It is impossible to say what proportion of the Franciscans at Oxford proceeded to a degree. In 1300 we have the names of twenty-two members of the convent: of these, ten at least were then, or became afterwards, Doctors of Divinity[367]. But the proportion of graduates to non-graduates and B.D.’s in the whole convent cannot have been nearly so large. The following statistics are derived from the University Registers[368]. From 1449 to 1463, five Franciscans obtained or supplicated for the doctor’s degree; five others for that of bachelor only. From 1505 to 1538 (i.e. about thirty-three years, as some pages of the Registers are missing), twenty-five Franciscans incepted or supplicated for the degree of D.D.; twenty-six others obtained or supplicated for that of B.D. (one of them also for B.Can.L.): three more were admitted to oppose: one more supplicated for B.Can.L. The proportion of D.D.’s to B.D.’s would generally be larger than this: from 1532 to the dissolution in 1538 fourteen obtained, or supplicated for, the degree of bachelor, two only became D.D.’s: we may reasonably suppose that some of the fifteen bachelors would have proceeded to the doctor’s degree had not the dissolution intervened.
The following figures will show the relative numbers of the various religious houses in Oxford[369]. The Registers from 1449 to 1463 contain the names of 10 Franciscans, 13 Dominicans, 12 Carmelites, 9 Austin Friars, 44 Benedictines, and 8 Cistercians: from 1505 to 1538, of 57 Franciscans, 40[370] Dominicans, 24 Carmelites, 23 Austins, 169 Benedictines, and 44 Cistercians.
CHAPTER IV.
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES.
Absence of privacy.—Books of individual friars.—The two libraries, and their contents.—Grostete’s bequest.—Extant manuscripts once in the Franciscan Convent.—Alleged illegal detention of books by the friars in 1330.—Richard Fitzralph’s statements.—Richard of Bury on friars’ libraries.—Dispersion of the books.—Leland’s description of the library in his time.
It is difficult to realise the external conditions under which the friars produced their works. At the end of the thirteenth and in the early part of the fourteenth century—the period of their greatest literary activity—privacy must have been almost unknown. Only ministers and lectors at the Universities were allowed to have a separate chamber or compartment shut off from the dormitory[371]. But there can be little doubt that, from Wiclif’s time onwards[372], each Doctor of Divinity had his chamber; and every student had some place allotted to him, in which stood a studium, or combined desk and book-case[373]. Every student friar had books set apart for his especial use[374]; these books were obtained by gift or bequest[375], by purchase[376] or by assignation by the Provincial[377] or Warden[378], or they had been copied out by the friar himself[379]. Alexander IV expressly declared that they were not the private property of the individual friars[380]; on the death of the friar who had had the use of them, they reverted to the convent, or were distributed to others ‘by the Warden with the consent of the convent and licence of the minister[381].’
There is no reason to suppose that the friars had a chamber specially set apart as a scriptorium; they were comparatively free from the legal routine or ‘office-work’ which the administration of their vast estates imposed on the monks and their clerks. But the transcription of manuscripts was part of the regular work of the Oxford Franciscans; and it is indeed the only kind of manual labour expressly mentioned in connexion with the convent. Roger Bacon’s statement[382] that he could only get a fair copy of his works made for the Pope by writers unconnected with his Order, means merely that there were no professional scribes among the Minorites of Paris. The vellum which Adam Marsh asked the Custodian of Cambridge to send at his earliest convenience[383], may have been intended for original compositions of the friars, but it was probably to be used for a careful fair copy of some work—perhaps a Missal or a book of the Bible. Several manuscripts, containing the works of Nicholas Gorham, are still extant, which Friar William of Nottingham copied at Oxford with ‘tedious solicitude’ and ‘laborious diligence,’ at the expense of his brother, Sir Hugh of Nottingham[384].
It was naturally in the libraries that most of the literary treasures were stored. In the fifteenth century there were two libraries in the Franciscan convent at Oxford, the library of the convent and the library of the student friars[385]. There is no evidence that either was founded by Grostete[386]. The convent probably received its first considerable collection of books from Adam Marsh, to whom his uncle, Richard Marsh, Bishop of Durham, bequeathed his library in 1226[387]. The next book we hear of at the Grey Friars is the volume of Decretals purchased by Agnellus[388]—doubtless the Decretum of Gratian with the additions codified by Raymund of Pennaforte and approved by Gregory IX in 1230. In 1253, Grostete,