Oxford, and the two latter represented the city in Parliament[127]. Richard Mepham belonged to the higher rank of ecclesiastics. Master Thomas de Valeynes seems to have been a person of some importance in Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties[128].

Buildings.

Of the buildings of the Friars Minors in Oxford we have disappointingly little information—with the exception of the boundary wall already mentioned there are no remains of their house now visible. Excavations might perhaps yield interesting results, but most of the ground is thickly built over, and the information derived from the records and other sources is rarely precise enough to enable us to identify with any certainty the sites of the various buildings.

For the first twenty years the Friary must have presented a very modest, not to say mean, appearance, and the brethren were probably contented to take the accommodation afforded by the houses, which were granted them, with little alteration. The infirmary built by Agnellus has already been noticed. After they had been nearly a year in Oxford, the friars built a small chapel[129]. In 1232, the King gave them

‘thirty beams in the royal forest of Savernak for the fabric of their chapel which they are having built at Oxford,’

adding that

‘if any one in the same bailiwick shall wish to give them timber, the bailiff shall permit them without hindrance to carry through the forest free of toll oaks to the number of thirty[130].’

Probably this refers to the original chapel. It had a choir where the brethren attended and celebrated divine service[131], and at, or over, the door of which stood a crucifix, or wooden cross[132]. It was here, in the choir before the altar, that Agnellus was buried in a ‘leaden box,’ as became the zelator paupertatis[133]. The chapel was pulled down when the new church was finished[134]. Under the auspices of Agnellus rose their first school, which was apparently the finest of their early buildings[135]. Whether this was afterwards enlarged, or whether new schools were built on the same site or elsewhere, there is no longer any means of deciding.

These houses were situated within the wall, and it was not till the increase of the ‘area’ between 1240 and 1250 that building on a large scale was commenced between the wall and Trill Mill Stream[136]. The tendency to build was strenuously resisted by the stricter party among the friars—the party which upheld the early traditions of the Order. Eccleston relates how an Oxford friar appeared after death to the custodian and warned him that,

‘if the friars were not damned for their excess in building, they would at any rate be severely punished[137].’

An obscure passage in a letter of Adam Marsh probably refers to the same tendency; even novices, he laments, are taught to neglect the things of the spirit

‘for flesh and blood, for mud and walls, for wood and stone, for any kind of worldly gain[138].’

The opposition of the older generation was, however, unavailing, and a ‘stately and magnificent[139]’ convent began to rise. But of the new friary, too, there are but scanty notices. No English king bestowed on the house of Franciscans at Oxford that loving care which Henry III bestowed on the Minorite Church at Reading, or Edward II on the Dominican Church which rose over the tomb of his ill-fated favourite at Langley. From royal grants we learn that building was going on at the Grey Friars of Oxford in 1240, when ten oaks were given to them by the King for timber[140]. In 1245 (July 7th),

‘the Sheriff of Berkshire was ordered to give to the Friars Minors of Oxford for the works of their houses sixty shillings instead of six oaks which the King gave them before[141];’

and a further grant of six oaks for timber in 1272 shows that the operations were of a protracted nature[142]. From similar sources we find that the Church, which was dedicated to St. Francis, was in process of erection in February, 1246[143], and February, 1248[144]. At the latter date the friars are again permitted to

‘enclose the street which extends under the wall of Oxford from the Watergate ... to the small postern in the wall near the Castle.... We grant also that the north side of the chapel built and to be built in the aforesaid street may supply the interruption of the wall as far as it is to reach, the other breaches in the wall being fully repaired as before, except the small postern in the wall, through which the said friars can go and return from the new place where they now live, to the former place in which they used to live.’

It would appear from this that the street was outside the wall. Mr. Parker, however, states positively that it was ‘the inner road’ which they were permitted to enclose[145]; in Wheeler’s Garden, south-west of St. Ebbe’s Churchyard, there used to be a line of old walling, running parallel to the city wall inside, and the space between these walls may have been the street in question[146]. It must be remembered, however, that the friars had already in 1244 acquired the road with the right to enclose it, and to throw down this section of the city wall. In 1248, therefore, we may well believe that little existed of the wall, which on the south side was never a very prominent feature. The church running due east and west would extend along and across the site of the wall, the west end being outside, the east end inside. From the south end of Paradise Place, where the wall juts out southwards for a few yards, to a point about the north end of King’s Terrace, there have long been no signs of the city wall; and it is probably here that the Grey Friars’ Church stood. The tradition is still preserved in the name Church Place. Of the appearance of the church we know little. The roof was tiled[147], like that of the Grey Friars’ Church at Reading; it is probable the east end was flat, and there was no triforium[148]. Wood thinks that one of the eight towers which figured in the pageant at the inthronization of Warham in 1504, represented the tower of the Grey Friars[149]. William of Worcester has left a somewhat puzzling[150] description of the church in 1480[151].

‘The length of the choir of the church of St. Francis at Oxford contains 68 steps. The length from the door (valva) of the choir to the west window contains 90 steps; so in the whole length it contains 150 (?) steps. The width of the nave of the said church on the east (ab orienti parte) contains with the aisle 28 steps. The length of the nave from the south side to the north door contains 40 steps only, and there are ten chapels in the said north nave of the church. The width of the north nave of the church contains 20 steps. The width of each chapel contains 6 steps, and so the width of the whole nave of the church with the ten chapels contains 26 steps. And each chapel contains in length 6 steps. And each glass window of the ten chapels contains three dayes (or lights) glazed.’

Reckoning William’s ‘steps’ at half a yard each[152], and correcting his apparent mistake in addition, we find that the church measured seventy-nine yards from east to west, the choir containing thirty-four yards, and the nave forty-five. At its widest part the church measured twenty yards, ten yards of which were taken up by the north aisle. Hence the width of the nave properly so called, and of the choir, which in friars’ churches is, where it exists, of the same width as the nave[153], was ten yards. The choir was aisleless, and the north aisle was probably the only one in the church: this, too, narrowed from ten yards to four towards the east end of the nave. In 1535 Friar Henry Standish, Bishop of St. Asaph, bequeathed £40 ‘for the building of an aisle joining to the church of the Grey friars, Oxon[154],’ probably on the south side, but it is almost certain that this was never built.

The wider aisle must have extended nearly the whole length of the nave to allow space for the north door and the ten chapels, all of which were built on to the north wall. They would be in part sepulchral chantries, supported by noble families or gilds, often containing the image or shrine of some saint, while the shrine of the patron saint stood behind the high altar. They were presumably later additions, and whether the church in its original form attained the proportions here described must remain doubtful. But there is no reason to suppose it was afterwards enlarged to any great extent. In the thirteenth century, benefactors, great and small, were willing and eager to help the friars to raise those splendid buildings which drew forth the fierce denunciations of later reformers; and though much of the church was doubtless built, like that at London, ‘from good common alms[155],’ there can be little question that the chief ‘founder and benefactor’ was the wealthy Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans[156]. It was in the choir of this church that his heart was buried[157]

‘under a sumptuous pyramid of admirable workmanship[158].’

Here, too, five years later the remains of his third wife, Beatrice of Falkenstein, were interred, ‘before the great altar[159];’ and many other monuments of nobles and famous men must have given the interior of the church an imposing appearance. Among those buried here were several of the Golafres: the tomb of Sir John Golafre, who died at Quinton, Bucks, in 1379[160], was in the chancel; that of his younger brother, William, was probably in the same part of the church[161]. Sir John’s illegitimate son, John Golafre, knight and lord of Langley, bequeathed his body to be buried next his father’s, if he should die in England[162]; but

‘at the time of his death (1396) he altered his will in that part in which he bequeathed his body to be buried in the chancel of the church of the Friars Minors at Oxford, and willed and also bequeathed his body to be buried in the Conventual Church of Westminster where our lord the King shall dispose[163].’

William Lord Lovell, by a will dated 18 March, 1454/5, made provision

‘to be buried at the Grayfreris of Oxenford in suche place as I have appoynted[164].’

The wills of less distinguished persons occasionally contain information as to the interior of the church. In 1430 Robert Keneyshame, Bedel of the University, willed to be buried in the Franciscan Church,

‘in the midst between the two altars beneath the highest cross in the body of the church[165].’

James Hedyan, bachelor in both laws and principal of Eagle Hall, was buried in the nave[166]. Agnes, wife of Michael Norton, was in 1438 buried

‘in the Conventual Church of the Friars Minors of Oxford before the image of the blessed Mary the Virgin of Pity[167].’

And in 1526 Richard Leke, ‘late bruer of Oxford,’ desired

‘to be buried within the Graye ffreres in Oxford before the awter where the first masse is daily vsed to be saide[168].’

But more honoured than any of these was the ‘fair stone sepulchre[169]’ in which the body of Agnellus, the only Provincial Minister known to have been buried at Oxford, found its final resting place. For the shrine of Agnellus possessed all the fascination of miraculous association and miraculous power. When the friars, many years after his death, went in the night to remove the body from the original chapel before its demolition,

‘they found the little leaden box in which it lay, together with the grave, full of the purest oil, but the body itself with the vestments uncorrupted and smelling most sweetly[170].’

Here, too, we are told, was the tomb of one greater than Agnellus; but if the statement of John Rouse, that Roger Bacon was buried among the Franciscans at Oxford, is anything more than a tradition, it was perhaps not in the church, but in the common burial place of the brethren of the convent, that the Warwick antiquary found his grave[171].

The cloisters, of which we find no mention till the dissolution, were no doubt situated on the south of the church, round ‘Penson’s Gardens.’ Whether the friars were buried in the cloisters, the garth, the chapter-house, or ‘the cemetery of the Friars Minors,’ in which John Dongan was interred in 1464[172] or sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, is unknown. On the east of the cloisters would be the chapter-house[173]; over it, and joining the church, a dormitory[174]. On the south of the cloisters, opposite the church, stood the refectory. It is possible, but not probable, that the long narrow building stretching down towards Trill Mill Stream, which is marked in old maps of Oxford[175], was the refectory: Bridge Street marks the site. The library may have been on the west side of the cloisters, but no hint remains as to the building or its position, while the contents may be more appropriately treated elsewhere. The warden’s house is equally unknown; he may perhaps merely have had rooms set apart in some one of the larger buildings[176], as was probably the case with the vice-warden[177]. From the Lanercost Chronicle we learn that in the thirteenth century the ‘master of the schools’ had a chamber of his own[178]; and Wiclif tells us that in his time

‘Capped Friars, that beene called Maisters of Diuinitie, haue there chamber and service as Lords or Kings[179].’

Ample accommodation for guests was a marked feature in most religious houses, and there is no reason to suppose that the Oxford Franciscan Friary formed an exception to a custom which, while it excited some animosity against the apostles of poverty, tended to ensure the favour and secure the alms of the rich[180].

The convent was supplied with good water by a conduit of leaden pipes, which, according to Wadding, was made in the thirteenth century by a magnate at his own expense, and extended many miles under the watersheds of the Isis and Cherwell[181]. In 1246-7 we hear that the Friars Preachers and Minors had appropriated many places on the Thames, and had made there ‘ditches and walls and other things[182].’ Lastly, there were three gates: one in Freren Street[183], perhaps an entrance to the church through ‘Church Place;’ another in St. Ebbe’s Street, opposite Beef Lane[184], where St Ebbe’s Churchyard now extends; and a third—their principal entrance, which existed in Wood’s time—in Littlegate Street, apparently where the latter is now joined by Charles Street[185].

This completes the list of conventual as distinct from the farm buildings, and if the account is meagre and unsatisfactory, we may try to console ourselves with William of Nottingham’s retort, when a friar threatened to accuse him before the Minister General ‘because the place at London was not enclosed:’

‘And I will answer to the General, that I did not enter the Order to build walls[186].’

CHAPTER III.

FRANCISCAN SCHOOLS AT OXFORD.

Learning necessary to the friars.—The first readers to the Franciscans at Oxford.—Nature of the office of lector; Grostete and Adam Marsh.—The lector and his socius.—Later lectors were ordinary Regent Masters.—Appointment to the lectureship.—Special regulations concerning the lectors.—System of instruction recommended by Grostete.—Lectures by friars.—Controversy with the University about theological degrees in 1253.—Controversy between the University and Dominicans, and its results.—Study of philosophy (Arts) before theology insisted on by the University.—Roger Bacon on the necessity of a preliminary training for friars.—Extortion of graces by external influence: ‘wax-doctors.’—Career of a student Minorite.—On the numbers of friars sent to Oxford.—Course of study before ‘opposition.’—‘Opposition’ and ‘Responsion.’—The degree of B.D.—Exercises before inception.—The degree of D.D.: the licence.—Vesperies.—Inception.—Questions disputed on these occasions in the thirteenth century.—How far the statutable requirements as to the period of study were a reality.—Expenses at inception.—Necessary Regency.—Conditions on which dispensations were granted.—Maintenance of Franciscan students at the University.—What proportion took degrees.—Relative numbers of the various religious Orders at Oxford.

St. Francis himself was always strongly opposed to the learning of his age.

‘Tantum habet homo de scientia quantum operatur,’ he said, ‘et religiosus tantum est bonus orator quantum operatur[187].’

But it was inevitable that the missionaries to the towns should be armed with a knowledge of theology to enable them to cope with the numerous heresies of the thirteenth century, and with a knowledge of physical science to enable them to cope with the frequent pestilences caused by the disregard of sanitary conditions[188]. In addition to this the influence of many learned men in the Order could not but be felt; and the early Franciscans in England were as zealous for learning as for good works.

‘They were so fervent,’ Eccleston tells us, ‘in hearing the divine law and in scholastic exercises, that they hesitated not to go every day to the schools of theology, however distant, barefoot in bitter cold and deep mud[189].’

Agnellus, though in Wood’s words ‘he never smelt of an Academy or tasted of humane learning[190],’ frankly recognised the necessity. The school which he built at Oxford has already been noticed:

‘but afterwards,’ adds Bartholomew of Pisa[191], ‘he had reason for regret, when he saw the friars bestowing their time on frivolities and neglecting needful things; for one day when he wished to see what proficiency they were making, he entered the schools whilst a disputation was going on, and hearing them wrangling and questioning, Utrum sit Deus, he cried: “Woe is me, woe is me! Simple brothers enter Heaven, and learned brothers dispute whether there is a God at all!” Then he sent 10l. sterling to the Court to buy the Decretals, that the friars might study them and give over frivolities.’

Agnellus rendered the greatest service to his Order by persuading Robert Grostete, the foremost scholar of his time, and the most influential man at Oxford, to accept the post of lecturer to the friars[192]. The exact date at which he undertook these duties is uncertain. He resigned the archdeaconries of Northampton and Leicester in 1231, but he may have been lecturer to the Franciscans some time before this; certainly he was closely connected with their house at Oxford[193]. He was resident in the University in 1234[194], and according to both Eccleston[195] and the Lanercost Chronicle[196], he gave up his lectureship only to accept the bishopric of Lincoln in 1235.

He was succeeded by Master Peter[197], who afterwards became a bishop in Scotland. The third reader was Master Roger Wesham[198], who afterwards (namely in or before 1239) was made Dean of Lincoln, and then (1245) Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. The fourth was Master Thomas Wallensis, who,

‘after he had lectured laudably at the Friars’ in the same place, was appointed (in 1247) to the bishopric of St. David’s in Wales[199].’

Thomas was made Archdeacon of Lincoln by Grostete in 1238, at which time he was lecturing in Paris[200]; he was then young[201] and it is probable that he was already archdeacon when he lectured to the friars at Oxford.

All these men were seculars, not friars: it was important at a time when, as Roger Bacon says[202], ‘the Order of Minors was new and neglected by the world,’ to secure the services of men of recognised position and ability. Of Master Peter nothing further is known. The other two were certainly close friends of Grostete[203]. Matthew Paris bears testimony to the high character and learning, the kindness and tact, of Roger Wesham[204]. Bacon ranks Thomas Wallensis among ‘the wise men of old[205],’ who studied foreign languages and knew the value of philology; and even Paris admits that this enemy of monks[206] was a man of lofty purpose, and accepted the bishopric of St. David’s, though it was the poorest see,

‘because it was in his native country, Wales, and he desired to console his wretched fellow countrymen by his presence, advice, and help[207].’

The divinity lecturer to the Franciscans or ‘Master of the Schools[208],’ as he was also called, had, as such, no status in the University. It is even doubtful whether he counted as a ‘regent master,’ unless he also lectured in the University Schools. Thus Adam Marsh protested against being required by the Masters to subscribe a new statute on the ground

‘that he had three years ago retired from the office of teaching in their University[209].’

But in a letter written shortly before this, and referring to the same subjects, he mentions that he was ‘lecturing on Holy Scripture’ to the friars[210]. The position of the lector was, in fact, not unlike that of a college tutor, except that he was always a man of proved ability and long experience. To the friars he was far more than a theological lecturer; he was a trusted friend, on whose advice and sympathy and help they might reckon in all the conduct of life. Such at least was the tradition established by Grostete and carried on by Adam Marsh[211]. Both of them men versed in affairs of state, both men of acknowledged weight in the counsels of the realm[212], and fearless opponents of illegality and oppression, they not only trained the friars in theology and philosophy, but taught them to comprehend the social needs of the age.

