The date of the Chapter of Metz, and consequently of William’s death, is not quite certain; it was probably in the spring or early summer of 1251[1273]. A few extracts from the chronicle of Eccleston (who knew him personally) will illustrate the character of the man.
He sat very long in meditation after matins, and was unwilling to attend to confessions and consultations at night, as his predecessors had done.... Above all things, he was careful to avoid the vice of suspicion. 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. He studied with all diligence to restore the good name of those who were defamed, provided that he thought them penitent, and to comfort the hearts of the desolate, especially of those who held offices in the Order[1274].
He represented the tendency to a less strict interpretation of the Rule in regard to money than had hitherto obtained in England, holding that—
‘the friars might in a hundred cases lawfully contract debts, and might with their own hands dispense the money of others in alms. He said further that it was right after a visitation to amuse oneself a little in order to distract the mind from what one had heard[1275].’
The following story may be regarded as an instance of his cynicism or knowledge of human nature:—
‘He used to narrate that St. Stephen, the founder of the Order of Grammont, placed a chest in a secret and safe place, and forbade anyone to go near it during his life. The brethren were very inquisitive, and after his death could not refrain from breaking it open, and they found only a piece of parchment with the words; Brother Stephen salutes his brethren and prays them to guard themselves from the laity. For just as you held the chest in honour, as long as you did not know what was in it, so they will hold you in honour[1276].’
That the well-known Commentary on the Gospels, called also Unum ex quatuor, or De concordia evangelistarum, by Friar William of Nottingham, was by this William, and not by his namesake, the seventeenth provincial of the English Minorites[1277], is proved by Eccleston’s words (Mon. Franc. I, p. 70)—
‘... Verba Sancti Evangelii devotissime recolebat; unde et super unum ex quatuor Clementinis (Phillipps MS. f. 80 reads Clementis) canones perutiles compilavit, et expositionem quam idem Clemens fecit complete scribi in ordine procuravit.’
The commentary was founded on the work of Clement of Langthon[1278], and the number of MSS. of it still in existence attest its popularity in the Middle Ages.
The work comprised 12 parts. Inc. ‘Da mihi intellectum.’