A. G. Little

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 [Pg 73] the Franciscans dealt a heavy blow at their more orthodox adversaries by impugning successfully an important doctrine of Thomas Aquinas [498] . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ Adam of Oxford was a master before he entered the Order [1223] . The account of his conversion given by Eccleston [1224] is as follows:
Master Adam of Oxford, of worldwide fame [1225] , had made a vow that he would do anything he was asked to do ‘for the love of the blessed Mary;’ and he told this to a certain recluse, who was a friend of his. She revealed his secret to her friends, that is, to a monk of Reading, another of the Cistercian Order, and a Friar Preacher; telling them that they could gain such a man in such a way; not wishing that Adam should become a Friar Minor. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ 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] . ”

“ Quesivit frater si magistri intelligerent. Respondit Magister, persona multum sollempnis, in utroque jure peritus, Johannes le Gras nomine: ‘Intelligo quidem ego.’ Et incepit volvere capitulum et revolvere, et super hoc sermonem continuare. Qui ita proprie vitam fratrum communem et vivendi modum quem tenebant, et secura consciencia tenere poterant, instinctu nescio quo descripsit, quasi ipse inter fratres vitam fratrum per longa tempora duxisset. Admiratus quidam frater quod ita proprie loquebatur, quesivit an super hoc ab aliquo fratre fuisset informatus. ”

“ 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 [Pg 38] that the student of theology should have graduated in Arts [244] . ”

“ Familiarities of great persons and of women he most studiously avoided, and, with wonderful magnanimity, thought nothing of incurring the anger of the powerful for the sake of justice. He used to say that great persons entrap those familiar with them by their advice, and women with their mendacity and malice turn the heads even of the devout by their flatteries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] . ”