‘I return your lordship,’ writes Adam to Grostete[213], ‘the breviate which you wrote, “Of the rule of a kingdom and a tyranny,” as you sent it, sealed with the seal of the Earl of Leicester;’

and Simon de Montfort had frequent consultations with the friar about his government of Gascony[214]. It was from their daily intercourse with men like these that the Oxford Franciscans became, if not the leaders, the spokesmen of the constitutional movement of the thirteenth century[215]. The corpse of Simon de Montfort was buried by the Grey Friars of Evesham, and it is probably to the Franciscan school that the Latin poems in his honour are to be ascribed[216], as well as the form of prayer addressed to him:—

‘Sis pro nobis intercessor
Apud Deum, qui defensor
In terris extiteras[217].’

The Oxford Franciscans regarded him as a saint and a martyr, though he died excommunicate, and testified to the miracles which he wrought[218].

The lector had also his socius[219], a younger friar who acted as his secretary, and whose time was almost entirely at his disposal. The position of both lector and socius will be best illustrated by two extracts from the letters of Adam Marsh.

In the first of these[220], addressed to the Provincial, he writes that he has found Friar A. de Hereford, whom the Provincial had assigned to him as his socius, affectionate and of good character, docile and well-read, and far more capable than ‘some of those who are appointed by the counsel of the discreet to instruct in Holy Scripture.’

‘I see,’ he continues, ‘that any friar who is associated with me to help me in my various[221] and constant toil, will have to subordinate his ecclesiastical labours and apply himself continually to supplying my defects, and directing my goings, and supporting my burdens, though this might sometimes produce in him virtue and industry and endurance. Far be from me therefore such impious tyranny, as that I should be willing to see the great gifts and spiritual progress in the said friar stunted or retarded or thwarted by any consideration of private convenience; especially as I can through the Saviour’s pity, be provided, as I have heretofore been by your grace, with a competent companion without injury to the general welfare. I have also reason to think that Friar A., however great be his willingness and energy, will be unable without bodily suffering and mental disquietude to continue permanently with me, unless the stringent rules are relaxed in his favour (nisi quatenus urgentia mitigat obedientiae salutaris diurnos aestus et vigilias nocturnas).

‘... I ask therefore confidently, that you will, if it be not displeasing to your holy paternity, send to me without delay Friar Laurence de Sutthon, as my socius, if he consents, and that you will send Friar A. to London to study, as he himself greatly desires, if it be your good pleasure. And though Friar Laurence suffer some tolerable defect, he is yet peculiarly fitted to help me, though vulgar obstinacy may not think so.’

The other letter[222] is also directed to the Provincial.

‘I am not a little surprised,’ he writes, ‘that through some excessive caution and severity, no provision has yet been made for the beloved Friar W. de Maddele, who has up to now diligently borne the burden of teaching (eruditionis impendendae), long since imposed on him. He is thus compelled, not only to exhaust the vital spirit by excessive studies, but also to wear out his bodily powers by writing every day with his own hand, though his strength is not the strength of stone, nor his flesh the flesh of brass. And while the other friars who have been deputed to the office of lecturing, especially those to whom he has succeeded, had great volumes and the assistance of socii provided for them, he alone does not seem to be cared for; though I hear that he has a pleasant faculty of lecturing, is acute in arguing, and in writing and speaking useful and acceptable to both friars and seculars. It will therefore be for you, if you please, without delay to take thought for the peace of mind and provide for the advancement (provectui) of those who study.’

The position of the socius probably altered but little after this time. That of the lector underwent a change. The Franciscans assimilated their system of teaching to the system in vogue in the University generally: from the time of Adam Marsh the lecturers to the Franciscans were merely ordinary Regent Masters in theology belonging to the Order. This will be evident from a comparison of the dates at which the various lecturers, whose names have been preserved, held the office: a sufficient number of these dates has now been recovered, on the indisputable evidence of contemporary records, to put the matter beyond all doubt[223].

The appointment to the lectureship was in the hands of the Provincial Chapter[224]; practically the person recommended by the leading brethren at Oxford was elected[225]. This is true of the later as well as of the earlier lectors. No Minorite could proceed to any degree unless he were first authorised to do so by papal ordinance or by the election of his Order[226].

According to the Constitutions of Benedict XII, no Minorite might lecture on the Sentences in a University (i.e. become B.D.),

‘unless he had first lectured on the four books of the Sentences with the writings of the approved doctors in other studia which are in the same Order called Generalia,’

or in one of certain specified convents[227]. The friars of the English province were specially favoured in respect to the degree of D.D. It was decreed in the General Chapter at Rome in 1411

‘that no one shall be promoted to the degree of master, unless he first go to Paris, according to the papal statutes and the general institutes, and do all that he is bound to do, Provincia Angliae excepta[228].’

However, the Franciscans at Oxford never obtained the right which was enjoyed by the Dominicans at Paris, of being the sole judges of the fitness of any friars of their own Order for academical degrees[229]. In the case of Adam Marsh, the term of office was one year[230]; and this was probably the general rule[231], though the readers might perhaps be re-elected in the annual Provincial Chapter[232]. They often remained at Oxford after the expiry of their year[233], and no doubt continued to lecture, though they ceased to be ex officio representatives of the friars in their dealings with the University or other bodies.

Even in the earliest times it was found necessary to modify the stringency of the rule in favour of the lecturers. Visiting and good works were subordinated to their scholastic duties[234]. They were provided with more ample accommodation than the other friars, and their privacy was at certain times inviolable[235]. In the Constitutions of Benedict XII (1337) regulations for their support are given with some detail[236]. Masters, lectors, and bachelors in Universities were to be provided with the necessaries of life by the convents of the places where they lectured. But their other expenses, such as those connected with the necessary books, were to be assessed by the General or Provincial Minister and to fall on the convent from which they were sent; or, if the convent was unable to ‘procure’ the funds, these were to be supplied by the custody or province in which the native convent of the lecturer was situated. In addition to this, seculars and members of other religious Orders who attended the lectures, would no doubt have to pay fees[237].

We may reasonably infer that Grostete practised in the Franciscan school the system of instruction in theology which he subsequently recommended to the University. When consulted by the latter, he answered that the Regent Masters in theology ought to take the Old and New Testaments as the only sure foundations of their teaching and make them the subject of all their morning lectures, according to the custom of the Doctors of Paris[238]. Roger Bacon laments the exaggerated respect which was paid to the ‘Sentences’ in his day, and points out that

‘the learned men of old, some of whom we have seen, such as Robert bishop of Lincoln and Friar Adam de Marisco, used only the text’ which was ‘given to the world from the mouth of God and of the Saints[239].’

At the Friary, as in the rest of the University, much of the teaching in the theological faculty was, even in the thirteenth century, done by bachelors[240]; the admission to the degree of B.D. was accompanied by a licence to ‘lecture on the book of the Sentences.’ Some of the lectures would probably be for the brethren alone; others were open to the University[241]. The latter would certainly be the case when a friar delivered the lectures, which he was bound to give as ‘Necessary Regent,’ in his monastery. These courses seem however to have been sometimes delivered in the University Schools in School Street[242].

The academic studies of the friars were confined to the faculty of theology (in its wide mediaeval sense), and of canon law, the ‘handmaid’ of theology. The regulars were for the most part subject to the same statutes as the secular students in these faculties, with some important modifications.

The rules of the two Orders forbade their members to take a degree in Arts[243]. The customs of the University, on the other hand, required that the student of theology should have graduated in Arts[244]. The issue was definitely raised in 1253[245], and we have from the pen of Adam Marsh a detailed account of the struggle[246]. In February the Chancellor and Masters of the University were formally petitioned to allow Friar Thomas of York,

‘a man of high repute among the great and the many, on account of the eminence of his character, ability, learning, and experience, to ascend the chair of ordinary regent in Holy Scripture.’

The objection was then raised that he had not ruled in Arts. A committee of seven was appointed by the Masters to prepare a report, and the deliberations lasted, with a short interval, the whole of the next fortnight (Feb. 22 to March 8). On Saturday, March 8, ‘the chancellor and masters and some bachelors’ assembled to consider the report, which was to the effect that Friar Thomas should incept this time, but that a statute should be passed providing that for the future no one should incept in theology unless he had previously ruled in Arts in some University, and read one book of the Canon (of the Bible) or of the Sentences, and publicly preached in the University; the Chancellor and Masters reserved to themselves the right of granting dispensations, but provided against the use of undue influence of powerful patrons in procuring such ‘graces’ by the clause:

‘but if any one shall attempt to extort a grace from the University through the influence of any magnate, he shall ipso facto be expelled from the society of the Masters and deprived of the privileges of the University[247].’

The report was at once accepted as the basis of a statute, to be signed by

‘the Chancellor and all the regent masters in theology, and Friar Hugh of Mistretune, and the other regent masters in decrees and laws, and the two rectors (proctors) for the artists, and Friar Adam called de Marisco[248].’

Adam however refused to sign, and the meeting was prorogued till the next day, the first Sunday in Lent, only to be postponed again till Monday, when Adam, ‘in the presence of the chancellor, masters, and scholars,’ repeated his objections, adding others. He could not, he argued, agree to a statute of which he disapproved, merely to gain his immediate point. The promised ‘graces’ were fallacious,

‘since by the opposition of any one man such a grace could be long delayed or altogether prevented; thus even the best men would be rejected, and he who was approved by divinity would be reproved by inhumanity.’

Further, it was unreasonable to require his signature, seeing that he was now almost a stranger (quasi foras factus), having for three years retired from the office of lecturing in their University. At length he formally washed his hands of the whole matter, withdrawing even his opposition,

‘since the measure, dangerous as it was and distasteful to him, did not seem to him to be conceived in a spirit of wilful injustice,’ (non videtur secundum planum sui praeferre iniquitatem).

He then left the assembly, while the seven commissioners withdrew to decide on the terms of the statute, which was merely a recapitulation of the original report. The Chancellor at once sent Adam the final decision, ‘written with his own hand,’ which the latter duly forwarded to the Provincial Minister. He left Oxford on Wednesday, the very day on which the statute was passed, while Thomas of York celebrated his ‘vesperies’ on Thursday and his inception on Friday, under the presidency of Friar Peter de Manners. In view of the bitterness which marked both the contemporary struggle between the University and Mendicants at Paris, and the disputes between the University and Dominicans at Oxford sixty years later, it is impossible not to be struck with the good feeling and moderation displayed both by Adam and his opponents.

The controversy at the beginning of the fourteenth century was to a large extent the sequel to the events we have just related[249]. The Dominicans in 1311 appealed first to the King, and when this proved of no avail, to the Pope, complaining that graces were frequently refused to fit candidates, and demanding the repeal of the statute of 1253. The appeal was read in the church of the Minorites,

‘in the presence of a vast multitude of people there assembled on the occasion of a public sermon to the clerks,’

but the Franciscans took no active part in the matter, and the details of the struggle belong to the history of the Black Friars. The other Mendicant Orders however were no doubt involved in the odium which attached to the conduct of the Dominicans, and from this time forth the jealous feeling between the friars and the University never died out.

The issue of the controversy concerned the Franciscans no less than the Preaching Friars. In 1314 the arbitrators to whom the matter had been submitted published their award[250]. The statute of 1253 was upheld, but the right of refusing to any one, who had not ruled in Arts, the grace to incept in theology, was practically withdrawn from each individual member of Congregation and vested in the Regent Masters of the Theological Faculty.

‘On such a grace being asked, every Master shall be bound to swear on the gospels ... that he will not refuse such grace out of malice, hatred or rancour, but only for the common utility and honour of the university. And if notwithstanding this oath such grace be refused by any one, the reason of the refusal shall at once be set forth in the same Congregation of Masters in the presence of the Chancellor and proctors of the university and the Masters ruling in Theology, and within ten days or less it shall be discussed for the decision of the university whether that reason be sufficient or not. And if the reason of the aforesaid refusal be sufficient in the judgment of the Masters then ruling in Theology or of the majority of them, the refusal of the grace shall hold good; but if the reason of the refusal be insufficient in the judgment of the same persons, eo ipso the grace shall be granted[251].’

The Dominicans however hoped with the Pope’s assistance[252] to get more favourable terms, and it was not till 1320 that they finally submitted to the University[253]. The wording of the award was certainly vague and required explanation. What, for instance, was the meaning of the expression, ‘the common utility and honour of the university’? It is probably to this period that the following decree is to be referred, and it may be regarded as a gloss on the award of 1314[254]:—

‘Item, quod nullus de cetero, nisi prius in artibus rexerit, in disputatione solemni alicujus doctoris in theologia, publice opponere permittatur, nisi prius coram Cancellario et Procuratoribus Universitatis juramentum praestiterit corporale, quod philosophiam per octo annos, solis philosophicis principaliter intendendo, et postea theologiam per sex annos completos ad minus audierit, seu partim audierit et partim legerit, per spatium temporis supradicti: ad fidelem vero hujus statuti conservationem, noverint doctores in theologia Regentes se fore specialiter obligatos.’

The award of 1314 remained the permanent law of the University, and for the next century the friars confined themselves to insisting on the due execution of its provisions. In 1388, Richard II, hearing that,

‘contrary to the decision of the aforesaid declaration you maliciously prevent the friars from taking degrees in theology,’

wrote two strongly worded letters to the Chancellor, Proctors, and Regent Masters of the University, ordering them, ‘under pain of our heavy displeasure,’ to observe the statute of 1314[255]. In 1421, in consideration of remonstrances from the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the University gave a solemn undertaking to carry out the same statute, with some changes in detail[256]. So long however as the condition, that the candidate must have ruled in Arts, was inserted in the ‘form of licensing to incept in theology[257],’ the religious felt themselves to be at a disadvantage in comparison with the seculars, and bitterly resented their inferiority. When therefore, in 1447, the University was raising funds for the erection of the new schools, the Mendicants seized the opportunity to secure the abolition of this clause, promising in return that each friar should pay 40s. to the University at the time of receiving the licence[258]. This may however have been only a temporary arrangement: the Registers of Congregation supply little evidence as to its having been carried out[259].

The object of these statutes was partly to prevent the regulars from having an undue advantage over the seculars in the matter of theological degrees, but they must have had the effect of ensuring to the friars some preliminary training before the commencement of their theological studies. Roger Bacon, as usual, has a decided opinion on the necessity of such a training. Writing in 1271[260], he says:—

‘During the last forty years there have arisen some in the Universities (in studio) who have made themselves doctors and masters of theology and philosophy, though they have never learnt anything of real value (dignum) and are neither willing nor able to do so on account of their ‘status.’... They are boys inexperienced in themselves, in the world, in the learned languages, Greek and Hebrew; ... they are ignorant of all parts and sciences of mundane philosophy, when they venture on the study of theology, which demands all human wisdom.... They are the boys of the two student Orders, like Albert and Thomas and others, who enter the Orders when they are twenty years old or less.... Many thousands enter who cannot read the Psalter or Donatus, and immediately after making their profession, they are set to study theology.... And so it was right that they should make no progress, especially when they did not procure instruction for themselves in philosophy from others after they entered the Order. And most of all because they have presumed in the Orders to investigate philosophy by themselves without a teacher—so that they have become masters in theology and philosophy before they were disciples—therefore infinite error reigns among them.’

The Oxford friars however could not have acquired their great scholastic reputation unless they had been better fitted than the seculars for the study of theology; and Friar William Woodford had little difficulty in pointing to many who, having entered the Order in their youth,

‘wrote many works of great wisdom, which remain for the advantage of the Church[261].’

The clause of the statute of 1253 which prohibited the extortion of graces or dispensations by means of the letters of influential persons was not altogether effective. When, in 1358, the bitter feeling against the friars found a spokesman in Richard Fitzralph and again burst forth into open hostility, the clause was re-enacted in a more stringent form[262]. Any one using such letters was declared for ever incapable of holding or obtaining any degree at Oxford, and the University determined to hold up these ‘wax-doctors’ to obloquy.

‘These,’ begins a proclamation of the same year[263], ‘are the names of the wax-doctors, as they are called who seek to extort graces from the University by means of letters of lords sealed with wax, or because they run from hard study as wax runs from the face of fire. Be it known that such wax-doctors are always of the Mendicant Orders, the cause whereof we have found[264]; for by apples and drink, as the people fables, they draw boys to their religion, and do not instruct them after their profession, as their age demands, but let them wander about begging, and waste the time when they could learn, in currying favour with lords and ladies.... These are their names: Friar Richard Lymynster incepted in theology by means of the prince’s letters, and his grace contained the condition that he should incept and not lecture, but that Friar John Nutone his predecessor should continue lecturing[265]: and Friar Giuliortus de Limosano of the Order of Minors, who asserted that he was secretary of the King of Sicily, extorted from the University, or rather from the theological faculty, by letters of the King, grace to oppose.’

These instances hardly seem to justify the violent language of the proclamation, and it is uncertain to what extent the Oxford Minorites were guilty of the practice here denounced. Wiclif repeats the charge against the Mendicants generally:—

‘A what cursedness is this, to a dead man, as to the world, and pride and vanitie thereof, to get him a cap of masterdom by praier of Lords[266]!’

It remains for us to give an account of the academic, or rather scholastic career of a Friar Minor at Oxford. As many of the friars entered the Order in tender years, there is no doubt that boys’ schools formed part of many of the friaries[267]. There is no evidence of such a school at Oxford, but at Paris one existed where the student friars received a preliminary education[268]. It is probable that the names of friars who showed ability were sent up by the various convents to the Provincial Chapter and that a certain number were elected by the ‘discreet men’ there assembled to go to the University[269]. There is no evidence of any definite rule fixing the number or proportion of friars who might be sent from each convent, custody, or province, to Oxford[270]. The average number of friars living in the convent at Oxford at any time during the last quarter of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century was probably between seventy and eighty[271].

