[652] Valor Ecclesiasticus, Vol. II, p. 191.
[653] Ibid. p. 223.
[654] Oxf. City Rec. Old White Book, fol. 55 b. The Warden of Merton says, ‘He died in 1351, it is said of the plague.’ Memorials of Merton Coll. (O. H. Soc.), p. 157.
[655] Acta Cur. Canc.
, fol. 250 a.
[656] Ibid. 254 b.
[657] Some of the wills are not complete, e.g. those of Phil. Kemerdyn (1446), T. Cartwright (1532), and E. Standish (1533).
[658] As the Hustings Court was only concerned with freehold property in Oxford, it is rarely that the whole will is found in the Old White Book. About thirty date from 1348-9, but I do not think that any one of them is entire. Two Oxford wills of this date are among the ‘Early Lincoln Wills’ (p. 39), those of Ric. Cary and Alice his wife, but contain no bequests to the friars. This is perhaps the Ric. Cary who granted land to the Franciscans in 1319; his son, who died 1352, was old enough to make a will (Old White Book, f. 54).
[659] Cf. Mon. Franc. II, pp. xxvi-xxvii. ‘An analysis of a considerable number of wills ... from the Registers of the Norwich Consistory Court ..., shows that at a time when the Grey Friars were falling out of favour, every third will conveyed a gift to them.’ The wills proved in the court of the Archdeacon of Oxford (now under the care of Mr. Rodman at Somerset House) begin in 1529. Between 1529 and 1538 I found twenty-nine wills, in which the town of Oxford, or some person or persons resident in Oxford, are referred to; of these, thirteen contain bequests to friars, nine of them containing bequests to the Grey Friars, either alone or (more usually) in conjunction with other Orders. In the same register, out of forty-three wills, taken at random from the years 1529-30, 1534-5, five only contained bequests to friars, three of them mentioning the Minorites.