We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
John Bale acquired the MS. of Fasciculi Zizaniorum sometime after he left the Carmelite Order and before 1540 when he went into exile in Germany taking it with him. He was already familiar with Fasciculi Zizaniorum long before he left his Order. Bodley MS. 73 is an autograph MS. of Bale's and is one of his earliest notebooks. The bulk of it was written before 1524, though there are several later additions, the latest of which is 1526. This notebook was compiled, therefore, whilst Bale was a zealous Carmelite student, and before he went abroad to Toulouse and Louvain. It is a mine of miscellaneous information about the Carmelite Order: a list of all the Carmelite houses in England with their dates of foundation; the names of all the Priors Provincial of the Order; descriptions of the antiquities of many Carmelite houses, of the friars buried in different convents, often with their epitaphs; a lengthy selection of the letters of Thomas Netter. Of special concern here are Bale's notes on Carmelite writers. The ascription of the authorship of Fasciculi Zizaniorum to Thomas Netter of Walden first appears in this notebook in Bale's notes on Walden, where he says that Netter wrote the Doctrinale Ecclesie and Fasciculus Zizaniorum. The incipit to the latter work he gives as ‘Colligite Zizania’, which appears on the second folio of our MS. Later there follow four folios of ‘Extracta quedam ex fasciculo doctoris fratris Thome Walden’. There can be no doubt that all these extracts are taken from our MS., which was well known to Bale. He summarises its contents as far as the condemnation of Wyclif at the Council of Constance. His summary is interesting.
page 155 note 1 Sel. Cat., ed. F. Madan, Oxford 1905, No. 27635 (Acquis. No. 1710), v. 314–15.
page 155 note 2 Not 1523 as Sel. Cat. (as above). Fol. 51 mentions 1524; fol. 51v mentions 1525 and 1526. The additions seem to start about 1524. On fol. 213 is a scribbled obit for ‘lector frater Thomas de Norwico in conventu nostro Maldone a.d. 1525 in die sancti Vitalis in Aprili’ (28 April). This was presumably added whilst he was prior of Maldon.
page 155 note 3 Fol. iiiv.
page 155 note 4 Fol. 135v.
page 155 note 5 Fols. 51–2v.
page 155 note 6 Patrington's epitaph is on fol. 50.
page 155 note 7 Fols. 94v–103v. These were printed in Monumenta Historica Carmelitana, ed. B. Zimmerman, Livinae 1905, i. 444–82.
page 155 note 8 Fol. 40.
page 155 note 9 Fols. 56–9.
page 156 note 1 Fol. 40v.
page 156 note 2 Fols. 160–75. It was from this text that it was recently printed in Carmelus, v (1958), 135–80. In the introduction to the text Dr. Williams antedates the controversy which produced this work. He placed it before 1382 on the ground that it contains no reference to the Blackfriars Synod of 1382 and the condemnation of Wyclif's Twenty-Four heretical propositions. This seems to me to be an irrelevant criterion. Maidstone died in 1396 and the ‘Defence of Poverty’ is clearly part of his controversy with John Aswardeby, vicar of St. Mary's Oxford, 1384–95. Both men were Oxford graduates. (Emden, A. B., A Bibliographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500, Oxford 1957, 58Google Scholar, 59, s.v. Maidstone and Aswardeby). Dr. Williams (op. cit., 134) says that MS. E. Musaeo 86 is a late fourteenth-century manuscript. This is impossible.
page 156 note 3 Sel. Cat., MS. 3631 (Acquis. No. 3115).
page 157 note 1 Fols. 5–8v.
page 157 note 2 Fols. 8v–11v.
page 157 note 3 Fols. 11v–12.
page 157 note 4 Sel. Cat., i. 115. Thomas Barlow wrote in the title on fol. 1.
page 158 note 1 Bodl. MS. 73, fol. 133v.
page 158 note 2 Printed from a Corpus Christi College Camb. MS. as an Appendix to Shirley's edition of Fasc. Ziz., 453–80.
page 158 note 3 Ibid., 295.
page 158 note 4 Emden, op. cit., s.v. Stephen Patrington.