A friar usually completed his eight years’ study of Arts, and often began his course of theology[272], at his native convent. On coming up to Oxford he at once entered on or continued his theological studies. A secular student of Divinity during his first three years attended ‘cursory’ lectures on the Bible and was admitted to oppose after the end of the fourth year[273]. In the friaries the course of study would in the main correspond with that adopted by the University. After six years[274] (instead of four) spent chiefly in the study of the Bible, a friar was presented by his teacher, a Regent Master of the same Order[275], to the Chancellor and Proctors; special enquiry was then made as to his knowledge of the liberal arts, his age, morals, and stature; and if he satisfied the University officers on these points, he was admitted to ‘oppose in theology[276].’ Two more years elapsed before he could become a ‘respondent[277].’ Opposition or opponency and responsion were the two sides of a disputation: some question in theology was proposed, probably by the Master of the Schools; the opponent took one side (affirmative or negative) and put his case; the respondent then had to take the other side. The difficulty of the respondent’s task was probably augmented by his having to answer the arguments of more than one opponent[278]. These regulations however were apparently superseded in 1358, when it was enacted that no religious who had not ruled in Arts should presume to read the Sentences until he had opposed duly and publicly a whole year in the ordinary disputations of the Masters, no other person of the same Order opposing at the same time[279]. This appears to have been the theory, and to some extent the practice, during the times about which we have any detailed information—i.e. the period covered by the early Registers. In none of the supplications and graces of the Minorites is there mention of the lapse of two years or anything approaching it between opponency and responsion; the latter exercise indeed is usually coupled with opponency, and treated as a very secondary affair[280]. A few instances will be sufficient as illustrations. In 1515 a grace was granted to Friar W. German, scholar of theology, with the stipulation that half a year should elapse between his opposition and responsion; the condition was subsequently withdrawn at German’s request[281]. In 1457, Friar Gonsalvo of Portugal supplicated that he might count two terms of opponency as a year[282]; Richard Ednam in 1455 was allowed to count eight oppositions pro completa forma oppositionis[283]. Friar John Smith was admitted B.D. six months after he was admitted to oppose[284]. The opponent had to dispute in each of the Schools of the Masters in theology[285]; towards the end of our period, oppositions were held in the new Schools of theology[286].

After nine years spent in theological study, the friar might be admitted to read the Sentences of Peter Lombard publicly in the Schools[287], that is, to take the degree of B.D. On the presentation of the candidate to the Chancellor and Proctors, one at least of the Regents in theology must swear that he knew him to be a fit person in morals and learning, the other Regents, that they believed him to be such[288]. Within a year from this time[289], the new Bachelor had to begin his lectures on the Sentences, which he continued for a year (three terms), reading the text on most of the ‘legible’ days of each term, with questions or arguments pertinent to the matter, giving the accepted interpretation. He was not to raise doubtful points or attack the conclusions of another, more than once a term, except at the first and last lectures on each book of the Sentences[290]. In the first year also, he had to preach an examinatory sermon, which before 1303 was usually held at the Black or Grey Friars, after that date at St. Mary’s[291]; another Latin sermon, ‘qui non sit examinatorius’ at St. Mary’s[292]; and a third, before his inception, in the Dominican church, according to the statute of 1314[293]. In the next two years he had to continue his studies, and perhaps lecture on a book of the canon of the Bible[294]: the lecturing in this case was apparently to be done biblice; i.e. without commenting or discussing questions, except only on the text (quaestiones ... literales)[295]. Further, after the lapse of a year from the conclusion of his lectures on the Sentences, he had to respond to eight Regents in theology separately (or to all if there were less than eight); all or most of these responsions were to be ‘ordinary,’ or at least ‘concursive’ (concursivae), and responsions at vesperies and inceptions were included in the eight[296]. Whether the rest of these responsions took place at the terminal disputations in the Theology School is not quite clear; but a later statute (1583) provides that none of these terminal disputations shall count to any one ‘pro forma[297].’ The responsions were latterly held in the new schools: before these were built, in the schools of the various Masters. The Bachelor had then completed the studies necessary for the degree of S.T.P. or D.D.

These exercises seem usually to have been insisted on, more or less fully, even in the century before the Reformation. Friar John Sunday in 1454, having finished his lectures on the Sentences, supplicated for leave to incept after responding to each of the doctors and completing his course on the Bible: the grace was conceded on condition that he should respond and oppose eight times ‘pro forma,’ and respond twice ‘preter formam[298].’ Friar Thomas Anyden, S.T.B., supplicated (1507) that three responsions in the new schools with an examinatory sermon and ‘introitus’ of the Bible should suffice that he should be admitted to incept[299]. It was rarely that three years intervened before the admission to read the Sentences and inception[300]. Thus Friar Gilbert Saunders was admitted to oppose in Nov. 1511, and incepted in July 1513[301]. Friar John Smyth was admitted B.D. in Dec. 1512, and D.D. in July 1513[302]. Another of the same name however was allowed to incept in 1507 if he had spent four years in the study of theology after taking the bachelor’s degree[303].

We now come to the exercises and ceremonies connected with inception. First the grace had to be asked of Congregation; there was no fixed time for doing this[304]. Secondly came the ‘deponing,’ which was done by all the regent masters in the faculty present; all of them had to swear that they knew the candidate to be a fit person; he must be of good life and honest conversation and not deformed in body (corpore vitiati)[305]. He then received in the ordinary form the Chancellor’s licence to incept, after swearing to observe the statutes of the University and to incept within a year of his admission[306].

On the day preceding the day fixed for his ‘vesperies,’ the licentiate sent to each Master of Theology and requested him to attend the latter ceremony[307]. Theological vesperies were in the thirteenth century held in the various schools; a Franciscan celebrated his vesperies in the school or church of the convent under the presidency of his own master[308]. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, a statute was passed enacting that every inceptor in theology should celebrate his vesperies in St. Mary’s Church[309]. It does not seem that the masters in the faculty were bound to attend[310], but the prospect of an important or exciting discussion often attracted a large audience[311]. The exercises at vesperies consisted of disputations on theological questions proposed probably by the candidate[312], and announced to Congregation. All the masters present both at vesperies and at the Act had the right to bring forward their arguments in turn[313]. Thus Friar Hugh of Hertepol (c. 1280-1290) disputed ‘in the vesperies before the inception of Friar John de Persole at Oxford[314].’ About the same time ‘Sneyt (debated) a question in the vesperies of Robert de Bromyard; Thomas of Malmesbury, preacher, responded[315].’ The proceedings were terminated by a speech delivered by the presiding master in praise of the inceptor[316]. Grostete is said to have presided and given the oration at the vesperies of Adam Marsh[317].

Inception followed the next day. Even this ceremony in the thirteenth century took place sometimes in the churches of the friars[318]; but at the beginning of the fourteenth century, it was certainly the custom to hold the Act in St. Mary’s[319]. The inceptor was admitted into the gild of Masters by one of the Masters (not the Chancellor), who was called the Father[320]. In the case of a Franciscan, the Father would usually, though not always, be a doctor of the same Order[321]. Those about to incept first read their lectures, then opened a discussion on certain questions[322]. In later times the exercises consisted of the discussion by all the inceptors, as opponents, of three questions proposed by the respondent and sanctioned by Congregation; the respondent, while statutably a D.D., was usually some M.A. or B.D. who was allowed to count this responsion pro forma[323]. In the more vigorous days of scholasticism, it is probable that the disputation was more of a reality—that the inceptor (who took the part of opponent) chose his own subjects[324] and was answered by a rival among the doctors[325].

Many of the questions discussed at vesperies, inceptions, and other disputations at Oxford at the end of the thirteenth century—probably in the convent of the Minorites—are preserved in a manuscript at Assisi[326]. The question on which Friar Hugh of Hertepol disputed at the vesperies of Friar John de Persole was: An Christus in primo instanti potuit mereri perfectione. Other questions of the same Friar Hugh were: An deus eadem ratione formali videatur trinus et unus, An incarnacio sit possibilis. The following are also among the questions in the same volume: Utrum deus sit infinite potencie, Utrum virgo concepit sine semine, An intellectus sit forma corporis, An deus sit in omnibus rebus, An omnes beati equaliter participant beatitudine, An ratio ymaginis est in actuali visione dei.

We may next enquire how far the statutable requirements as to the period of study were carried out: the only evidence obtainable is from the registers, which begin about 1450. The statutes, as we have seen, required that a religious should have studied Arts (i.e. philosophy) and Theology for fourteen years before opponency. The periods mentioned in the supplications vary from sixteen to eight years, the most usual number of years being twelve. Before inception, six more years of study were demanded, i.e. twenty in all. The period in the supplications varies from fourteen to twenty years; the usual number is eighteen. There is however reason to believe that these figures are not very exact. We have no means of checking them with regard to opponency, and the University was probably in the same position. But it frequently happened, that a friar, who had been admitted to oppose on the ground of having studied ‘logic, philosophy and theology’ for twelve years, supplicated two years later or less for grace to incept on the plea that he had studied the same subjects for eighteen years[327].

The expenses at inception were very heavy. The religiosi wore their usual habit[328], and Mendicants were exempted from the payment of ‘commons’ to the University[329]. Further, when several inmates of the same convent incepted on the same day, the charges (fees to the bedells and others?) were the same as for one inceptor[330]. But these details did not touch the largest expenses. According to ancient custom, every inceptor on the day of his inception feasted the Regent Masters (apparently of all faculties)[331], and Wiclif inveighs against the Mendicant Doctors for their

‘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 other studia generalia and studia 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 a liberata to the Regents ex 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 masses pro 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 certain conditions. 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.

CHAPTER IV.

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 a studium, or combined desk and book-case[373]. Every student friar had books set apart for his especial use[374]; these books were 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 a scriptorium; 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 the Decretum of 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’s De Civitate Dei is extant which the friars received from Grostete[391]. These works of Lincolniensis were 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 a complete 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 another super textum[397], both written by his own hand. Boston of Bury notices his translation of the Testamenta XII Patriarcharum in the same place. Friar Thomas Netter of Walden refers to a book De Studio by 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—one De Laude Paupertatis, the other De 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 the Catalogus 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 book called Speculum 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’s De 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’s De 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 Oxford convent. 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 called Quatuor 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, namely A. 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 called Quatuor 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 considerable modifications 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 by necessitie,’ 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.’

CHAPTER V.

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 a custodia.—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 the confessions 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 the centre 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 appointed for 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 on the 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 Convent sent 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

‘in the custody of Oxford at the head of which Friar Peter was for twelve years, the brethren did not use pillows up to the time of Friar Albert the minister[467].’

Each custody had its special characteristic, Oxford being chiefly remarkable for study[468]. Two Custodians of Oxford, Peter of Tewkesbury and John of Stamford, became Provincial Ministers[469]. At first the Wardens of the convents were appointed by the Custodian[470], but in 1240 the right of election was transferred to the convents themselves, and many friars at the same time demanded the total abolition of the Custodian’s office, on the ground that it was superfluous[471]. It continued however, to exist down to the Dissolution and seems to have implied a general right of supervision; the Custodian was a kind of permanent visitator[472].

Several Provincial Chapters were held at Oxford. It was probably a Conventual, not a Provincial Chapter, before which Grostete, then ‘reading the act at the Friars Minors,’ preached his sermon in praise of poverty and mendicancy[473]. Here Albert of Pisa held his first chapter as Provincial Minister of England, and announced the stern principles which were to guide his government[474]. Soon after this Elias instituted a severe visitation throughout the Order, and sent Friar Wygmund or Wygred, a German, as visitor to England in 1237 or 1238[475]. He held chapters at London, Southampton, Gloucester, and Oxford[476]. At the latter place the Warden, Friar Eustace de Merc, was bitterly attacked and excluded a day and a half from the chapter, though his innocence seems to have been eventually established[477]. The inquisitorial methods adopted by the visitor raised a storm of opposition throughout the province, which found expression, on the completion of the visitation, in a Provincial Chapter held at Oxford in the summer or autumn of 1238[478]. Here a solemn appeal to Rome was formulated, and exemption claimed from all visitations, except those authorized by the General Chapter[479]. The result of this and similar appeals from the Order was the final deposition of Elias by the Pope on the 15th of May, 1239[480].

In the spring or early summer of 1248 the Minister-General, John of Parma, held a Provincial Chapter at Oxford,

‘in which he confirmed the provincial constitutions concerning poverty in living and buildings (de parsimonia et paupertate aedificiorum). And when he gave the friars the option of confirming or deposing the Provincial Minister (W. of Nottingham), they unanimously asked that he might be confirmed[481].’

Eccleston states that in the same chapter the Minister-General

‘recalled the brethren to unity who had begun to surpass the rest in singular opinions[482].’

For this chapter the King provided one cask of wine and the necessaries of life[483]. In 1289 three of the four Orders celebrated their Provincial Chapters at Oxford, that of the Minorites taking place on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8)[484]. No account of the proceedings remains.

The next Provincial Chapter at Oxford about which we have any information was held in 1405, at a critical period in the history of the Order in England. In 1404 ‘a great and very scandalous schism’ arose among the Franciscans owing to the arbitrary and unconstitutional conduct of the Provincial, John Zouch[485]. The friars appealed to the Protector of the Order, the Cardinal-bishop of Sabina, who appointed Friars Nicholas Fakenham and John Mallaert commissioners, with power to depose the Provincial, if necessary. The commissioners deposed him in his absence, called a chapter at Oxford on May 3rd[486], and proceeded to elect a successor. The Vicar of the Provincial forbade the friars to attend the chapter.

‘And the commissioners prayed the King to order the friars to assemble at the chapter at Oxford for the reformation of their religion; and they obtained royal briefs about this matter[487].’

John Zouche was afterwards reinstated by the Protector of the Order, but does not seem to have ever made good his authority over the English Province[488].

CHAPTER VI.

RIVALRY BETWEEN THE ORDERS: ATTACKS ON THE FRIARS.

Rivalry between Friars Preachers and Minors: proselytism.—Politics and Philosophy.—Peckham and the Oxford friars.—Evangelical Poverty.—Contrast between theory and practice.—Attack on the friars by Richard Fitzralph.—Charge of stealing children.—Wiclif’s early relations to the friars.—His attack on them in his later years.—Charges of gross immorality made not by Wiclif, but by his followers.—The University and the friars: summary of events in 1382.—Unpopularity of the friars in the fifteenth century.—Foreign Minorites expelled from Oxford.—Conspiracies against Henry IV; part taken by Oxford Franciscans.—Conventual and Observant friars.

It was inevitable that a spirit of rivalry should exist between the two great Mendicant Orders; and the rivalry soon developed into antagonism. In the thirteenth century one lecturer to the Friars Minors at Oxford was removed from the convent, another was suspended from lecturing, for causing offence to the Friars Preachers and at their request[489]. An ‘enormous scandal of discord,’ in Matthew Paris’ words[490], arose in the year 1243, each of the two Orders claiming precedence of the other. Though there is little direct evidence on the point, there is no doubt that Oxford was one of the chief scenes of conflict. The controversy was carried on by ‘men of education and scholars[491],’ and some details of it are preserved in the pages of Eccleston. It arose from the proselytising tendencies of the two Orders[492]. The Dominicans, according to Eccleston[493],

‘were wont to profess on the day of their entry, if they liked, as did Friar R. Bacun[494] of good memory.’

Friar Albert of Pisa, when Provincial Minister of England, obtained a bull from Gregory IX prohibiting this practice:

‘the Friars Preachers were not to bind anyone so as to prevent him entering any Order he chose, nor were the friars to admit their novices to profession till the year of probation had been completed[495].’

The Dominicans on their side claimed similar privileges, and obtained a bull from Innocent IV to the effect that

‘no Friar Minor should receive those bound to them (suos obligatos); if he did so, he should be excommunicated de facto; and they consented to the same privilege about those bound to us.’

Eccleston complains that the Dominicans made such good use of the bull that ‘they let scarcely any one go;’ and regards this equitable arrangement as a great hardship to his Order. ‘But not long,’ he adds, ‘did this tribulation last;’ Friars William of Nottingham and Peter of Tewkesbury obtained from Innocent IV a revocation of his constitution[496].

The antagonism between the two Orders did not stop here, and in many of the great questions of the day they are found on opposite sides. The Oxford Franciscans, as we have already seen, were among the staunchest supporters of Simon de Montfort; the Oxford Dominicans seem to have sided with the King. The famous Mad Parliament, which Henry III summoned to Oxford in 1258, met in the convent of the Black Friars, and Prince Edward and his retainers stayed there before the battle of Lewes[497].

