‘Fifty years ago’, wrote Dr A. G. Little in 1942, ‘I wrote a book about the Grey Friars in Oxford. Since then I have often urged Cambridge friends to write the history of the Grey Friars in Cambridge. My efforts have not been successful.’

As a matter of fact the present volume was planned and even begun no less than twenty-three years ago when the author was an undergraduate at Cambridge. Various things combined to prevent any progress being made, and it was not until quite recently that the work could be undertaken in earnest. When things were well under way the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, did me the honour of inviting me to deliver the Birkbeck Lectures in Ecclesiastical History, and the most important part of the material collected in this book was given as a course of six lectures in Cambridge in the autumn of 1948.

Many people have helped from time to time in the production of this book. I should like to express my gratitude to Professor G. R. Potter of Sheffield for kindly looking through the manuscript and giving me the advantage of his experience and knowledge.

In the year 1209 two events took place, neither of which was in itself of very great importance though both, in the end, proved to have far-reaching results. One of these events took place at Oxford, where three clerks were hanged for a murder in which they probably had no part, and the rest of the University, as an act of protest, left Oxford and betook themselves some to Cambridge and some to Reading. The other event took place a thousand miles away at Rome, where a young man called Francis Bernardone, with eleven companions, obtained access to Pope Innocent III and, kneeling before him, asked for permission to live according to the poverty and humility of the Gospels. Neither incident in itself would have appeared of much significance at the time. Migrations of masters and students were quite common occurrences in the early days of the Universities and often left no trace behind them, while young men who are dissatisfied with the state of the Church and think that they have found a better way of following Christ have appeared in all ages. But the two events of 1209 left a far more permanent mark on the history of the world than contemporaries might have anticipated, for the one was an important factor in the foundation of the University of Cambridge while the other marked the birth of the Order of Friars Minor.

After a few introductory remarks about the history of the house the writer goes on as follows:

This building consisted of one room 69f 6in long 23f 6in wide between the walls and 25f high to the setting on of the roof, which formed a Cieling with arches principals and the intermediate spaces flat in the midle, and sloped on the sides, as represented in the section. There were three windows and a door on the west side: on the east there were the same number of windows and a door, with a Chimney (at a) seven feet wide, placed near the midle, on the west side nearly opposite the chimney (at b) two holes appear in the wall, which being too low for a Table or side board, and too high for a seat, might receive timbers to support the floor of a pulpit or desk, where the Lecturer read the Scriptures to the Friars while they were at meals: about ten feet from the south west angle near the side of the south door (at d) are some marks in the wall by which it appears that a Cistern or Laver had been fix'd there; under this, about a foot lower than the floor of the room, was a neat stone Drain, about one foot square in the form of figr A which runing obliquely in the direction d e, under the south end of the room, conveyed the water from this place into the Kings ditch and served likewise to convey other waste water from some part of the monastery, or from the Conduit belonging to it, which was served from the spring in the fields near Madingley road before it was given to Trinity College who cut off the pipe and retain'd the spring for their own use, when they sold the site of the Monastery.

The coming of the friars introduced an entirely new element into the religious and social life of England. Hitherto the religiosus had been essentially a man cut off from the life of the world. Whether monk or canon regular, he lived his own life in the cloister and came into very little contact with the world outside. It is true that to some extent the original idea of strict claustration had broken down, and some monks were in the habit of spending more time out of their cloister than the Rule would allow. But the principle remained the same. The type of religious house which the Rule of S. Benedict envisages had ‘no function in the life of the Church save to provide an ordered way of life based on the teaching of the Gospel, according to which its inmates may serve God and sanctify their souls apart from the life of the world…. It is the home of a spiritual family whose life and work begins and ends in the family circle’.

The friar, on the other hand, went everywhere. Unlike the monk, who was bound by the rule of stabilitas, he was constantly on the move and properly belonged to no particular friary. A study of the ordination lists in the bishops' registers shows how restless some friars were. Brother Peter Merker, for example, was a friar of Colchester when he was ordained acolyte in 1365.

When Saint Francis first drew up a Rule for his brethren he declared that they were to live ‘without possessions’ (sine proprio). No doubt he meant these words to be taken quite literally. The Friars Minor were to have nothing that they could call their own—not even the clothes in which they stood—but were to be entirely dependent upon the goodwill of the world. But when the Order grew and attracted to itself men who had not come under the direct inspiration of the saint it was inevitable that difficulties should arise over this sine proprio clause and that explanations and interpretations should be demanded. During S. Francis' lifetime it was impossible for much to be done towards meeting this demand. On this point he was adamant, maintaining to the very end that the Lord had revealed to him this way of life. But after his death changes began to take place; and, by means of papal bulls and more or less official expositions of the Rule, various relaxations crept in, bringing the friars more and more into line with the existing possessionate orders of monks and canons. There was, of course, much opposition to this, and the story of the struggle between those who wanted to maintain the primitive ideal of an Order of vagrant evangelists and those who were prepared to allow certain relaxations in the cause of greater stability and efficiency is perhaps the most important aspect of Franciscan history during the thirteenth century.

