The Grey Friars in Oxford

by A. G. Little

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.’