The same rivalry made itself felt in the sphere of philosophy, and the Franciscans dealt a heavy blow at their more orthodox adversaries by impugning successfully an important doctrine of Thomas Aquinas[498]. The Angelic Doctor had held with Aristotle and against Averroes that the individualising principle was not form but matter. How then, asked his opponents, could the individual exist in the non-material world[499]? Such a doctrine was in contradiction to the mediaeval theory of heaven and the life after death; and the Church rallied to the side of the Franciscans. At Oxford, Archbishop Kilwardby, Dominican though he was, condemned this among many other errors in 1276, but the sentence seems to have had little effect at the time[500]. It was chiefly against this opinion that Peckham’s measures in 1284 were directed[501]. If the Dominicans had allowed the aspersion cast on their greatest teacher to pass without serious protest when the condemnation came from one of themselves, they were anything but content to submit to the adverse judgment of one of their rivals. Peckham was attacked both by the Provincial of the Black Friars in a congregation at Oxford[502] and in an anonymous pamphlet apparently by a Cambridge Dominican[503]—‘a cursed page and infamous leaf,’ as he describes it, ‘whose beginning is headless, whose middle malignant, and whose end foolish and formless.’ His action further involved the whole of the Franciscan Order in England in the storm. He was accused of ‘having sown discord between the Orders[504];’ and to defend himself against the charge of unduly favouring the Franciscans, he denied that he had consulted the latter on the subject and insisted on the previous condemnation of the same error by his predecessor[505]. He claimed to be actuated by no personal animus against the dead, whom he held in high honour and whom he had himself defended; his attack was directed against ignorant and arrogant men who presumed to teach what they did not know and to entice youths to the same errors. ‘We cannot and dare not,’ he urged, ‘fail to rescue our children, as far as we can, from the traps of error;’ and he forbade ‘curious theologians’ to defend the condemned doctrines in ‘the disputes of boys’ (in certaminibus puerilibus) at Oxford.

‘We by no means,’ he adds, ‘reprobate the studies of philosophers, so far as they serve the mysteries of theology, but the profane novelties which, contrary to philosophic truth, have been introduced into the heights of theology in the last twenty years, to the injuries of the saints.’

The question became a matter rather of feeling than of argument; the esprit de corps of the rival factions was involved, and the two Orders further estranged[506].

Peckham lost few opportunities of advancing the interests of the Mendicants at the expense of the monks and secular clergy, and of his brother Franciscans against the other Orders. The discipline and morals of the nuns of Godstow had suffered owing to the proximity of their house to the university-town, and the Archbishop, in his injunctions for the better government of the same, appointed two Friars Preachers and two Friars Minors (or four of each if necessary) as permanent confessors to the Convent[507]. In 1291 he wrote to the Prior of St. Frideswide’s urging him to confer the church of St. Peter le Bailey on some one devoted to the Friars Minors and nominated by them[508]. While strenuously asserting the right of the Minorites to hear confessions in spite of the opposition of the parish priests[509], he forbade the Carmelites and Austin Friars at Oxford to hear any confessions of any persons whatsoever, regular or secular, clerk or lay, male or female, and ordered the Archdeacon, if they disobeyed, to pronounce public sentence of excommunication on them[510]. Arguing that ‘it was lawful to change a vow for a better one[511],’ he maintained that the Franciscans might, as they had hitherto done, admit members of other religious bodies to their Order; he would, he wrote to the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, himself admit them, if he were still Provincial Minister.

‘We have heard with great surprise,’ he proceeds, ‘that the Prior and friars of the Order of St. Augustine in Oxford are imposing the mark of excommunication on the Friars Minors of Oxford, and defaming them in many ways, for receiving one of their friars in the aforesaid canonical form. We therefore order you to go in person to the Austin friary and warn them, in our name and by our authority, to cease from these detractions. But if they assert that they have raised this tumult against the Minorites on the ground of some privilege of theirs, you shall ask them to let me have a copy of their privilege to compare with those of the Minorites which we have to maintain; and we will certainly not allow them to be molested in contravention of their privilege; nor will we endure that the Friars Minors be injuriously oppressed, for by so doing we should break the commands of the Pope[512].’

Peckham further, while condemning the erroneous opinions of the Dominicans at Oxford, denied the claim to superiority which they put forward[513]. The Franciscans claimed precedence on the ground of their humility (which of course dwindled in inverse ratio as their assertion of it grew), and of their absolute poverty. The Archbishop enunciated the formula which was condemned by the inquisitors and the Pope in the next century, and which formed, so to speak, the text of the controversy, ‘De paupertate Christi.’ He defined the poverty of the apostles to be

‘having no title to the possession of any property real or personal, private or common[514];’

the Minorites in following this example were in a state of ‘perfection,’ and lived a holier life than any other Order in the Church.

The claim was generally admitted, and led to the exaltation of the Minorites in the eyes of the world at the expense of the other Orders[515]. As early as 1269 a controversy on this point arose between the convents of the two Orders at Oxford. A Dominican named Solomon of Ingeham accused the Minorites of receiving money either with their own hands or through a third party[516]. The Franciscans denied the charge and demanded the punishment of Friar Solomon. The Dominicans asked them to prove the falsehood of Solomon’s assertion and promised then to punish him. ‘The burden of proof,’ replied the Franciscans, ‘lies with you who affirm, not with us who deny.’ The Dominicans brought forward many instances in which they maintained that the Minorites had actually received money. These, answered the latter, were merely personal transgressions, and affected the community no more than any case of carnal sin or disobedience. The Dominicans, however, based their contention mainly on the argument that money bequeathed to the Franciscans must be received either by them in person or by intermediaries on their behalf. The Minorites answered

‘that, according to the definition of lawyers, money left by will is counted among the goods of the deceased until it passes into the dominium and property of the legatee. But it cannot become ours by legal right or pass into our dominium without our consent. Thus money, howsoever it may be deposited by the executors or committed to anyone for the brethren, is always counted among the goods of the deceased as long as it remains unspent, and the executors can, by their own authority or by that of the deceased, reclaim it at pleasure. How then can it be called ours?’

Peace was eventually restored by the interposition of the Chancellor and leading secular masters, at whose recommendation Friar Solomon withdrew his words. It is curious that neither the document containing the account of this quarrel, nor Peckham, mention the explanation which afterwards became the accepted theory, that the ownership of the goods of the Franciscans was vested in the Pope. Yet this explanation was originally given by Innocent IV in 1245[517].

As far as the bulk of the Franciscan Order was concerned, the controversy on ‘Evangelical Poverty’ was purely a theoretical one[518], its ultimate importance rather accidental than real. The claim to ‘this perfitnesse,’ as Daw Topias contemptuously calls it, rested not on fact but on a legal construction. The friars had only the use, not the proprietorship, of their lands and houses and goods. John XXII by his bull, ‘Ad conditorem canonum,’ issued on the 8th of December, 1322, and declaring that use was inseparable from proprietorship, withdrew from the Order the right of holding property in the name of the Roman See, and thus went far to destroy its theoretical claim to precedence. The whole Order, instead of the party of the Spirituales merely, was for a time banded against the Pope; and the dispute about a legal quibble became transformed under the hands of Ockham into an examination of the position and claims of the Papacy, and of the whole relation of Church and State.

Ockham probably studied at Oxford in his younger days, but it was no doubt later in life, and under the influence of Marsilius of Padua, that he developed the doctrines which made him ‘at once the glory and the reproach of his Order[519].’ In philosophy he had many followers at Oxford in the fourteenth century, and the Franciscan Convent was, like the rest of the University, divided on the questions of Nominalism and Realism[520]. The dispute concerning the poverty of Christ was not allowed to rest. It was this discussion which first brought the Archbishop of Armagh into open hostility to the friars[521]; and Wiclif mentions the controversy as being still carried on between the two Orders in his time.

‘Prechours seyn þat Crist hadde hiȝe shone as þei have; ffor ellis wolde not Baptist mene þat Crist hadde þuongis of siche schone. Menours seyn þat Crist went barfote, or ellis was shood as þei ben, for ellis Magdalene shulde not have founde to þus have washid Cristis feet[522].’

A great historian has said of the Middle Ages, that ‘at no time in the world’s history has theory, pretending all the while to control practice, been so utterly divorced from it[523].’ An extract from the Patent Rolls[524] will afford a striking illustration of the truth of these words as far as the learned Franciscans, the professors of evangelical poverty, are concerned. The date is February 22nd, 1378; the writ is issued in the King’s name.

‘Know that whereas certain horses, cups, books, money, silver vessels, and diverse other goods and chattels, which belonged to our beloved brother in Christ, John Welle of the Order of Friars Minors, doctor in theology, have been abstracted and carried away out of his dwelling in London by one Thomas Bele his servant and other evil doers, ... we have of our special favour granted to the said John all the horses, cups, books, money, vessels and other goods and chattels aforesaid, wheresoever they may be,’ &c.

It was probably the glaring contrast between the lofty claims of the friars and their actual life, rather than any inferiority in their morality as compared with the secular priests, which exposed them to the bitterest denunciations and taunts of the reformers. The Mendicants were far more in sympathy with the poor than were the endowed monks, and possessed far more than the parish priests the confidence of the people[525]. Wiclif recognised this fact, while he lamented it.

‘Though it raine on the Awter of the Parish Church, the blind people is so deceived, that they will rather give to waste houses of Friars, then to Parish Churches, or to common waies, though men cattle and beasts ben perished therein[526].’

The first important attack on the friars in the fourteenth century was that led by Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh. He had been Fellow of Balliol College before 1325 and Chancellor of the University in 1333[527]. While assailing the whole principle of mendicancy, his main charge against the friars, especially the friars at Oxford, was that of ‘stealing’ children, i.e. of secretly inducing them to enter the Mendicant Orders. In 1357 the Archbishop was cited to appear and defend himself before the Papal Court at Avignon; and on the 8th of November, in a solemn assembly of Pope and Cardinals, he made a great speech in defence of the parish priests against the Mendicants[528]. The Archbishop stated that, owing to the privileges of hearing confessions which the friars enjoyed, almost all youths in the Universities, and in the houses of their parents (in nearly all of which friars were to be found as ‘familiares’), had Mendicants as their confessors.

‘Enticed by the wiles of the friars and by little presents[529], these boys (for the friars cannot circumvent men of mature age) enter the Orders, nor are they afterwards allowed, according to report, to get their liberty by leaving the Order, but they are kept with them against their will until they make profession; further, they are not permitted, as it is said, to speak with their father or mother, except under the supervision and fear of a friar; an instance came to my knowledge this very day; as I came out of my inn an honest man from England, who has come to this court to obtain a remedy, told me that immediately after last Easter, the friars at the University of Oxford abducted in this manner his son who was not yet thirteen years old, and when he went there, he could not speak with him except under the supervision of a friar.’

Parents were in consequence afraid to send their sons to the Universities, and preferred to keep them at home as tillers of the soil. While the numbers both of the friaries and of their inmates had enormously increased, the number of secular students in every faculty decreased; the students at Oxford, who in his time were reckoned at 30,000, had now sunk to 6000.

Though these figures are of course preposterously exaggerated, and though the main cause of the diminution of the number of students was the Black Death, there can be no doubt of the essential truth of the accusation. In 1358 the University of Oxford passed a statute forbidding the admission of boys under eighteen to the Orders. The statute deserves to be quoted at length[530].

‘It is generally reported and proved by experience, that the nobles of this realm, those of good birth, and very many of the common people, are afraid, and therefore cease, to send their sons or relatives or others dear to them in tender youth, when they would make most advance in primitive sciences, to the University to be instructed, lest any friars of the Order of Mendicants should entice or induce such children, before they have reached years of discretion, to enter the Order of the same Mendicants; and because owing to the admission of such boys to the Mendicant Orders, the tranquillity of the students of the University has been often disturbed; therefore the said University, zealous in the bowels of piety both for the number of her sons and the quiet of her students, has ordained and decreed, that if any of the Order of Mendicants shall receive to their habit in this University, or induce, or cause to be received or induced, any such youth before the completion of his eighteenth year at least, or shall send such an one away from the University or cause him to be sent away, in order that he may be received into the same Order elsewhere: then eo ipso no one of the cloister or community of such a friar, ... being a graduate, shall during the year immediately following, read or attend lectures in this University or elsewhere where such exercises would count as discharge of the statutable requirements in this University (vel alibi quod in hac Vniversitate pro forma aliqua sibi cedat); and this penalty shall be inflicted on all those of the Order of Mendicants, and the associates of all those, who shall be convicted by credible persons of having withdrawn youths in any way from the University, or from hearing philosophy.’

The friars did not deny the charge, but defended their conduct[531], and exerted themselves to the utmost to obtain a repeal of the statute. Their efforts were successful. While a suit which they had begun in the Roman Court was yet undecided, the Provincials of the four Orders laid their grievances before the King in Parliament[532]. In 1366 the obnoxious statute was formally annulled, on condition that the friars’ suits at Rome and elsewhere against the University should cease[533]. The latter, however, did not abandon the struggle; its influence is probably to be seen in the petition of the Commons in 1402[534], that no one be allowed to enter any of the four Orders under the age of twenty-one years. The King’s answer was not favourable: he ordained merely that no friar should admit to his Order an infant under fourteen years without the assent of his father, mother, or guardians. The ordinance applied to the whole of England, and the petition of the Commons is a sign that the popularity of the friars had suffered under the attacks of Wiclif.

It has been clearly shown by recent criticism[535] that Wiclif’s enmity to the friars was confined to the last few years of his life. His earlier opponents were the monks—the religiosi possessionati. At one time he compares the poverty and mendicancy of St. Francis with the manual labour of St. Peter and St. Paul, in contrast with the possessions and worldly honours of the ecclesiastics of his time[536]. He seems to have been on terms of some intimacy with William Woodford, who may be regarded as the leader of the Oxford Minorites in their subsequent controversy with the reformer and his followers. Woodford relates[537] that

‘when I was lecturing concurrently with him on the Sentences[538] ... Wiclif used to write his answers to the arguments, which I advanced to him, in a notebook which I sent him with my arguments, and to send me back the notebook.’

Wiclif had indeed many points of sympathy, especially on questions of ecclesiastical polity, with the Friars Minors. He was in agreement with them and in antagonism to the monks and many of the bishops, in the opinion that the tribute to the Pope should be refused, and that the secular power was, under some circumstances, justified in depriving the Church of its possessions[539]. Eight or nine years before Wiclif wrote his famous tract in defence of the Parliament of 1366, an Oxford friar and doctor declared in his school that the King had the right of depriving ecclesiastics of their temporalities; he was ordered by Congregation to recant this and other opinions solemnly after a University sermon, and to pay 100s. to the University[540].

When, however, Wiclif began to call in question the Church’s doctrine on the Eucharist, he found himself in direct antagonism to the friars; and the quarrel, which began in a dogmatic difference in the schools[541], soon acquired a wider character. Wiclif’s accusations resolve themselves really into three[542]; firstly, that the friars upheld the ‘idolatrous’ doctrine of the Eucharist; secondly, that they maintained the theory of the mendicancy of Christ; thirdly, that they taught the people to rely for their salvation on letters of fraternity and prayers and masses, instead of on a good life; whence a general demoralization ensued.

‘Popis graunten no pardoun to men bot if þei be byfore verrely contritte, bot þese freris in hor lettres speken of no contricioun[543].’

It is improbable, however, that the indulgences granted by the friars differed from the other indulgences of the Middle Ages, which in theory absolved from the temporal punishment, not from the sin and eternal punishment. Wiclif may have classed with the friars the ‘pardoners’ who did not belong to any of the four Orders[544]. The records relating to the Franciscan house at Oxford throw no light on the matter, which indeed belongs to the general history of the Mendicants, not to the history of a particular convent. Wiclif’s charges amount practically to this: the friars were the foremost champions of the external, unspiritual form of religion, which he laboured to destroy: they were no longer leaders of thought, but obstacles to progress.

Though Wiclif’s writings, especially his English writings, are full of violent invective against the friars[545], it is difficult to find in them any definite accusations of the grosser forms of immorality. One instance will sufficiently illustrate the difference between Wiclif and his followers.

‘Friars also,’ says the former, ‘be foully envenomed with ghostly sin of Sodom, and so be more cursed than the bodily Sodomites that were suddenly dead by hard vengeance of God; for they do ghostly lechery by God’s word, when they preach more their own findings for worldly muck, than Christ’s Gospel for saving of men’s souls[546].’

‘Jack Upland’ improves on this, and does not scruple to impute to the friars generally the vilest sins.

‘Your freres ben taken alle day
with wymmen and wifes,
bot of your privey sodomye
spake I not yette[547].’

At Oxford the seculars, always numerically strong and jealous of the regulars, rallied to Wiclif’s standard; while the Mendicants roused the anger of the University by appealing to external authority. The friars were accused of having made use of their position as confessors to stir up the peasant revolt. On the 18th of February, 1382, the heads of the four Mendicant Convents at Oxford sent a letter to John of Gaunt, denying the charge and begging his protection[548]; all evils were attributed to them, and their lives were in danger. Their chief enemy was Nicholas Hereford. In Lent of the same year Hereford preached a University sermon at St. Mary’s, in which he argued that no ‘religious’ should be admitted to any degree at Oxford[549]. He was appointed by the Chancellor to deliver the principal English sermon of the year at St. Frideswide’s Cross on Ascension Day (May 15th), and used the opportunity to attack monks and friars and mendicancy in general[550]. On the 19th of the same month, the ‘Council of the Earthquake’ met at the Blackfriars in London, and condemned ten of Wiclif’s conclusions as heretical and fourteen as erroneous; among the seventeen doctors of divinity who took part in the council were four Minorites, the Oxford Franciscans being represented by Hugo Karlelle and Thomas Bernewell[551]. The Archbishop sent Peter Stokes, a Carmelite, to publish the condemnation at Oxford. The Chancellor and Proctors resented this interference with their rights, and the general feeling was strong in Wiclif’s favour. Stokes and his brethren went in fear of their lives; when the Carmelite ‘determined’ against Philip Repyngdon on the 10th of June, men were seen in the schools with arms concealed under their clothes. At length, on June 15th, the Chancellor was compelled, by the King’s command, to publish the condemnation of the twenty-four conclusions;

‘and he thus so roused the seculars against the religious that many of the latter feared death, the seculars crying out that they wanted to destroy the University, though really they (the religious) only defended the cause of the Church[552].’

