The Quarrel between the Carmelite Friars and the Secular Clergy of London, 1464–1468

F. R. H. Du Boulay

doi:10.1017/S0022046900069669

The Quarrel between the Carmelite Friars and the Secular Clergy of London, 1464–1468

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

F. R. H. Du Boulay

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F. R. H. Du Boulay: Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, Bedford College, University of London

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Hard feeling between the mendicant and secular clergy no doubt persisted throughout the later middle ages, but at certain moments passions flared up, sermons were preached, pamphlets written, and chroniclers took notice. About a hundred years after the quarrel in which archbishop FitzRalph of Armagh was involved (1356–9), Londoners again had the opportunity to enjoy or deplore a rather similar scene This time, if the Continuator of Gregory's Chronicle was right, ‘the Whyte Freers be-ganne hyt fryste.’ By public preaching of the old thesis that Christ and his Apostles were beggars who possessed nothing of their own, the Carmelites thought to enhance their own status in the eyes of the world. Their arguments were not very subtle, but then neither, it may be thought, were their aims; yet if the actors themselves now seem to strut and fret past reason, their play is full of interest, and this not only, for the historian of church affairs or theological ideas, but for anyone who cares to know more about the details of public life and the divisions of public opinion in Edward IV's London.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , October 1955 , pp. 156 - 174

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900069669 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1955

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^{page 156 note 1} Cf. Gwynn, A., The English Austin Friars in the time of Wyclif, 1940, 80–90Google Scholar; also Pantin, W. A., The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, 1955, esp. 151–65Google Scholar.

^{page 156 note 2} The Historical Collections of a citizen of London in the 15th century (ed.) Gairdner, James, Camden Society, new series, xvii. 1876, 228–32Google Scholar.

^{page 156 note 3} Three Fifteenth-century chronicles (ed.) Gairdner, James, Camden Society, new series, xxviii, 1880, 180Google Scholar.

^{page 156 note 4} Lambeth MS. 22 is not paginated. The relevant bit of it, which occupies the last few folios, was certainly known to Gairdner, but possibly only in the transcript made by Wharton which is now Lambeth MS. 580, 213–7. Gairdner cited this MS. in the source-list at the end of his article on John Milverton in the Dictionary of National Biography, but does not seem to have made much use of it in that article. I owe the identification of Wharton's source here to Miss Doreen Slatter of Lambeth Palace Library.

^{page 157 note 1} T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of materials for English history, Rolls Series, 1871, iii. 271–3. British Museum, Harleian MS. 4323 is a copy of Lambeth MS. 22, made by Henry Wharton. It is more finely and carefully written than the notebook (Lambeth MS. 580) into which Wharton also copied the last part of Lambeth MS. 22. On the ‘Brut’ tradition, the best relevant discussion is in C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, 1913, chapter v.

^{page 157 note 2} This letter is also in The Register of Archbishop Bourgchier, Canterbury & York Society, liii, Oxford 1954, 35Google Scholar.

^{page 158 note 1} Loc. tit., 232.

^{page 158 note 2} Bale says Milverton returned in 1469 (Anglorum Heliades, Harl. MS. 3838, fo. 39b).

^{page 158 note 3} C. L. Kingsford showed that Gregory's Continuation must have been composed between 1468 and the summer of 1470 (op. cit. 97).

^{page 158 note 4} Three Fifteenth-century Chronicles, 180.

^{page 158 note 5} The narrative of the next few pages is constructed almost entirely from Lambeth MS. 22 and from the Continuation of ‘Gregory's Chronicle’. Footnotes isolating the contributions of each would be merely tiresome. The chronology in L is, in the main, accepted. Gregory's chronology sometimes agrees with it, but is sometimes unconvincingly different or quite ambiguous.

^{page 159 note 1} Gregory's Continuator says that this disputation was held the Wednesday week after Halden's first sermon, i.e., 19 December, but the fuller and more circumstantial chronology in L seems better. The Continuator also says more than once that the respondent at this disputation was a Grey Friar.

^{page 159 note 2} This was presumably Halden and not the Grey Friar, though Gregory's Continuator is ambiguous.

^{page 160 note 1} Ps. xxxix. 18 (Vulg.); cf. Pss. lxxxv. 1; cviii. 22 (Vulg.).

^{page 160 note 2} Ps. cviii. 17.

