The chief offender, Friar William Russell, warden of the Greyfriars of London, taught that tithes might be given arbitrarily, i.e. not to the parson legally entitled to them, but ‘for the pious use of the poor,’ according to the will of the giver. The University of Oxford condemned this doctrine and ordained that everyone taking a degree should formally abjure it: the oath, which remained in force till 1564, runs thus:—
Insuper, tu jurabis quod nullas conclusiones per fratrem Wilhelmum Russell, ordinis Minorum, nuper positas et praedicatas, contra decimas personales, et in nostra Universitate Oxoniae, necnon in venerabili concilio episcoporum, anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo vicesimo quinto celebrato Londoniis, solemniter damnatas, nec alicujus earum sententiam tenebis, docebis, vel defendes efficaciter publice aut occulte, nec aliquem doctorem, tentorem vel defensorem hujusmodi, ope, consilio vel favore juvabis[559].
For a similar offence another Franciscan, William Melton, D.D., was arrested at the instance of the University, and compelled to recant[560]. The Alma Mater kept a vigilant eye on her sons wherever they might be. In 1482 Friar Isaac Cusack, D.D., began to create disturbances in Ireland by preaching the old Franciscan doctrine of evangelical poverty; he was captured, sent to Oxford, and degraded and expelled the University as a vagabond and a heretic[561].
The feeling of nationality fostered by the long French wars was not without its influence on the friars in England and especially at the Universities. In 1369 the Chancellor caused a royal proclamation to be published at Carfax ordering all French students at Oxford, both religious and secular, to leave the kingdom[562]. In 1388 a royal writ was issued to the Warden of the Friars Minors in Oxford at the advice of the same convent, warning him to admit no foreign friars who might reveal to the enemy ‘the secrets and counsel of our kingdom,’ and to expel any such friars for whose good behaviour he would not be responsible, or who would not pray or celebrate masses for the King and the good estate of the realm[563].
Among the many problems presented by the reign of Richard II, not the least obscure is the passionate loyalty with which the Franciscans regarded his memory[564]. Yet Richard II and his councillors were suspected of Lollardy, while his successor posed as the champion of orthodoxy. Henry IV, however, derived his support chiefly from the wealthy ecclesiastics, and the Lollardy of the Court of Richard II was rather political than dogmatic; the opinions prevalent at the Court were more in consonance with Wiclif’s earlier teaching and with the teaching of the Franciscan Order on the need of poverty in the Church and the evils of its endowments, than with the Lollard doctrine of the Eucharist. In the early years of Henry IV the Franciscans were active in organizing conspiracies[565]; the pulpit and the confessional were used to spread disaffection against the new monarch[566]; and the failure of his campaigns was attributed to the magical arts of the Friars Minors[567]. In 1402, eight Minorites of the convent of Leicester were seized, and convicted on their own admission of having organized an armed revolt to find King Richard and restore him to the throne[568]. They were condemned to be hanged and decapitated at Tyburn, and the sentence was carried out in the sight of many thousands without any ecclesiastical protest. One of these friars was Roger Frisby, an old man and Master in Theology[569]. On the Vigil of the feast of St. John the Baptist[570]—the very day on which the rebels were to meet ‘in the plain of Oxford,’ his head was taken from London Bridge and brought to Oxford;
‘and in the presence of the procession of the University, the herald proclaimed: “This Master Friar Minor of the convent of Leicester in hypocrisy, adulation, and false life, preached often, saying that King Richard is alive, and roused the people to seek him in Scotland;” and his head was set on a stake there[571].’
While subject to attacks from without, the Franciscan Order suffered from rival factions within. The long-standing division between the lax or Conventual, and the strict or Observant parties, at length received formal recognition in the Council of Constance (1415) when the Observants were constituted a semi-independent branch under a Vicar-General[572]. How did this arrangement affect Oxford as a studium generale? The Observants as a body produced few students; the reformed houses on the Continent objected to send their brethren to Paris[573]. A few foreign Observants found their way to Oxford in the fifteenth century[574]; and when later in the century Observant friaries were founded in England[575], some of their members studied in the Conventual house at the University[576]. Whether any part of the Convent was set apart for them is unknown: according to all appearance, the brethren of both branches lived together in peace and goodwill.