page 158 note 5 Fol. 104 (Bale's foliation). Printed in Appendix to Shirley, Fasc. Ziz. 506–11.
page 158 note 6 Ibid., 343–9.
page 158 note 7 Ibid., 383–99.
page 158 note 8 Ibid., 275–317.
page 158 note 9 Fol. 219v.
page 159 note 1 Fasc. Ziz., 417–32.
page 159 note 2 Snappe's Formulary and other Records, ed. H. E. Salter, Oxf. Hist. Soc., lxxx, 1924, 99.
page 159 note 3 Wilkins, iii. 314–19. A translation is to be found in Foxe, ed. J. Pratt, iii (1877), 242–8.
page 159 note 4 Salter, op. cit., 100.
page 159 note 5 Fols. 107v–8v. The question of the origin and authorship of these 45 conclusions will be the subject of a forthcoming article.
page 159 note 6 Fols. 109–19.
page 159 note 7 Fol. 119.
page 159 note 8 Fol. 109: Salter, 130.
page 160 note 1 He was consecrated bishop on 28 October 1436.
page 160 note 2 Salter, op. cit., 94.
page 160 note 3 He was elected Provincial at the Yarmouth Carmelite house: Bodl. MS. 73, fol. 133v.
page 160 note 4 Ibid. For details of his career see Emden, op. cit., s.v. Keninghale.
page 160 note 5 Fasc. Ziz., 417.
page 160 note 6 Fols. 120–47.
page 160 note 7 Fol. 147.
page 161 note 1 Emden, op. cit., s.v. Norreys; Monumenta Conciliorum Generalium Seculi XV, iii. 1287–1304.
page 161 note 2 Bodl. MS. 73, fol. 133v.
page 161 note 3 Lelandi, J., Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Hall, A., Oxford 1709, 442Google Scholar; quoted in J. Bale, Scriptores Illustr…. Catalogus, pt. i, 592–3.
page 161 note 4 Ibid., fol. i.
page 161 note 5 Lelandi, J., Antiquarii de Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., Oxford 1715, iii. 28Google Scholar.
page 161 note 6 Ibid., 52–3.
page 162 note 1 Fasc. Ziz., lxxii.
page 162 note 2 Ibid., lxxv.
page 163 note 1 Bodl. MS. 73, fol. 133v.
page 163 note 2 H. B. Workman, John Wyclif, Oxford 1926, i. 281–2; ii. 119.
page 163 note 3 Fasc. Ziz., 286–91.
page 163 note 4 Emden, op. cit., s.v. Ivory; Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, London 1941, 69Google Scholar; Catalogue of the Royal and King's Manuscripts, ed. Warner, G. F. and Gilson, J. P., London 1921, ii. 85Google Scholar, 105.
page 164 note 1 Fasc. Ziz., 3.
page 164 note 2 Ibid., 360–9.
page 164 note 3 Ibid., lxxvii.
page 164 note 4 Ibid., lxxvi.
page 164 note 5 Emden, op. cit., s.v. Lavenham.
page 165 note 1 Fol. 104: 2 Henry IV, c. 15 (Stat. Realm., ii, 125–8).
page 165 note 2 Fol. 105–6v: The version of 2 Henry V, st. I, c. 7 in the Statutes of the Realm (ii, 181–4) is in French.
page 165 note 3 Fasc. Ziz., 433.
page 165 note 4 Ibid., 412–13. This document is repeated in the MS. on fol. 130.
page 165 note 5 Doubt was first cast on this by Kingsford in the article on Netter in the Dictionary of National Biography. Professor E. F. Jacob informs me that it is extremely doubtful if Netter was at Constance.
page 166 note 1 Fol. 119.
page 166 note 2 Lelandi, Commentarii, 441; quoted by Bale, Catalogus, pt. i, 571.
page 166 note 3 Ed. Venice 1571; ed. F. B. Blanciotti, Venice 1757; ed. Paris 1532; ed. Salamanca 1556.
page 166 note 4 Grateful thanks are due for help, encouragement and criticism to: Professors V. H. Galbraith, E. F. Jacob, W. A. Maxwell, Dr. A. B. Emden, Dr. R. W. Hunt, N. R. Ker, W. A. Pantin and M. Nuttall.