In November the University tried to turn the tables on its adversaries; in an assembly of the clerks at St. Frideswide’s, the Chancellor accused some of the orthodox party (among them a Minorite friar) of heresy[553]. But from this time the sacramental controversy tended to retire into the background, and the alliance of monks and friars, which Wiclif’s attack on the faith had called into being[554], came to an end. In 1392, Henry Crompe, a Cistercian monk, who had been a prominent opponent of Wiclif, was charged with having determined on several occasions against the right of the friars to hear confessions[555]. Friar John Tyssyngton and other Minorites took part in his condemnation in a Convocation held in the house of the Carmelites at Stamford. In their anxiety to silence their adversaries, the Mendicant Orders proved false to the tradition common to all the great mediaeval Universities—the tradition of intellectual freedom; they upheld the claim of Archbishop Arundel to visit the University, and lent their support to the rigid censorship which he established[556]. But it is only fair to remember that, years before this, the authority of the Church had been invoked against the teaching of the friars themselves. In 1368 Simon Langham sent thirty errors of the friars to the University, and it was enacted that no one should presume to defend or approve these tenets in the schools or elsewhere ‘on pain of the greater excommunication[557].’

The history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries affords many other illustrations of the hostility with which the friars, and especially the Minorites, were regarded by the University. The subject of academical degrees, and of the action taken by the University against the ‘wax-doctors,’ has been treated elsewhere. A statute, which probably dates from the first half of the fifteenth century, provides that both the collatores of University sermons shall, if possible, be seculars[558]. Wood says that in the years 1423 and 1424 there

‘were nothing but heartburnings in the University occasioned by the Friers their preaching up and down against tithes.’

The chief offender, Friar William Russell, warden of the Greyfriars of London, taught that tithes might be given arbitrarily, i.e. not to the parson legally entitled to them, but ‘for the pious use of the poor,’ according to the will of the giver. The University of Oxford condemned this doctrine and ordained that everyone taking a degree should formally abjure it: the oath, which remained in force till 1564, runs thus:—

Insuper, tu jurabis quod nullas conclusiones per fratrem Wilhelmum Russell, ordinis Minorum, nuper positas et praedicatas, contra decimas personales, et in nostra Universitate Oxoniae, necnon in venerabili concilio episcoporum, anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo vicesimo quinto celebrato Londoniis, solemniter damnatas, nec alicujus earum sententiam tenebis, docebis, vel defendes efficaciter publice aut occulte, nec aliquem doctorem, tentorem vel defensorem hujusmodi, ope, consilio vel favore juvabis[559].

For a similar offence another Franciscan, William Melton, D.D., was arrested at the instance of the University, and compelled to recant[560]. The Alma Mater kept a vigilant eye on her sons wherever they might be. In 1482 Friar Isaac Cusack, D.D., began to create disturbances in Ireland by preaching the old Franciscan doctrine of evangelical poverty; he was captured, sent to Oxford, and degraded and expelled the University as a vagabond and a heretic[561].

The feeling of nationality fostered by the long French wars was not without its influence on the friars in England and especially at the Universities. In 1369 the Chancellor caused a royal proclamation to be published at Carfax ordering all French students at Oxford, both religious and secular, to leave the kingdom[562]. In 1388 a royal writ was issued to the Warden of the Friars Minors in Oxford at the advice of the same convent, warning him to admit no foreign friars who might reveal to the enemy ‘the secrets and counsel of our kingdom,’ and to expel any such friars for whose good behaviour he would not be responsible, or who would not pray or celebrate masses for the King and the good estate of the realm[563].

Among the many problems presented by the reign of Richard II, not the least obscure is the passionate loyalty with which the Franciscans regarded his memory[564]. Yet Richard II and his councillors were suspected of Lollardy, while his successor posed as the champion of orthodoxy. Henry IV, however, derived his support chiefly from the wealthy ecclesiastics, and the Lollardy of the Court of Richard II was rather political than dogmatic; the opinions prevalent at the Court were more in consonance with Wiclif’s earlier teaching and with the teaching of the Franciscan Order on the need of poverty in the Church and the evils of its endowments, than with the Lollard doctrine of the Eucharist. In the early years of Henry IV the Franciscans were active in organizing conspiracies[565]; the pulpit and the confessional were used to spread disaffection against the new monarch[566]; and the failure of his campaigns was attributed to the magical arts of the Friars Minors[567]. In 1402, eight Minorites of the convent of Leicester were seized, and convicted on their own admission of having organized an armed revolt to find King Richard and restore him to the throne[568]. They were condemned to be hanged and decapitated at Tyburn, and the sentence was carried out in the sight of many thousands without any ecclesiastical protest. One of these friars was Roger Frisby, an old man and Master in Theology[569]. On the Vigil of the feast of St. John the Baptist[570]—the very day on which the rebels were to meet ‘in the plain of Oxford,’ his head was taken from London Bridge and brought to Oxford;

‘and in the presence of the procession of the University, the herald proclaimed: “This Master Friar Minor of the convent of Leicester in hypocrisy, adulation, and false life, preached often, saying that King Richard is alive, and roused the people to seek him in Scotland;” and his head was set on a stake there[571].’

While subject to attacks from without, the Franciscan Order suffered from rival factions within. The long-standing division between the lax or Conventual, and the strict or Observant parties, at length received formal recognition in the Council of Constance (1415) when the Observants were constituted a semi-independent branch under a Vicar-General[572]. How did this arrangement affect Oxford as a studium generale? The Observants as a body produced few students; the reformed houses on the Continent objected to send their brethren to Paris[573]. A few foreign Observants found their way to Oxford in the fifteenth century[574]; and when later in the century Observant friaries were founded in England[575], some of their members studied in the Conventual house at the University[576]. Whether any part of the Convent was set apart for them is unknown: according to all appearance, the brethren of both branches lived together in peace and goodwill.

CHAPTER VII.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE FRIARS’ MANNER OF LIFE AND MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD: BENEFACTORS.

Lost records.—Mendicancy.—Procurators and limitors.—Career of Friar Brian Sandon.—Charges of immorality against the friars.—Their worldly manner of life before the Dissolution.—Poverty of the Convent.—Sources of income.—Annual grants from the King and others.—Frequency of bequests to the friars.—List of benefactors.—Classes from which the friars were drawn.—Motives which led men to become friars.

Of the internal economy of the Franciscan house at Oxford, or indeed of any friary in England, little is known or ever can be known. The Registrum Fratrum Minorum Londoniae is, in Brewer’s words, ‘the only work of the kind extant. A painful proof, if such were needed, of the utter devastation committed when the Franciscan convents were dissolved, and their libraries dispersed[577].’ We may here give some account of the records which must once have existed in every Franciscan house or province. From the earliest times an annual compotus[578] or balance-sheet of income and expenditure was drawn up, and if in later days this was sometimes omitted, an ex-warden was always liable to be called to render an account to his successor[579]. In each convent would also be kept a list of the brethren who died there[580]; and lists both of living benefactors and of dead, for whose souls prayers or masses were to be said[581], while many in their lifetime received ‘letters of confraternity[582].’ In the decrees of the General Chapter of Paris in 1292 it is commanded[583] that each minister should have the lives and acts of holy friars carefully collected in his province and entered in special registers, and bring them to the General Chapter; also that all notable excesses of friars, grave crimes, and credible accusations, the sentences passed and punishments inflicted on the offenders, should be noted in books kept for the purpose, preserved in the archives of the province, and faithfully handed on to each succeeding minister. The acts of Provincial Chapters were also kept[584]. Of these and similar records we have, besides the London register already alluded to, only a few letters of fraternity[585]. Of English Franciscan records originated by or relating to the convent at Oxford, not one (unless the list of lectors and the account of the controversy with the Dominicans in 1269[586] can be called records) is known to exist[587]. Any account, therefore, of the internal life of the convent must be meagre and unsatisfactory in the highest degree.

The hours and numbers of daily services seem to have differed little, if at all, from those observed in other monastic institutions[588]. We may therefore omit this subject and treat of the points which receive additional elucidation from documents relating to Oxford.

The first means of livelihood of the Mendicant Friars was naturally begging. Certain of the brethren were appointed by the Warden to ‘procure’ food for the convent during some fixed period[589]. There were no definite rules as to how many friars should be sent as ‘procuratores’ or ‘limitors’[590]; the details depended on the necessities of the convent and the will of the Superior[591]. Each house had definite ‘limits’ assigned to it, within which its members might beg[592]. The friars went two and two, accompanied by a servant or boy[593] who carried the offerings, which were usually in kind. The friar in Chaucer’s ‘Sompnoure’s Tale,’ himself a ‘maister[594]’ in the schools, after preaching in the church went round the village—

‘In every hous he gan to pore and prye
And beggyd mele or chese, or ellis corn[595].’

A good deal of private begging was done by the student friars to obtain the means of study[596]. Roger Bacon appealed to his brother in England, to his powerful and wealthy acquaintances, for money to carry out the commands of the Pope[597].

‘But how often (he writes to the latter) I was looked upon as a dishonest beggar, how often I was repulsed, how often put off with empty hopes, what confusion I suffered within myself, I cannot express to you. Even my friends did not believe me, as I could not explain the matter to them; so I could not proceed in this way. Reduced (angustiatus) to the last extremities, I compelled my poor friends[598] to contribute all that they had, and to sell many things and to pawn the rest, often at usury, and I promised them that I would send to you all the details of the expenses and would faithfully procure full payment at your hands. And yet owing to their poverty I frequently abandoned the work, frequently I gave it up in despair and forbore to proceed.’

Begging of this kind would either be unauthorized or legalized by special license. The statutes of the Order[599] enact that every convent shall have its ‘procurator’ or ‘syndicus,’ who shall transact all the legal business of the house and receive in the name of the Roman Church for the use of the friars all pecuniary alms and bequests, or all such alms and bequests as can be changed into money. The express object of these constitutions was to

‘preserve the Order in its purity and prevent the brethren being immersed in secular affairs[600].’

It would appear that at Oxford in the fourteenth century the office of alms-collector was held by one of the brethren. This conclusion, however contrary to the spirit and letter of the statutes, seems warranted by a remarkable legal document of the year 1341[601]. It is the record of a suit in the Hustings Court, in which Friar John of Ochampton, Warden of the Friars Minors at Oxford, ‘through Friar John de Hentham his attorney,’ charged ‘Richard de Whitchford minor[602],’ with refusing to render an account of the sums received by him when he was ‘receiver of pence of the said warden,’ and with embezzling sixty shillings or more, which he obtained from various people on the Monday after the feast of St. Michael, 1340. Two of the sums are specified, namely, one mark by the hands of Richard, servant of John de Couton, and 12s. by the hands of Thomas of London. The Warden claimed to have suffered loss to the extent of one hundred shillings; Richard de Whitchford could not deny the receipt of the money, but on his request the court appointed two auditors, Richard Cary and John le Peyntour; to these he rendered an account, and was found to be sixty shillings in arrears; ‘and,’ the record continues, ‘as he cannot make satisfaction he is committed to prison.’

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Oxford friars sometimes employed laymen to represent them in the courts[603]; sometimes the Warden appeared in person[604], but most of the legal business in the Chancellor’s court at Oxford was undertaken by one of the brethren. From 1507 or before, to the Dissolution, this duty was entrusted to Friar Brian Sandon. His name does not occur in the University Register, and he was, though a priest[605], probably not a student; indeed, his administrative business would hardly have left him time for other occupations. Between 1507 and 1516 and between 1527 and 1534, he appears as plaintiff or defendant in some fifteen suits in the Chancellor’s court[606]. Some of these afford glimpses into the life of the friars. On the 26th of March, 1512[607], Father Brian instituted an action against John Morys, his proctor, alleging that the latter

‘did not according to the convention before entered into between the said friar and John Morys, bring corn to the house of the friars minors;’

and on April 5th John Morys was committed to prison ‘at the instance of the provost (preposeti) of the friars minors for a debt[608].’

But if the friars did not grow corn, they seem to have made use of their meadows as pasture land. On the 20th of May, 1529[609], Friar Brian sued Margery, widow of John Lock, for 7s. 8d.,

‘for certain cheeses which the husband of the said Margery bought from the aforesaid Brian Sanden.’

Eventually the case was submitted to the arbitration of William Clare the elder, and Edmund Irishe, bailiffs of Oxford, with the addition of a third if necessary, each party binding itself to abide by the decision of the majority under penalty of 40s., in case of disagreement, to be paid to the party willing to accept the judgment.

While these and similar actions were instituted by Brian in fulfilment of the duties of his position, he was undoubtedly engaged in others of a private nature. At one time he acts as attorney for a priest[610]. At another he is charged with wrongfully keeping a knife, the property of dominus Galfred Coper[611]. In 1531[612] he had a dispute with his tailor and appealed to the law, alleging

‘that, whereas he had given to William Gos[613], tailor, three yards and three quarters of woollen cloth to make him a habit, the said Gos had purloined one quarter of a yard, and that in consequence his clothes were too short (nimis brevem et succinctam).’

Brian having declared on oath that he had supplied the above-mentioned amount of cloth, Gos promised to give him 14d. as satisfaction for the missing quarter of a yard. But later in the day he again appeared and charged the friar with perjury. After some more recriminations an agreement was come to out of court, and we hear no more of the habit.

That his litigious spirit should sometimes have brought Friar Brian into trouble we cannot wonder. Several times in the latter part of his career he was in danger of ‘bodily injury;’ in 1532[614] he made application to have Robert Holder bound over to keep the peace, and in 1534 the judge ordered that James Penerton should not be released from Bocardo till he found sufficient sureties that he would not inflict bodily harm on Friar Brian or his friends (familiaribus)[615]. The same year he complained of having been libelled by one Giles Mawket, a carpenter (fabro lignario), in the parish of St. Ebbe’s[616]. This was probably a slander on his character, which was not above suspicion. In 1535[617] ‘a woman of Radley named Anna’ asserted in the Commissary’s court that she was with child by Thomas Denson, Bachelor of Laws:

‘qui Denson (as the record puts it, reciting the evidence of Joanna Cowper, another woman of ill-fame) egre tulit ut extraneus quisque familiaritate dicte Anne uteretur; because (it is added in the margin) he tok fryer Bryan wrastelyng w^th her in a morning[618].’

The records of the Chancellor’s court contain charges of immorality against two other Friars Minors[619]. The first was ‘dompnus’ Robert Beste[620], who was summoned before the court together with a scholar of Broadgates Hall,

‘on grave suspicion of incontinence and disturbance of the peace.’ ‘Then the judge commanded ‘dompnus’ Beste to go to the prison house, namely le Bocardo, and remain there for half-an-hour’—

apparently while his case was considered. It does not appear what the charge against him was, or what (if any) further steps were taken[621]. His companion was warned to moderate his attentions to the same Joanna, wife of William Cooper or Cowper, of St. Ebbe’s, who appeared in the trial above referred to.

Joanna seems to have taken a special interest in the Minorites. At the end of 1533[622] Friar Arthur, B.D., appealed to the court to stop her spreading evil reports against him, which she had failed to prove; she was ordered to abstain in future

‘from defaming the said friar or any of his house on pain of a fine of 40s. to be paid to the Convent of friars minors, and banishment from the town; also that she shall not in any way lay traps (paret ... insidias) for the said Arthur or any of his Order or cause such traps to be laid, under the aforesaid penalties.’

But if Friar Arthur was innocent, he was peculiarly unfortunate. A few months later[623] he again appealed for protection against the libels of Nicholas Andrews and John Poker, scholars of Peckwater’s Inn. At this time Dr. Baskerfeld, Warden of the Grey Friars, was acting as substitute for the Commissary, and he heard the case in the house of the Minorites. The accusation has been carefully obliterated in the Chancellor’s book, evidently by the friars themselves, but the gist of it can be deciphered.

‘Judex interrogavit eosdem an voluissent prefatum Arcturum accusare et denunciare: qui responderunt se nolle[624] hoc facere ...; a quibus judex petiit ... an aliquid scandalosum et d ... scirent contra dictum fratrem, et interrogavit eos quid hoc erat: et dicebant ambo hiis verbis sequentibus (tactis evangeliis); ... they saw the seyde frere Arctur in a chambre at the sygne of the Bere in all hollows parische in Oxoford with a woman in a red capp ... both locked together in a chambre, and seid to the mayd of the hous, “then ba ... why ... suche ale here to be kept? It is not thy masters will and thy mistres that ony suche ale shold be kept here.”’

Friar Arthur strenuously denied the accusation, and the court adjourned for two hours. When it reassembled, the defendants refused to submit to Dr. Baskerfeld’s jurisdiction, arguing that he was incompetent to decide a case in which one of the members of his convent was so deeply implicated. Two days later, however, they confessed before the judge that they would not swear to their original statement, and both sides promised to forgive and forget the whole matter.

Though none of these charges was actually proved, we must admit that they show that the convent was not in a healthy state on the eve of the Dissolution. There is certainly no trace of the religious fervour by which even in the latter days some of the Observant convents were honourably distinguished. We find the brethren at Oxford engaged in money transactions, lending[625] and borrowing[626], ‘buying and selling[627].’ Friar John Arter[628] kept a horse in the town and raised difficulties about the bill; Randulph Craycoke or Cradoc, who had charge of the horse, would not part with it till he had received ‘about ten shillings for food and grass,’ which sum the friar refused to pay, asserting that Randulph had worked the horse himself (laboravit dictum equum diversis (?) oneribus). The court, to which the disputants appealed, reduced the amount by 2s.; but Arter was probably unable to pay: no one appeared at the time appointed to claim the animal, ‘so we sent Cradoc away with the horse until his bill should be paid.’

