The Grey Friars in Oxford

by A. G. Little

‘that, according to the definition of lawyers, money left by will is counted among the goods of the deceased until it passes into the dominium and property of the legatee. But it cannot become ours by legal right or pass into our dominium without our consent. Thus money, howsoever it may be deposited by the executors or committed to anyone for the brethren, is always counted among the goods of the deceased as long as it remains unspent, and the executors can, by their own authority or by that of the deceased, reclaim it at pleasure. How then can it be called ours?’

Peace was eventually restored by the interposition of the Chancellor and leading secular masters, at whose recommendation Friar Solomon withdrew his words. It is curious that neither the document containing the account of this quarrel, nor Peckham, mention the explanation which afterwards became the accepted theory, that the ownership of the goods of the Franciscans was vested in the Pope. Yet this explanation was originally given by Innocent IV in 1245[517].

As far as the bulk of the Franciscan Order was concerned, the controversy on ‘Evangelical Poverty’ was purely a theoretical one[518], its ultimate importance rather accidental than real. The claim to ‘this perfitnesse,’ as Daw Topias contemptuously calls it, rested not on fact but on a legal construction. The friars had only the use, not the proprietorship, of their lands and houses and goods. John XXII by his bull, ‘Ad conditorem canonum,’ issued on the 8th of December, 1322, and declaring that use was inseparable from proprietorship, withdrew from the Order the right of holding property in the name of the Roman See, and thus went far to destroy its theoretical claim to precedence. The whole Order, instead of the party of the Spirituales merely, was for a time banded against the Pope; and the dispute about a legal quibble became transformed under the hands of Ockham into an examination of the position and claims of the Papacy, and of the whole relation of Church and State.

Ockham probably studied at Oxford in his younger days, but it was no doubt later in life, and under the influence of Marsilius of Padua, that he developed the doctrines which made him ‘at once the glory and the reproach of his Order[519].’ In philosophy he had many followers at Oxford in the fourteenth century, and the Franciscan Convent was, like the rest of the University, divided on the questions of Nominalism and Realism[520]. The dispute concerning the poverty of Christ was not allowed to rest. It was this discussion which first brought the Archbishop of Armagh into open hostility to the friars[521]; and Wiclif mentions the controversy as being still carried on between the two Orders in his time.

‘Prechours seyn þat Crist hadde hiȝe shone as þei have; ffor ellis wolde not Baptist mene þat Crist hadde þuongis of siche schone. Menours seyn þat Crist went barfote, or ellis was shood as þei ben, for ellis Magdalene shulde not have founde to þus have washid Cristis feet[522].’

A great historian has said of the Middle Ages, that ‘at no time in the world’s history has theory, pretending all the while to control practice, been so utterly divorced from it[523].’ An extract from the Patent Rolls[524] will afford a striking illustration of the truth of these words as far as the learned Franciscans, the professors of evangelical poverty, are concerned. The date is February 22nd, 1378; the writ is issued in the King’s name.

‘Know that whereas certain horses, cups, books, money, silver vessels, and diverse other goods and chattels, which belonged to our beloved brother in Christ, John Welle of the Order of Friars Minors, doctor in theology, have been abstracted and carried away out of his dwelling in London by one Thomas Bele his servant and other evil doers, ... we have of our special favour granted to the said John all the horses, cups, books, money, vessels and other goods and chattels aforesaid, wheresoever they may be,’ &c.

It was probably the glaring contrast between the lofty claims of the friars and their actual life, rather than any inferiority in their morality as compared with the secular priests, which exposed them to the bitterest denunciations and taunts of the reformers. The Mendicants were far more in sympathy with the poor than were the endowed monks, and possessed far more than the parish priests the confidence of the people[525]. Wiclif recognised this fact, while he lamented it.

‘Though it raine on the Awter of the Parish Church, the blind people is so deceived, that they will rather give to waste houses of Friars, then to Parish Churches, or to common waies, though men cattle and beasts ben perished therein[526].’

The first important attack on the friars in the fourteenth century was that led by Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh. He had been Fellow of Balliol College before 1325 and Chancellor of the University in 1333[527]. While assailing the whole principle of mendicancy, his main charge against the friars, especially the friars at Oxford, was that of ‘stealing’ children, i.e. of secretly inducing them to enter the Mendicant Orders. In 1357 the Archbishop was cited to appear and defend himself before the Papal Court at Avignon; and on the 8th of November, in a solemn assembly of Pope and Cardinals, he made a great speech in defence of the parish priests against the Mendicants[528]. The Archbishop stated that, owing to the privileges of hearing confessions which the friars enjoyed, almost all youths in the Universities, and in the houses of their parents (in nearly all of which friars were to be found as ‘familiares’), had Mendicants as their confessors.