^{page 161 note 1} Huic Mylvertono in disceptationibus scolasticis atque declamandis ad plebem sermonibus tota Anglia vix similem habuit. … Prestabat cunctis fere sue etatis hominibus memorie tenacitate et mentis illustratione, ut ea que vellet cito. caperet et sempiterna memoria retineret. Prestabat etiam pronuntiatione verborum discretione solertia atque prudentia singulari, quibus omne [sic] in se provocavit benevolentiam et amorem … : Harl. MS. 3838, fo. 38b.

^{page 164 note 1} There was no Convocation between 1463 and 1468.

^{page 164 note 2} There were seven of them (see below, p. 183), not nine, as the Continuator said.

^{page 164 note 3} Milverton was, no doubt, interrogated a good deal during these three years. The cardinals mentioned by Bale (Anglorum Heliades, Harl. MS. 3838, fo. 39) were those who recommended his release, after his submission in 1468.

^{page 164 note 4} Bale, loc. cit. ante.

^{page 165 note 1} The English Carmelites by L. C. Sheppard, London 1943, is quite useful, though professedly only a sketch. There are some indications in M. D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, ii, 1955, 144–8.

^{page 165 note 2} See ‘Bibliography of John Bale (1495–1563)’ by Davies, W. T., in Proceedings of the Oxford Bibliographical Society, v. (1936–9), 203–79Google Scholar.

^{page 165 note 3} Harl. MS. 3838, fos. 39b, 40b, 41, 41b.

^{page 165 note 4} Acta Capitulorum Generalium ordinis fratrum B.V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo, i. (1318–1593), ed. G. Wessels, annot. B. Zimmerman, Rome 1912, 259.

^{page 165 note 5} Ibid., 93, 245, etc.

^{page 165 note 6} Harl. MS. 3838, loc. cit.

^{page 165 note 7} Eugenius IV's mitigation of 1431 (C. Cocquelines, Bullarum … collectio, Rome 1743, iii. part 3, 3–4, and Bullarium Romanum, Turin 1860, v. 4–6) was confirmed by Sixtus IV in 1476 (Cocquelines, op. cit., 154, and Bullarium Romanum, Turin 1860 v. 245).

^{page 165 note 8} Some references are given in The Victoria County History of London, i. (1909), 507–10. Milverton himself had licence in 1463 to hold a cure and to be absent from it, and to farm it if necessary (Cal. of Papal Letters, xi. (1455–64), 654).

^{page 165 note 9} Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, i. Rolls Series 1872, 137–8.

^{page 165 note 10} Ed. R. R. Sharpe, ii. 1358–1688 (1890).

^{page 166 note 1} Public Record Office, King's Remembrancer, Eccles. Documents (E 135, 2/50).

^{page 166 note 2} Stowe's Survey of London (ed. C. L. Kingsford, 1908), ii. 47.

^{page 166 note 3} Sheppard, op. cit., 51. G. R. Owst (Preaching in Medieval England, 1926, 89–90) considers that mendicants who preached the special excellence of poverty were guilty of hypocrisy, in that they possessed fine churches and cultivated the patronage of the rich. He shows, too, that certain contemporaries thought likewise. But, though it is agreed that the ‘spirit of poverty’ was often lacking, it does not seem to follow that the Carmelites were in fact rich. Their church in London was built for them by a patron, and their continued search for patronage was a sequel of want, not a restless desire for more and more.

^{page 166 note 4} Lambeth Palace MS. 61 contains an exemplification of this in an Italian official hand of the fifteenth century. It comprises over fifty bulls and privileges, and occupies folios 119 to 142. One of the endorsements on this document (Gratis de mandato sanctiss. d.n. pape) may mean the bull was granted free. This also in its way might argue poverty.

^{page 166 note 5} See Clapham's, A. W. ‘The Topography of the Carmelite Priory of London,’ in Journal of the British Archaeological Association, new series, xvi. (London 1910), 15–32Google Scholar.

^{page 166 note 6} Letters & Papers, Henry VIII, vii, part ii, no. 65. For earlier Carmelite preaching, see the remarks in G. R. Owst, op. cit., 66–7, 93n., 221, 315.

^{page 166 note 7} Parker's authorship of the popular Dives et Pauper is now disproved. See H. G. Pfander in The Library, 4th series, xiv. 299–312, and H. G. Richardson, ibid., xv. 31–7.

^{page 167 note 1} For this information, see Anglorum Heliades, fo. 39 ff.