The Warden, Friar Edward Baskerfeld, D.D., was plaintiff in a somewhat similar case[629], in which both sides were represented by counsel. In his evidence the friar deposed that he had lent Master Richard Weston, LL.B.,

‘a Roane hors of the value of 20s. in the hostel de flore de leust[630], and that he had handed over the horse to the servant of the Subdean of Excestre in the name of Richard Weston, and that he said these words, stroking (palpando) the belly of the horse: “how I delyver the hors sane and sound without spurre gallyng I prey you delyver hym so ageyn,” and that he never saw hym to this day.’

The parties agreed to submit the dispute to the judgment of three arbitrators, and the result does not appear in the records of the court.

No doubt some of the friars had private incomes and emoluments of their own[631] (apart from the allowance or ‘exhibition’ which as students they still received from their native convents or from benefactors); and some may have lived outside the walls of their monastery[632]. But the convent itself was very poor; the love of many had waxed cold, and it was inevitable that in order to get a livelihood they should resort to means forbidden by their Rule.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century[633], the Warden, Dr. Goodefyld, leased one of the gardens lying within the boundaries of the convent to Richard Leke, brewer of Oxford. The terms of the agreement are unknown, but the friars thought them—or Leke’s interpretation of them, very injurious to their interests, and in 1513 and 1514 demanded the repudiation of the contract. Feeling ran very high, and Leke was in personal danger; the Warden was bound over to keep the peace, and promised

‘that if his friars molested Richard Leke, he would keep them in safe custody until the matter had been more fully examined.’

Again the case was referred to arbitration and the decision is unknown. It is interesting to find that Leke was fully reconciled to the friars before his death[634].

The poverty of the brethren was aggravated by the irregularity with which payments, on which they might justly reckon, were made. One of their chief sources of income was a royal grant of 50 marcs per annum during the King’s pleasure, to be paid in equal portions at Easter and Michaelmas. It was first instituted by Edward I[635] in 1289, and was continued by all the kings (with the exception of Edward V) to the Dissolution[636]. Sometimes the sum was paid direct from the treasury; but often (and this seems to have been the general custom as regards royal benefactions to religious houses) a sheriff or other officer was held responsible for the payment; either he was instructed to send the requisite amount to the Exchequer, or he paid the money directly; and the sums which he paid were accredited to him when he produced his accounts at the sessions of the Exchequer. As may be proved by many instances, the system did not conduce to regularity of payment. Edward II, in December 1313, ordered Richard Kellawe, Bishop of Durham[637], ‘to send to our exchequer at Westminster within fifteen days of the day of St. Hilary,’ ten marks in partial satisfaction of the grant[638]. But though this sum was to be the first charge on the arrears in the Durham diocese of the tax of one-half of their income[639] imposed on the clergy by Edward I (A. D. 1294), and though writs were repeatedly[640] issued to enforce payment, we find that on the 4th of June, 1315, nothing had been done, ‘unde vehementer admiramur[641].’

The fifty marks were never made a definite fixed charge on the revenues of any one county nor were they levied year by year as a single sum; each year some sheriff or bishop was made responsible for a fraction of the whole amount. The annuity was on several occasions in arrear. Thus Henry IV in the first year of his reign granted the friars ‘of his abundant favour’ (de uberiori gratia nostra) all the arrears that had accumulated during the reign of his predecessor[642]. Affairs of State made themselves felt in the Franciscan convent. In 1450 Parliament passed a general act of resumption, annulling all grants made since the King’s accession, and the annuity to the friars ceased to be paid[643]. The brethren represented to Henry VI the hardships which this loss of revenue inflicted on them, and in 1453 the King ordered the arrears to be paid,

‘in order that the same warden and friars may be in a happier frame of mind (hillariorem animum habeant) to offer up special prayers for us to the Highest[644].’

Under the circumstances we cannot be surprised if the friars sometimes took legal measures to recover the debts due to them. It was no doubt in connexion with this grant, that in 1466 Richard Clyff, ‘custos’ of the Oxford Grey Friars (first in person and afterwards through his attorney) sued John Broghton, late Sheriff of Kent, in the Court of Exchequer, for 100s. due to him from the preceding year, and claimed damages to the amount of ten marks[645]. In 1488, in like manner, Richard Salford, Warden of the Friars Minors at Oxford, applied to the Barons of the Exchequer to compel John Paston, Knt., late Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to pay a debt of £10 18s., and put in a claim to £10 damages; he recovered the debt, but the damages were reduced to 26s. 8d.[646] On the same day he sued Edmund Bedyngfeld, Knt., late Sheriff of the same counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, for a debt of ‘seven pounds of silver’ and 100s. damages; the amount of the debt and 20s. damages were awarded him[647]. The next year he again brought an action against the same Bedyngfeld and recovered the debt (£4 2s.), while the barons assessed his damages at 10s. instead of the £4 which he claimed[648]. We gather from these instances that though the annuity was usually paid and was not often much in arrear, it was not collected without considerable trouble and expense on the part of the friars. These actions involved a journey to London and the employment of an attorney[649]: they were never settled in one day, and weeks or months elapsed between the first hearing and the second.

The Grey Friars were also in receipt of annual or weekly alms from others besides the King. Durham College paid them 50s. yearly[650].

‘In ye accompts of S. Ebbs made before 1542, it appears in all, y^t ye churchwardens of S. Ebbs parish paid to ye warden of ye Grey Freyers Oxon 6d. per annum[651].’

The nunnery of Godstow[652] gave every week alternately to the Friars’ Preachers and Minors

‘fourteen loaves of the best wheat’ (pasto), worth in money value 8d. a week, ‘for the soul of Roger Writtell; and the aforesaid friars shall have the seal of the monastery to the amount of 34s. a year.’

The nuns also gave annually to each of the four Orders of friars at Oxford 3s. 4d. in money, and ‘one peck (modium) of oytemell and one of peas (pisarum) in Lent.’ Among the ‘perpetual alms’ of Osney Abbey is mentioned a grant of 20s. to the four Orders, as the price of one ox, at Christmas, and of 4d. a week to each Order ‘according to ancient custom[653].’

A large part of their revenue was derived from bequests. To minister to the sick and the dying was one of the first duties which St. Francis practised himself and enjoined on his followers: that in this respect the English Franciscans followed his precepts may be seen in the tradition of them which remained in the memory of this country and which Shakespeare has expressed in ‘Romeo and Juliet’:

‘Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors and would not let us forth.’
(Act V, Scene II.)

But work like this receives little notice in history, and where it is mentioned it is usually upon the sordid aspect of the case—the greed for legacies—that the chroniclers insist.

In connexion with Oxford there are perhaps in the extant records only two instances of a Franciscan being found in the chamber of sickness or death. On Nov. 24, 1357, the will of Robert de Trenge[654], Warden of Merton, was proved by the sworn testimony of Friar John of Nottingham of the Order of Friars Minors, and Master Walter Moryn, clerk. The will itself is dated June 14, 1351, but in the Middle Ages it was rarely that a man made his will until he felt that his hours were numbered, and although Robert de Trenge seems to have lived some time longer, he was probably now lying in expectation of death, struck down perhaps by the dreaded plague.

The other instance is of later date, namely 10th Dec., 1514[655]. A scholar, John Eustas, had died intestate at Oxford;

‘at the instance of his administrators, Friar Richard of Ireland, of the Order of Minors, appeared before us (the commissary), and confessed that he had abstracted from the goods of the aforesaid dead man, without competent legal authority, two mantles and thirty-one yards of linen cloth, and in gold 13s. 4d., which goods he has still in his possession.’

A few days later Friar Richard Lorcan was ordered by the court to restore these goods under penalty of the law[656].

It is, however, in the wills of men and women of every rank and every status that we get most insight into the work of the friars as visitors of the sick. Unfortunately we possess but few wills as early as the thirteenth or first half of the fourteenth century, while for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the popularity of the friars had greatly declined, they are fairly numerous. Taking those proved in the Chancellor’s court between 1436 and 1538, we find that one will in every eight, roughly speaking[657], contains a bequest to the Minorites. In the ‘Old White Book’ (Oxford City Records)[658], the proportion is about one to every four or five, and in the last half of the fourteenth century, one-third of the wills of Oxford citizens contain bequests to the Franciscans; and these figures are borne out by the Oxford wills scattered through the early Registers at Somerset House[659]. The legacies come from all ranks; tradesmen and merchants being especially well represented. Nor were the benefactors confined to Oxford and its neighbourhood: the Convent, like the University, occupied a national position. But it will be best to give as complete a list as possible of the bequests to the Grey Friars, and leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

John of St. John[660], clerk, by an undated will, probably about 1230, left half a mark to the Friars Minors of Oxford.

Martin de Sancta Cruce, Master of the Hospital of Sherburn, near Durham, left 10s. to them in 1259, with bequests to Friar Richard of Cornwall and others[661].

Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury, left them fifteen marks at his death in 1270[662].

Nicholas de Weston, citizen of Oxford, left them 10s. in 1271[663].

Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, Chancellor of England, and founder of Merton College, bequeathed twenty-five marks to them at his death in 1277[664].

Thomas Waldere, of Wycombe, left them 2s. in 1291[665].

Amaury de Montfort[666], papal chaplain, Treasurer of York, &c. in an elaborate will dated Feb. 2nd, 1300/1, ordered that ‘the goods and revenues of the aforesaid Treasury owed to him’ should be divided into three parts; one-third was to be subdivided into six parts; the sixth part was to be again subdivided into three parts, one of which was to go to the Friars Preachers of Oxford, Leicester, and elsewhere; the second

‘fratribus Minoribus, Carmelitis, Oxonii, Leycestrie, Parisius, et fratribus ordinis S. Trinitatis;’

the third, to pay any debts he might leave. As Amaury was dispossessed of the Treasurership in Aug. 1265 (after holding it only for a few months), and never recovered it, these bequests were merely a pious wish.

John de Doclington bequeathed 20s. to each of the four Orders in Oxford in 1335[667].

Nicholas Acton[668], parson of the church of Wystantowe (Salop), and owner of property in London, left the Oxford Franciscans 40s. in 1337.

William de Burchestre left them one marc in 1340[669].

John son of Walter Wrenche, of Milton, spicer, by a will dated May 4th, and proved on May 5th, 1349, gave to the Friars Preachers and Friars Minors of Oxford each ten quarters of corn[670].

Edmund Bereford[671], lord of several manors near Oxford, in his will dated Jan. 8th, 1350/1 and proved in 1354, gave, among many other pious bequests, 20s. at his death and 10s. on his anniversary to the Minorites.

‘Item volo quod xij trisennalia celebrentur pro anima mea, videlicet ... in quolibet ordine fratrum j trisennale.’

Henry Malmesbury, citizen of Oxford, left them 20s. in 1361[672].

John de Bereford[673], citizen and sometime Mayor of Oxford, bequeathed 13s. 4d. to each of the Orders in 1361,

‘ut habeant animam meam inter eorum missas recommendatam.... Item, cuilibet ordini fratrum predicatorum Minorum Carmelitarum et Augustinensium Oxon’, die sepulture mee 2s. 6d., et in die commemorationis anime mee in mensem 2s. 6d., et die anniversarii mei 2s. 6d.’

Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex (who died 1361), devised

‘to the students of each house of the four orders of Mendicants in Oxford and Cambridge £10 to pray for us[674].’

Richard Bramptone, butcher of Oxford, in 1362, left 10s. to be divided equally among the four Orders of friars[675].

Walter de Berney[676], a wealthy citizen of London, with apparently no near relations, was a benefactor: his will, made in 1377, contains, among many similar bequests, the following:

‘Item fratribus minoribus Oxon’ et Cantebrig’ equaliter x li.’

Richard Carsewell, butcher of Oxford, in 1389 left the house in which he lived, ‘without the South Gate of Oxford toward Grantpounde,’ to his executors, with instructions to sell it

‘and to distribute to the poor friars minors of the money received for the said tenement, ten marks[677].’

John Ocle or Okele, of Oxford, ‘skinner,’ left in 1390, 20s. a year for three years to Friar John Schankton, of the Order of Minors, to celebrate masses for the soul of the testator and his friends, in the Franciscan church at Oxford. To the convent of Friars Minors he bequeathed 5s., to celebrate divine service for him on the day or the morrow of his death[678].

Sir John Golafre, of Langley and Fyfield, knight, by will dated Jan. 19th, 1393/4, left the Minorites £10, if he were buried in their church:

‘et si ita contingat quod corpus meum sepultum fuerit alibi, tunc volo quod predicti fratres minores non habeant nisi tantum x li[679].’

Richard de Garaford, of Oxford, who was buried in the Dominican cemetery, left the Friars Minors 6s. 8d. in 1395[680].

John de Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, left them 6s. 8d. in the same year ‘to pray specially for his soul[681].’

John Maldon, Provost of Oriel, left 3s. 4d. to each of the Mendicant Orders at Oxford in 1401[682].

John Bannebury, of Oxford, left 40d. to the Grey Friars in 1401[683].

Matthew Coke, of Oxford, in the same year, bequeathed 30s. to be divided among the Orders of friars, ‘to celebrate for my soul,’ and added the hope:

‘et ultra hoc spero in voluntate uxoris mee[684].’

John Thomas, priest, left by will made at Oxford 1413, 10s. to the Friars Minors there,

‘to say one dirige for me with their other usual suffrages[685].’

Lady Alienora de Sancto Amando in 1426 left £8 to be divided amongst the four Orders at Oxford ‘to celebrate for her soul[686].’

Robert James, Esq., lord of Borstall, left 6s. 8d. to each Order at Oxford in 1431[687].

Agnes, wife of Michael Norton[688], in 1438 willed to be buried in the Minorite church at Oxford, and gave instructions that her tenement in St. Ebbe’s should be sold and that

‘from the money so acquired an anniversary should be held in the said church of the friars Minors of Oxford for my soul and the soul of Thomas Clamiter (?) my late husband, for the space of twenty years, the friars receiving for each such anniversary 6s. 8d.’

James Hedyan, LL.B., and Principal of Eagle Hall, in 1445 bequeathed 8s. to the Franciscans, in whose church he was buried, and 20d. to Friar Giles (his Franciscan confessor?)[689].

Reginald Mertherderwa, doctor of laws and rector of the parish of St. Crida the Virgin in the diocese of Exeter, in 1447 left 6s. 8d. to each of the four Mendicant Orders at Oxford; and to the convent of Friars Minors

‘to provide one breakfast or dinner among them, that they may the more devoutly pray for my soul, three shillings and four-pence[690].’

William Skelton, clerk, rector of the parish of St. Vedast, London, left the Minorites 3s. 4d. in the same year[691].

Walter Morleyse, ‘de alta Sebyndon,’ Co. Wilts, left them 5s. (1451)[692].

Richard Browne, alias Cordon[693], LL.D. and Archdeacon of Rochester, Canon of York, Wells, etc., provides in his will dated 1452, that if he dies in or near Oxford, every Order of friars there shall have one noble (6s. 8d.)

‘for the labour of masses and other suffrages to be said for the salvation of his soul and the souls of all the faithful dead.’ Further, ‘I give and bequeath to Friar David Carrewe, Minorite, Master in Theology, 6s. 8d.’

William Lord Lovell[694] made arrangements before his death ‘to be buried at the Grayfreris of Oxenford;’ (will dated 18 March, 1454/5, proved Sept. 1, 1455). In the arrangements a bequest would no doubt be included.

Master Philip Polton, Archdeacon of Gloucester (buried in All Souls Chapel), left 40d. to each Order of friars of Oxford by will dated 1461[695].

John Dongan in 1464 desired to be buried ‘in the cemetery of the Friars Minors of the University of Oxford,’ to whom he gives 40d.[696]

John Russel, of Holawnton, Wilts, made his will in 1469[697].

‘Also I give and bequeath to the iiij ordyrs off ffrerys w^t in þe Vniuersite, of Oxford iiij nowbles to haue myne obyte holden ther and to pray for my sowle and the sowlys of sir Robert Russell, Knyght’ (and other members of the family).

William Dagvyle, gentleman, left 30s. to the five Orders of friars at Oxford in 1474[698].

William Chestur, ‘marchaunte of the staple of Caleys and Citezein and Skynnere of London,’ bequeathed in 1476[699],

‘to euery of þe iiij ordres of ffreres in Oxenforde xxxiijs. iiijd.’

Robert Abdy, Master of Balliol College, left £4 to the four Orders of friars at Oxford in 1483[700].

Alice Dobbis, ‘wif of John Dobbis of y^e town of Oxenford Alderman,’ gave and bequeathed 6s. 8d. to the ‘ffreris Minours’ in 1488[701].

James Blacwode, of Oxford, in 1490 left to the Minorites there ‘V^s et unum Gublet de Argento pouncede[702].’

Master John Martoke, elected Fellow of Merton College in 1458, left each Order of friars at Oxford 6s. 8d. (will executed 1500, proved 1503)[703].

Margaret Goldsmith in 1503 left 13s. 4d. to be divided among the four Orders[704].

