William of Pokelington (Yorkshire) entered the Order about 1250 and made his profession at Oxford in 1251[1294]. He was then a master. Shortly before this he had been ill and perhaps took the vows on his recovery[1295]. He was an intimate friend of Adam Marsh and at one period acted as his secretary[1296]. Adam employed him several times as messenger to Grostete[1297], who had a high opinion of him and liked to have him as a companion[1298].
Walter de Madele, Maddele or Maddeley studied in the Franciscan Convent at Oxford (c. 1235 seq.). While here, he ventured to disregard the custom which forbade the friars to wear shoes.
‘It happened,’ says Eccleston[1299], ‘that he found two shoes, and when he went to Matins, he put them on. He stood therefore at Matins, feeling unusually self-satisfied. But afterwards when he was in bed, he dreamt that he had to go through a dangerous pass between Oxford and Gloucester called “boysaliz” (?), which was infested by robbers; and when he was descending into a deep valley, they rushed at him from both sides, shouting, “Kill him!” In great terror he said that he was a Friar Minor. “You lie,” they cried, “for you do not go barefoot;” and when he put out his foot confidently, he found that he was wearing those same shoes: and starting in confusion from sleep, he threw the shoes into the middle of the courtyard.’
Walter was ‘socius’ or secretary to Agnellus and was at Oxford at the time of the latter’s death (1235)[1300]. Later he was in Germany with Peter of Tewkesbury, minister of Cologne, and returned to England in 1249 with Friar Paulinus, perhaps a German, in obedience to Peter[1301]. He enjoyed a considerable reputation as a theologian and was lecturer at a Franciscan Convent. Adam Marsh once sent for him to come and see him at Oxford.
‘I conferred with him as you desired,’ he writes to the Provincial[1302], ‘about investigating the meaning of Holy Scripture in the original books of the saints, and he professed himself very ready to do this or anything else which you thought fit to enjoin on him.’
This was not the only subject discussed at the interview. The English Minister suspected Walter of a desire to go abroad and of having obtained from the General the promise of a lectureship in some foreign convent or University. The Provincial had indeed just received an order from the General to send some English friars to teach at Paris, and perhaps Madele’s name was mentioned. Madele however denied the imputation, and Adam recommended the Provincial to keep him in England, sending other friars to Paris, and to remedy his grievances. Though he had long taught theology with success, no competent provision had been made for him; he had not only to exhaust his mind by studies but also to wear out his body by writing daily with his own hand, as he lacked the ‘great volumes and the assistance of companions,’ which had been provided for his predecessors in the office. Eccleston refers to him as dead when he wrote his chronicle[1303]. None of Madele’s writings[1304] have been preserved.
G. of St. Edmund: Adam Marsh wrote to the Provincial (W. of Nottingham) on behalf of Martin the warden and the other friars at Oxford, requesting him to order without delay
‘that Friar G. de Sancto Eadmundo be restored to the convent of friars at Oxford[1305].’
Thomas of Eccleston, the earliest historian of the Franciscan Order in England, was probably a native of Lancashire[1306]. All that is known of him is contained in his Chronicle. He was an inmate of the London Convent when William of Nottingham was minister (1240-1250), and speaks from his own experience of the poverty and hard fare of the brethren there[1307]. He was a student at Oxford in the lifetime of Grostete, whether before or after the latter became bishop is not clear[1308]. He knew the earliest converts to the Order in England, and enjoyed the intimacy of William of Nottingham[1309]. His history is dedicated to Friar Simon of Esseby—perhaps Ashby in Norfolk or Lincolnshire[1310]. In the preface he states that he had been collecting and arranging materials for twenty-five years, and explains his object in writing.
‘Every upright man ought to judge his life by the examples of better men, because examples strike home more directly than the words of reason.’