^{page 167 note 2} Acta Capitulorum, i. 280.

^{page 167 note 3} E.g., the Bull of John XXII, 13 March 1317 (Lambeth MS. 61, fos. 120v to 121).

^{page 167 note 4} For Story, see Dict, of National Biography; also J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, part 1, iv. 170; Hennessy, G., Novum Repertorium (1898), 83Google Scholar.

^{page 167 note 5} For Eborall, see Hennessy, op. cit., 333; Reg. Bourgchier, 99, 274.

^{page 167 note 6} For Damlett, Venn, op. cit., ii. 6. The constitution of Queen's College, which excluded canon lawyers, is noted in H. Rashdall, Medieval Universities (ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, 1939), iii. 320–2. Damlett as a theologian had some distressing dealings with London heretics, for which see ‘Gregory's Chronicle’, 233, 235. His will is in Somerset House (Commissary Court of London, Register ‘Wylde’, fo. 189) and was proved 20 April 1476. It forbids an expensive funeral but allows a modesta et honesta refeccio amicorum et aliorum; the books, too numerous to specify here, were left severally to ‘Penbrokehalle’, the communis librarium of Cambridge University, the communis librarium of the London Guildhall, and of St. Paul's, and to Queen's College, Cambridge. To Edward Story he left a book of his sermons quia ilium desiderat, on condition that after Story's death it should go to a poor priest who wanted to exercise himself in preaching.

^{page 168 note 1} On Ive, see Boase, C. W., Reg. Univ. Oxon., Oxford Hist. Soc, 1884Google Scholar; Reg. Bourgchier, 274, 303; Hennessy, op. cit., 333. His will is in Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Reg. Logge (Somerset House), fos. 172V to 173.

^{page 168 note 2} Hennessy, op. cit., 315.

^{page 168 note 3} Reg. Stanbury, Canterbury & York Soc., xxv, 1919, 186Google Scholar.

^{page 168 note 4} The MS. is unpaginated. This excerpt begins on the last folio but two.

^{page 168 note 5} M.S. sunt.

^{page 169 note 1} deperat crossed out in MS.

^{page 169 note 2} 2 Cor. xi. 14.

^{page 169 note 3} Ps. cxix. 2 (Vulg.).

^{page 169 note 4} 2 Tim. ii. 17.

^{page 169 note 5} MS. intus.

^{page 169 note 6} Mt. vii. 15.

^{page 170 note 1} cf. Mt. iii. 10.

^{page 170 note 2} MS. consiliis.

^{page 170 note 3} MS. maioris.

^{page 170 note 4} MS. post hoc.

^{page 170 note 5} MS. ventilari.

^{page 170 note 6} MS. Sabellum.

^{page 170 note 7} MS. vel.

^{page 170 note 8} Gelasius I to the bishops of Dardania, 493; cf. Decretum II, C. XXIV, c. ii. (Friedberg, , Corpus Iuris Canonici, i, Leipzig 1881Google Scholar, col. 966).

^{page 170 note 9} MS. quidam.

^{page 170 note 10} MS. huius.

^{page 170 note 11} MS. fratri.

^{page 170 note 12} MS. iuximus.

^{page 171 note 1} John de Turrecremata, Cardinal Bishop of St. Sabina since 1463) Dominican friar and doctor of theology; died 26 September 1468. (Gams, P. B., Series Episcoporum (Leipzig 1931)Google Scholar, xiv; cf. Eubel, G., Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, ii (1914), 7–8Google Scholar).

^{page 171 note 2} Acts xx. 28.

^{page 172 note 1} MS. hanc.

^{page 172 note 2} Ps. ii. 6 (Vulg.).

^{page 172 note 3} Heb. i. 2.

^{page 172 note 4} Ps. ii. 8 (Vulg.).

^{page 172 note 5} Ps. viii. 8 (Vulg.).

^{page 173 note 1} MS. factaque.

^{page 173 note 2} See refs. on p. 169 above.

^{page 173 note 3} The bull Cum inter nonnullos, 1323; cf. Friedberg, op. cit., ii, col. 1229; H. Denziger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, para. 494; and Douie, D., The Nature and the Effect of the heresy of the Fraticelli, Manchester 1932, 153 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 173 note 4} MS. debent.

^{page 173 note 5} MS. timere.

^{page 174 note 1} MS. quod.

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