Thomas Banke, Rector of Lincoln College, willed in 1503

‘that the friars of each of the Religions in the town of Oxford should celebrate exequies for him, and that each house should receive of his goods 6s. 8d.[705]’

John Pereson (buried at St. Mary Magdalen), left the four Orders 13s. 4d. in 1507[706].

In the same year, Thomas Clarke, the executor of the will of John Falley, promised to pay Dr. Kynton, Minorite, 26s. 8d. in four instalments[707].

Edmund Crofton, M.A., who made bequests to Brasenose College and the convents of St. Frideswide, Osney, and Rewley, left 26s. 8d. to the four Orders (1508)[708].

William Hasard, of Magdalen College, Proctor of the University in 1495, by a will dated 19th Aug. 1509 and proved 31st Aug. of the same year, bequeathed 10s. to each house of friars,

‘praying each Order to celebrate one trental for his soul with the exequies of the dead and a mass on the day of his death[709].’

‘Richard ffetiplace, of Estshifford[710] (Berks) Squyer,’ made a will in 1510 containing the entry:

‘Item I bequeth to the iiij orders of freers in Oxford xxvjs. viijd., and eueryche of theym to kepe a solempne dirige and masse praying for my soule.’

‘Dame Elizabeth Elmys of Henley upon Thamys’ in 1510 left to each of the four Orders in Oxford, if she died in that neighbourhood, 10s. for a trental, &c.

‘And I will that thos said places of freeres to whom my legacies shall come, Immediatly aftir shall syng in their places oon masse of Requiem w^t placebo, dirige, laudes, and commendacion[711].’

‘Sebyll Danvers,’ widow, of Waterstoke, in the diocese of Lincoln and county of Oxford, in 1511 left the four Orders 13s. 4d. to be divided equally among them[712].

Thomas Dauys, of St. Edwardstowe, Worcester diocese, in 1511 gave in his will

‘to the iiij orders of freeres for iiij trentalles to be said in Oxford xls.[713]’

William Perot, of Lambourne, Salisbury diocese, in 1511 left to the ‘Grey freres of Oxon xxd.[714]’

Richard Harecourt, Esquire, of Abingdon, left 26s. 8d. to the four Orders in Oxford in 1512[715].

William Besylis, Esquire, in 1515 bequeathed ‘to the grey ffryers in Oxenfford vjs. viijd.’[716]

Robert Throkmorton, Knight, willed in 1518[717], that

‘ther be said for my soule in as shorte a space as it may be doon after my deceas twoo trentalles in the Graye ffrieris of Worceter, ij Trentalles in the grey ffreris of Oxford, ij trentalles in the grey ffreris of Cambrygge, ij trentalles in the blake ffreris of Oxford (and same of Cambridge), and for euery of thes trentalles I will there be gyven xs. apece.’

Sir Richard Elyot, ‘Knyght, one of the Kinges Justices of his commen benche,’ willed in 1520, that the four Orders at Oxford and elsewhere,

‘haue at my burying or moneth mynde to kepe dirige and masse for me iijs. iiijd.’[718]

John Tynmouth, Franciscan friar, Bishop of Argos, Suffragan of Sarum, and parson of Boston, left to the Grey Friars of Oxford £5: the will was made in 1523, and proved in 1524[719].

In 1526 Richard Leke or Leek[720], ‘late bruer of Oxford,’ bequeathed 4d. to each Grey friar of Oxford being a priest, and 2d. to each ‘being noo prest;’ 6s. 8d. to the friars ‘to make a dyner in their owne place;’ 6s. 8d. to the Warden ‘to prouide for the premisses;’ 20s. for altars; and an additional 10s. to be paid in three instalments, namely, ‘at my burying,’ ‘at my monethes mynde,’ and ‘at my yeres mynde.’

Walter Curson, of Waterperry[721], ‘gentilman,’ bequeathed a legacy in these terms:

‘Also I woll and gyue to the iiij orders of ffreers in Oxforde for iiij Trentalles to be doēn and had for my soule and my ffrendes soules xls. eqally to be dewyded that is to wit to euery one of them xs.’ (executed 24 Nov. 1526, proved 2 May, 1527).

John Rogers (Exeter College) in 1527 also bequeathed each Order 10s.[722]

John Coles (1529), left the four Orders 13s. 4d. (his executors were M.A.’s)[723].

John Seman, of Oxford, by will dated 1529, gave

‘vnto euery one of the iiij orders of ffryours in Oxford, so that they be at my buryall and monethes mynde, xs.[724]’

Anthony Hall, of Swerford, a considerable landowner, desired in his will dated 1529 and proved 1530, to

‘haue a trentall of masses to be said for me, the one half at our lady ffryers (i.e. Carmelites), and the other half at the gray ffryers[725].’

John Byrton, of ‘Abburbury,’ also a farmer or landowner, left in 1530 to the four Orders at Oxford 4s.[726]

Thomas Goodewyn, of Alkerton (Oxon), a large sheepfarmer, bequeathed 2s. 8d. to the ‘gray ffryers of Oxford,’ in 1530[727].

In 1532 William Clare, of Hollywell, Oxford, left 3s. 4d. to each Order of friars at Oxford[728].

Jane Foxe, of Burford, in 1535 bequeathed her lands and tenements and ‘ii c (200) shepe’ to her son, and 5s. 8d. ‘to the iiij order of frears in Oxford[729].’

Henry Standish[730], Friar Minor, and Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1535 bequeathed

‘five marcs to buy books to be placed in the library of the scholars of the friars Minors in the University of Oxford,’

ten marks to the church of the same friars, £40 for the exhibition of scholars[731] in the University of Oxford, and £40 to build an aisle in the church of the friars Minors at Oxford.

Thomas Sowche, of ‘Spellusbury,’ left to the ‘fore orders of freers in Oxford, euery one of them iiijd.[732]’

Richard Elemens or Elemeus, of ‘Welleford’ (Berkshire?), in 1536 left ‘vnto the Gray freers yn Oxford xs.[733]’

John Claymond, S.T.B., President first of Magdalen College, then of Corpus Christi College, left 20s. to each of the convents of friars at Oxford in 1536,

‘ut celebrent in ecclesiis suis pro anima ejus[734].’

Elizabeth Johnson, of Oxford, widow, in 1537 left

‘to the four ordres of fryers four nobles to singe dirige and masse at All-hallowes churche at the buryall and moneth mynde.’

The will was proved on Jan. 12th, 1538/9,—after the suppression of the friaries[735].

Many testators authorized their executors to make due provision of trentalls and masses ‘for the wealth of their souls,’ without specifying where they were to be celebrated: the friars no doubt came in for a share of these. Thus Thomas Hoye, Vicar of Bampton, in 1531 gives the following instructions[736]:

‘It is my will that the forsaid goodes be preysid and put to vendicion and the money therof cummyng to be ordered and distributed by myn executors for trentallys of masses off Requiem eternam and masses of the V woundes of our lord to be celebrate and said for the welthe of my soule and all Christen sowles. Amen.’

On the other hand, the parish priests or rectors of churches were legally entitled to one-fourth of the gifts, bequests, and fees given by their parishioners to the friars[737]: but it is impossible to say whether the right was generally enforced. In 1521 Leo X,

‘owing to the importunate exaction of the funeral fourth by some rectors of churches,’

exempted the friars from the payment[738].

Among other sources of revenue may be enumerated the institution of annual masses for fees (of which the wills often make mention), commutations of penances for money[739], payment by the University and others for the use of their church, schools, and other buildings on various occasions[740], and collections in church[741]. At the beginning of the sixteenth century we hear of a

‘gild of St. Mary in the church of the Friars Minors[742],’

which no doubt supported one or more friars to say mass in one of the ten chapels. Of manual labour there is little evidence; the only kind mentioned is the transcription of manuscripts of which we have already spoken.

We may here say a few words on two other points. Firstly, from what classes of society were the Franciscans mainly drawn? In the thirteenth century a very large number of men of position, of high birth, were attracted to the Order; but that this was unusual may be gathered from the rejoicings which took place over converts who were ‘valentes in saeculo[743].’ There is every reason to suppose that the Grey Friars, as well as the other students at the University, were mainly recruited from the sons of tradesmen, artisans, and villeins[744]. Friar Brackley, D.D. was the son of a Norwich dyer[745]; and the towns probably supplied the greater proportion of the Oxford Franciscans[746]. Secondly, what led men to take the vows of the Minorites? Excluding again the thirteenth century (when the highest motives were predominant), and confining ourselves to the later times, we must admit that, apart from those who entered the Order as boys, either from choice or at the instigation or compulsion of relatives[747]—the leading motive was a superstitious belief in the externals of religion, in the efficacy of ‘the washing of cups and pots.’ How strong this feeling was may be seen from the fact that Latimer was at one time in danger of yielding to it.

‘I have thought,’ he wrote to Sir Edward Baynton, ‘that if I had been a friar in a cowl, I could not have been damned, nor afraid of death; and in my sickness I have been tempted to become a friar[748].’

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DISSOLUTION.

Attitude of the Grey Friars towards the Reformation in its intellectual, religious, and political aspects.—The Divorce.—Visitation of Oxford in 1535.—Suppression of the friaries in 1538.—Condition of the Grey Friary.—Expulsion of the friars; their subsequent history; Simon Ludford.—Houses and site of the Grey Friars.—Dr. London tries to secure the land for the town.—The place leased to Frewers and Pye; bought by Richard Andrews and Howe; resold to Richard Gunter.—Subsequent history of the property.—Total destruction of the buildings.

The intellectual torpor which oppressed Oxford for more than a century after the disappearance of Wiclif and his followers was due less to the repressive measures adopted by Archbishop Arundel, than to the want of vitality, of adaptability to new modes of thought, in the scholastic philosophy and method, with which the intellectual life of Oxford had for so long been identified. The University as a whole did not extend a warm welcome to the New Learning, and it was to be expected that the Mendicant Orders especially should be attached to the old state of things, with which their past greatness was connected, and to which their present position and any prestige they still possessed were due[749]. The Grey Friars consequently were inclined to oppose the revival of learning; and Tyndale no doubt classed them among ‘the old barking curs, Duns’ disciples and like draff called Scotists, the children of darkness,’ who ‘raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew[750].’ Dr. Henry Standish, sometime Warden of the Grey Friars of London and Provincial Minister of England, attacked Erasmus’ version of the New Testament in a sermon at Paul’s Cross and in conversation at Court, and seems to have been the recognised leader of the ‘Trojan’ party in England[751]. But even among the Minorites there are traces of the influence of the Renaissance. Another Provincial Minister, Richard Brynkley, was a student of Greek, and was supplied with a copy of the Gospels in Greek from the Franciscan Library at Oxford. Friar Nicholas de Burgo seems to have been one of that band of Humanists whom Wolsey attracted to Oxford, that they might propagate in his own University the learning and culture of Italy[752].

The close historical relation, notwithstanding the fundamental differences, between the intellectual movement and the religious movement, was neatly expressed in a saying current among the friars: ‘Erasmus laid the egg; Luther hatched it[753].’ The beginnings of the English Reformation in its religious aspect are to be sought among the educated classes, especially at Cambridge. The Minorites, while generally hostile to the new religion[754], did not take a leading part in suppressing it. And when it is remembered how very little progress the Lutheran doctrines made in England before the Dissolution, the few instances of sympathy with those doctrines recorded in the lives of Oxford Franciscans acquire a certain importance[755]. These, however, were exceptional cases. If we trace the fortunes of individual Franciscans after the Dissolution, it will be found that no generalization as to their attitude towards the Reformation can be made. A few remained loyal to the old religion[756], others embraced the new[757], and on both sides persecution was suffered for conscience’ sake[758]; others again contrived to reconcile themselves with both old and new according to circumstances[759].

With the Reformation as a political movement, the Franciscans had more sympathy. A large section of them had, long before this, taught the supremacy of the State over the Church in all things political[760]; they approved in principle the confiscation of Church-property for the common good[761]; and Friar Henry Standish, in defending the claim of the temporal courts to try and punish criminous clerks, together with the broad principles on which that claim rested, was only applying to present circumstances the time-honoured traditions of his Order[762]. It is true that the Friars of the Observance resisted the royal supremacy in 1534. But the supremacy claimed by Henry VIII went beyond anything asserted by his predecessors, involving, as it did in effect, the establishment of a lay jurisdiction superior to all ecclesiastical courts in spiritualibus as well as in temporalibus, constituting Henry ‘a king with a pope in his belly’[763]. The Franciscans at Oxford seem, like most of the religious, to have accepted the supremacy in this extended form and to have taken the oath without demur: at least there is no evidence to the contrary[764].

The oath administered to the monks and friars involved an acknowledgment, not only of the royal supremacy, but of the lawfulness of Henry’s divorce from Katharine and marriage with Anne Boleyn, and a promise to preach the same on every occasion[765]. The attitude of the Oxford Franciscans to the divorce, so far as it can be ascertained, may be briefly stated here.

Henry attached great importance to securing a decision in favour of his divorce from the chief universities of Europe. The divorce became the all-absorbing topic at Oxford; and individual Minorites took a prominent part in the discussions. But the convent as a whole did not present a united front. Dr. Thomas Kirkham, a Franciscan, is mentioned as one of the Doctors of Divinity who opposed the divorce and were ready to write against it[766]. Dr. Kynton seems to have been on the same side at first[767]; Archbishop Warham complained of his having spread calumnious reports about himself in connexion with the ‘King’s matter,’ and demanded his punishment. But it is doubtful whether in the end Kynton had the courage of his opinions; he was one of the committee of three appointed by the theological faculty to decide the question with the assistance of thirty other members to be nominated by the smaller committee[768]. This body subsequently issued, in the name of the University, the qualified declaration in favour of the King, the tenour of which is well-known.

The most active champion of the King’s cause was also a Minorite, Dr. Nicholas de Burgo, a native of Italy, who enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal Wolsey[769]. The unpopularity of the divorce, among those who were guided by their sentiments rather than by their personal interests, is shown by the treatment he received at Oxford. He was pelted with stones in the street, and the good women of the town would have ‘foyled’ him ‘if their handys might have served their harts’[770]. In retaliation the friar caused about thirty women to be locked up in Bocardo for three days and nights[771]. As we shall see later on, his services did not go unrewarded[772]. The position of Friar Nicholas, however, was exceptional, and his action cannot be regarded as representative of the feelings of the Oxford Convent.

The causes which led to the dissolution of the monasteries do not concern us here. The friaries were not included in the Act of 1536 for the abolition of the lesser monasteries; they possessed as a rule no estates except the site on which they were built, and the gains to be derived from their disendowment were perhaps regarded as insufficient compensation for the odium which the measure would necessarily involve. The first blow had already fallen upon the Observant Friars, the fearless champions of the legality of the Queen Katharine’s marriage and of the Papal supremacy. The conventuals were left alone till Henry decided on the general suppression of the religious houses throughout England. The object of the royal party was then to obtain what was called a ‘voluntary’ surrender of their property from the members of each religious community; and among those who had the courage to offer opposition were many houses of Franciscans, ‘with hom,’ writes the Bishop of Dover, ‘in every place I have moche besynes’[773]. But among these we cannot reckon the convent at Oxford.

In 1535 Cromwell sent his agent, Layton, and others, to Oxford to reform the University. After abolishing the study of the schoolmen[774], the visitors proceeded to deal with the religious students[775]. For the reform of the monasteries, they were armed with a set of eighty-six articles of inquiry and twenty-five injunctions[776], the real though not avowed object of which was to make monastic life unbearable and so to prepare the way for ‘voluntary’ surrenders[777].

‘We have further,’ writes Dr. Layton to Cromwell on the 12th of September[778], ‘in visitynge the religiouse studenttes, emongyste all other injunctions, adjoyned that none of them for no manner of cause shall cum within any taverne, in, alhowse, or any other howse whatsoever hit be, within the towne and the suburbs of the same, upon payne onse so taken by day or by nyght, to be sent imediatly home to his cloister whereas he was professede. Withoute doubte we here say this acte to be gretly lamentede of all the duble honeste women of the towne, and specially of ther laundres that now may not onse entre within the gaittes, and muche lesse within ther chambers, wherunto they wer ryght well accustomede. I doubt not but for this thyng onely the honeste matrones will sew unto yowe for a redresse.’

It is probable, that, between this time and the summer and autumn of 1538, when the general dissolution of the friaries took place, many of the Oxford Franciscans had left their house[779]. The Friary, it will be seen, was wretchedly poor and in a ruinous condition; ‘and few do geve any almys to them’[780]. The commission to visit the Oxford friaries in 1538 consisted of Dr. John London, the mayor (Mr. Banaster) and ‘master aldermen’ (apparently Mr. Pye and Mr. Fryer). On the 8th of July[781], Dr. London writes to Cromwell that he and his fellow-commissioners have been ‘at all the places of the fryers in Oxforde,’ and wishing ‘to know your lordeships pleasur’ on certain doubtful points, he proceeds to give an account of his work.

‘At Mr. Pyei’s comyng home Mr. Maier and Mr. ffryer wer at London, and forasmoch as we dowbtyd of ther spedy comyng home, and Mr. Pye and I wer creadable informyd that it wasse time to be doing among the friers[782], we went to euery place of them and tok such a vew[783] and stay among them as the tyme wolde permytt.’

After visiting the Carmelites and Austin Friars, they came to the Grey Friars.

