Reminiscences of Oxford, by Oxford men. Selected and edited by Miss L. Quiller Couch (nearly ready).
History of Kidlington, Yarnton, and Begbrook. By the Hon. Mrs. Stapleton (in course of printing).
The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, antiquary, of Oxford, 1632-1695, described by himself. By the Rev. Andrew Clark, M.A. Vol. II (nearly printed).
(The Cartulary of St. Frideswide, Place names of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, Berkshire Wills, Oxford and the Neighbourhood during the Civil War, Hearne’s Collections, vol. IV., and other volumes are in preparation.)
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Footnotes:
[1] A few others have been used occasionally, such as the Phillipps catalogue (1837), and Ulysse Robert’s Inventaire sommaire.
[2] I have not seen Part 3 of Vol. 2 (Codices 15029-21405), which is missing in the British Museum.
[3] Chronicle of Thomas Eccleston, ‘De Adventu Minorum,’ Mon. Francisc. I, p. 5: ‘A. D. MCCXXIV ... feria tertia post festum nativitatis Beatae Virginis.’ This date has been disputed. Wadding (Annales Minorum, I, 303, 362) places the arrival in 1219. The arguments in favour of this view are, (1) that St. Francis appointed Agnellus minister of England in 1219; (2) the statement of Matthew Paris sub anno 1243, that the friars ‘built their first houses in England scarcely twenty-four years ago’ (Chron. Majora, IV, 279). But the evidence in favour of (1) is not conclusive; the letter of St. Francis to Agnellus (Wadding, I, 303; Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, pp. 5-6) is undated. The contention however seems to be supported by a passage in Eccleston (Mon. Franc. I, 10), identifying the 32nd year after the settlement of the friars in England with the second year of the ministry of Peter of Tewkesbury, who according to the received chronology became minister in 1250 (more probably 1251). From this one might conjecture that the establishment of the English province was officially dated from 1219. But the fragment in Mon. Franc. II, and another MS. of Eccleston in the Phillipps Library at Thirlestaine House, No. 3119, fol. 71-80 (a MS. unknown to either of the editors of the Monumenta Franciscana), read here (fol. 73) ‘quinto anno administrationis Fratris Petri,’ instead of ‘secundo anno,’ and this is probably the correct version. As to argument (2), Paris probably wrote his account (of 1243) a few years later than 1243, and dated accordingly; again the passage refers to Dominicans as well as Franciscans. The evidence in favour of the later date is much stronger. Besides Eccleston, the best authority, we have the statement of the author of the Lanercost Chronicle, himself a Friar Minor: ‘Quo et anno (1224) post festum natalis Virginis gloriosae applicuerunt fratres Minorum in Angliam’ (p. 30). This may be derived from Eccleston, but on the next page is a statement which is certainly independent of him: ‘Eodem anno (1224) venerunt primo fratres Minores in Angliam, in festo beati Bartholomaei apostoli’ (Aug. 24). Cf. ‘Annals of Worcester,’ sub anno 1224 (Ann. Monast. IV, 416).