John Sunday, on May 17th, 1453, was allowed to count ‘opposition in each of the schools’ for about seven months, together with eighteen additional oppositions, as equivalent to the statutable opposition of one year[1668]. On June 10th, he was admitted B.D.[1669] On February 5th, 1453/4, after finishing his lectures on the Sentences, he supplicated for D.D., and grace to incept was conceded under certain conditions[1670].
Richard Treners, S.T.B., obtained a grace on December 2nd, 1454, to substitute one additional Latin sermon after taking his degree (of D.D.) for two responsions before the degree[1671].
William Goddard the elder, ‘Doctor Oxoniae Disertissimus,’ succeeded Thomas Radnor, according to the Register of the Grey Friars of London, as thirty-eighth Provincial Minister[1672]. Radnor was minister in 1438, and it is probable that Goddard was not his immediate successor. At any rate, the latter was a leading man among the friars, and probably provincial minister between 1450 and 1460. Bishop Reginald Pecock wrote a letter addressed Doctori ordinis fratrum minorum Godard, in which
‘he calls the modern preachers pulpit-bawlers (clamatores in pulpitis)’[1673].
A little later, the friar had his revenge. On November 27th, 1457, Pecock, being convicted of heretical opinions, abjured at Paul’s Cross.
‘And doctor William Gooddard the elder, that was provinciall of the Grey-freeres, apechyd hym of hys erysys’[1674].
He was living in London many years after this event. In the will, dated March 6th, 1471/2, of John Crosby, ‘citezein and grocer and alderman of London,’ is the clause:
‘Item, I bequeth to maister Godard thelder doctoure of dyvynyte to pray for my soule Cs’[1675].
Similar bequests follow to the prior of the Austin Friars of London and to the provincial of the same Order. From this entry it would appear that Goddard was not provincial of the Minorites in 1472. From the distinguished position which he evidently occupied in 1457, and from the passage in the Grey Friars’ Chronicle quoted above, it might be assumed that he had already held the office and retired. But William Goddard is mentioned as provincial in a record dated Dorchester, October 4th, 1485[1676]. Was this Goddard senior or junior? For there were two Franciscans of this name in the fifteenth century. There is nothing to show that the younger Goddard was ever provincial minister; he was warden of the London convent, but was not buried in the choir, where all the ministers mentioned in the Register were buried[1677]. Further, the Register of the Grey Friars states that the younger Goddard died on September 26th, 1485, i.e. before the record was drawn up. The Register is, however, in the matter of dates absolutely untrustworthy. Without further evidence it seems impossible to decide with certainty which of the two was provincial in 1485; and, if it was the elder, whether he held office twice. William Goddard the elder was buried in the choir of the Franciscan Church in London.
‘Ad cujus (Johannis Hastyng’, comitis Pembrochie) dexteram in plano sub lapide jacet venerabilis pater et frater Willelmus Goddard doctor egregius et ordinis fratrum minorum in anglia Minister benemeritus. Qui obiit 30o die Mensis Octobris ao domini 1437’[1678].