‘Explicit compilatio quædam diversorum argumentorum recollectorum a diversis doctoribus in Vniversitate Oxoniæ ordinata satis pulchre per Reverendum Fratrem ...[1592] S.T. Mag. ejusdem Vniversitatis de Ordine Carmelitarum, scripta per me Fratrem J. Fey de Florentia Ordinis Minorum in Conventu Oxoniæ anno Domini MCCCXCIII die sequenti festum 40 Martyrum ad laudem Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Amen.’
Fey was inquisitor in his native land in 1402[1593].
Nicholas Fakenham (Norfolk) enjoyed the favour and patronage of Richard II. He was doctor of Oxford and twenty-eighth Provincial Minister of the Order in 1395. On the 5th of November in that year, on the occasion apparently of his inception, he ‘determined’ at Oxford on the papal schism by command of the king. This lecture has been preserved[1594]; the introduction may be given here, somewhat abbreviated.
‘Our mother, the Roman Church, is full of troubles and calamities. Yet her daughter, the University of Paris, alone has tried to comfort her: Paris has borne the burden and heat of the day, and may well upbraid us. We too must work for the union of the Church and the reformation of peace. I therefore, promoted to the degree of Master though unworthily, through zeal for the religion of Christ and for the Church of God, and by reason of the command of our lord the King, propose to move some matters pertaining to the proposition, in the form of a question, not as a formal determinator, but rather as a friendly speaker (familiaris concionator), now on one side, now on the other, now as an impartial person. In these writings I wish to say nothing against the Catholic Church or good morals or Pope Boniface; if I do so inadvertently I submit to the Chancellor and others in authority.—Touching the reformation of the desolate Church, I ask whether there is any reasonable way of restoring it to its original unity.’
Then he treats learnedly about the schismatical churches and shows that the Church can be reformed only by the punishment of those who have disturbed its peace—namely, the Cardinals.
He ceased to be Minister some years before his death. In 1405 he was with Friar J. Mallaert appointed papal commissary to examine into the charges made by the English Minorites against John Zouche, then Provincial Minister. The commissaries deposed Zouche; and on the latter’s reappointment by papal authority, refused to obey him[1595]. According to Bale he died 1407[1596]; he was buried at Colchester[1597].
At the end of the ‘determinatio’ in Harl. MS., 3768 (fol. 196) is the note:
‘et incipiunt alie conclusiones ejusdem de eodem scismate cum epistola directa domino Karolo Regi Francorum pro reformacione scismatis prenominati.’
Some ‘conclusions’ then follow.
(Richard) Tryvytlam or Trevytham seems to have flourished about 1400; Hearne suggests that he was the same as Robert Finingham, a Franciscan who lived about 1460[1598], but this is a quite unwarranted assumption. Tryvytlam is only known from his rhymed Latin poem, ‘De laude Universitatis Oxoniae,’ a defence of the friars and attack on the monks. From the poem it is clear that he was an Oxford friar, and one line points to his having been a Franciscan: