[264] The following passage is taken with some alterations from Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon, p. 51 (edited by E. C. Thomas).
[265] I do not know to which Order these two belonged.
[266] ‘Two Short Treatises,’ &c., p. 30.
[267] Wadding, V, 300; statutes made at the General Chapter at Paris, 1292.
[268] Ibid. II, 382.
[269] Cf. Woodford, Defensorium, cap. 8. Friars are sent to the University by papal ordinance or election by the Order.
[270] Such as existed e.g. among the English Benedictines, one monk out of every twenty being sent to the University. Cf. the practice among the Dominicans, at Paris: ‘Tres fratres tantum mittantur ad studium Parisius (sic) de provincia’ (Constitutions, c. 1235, in Archiv f. L. u K. Gesch. I, 189), and at Oxford, whither two students were sent from each province; Fletcher, The Black Friars of Oxford, p. 6.
[271] As the estimates of the numbers of friars and monks vary considerably, it may be worth while to give the evidence (which is entirely indirect) on which this calculation is based. In 1255, there were, according to Eccleston, 49 Franciscan houses in England and 1242 friars, giving an average of rather more than 25 to each convent (Mon. Franc. I, 10). At London, according to the Regist. Fratrum Min. London., there were about 100 friars, on the average, in the fourteenth century (Ibid. p. 512). The public records give more trustworthy statistics. It was often customary for the kings on their progresses to give pittances of 4d. each to the friars of the places through which they passed. I have found no such grant to the Oxford Minorites: but the statement in the text may be compared with the following instances.
At London in 1243, there were 80 Minorites (Liberate, 28 Hen. III, m. 18: cf. also Q. R. Wardrobe, 6⁄3 and 8⁄1); August, 1314, 64 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 24⁄10); October, 1314, 72 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 24⁄10); 1315, 72 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 24⁄10); 1325, 72 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 25⁄1). At Norwich in 1326, 47 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 25⁄1). At Lynn in 1326, 38 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 25⁄1). At Gloucester in 1326, 40 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 25⁄1). At Cambridge in 1326, 70 (Q. R. Wardrobe, 25⁄1).
It is not often possible to compare the numbers in the same houses at different dates. In the northern convents, before the Black Death, there was a large decrease: thus at Newcastle in 1299, provision was made for 68 Minorites (Q. R. Wardrobe, 8⁄55 f. 4); about 45 years later, for 32 only (Chapter-house Books, A 5⁄10, 149); but this may be explained by reference to the special circumstances of the North. Elsewhere we find an increase.