‘The Grey ffryers,’ continues London[784], ‘hathe prayty Ilondes behynde ther howse well woddyde, and the waters be thers also. They haue oon fayre orchard and sondry praty gardens and lodginges. It ys a great hoge howce conteynyng moche ruinose bylding. They haue impledged and solde most of ther plate and juellys forcyd by necessitie as they do saye, and that remaynyth ys in the bill. Ther ornamentes of ther church be olde and litill worthe. Ther other stuff of howsholde ys ybill worth x łi. They haue taken vppe the pypes of ther condytt lately and haue cast them in sowys to the nombre lxxij, wherof xij be sold for the costes in taking vppe of the pypes, as the warden saith. The residew we haue putt in safe garde. Butt we haue nott yet weyd them. And ther ys yet in the erthe remaynyng moch of the condytt nott taken vppe. In ther groves the wynde hathe blown down many great trees, wich do remayn upon the ground. Thees freers do receyve yerly owt of thexchequer of the Kinges almys l markes. Thys howse ys all coveryde w^t slatte and no ledde.’

Before August the 14th the doctor had sent up the plate of the Oxford friaries to Cromwell’s servant in London, Mr. Thacker, and received from him ‘a bill indentyd conteynyng the parcels of the sayd plate w^t the nombre of ownces.’[785] The following is the list of

Juelles and plate in the grey ffryers

[786]

.

Imp’mis a crosse of sylu’ and gylt

 

liiij vnc’.

A chales all gylt

 

xiiij vnc’.

A nother all gylt

 

xv vnc’.

A nother p̱cell gylt

 

xiij vnc’.

A nother chales p̱cell gylt

 

xiiij vnc’ et di.

A pyxe of sylu’ gyldyd w

^t

owt a cou’

 

xv vnc’.

A sensar of sylu’ waynge

 

xxxij vnc’.

A payer of small cruettes gylted

 

ij vnc’ iij qrt’.

V masers olde w

^t

bonds of sylu’ weyng w

^t

the trees

[787]

.

 

lxxxxij vnc’.

A black horne w

^t

sylu’ bonde and fot weyng w

^t

the horne

 

x vnc’ et di.

iij dosyn sponys

 

xxxiij vnc’.

A knappe

[788]

of the cou’ of a maser

 

ij vnc’.

The treatment of the friars themselves was a more complicated problem. All of them seem to have been willing to become secular priests, and London urged

‘that with spede we may haue ther capacyties, ffor the longer they tary the more they will wast[789].’

On the 14th of August[790] he complains that

‘as yet we haue nott the capacities and therfor be at the chardge in fyndyng them mete and drink.’

On the 31st of August, again, he writes to Cromwell from Oxford[791]:

‘I have causyd all our fower ordre of fryers to change ther cotes, and have despacchide them as well as I can till they may receyve ther capacities, for the wiche I have now agen sent uppe thys berar doctor Baskerfelde[792], to whom I do humblie besek your lordeschippe to stonde gudde lorde. He ys an honest man, and causyd all hys howse to surrendre the same and to chaunge ther papistical garmentes. I wrote to your lordeschippe specially for hym to have in hys capacytie an expresse licens to dwell in Oxford, altho he wer benefycyd; and your lordeschipp then wrote that yt wasse your pleasur he and all other shulde have ther capacities according to ther desyer, and for that thys man is now an humble sutar unto your lordeschippe. He hath be a visitar of dyvers places wiche they do call custodies, and knowith many thinges as well in London as otherwise, wiche he hath promised me to declare unto your lordeschippe, if it be your pleasur he schall so do.’

The list of Oxford Grey Friars who ‘wold haue ther capacytis’ which was sent to Cromwell[793], contains eighteen names, thirteen of them being priests, one subdeacon, and four not in holy orders. The names are: Edward Baskerfelde, Warden, S.T.P.[794]; Friars Brian Sanden, Richard Roper, B.D., Rodulph Kyrswell, Robert Newman, William Brown, John Covire (or Conire or Comre), James Cantwell, Thomas Cappes, John Stafforde Schyer (?), William Bowghnell, James Smyzth, Thomas Wythman, priests; Friar John Olliff, subdeacon; and Friars Symon Ludforth, Thomas Barly, William Cok, and John Cok, non infra sacros.

It is not often possible to trace the subsequent career of the friars when they had been turned adrift on the world. The monks as a rule received pensions, and the entries respecting the payment of these in the Ministers’ Accounts and other records, afford some clue to their fate. The Mendicants except in a few isolated cases received no pensions. Dr. London in his letter of the 8th of July[795] asked Cromwell

‘what reward euery freer shall have ...[796] at ther departinge,’

but the question no doubt refers merely to the gift of a few shillings, which was usually made to each friar on his dismissal. No instance occurs in the records of a pension having been paid to any of the Grey Friars who were at Oxford at the time of the suppression[797]. It is probable that Baskerfeld, who was an important person in the University, received a benefice with license to live in Oxford. Robert Newman seems also to have been presented to a living[798]. But the career of only one of these eighteen friars can be traced with any certainty. Simon Ludford, a native of Bedford, became an apothecary in London. On November 6, 1553, he supplicated for the degree of M.B. at Oxford after six years’ study in the medical faculty. On November 27, he obtained the degree and was admitted to practise. The College of Physicians remonstrated with the University and recommended that the degree should be revoked on the ground of Ludford’s ignorance. Though the University refused to withdraw its license, the ex-friar proceeded to Cambridge, but the Physicians hastened to warn the authorities there against him. They had, they wrote to the University, already examined Ludford ‘on the 17th day before the Calends of March, 1553’ (?), and, finding him completely ignorant of medicine, philosophy, and the liberal sciences, and distinguished only by ‘blind audacity,’ unanimously voted against his admission. Ludford left Cambridge, but persevered. In May 1560, he supplicated for the degree of M.D. at Oxford, stating that he had long practised in London by permission of the London College of Physicians. In July he incepted as M.D. of Oxford. In April 1563 he was made fellow of the College of Physicians, and he was censor of the same College in 1564, 1569, and 1572.[799]

We turn now to the Minorites who had studied at Oxford, but who were living in other convents at the time of the dissolution. Of these a considerable number obtained benefices[800], a few even rising to positions of some importance in the Church[801]. But what proportion these successful cases bore to the unsuccessful cannot be even approximately ascertained; it would naturally be higher among friars who had received a university education than among the common herd. Yet it is unlikely that a majority even of the former were presented to livings. The number of disbanded monks and friars seeking employment as priests must have been very large, and at the same time the demand for priests was growing less and less.[802] Some of the friars probably drifted into secular employments; others perhaps joined the ranks of the ‘sturdy beggars’ of whom so much is heard in the sixteenth century. It can hardly be doubted but that the lot of many was one of hardship and suffering.

In the eyes of Cromwell and his royal master the only question of real importance was the most advantageous disposal of the property. The buildings of the Grey Friars were of little account, and the convent was among those

‘howses of freres that have no substance of lead, save only some of them haue smale gutters[803].’

The site, however, was of considerable value, Dr. London was anxious that it should be secured for the city; and his letter[804] gives a curious picture of the state of Oxford at the time of the dissolution.

‘It ys rumoryd her that dyuers of the garde do intende to begge thees howsys of the Kinges hyghnes, and that with other consideracions moveth me now to be an humble petitioner vnto your lordeschippe for my neybours. We haue in Oxforde two of the Kinges grace’s seruantes Mr. Banaster and Mr. Pye, two as burgerly and as honest men as lyveth in any town and hathe no thing to lyve vpon, nother farmes abrode nor fees saving oonly ther wages of the Kinges grace iiijd. a daye. Mr. Banaster ys now mayer, and Mr. Pye hath be mayer, to hys great chardge.’

The writer then urges that Mr. Banaster should have the site (‘cyte’) and profits of the White Friars, Mr. Pye those of the fair of the Austin Friars.

‘Mr. Pye specially hath be diligent to bring vnto the Kinges grace’s hondes thees howses, and therefor I besek your gudd lordeschipp to be gudd lord vnto hym. And syns Mr. Mayer com home he ys as diligent as maye be and so is Mr. ffryer.’

London goes on to plead for his ‘neybours of Oxford,’

‘seying so gudd an occasion ys come wherin your lordeschipp may do vnto them the hyest benefytt that euer dydd honorable man. The greatest occasion of the povertie of thys town ys the payment of ther fee-farme. ffor thys ys customablie seen, that such as befor they haue be bayliffes hath be prety occupyers, if in ther yere corn be nott at a hie price, then they be nott able to pay ther fee-farme. And for the worschipp of ther town they must that yere kepe the better howsys, fest ther neybours and wer better apparell, wich maketh them so pore that few of them can recouer agen. If by your gudde lordeschips mediation the town myȝt haue the grey and black fryers growndes after the Kinges grace hath be answerd for the wodd and buyldinges with other thynges upon the same, and lykewyse the cytes of the Whyte and austen fryers after the decese of Mr. Banester and Mr. Pye; It wolde mervelosly helpe the town, and geve them great occasion to fall to clothynge, ffor vpon the grey and black fryers water be certen convenyent and commodiose places to sett fulling mylles vpon, and so people myȝt be sett awork. Now the baylys forcyd by necessitie taketh such tolls of such as passith by the town with catell or any maner of cariage as makith men lothe to com herbye; and Oxford ys no great thorowfare whereby moche resort schuld helpe them. Thys benefytt shuld lytill hynder the kinges maiestie and mervelosly helpe thys pouer town; and your lordeschipp schuld do a blessyd dede to helpe so many pouer men wich by ther fee-farme be notably poverischyd. And yet the Kinges grace schuld save a C markes yerly in hys cofers by reason of the grey and black fryers wich hath euery of them C (sic) markes by yere.’

The plan here sketched out, creditable as it is to its author, was not carried into effect. On August 10th, 1540, William Frewers and John Pye of Oxford, obtained a lease of the house and site of the Grey Friars, together with the grove containing by estimation five acres, for twenty-one years, at a rent of 20s. a year—half the amount of the rent which the same persons paid for the Black Friars[805]. Much of the Grey Friars’ property was expressly excepted from this lease; namely, the close called ‘le Churcheyarde’ now held by Richard Gunter of Oxford at an annual rent of 3s. 4d., the orchard or garden called ‘Paradise,’ and the garden called ‘Boteham,’ now held by William Thomas at an annual rent of 6s. 8d. Further all large trees and shrubs were reserved to the King, together with all those buildings within the precincts of the two friaries ‘which the King had commanded to be levelled or taken away.’

In 1544 the tenants seem to have opened negotiations for the purchase of the property. In the official ‘particulars’ sent up to the royal commissioners we read:

‘These houses of ffryers ar wythin the towne of Oxford and as I haue lernyd they ar not nyghe eny of the Kinges houses neyther hys graces parkes fforestes and chase by seven myles. And what ffyne wylbe gyuen ffor the same I know not neyther can lerne. And they ar the ffermers them selues y^t desyreth to by the premysses[806].’

The price which the tenants offered was probably unsatisfactory; the impecunious Pye with his wages of 4d. a day can hardly have had a chance against wealthier speculators in monastic lands. In 1544 a successful bid was made by Richard Andrewes of Hales, Esquire (Glouc.), one of the largest of these speculators[807], who as usual was acting in partnership with another, in this case John Howe. On July 14th, 1544, the King granted to these two, in consideration of £1094 3s. 2d. paid by Richard Andrewes, various monastic lands in the counties of Derby, Middlesex, Oxford, &c., including the sites of the Black and Grey Friars in Oxford[808].

‘We give also and for the aforesaid consideration by these presents concede to the said Richard Andrewes and John Howe, the whole site of the house late of the friars Minors, commonly called “les Grey ffreers” within the town of Oxford now dissolved. And also our whole grove of land and wood with its appurtenances containing by estimation five acres of land, now or late in the tenure or occupation of William ffrewers and John Pye or their assigns; and our whole close of land called ‘le Churcheyarde’ with its appurtenances, now or late in the tenure or occupation of James Gunter or his assigns; and our whole garden or orchard called “Paradyse,” and our whole garden called Bateham or Boteham, now or late in the tenure or occupation of William Thomas or his assigns, with all and each of their appurtenances situated within the town of Oxford, lately belonging to the priory or house of the friars Minors ...; and all our houses, buildings, stables, granaries, curtilages, gardens (ortos), orchards, gardens (gardina), waters, ponds, vineyards, land and soil whatsoever with their appurtenances lying within the said boundary of the house of the friars Minors.... Which site of the late house of friars Minors and all the aforesaid houses, buildings, gardens, orchards, &c., belonging thereto, now amount (extenduntur) to the clear annual value of 30s.... We except however always and totally reserve out of the present concession, all the bells and the whole of the lead and glass on the said houses of the friars Minors and Preachers, except the lead and glass in the gutters and windows of the houses or mansions of the same friars: and also in like manner all the buildings and structures of the late churches, cloisters, refectories, dormitories, and chapterhouses of the said friars.’

All the property granted was to be held by Richard Andrewes and John Howe and the heirs and assigns of Richard Andrewes, in chief, ‘for the service of the twentieth part of one knight’s fee.’ An annual rent was to be paid to the King from each parcel of property, the rent of the site of the Friars Minors being 3s., that of the Friars Preachers 4s.

The purchase was purely a matter of speculation, and the next month (August 26th, 1544), Andrewes and Howe obtained from the King, for a fine of 9s., license to alienate the site of the Grey Friars, with the grove, churchyard, Paradise, and Boteham, and the buildings, except those already reserved for the King, to Richard Gunter, alderman of Oxford, and Joanna his wife, and the heirs and assigns of Richard Gunter, to be held by them ‘for the services due thence to us, our heirs, and successors[809].’ It does not appear whether the leases of Frewers, Pye, and Thomas, were cancelled or allowed to run their course.

The subsequent history of the property is obscure, and probably would not repay an exhaustive investigation. Wood states that the land

‘being shifted through severall hands doth now acknowledg also severall owners[810].’

Part of it was ‘now inhabited by tanners[811].’ The island or grove on the south of Trill Mill stream belonged

‘to Sir William Moorton, Kt., Judge of the King’s Bench, in right of his wife Anne, daughter and heir of John Smyth of Oxford, Gent[812].’

Writing about a century later, Peshall states that the site

‘now forms the messuage or Tenement and large Yard of Charles Collins, Gent; the Garden, Orchard, and Tenement of Swithin Adee, M.D., late Sir James Cotter’s, Bart., and the large Garden and Orchard called Paradise Garden. The Island in their possession ... is occupied by Mr. Shirley, which serves partly for a Tan Yard and Buildings necessary thereto[813].’

In a short time little was left of the buildings—so complete was the work of destruction. ‘The trees were soon cut down, all the greens trod under foot, the church thrown down, and the stones, with the images and monuments of the greatest value, scattered about[814].’ The name only survived; Agas in his map (1578) puts the Graie Friers where the house of the Black Friars stood. ‘The ruins of this college are gone to ruine,’ wrote Wood, ‘and almost lodged in obscurity[815]:’ and the ‘scanty fragments’ (rudera paucula) which were visible to Hearne and Parkinson as they walked towards the Watergate[816] have long since vanished. Even the use to which the materials were put is unknown. Some of the stones form no doubt the foundation-work of many houses in St. Ebbe’s: but while something definite is known about the materials of the Houses of the other Mendicant Orders, the records are silent respecting the greatest of the friaries[817].

PART II.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

CHAPTER I.

CUSTODIANS AND WARDENS.

1. W. of Esseby, Warden and Custos, c. 1225.—2. E. de Merc, Warden, 1237.—3. P. of Tewkesbury, Custos, 1236-1248.—4. J. of Stamford, Custos, 1253.—5. Martin, Warden, c. 1250.—6. Adam of Warminster, Warden, 1269.—7. J. Codyngton, Warden, 1300.—8. J. of Okehampton, Warden, 1340.—9. R. Clyff, Custos, 1465.—10. R. Salford, Warden, 1488.—11. W. Vavasour, Warden, c. 1500.—12. R. Burton, Warden (and Custos), 1508.—13. W. Goodfield, Warden, before 1513.—14. J. Harvey, Warden, 1513.—15. E. Baskerfield, Warden (and Custos), 1534.

Unlike the Abbots and Priors of the religiosi possessionati, the heads of the Mendicant Houses required no royal assent to their appointment. Their names consequently do not occur in the royal records, and to this fact is due the incompleteness of the following list of the custodians and wardens of the Grey Friars at Oxford. It is a noteworthy if not surprising fact, that not a single original work by any of these men can now be found.

William of Esseby (perhaps Ashby in Norfolk)[818], the first warden, was one of the four clerks who came to England with Agnellus in 1224; he was then a young man and a novice, having recently joined the Order in France[819], and only assumed the habit of a professus when he became warden at Oxford[820]. He was among the first three Minorites authorized to preach in England[821].

When the English Province was divided into custodies (c. 1226?), he was made custodian of Oxford[822]. Afterwards he was sent to found the convent at Cambridge, and Eccleston draws a strange picture of him solemnly chanting the service, with one other friar and a crippled novice, in the wooden shed which served for a chapel[823]. Later William is heard of at Northampton[824]. About 1238, he was sent by Friar Wygmund, the German visitator of England, to visit Ireland; his mission here proved as abortive as that of the German in England; on his return he went to Cologne to join Wygmund[825]. He had ceased to be warden or custodian of Oxford before 1237[826]. He was alive when William of Nottingham became Provincial Minister, and died ‘after many years’ at London[827].

Eccleston gives him a high character. He was specially distinguished for his obedience.