For about forty years the friars had been but poorly accommodated in the old house of Benjamin the Jew; but about 1265 plans were set on foot for a new building, and by 1267 operations seem to have been well advanced. In making this move to more commodious surroundings the Cambridge friars were doing what most of their colleagues in other houses were doing. By 1260 the policy of the order as a whole was towards larger and better friaries, though simplicity was still urged. But the days of mud-and-daub huts had gone. In future the friars were to be housed much like the older religious orders in monastic buildings designed very much on the same plan as the existing abbeys and priories, though generally on a smaller scale.

By 1270 there was much new building going on among the English Franciscans. Three explanations of this have been suggested. One is the generosity of devout citizens among whom the friars were popular and who wanted to give them decent buildings. Secondly, open-air preaching being more or less impracticable in the climate of England, the friars needed spacious churches in which to bring together their congregations, the existing parish churches being often too small. Thirdly, the custom of people desiring to be buried in the friars' churches was growing. Whatever the reasons, practically all the earlier foundations were engaged in some form of expansion or rebuilding in the latter part of the thirteenth century.

Although few of the Franciscan houses in 1536 could have boasted of an income of more than £200 a year, they were not affected by the first act for the suppression of the monasteries, which was designed to close down all religious houses whose incomes were less than this figure. There are probably two reasons why the friars were excluded in 1536. One is that the first act was not designed to destroy the religious life, but to reduce the number of religious houses. There were at the time several hundred small monastic communities, often comprising only a handful of men or women, and it was thought advisable to close these houses and to give their inmates the choice between ‘taking their capacities’ (which meant seeking secular occupation) or going to swell the depleted numbers in the larger monasteries. As the numbers in the friaries were much more even than in the older monasteries, there was no clear distinction to be drawn between the ‘greater’ and the ‘lesser’ houses, nor was the number of friaries great enough to demand a reduction. Moreover, although the act of 1536 laid stress on the decay of the smaller houses and on their redundancy, there is no doubt that the King had an eye on their estates, which were often out of proportion to the number of men whom they were intended to support.

1. Vicar of the Custos of the Cambridge Custody.

The description is as follows:

Pointed oval, 1¾″ × 1″.

Under a canopy a shield of the fabulous arms of our Lord, i.e. the implements of the Passion. On either side of the shield a sprig of oak. Below under an arch the vicar in his habit kneeling to right.

Legend in Lomb. cap.:

.s'. VICARII: CVSTODIS: CANTABRIGGE:

B.M. Cat. 2827; ‘about A.D. 1244 from the matrix’.

The matrix was found in Cambridge in 1819. Its present whereabouts is not known.

(Franciscan History and Legend in English Medieval Art, ed. A. G. Little, Brit. Soc. of Franc. Studies, p. 85).

2. Guardian (?) of the Cambridge Friary.

Pointed oval, 1″ × ″

The eagle of S. John nimbed and displayed. Beneath it on a scroll iohnis…; below the scroll the guardian(?) half length in prayer to left.

Lollardy was perhaps the chief problem with which the Church in England had to deal in the fifteenth century. Up till then England had been practically free from heresy. When the returning Crusaders brought back with them from the East ideas which were not in line with the orthodox teaching of the Church, or when social unrest gave birth to bitter criticism of the clergy and the demand for a religion without priest or sacrament, England seems to have been strangely unaffected. Consequently the movement initiated by John Wyclif towards the end of the fourteenth century put both Church and State very much on their guard. In 1401 Parliament passed the savage statute De haeretico comburendo, and in the same year that ‘malleus haereticorum’, Archbishop Arundel, visited the University of Cambridge and demanded ‘whether any were suspected of Lollardism or any other heretical pravity’. The answer must have been a negative one, for Cambridge at this time appears to have preserved a blameless orthodoxy, so that in later years the poet Lydgate could write:

In this ‘blameless’ atmosphere the school of the Franciscans at Cambridge continued to produce able men who could take their part in the religious controversies of the time.

This account is written on a roll, on paper, now in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. Three hands are discernible, but all are more or less of the same period. The roll is defective at the beginning.

…lauda … [Canta]brigie pro tota provin[cia]…ordine. Et minister provincialis anglie una cum aliis de maioribus suorum ordinum et provinciarum iverunt ad dicta generalia capitula celebranda. Quidam etiam superiores et maiores ipsorum ordinum propter contingentia ordines suos et provincias iter arripuerunt versus romanam curiam.

Post absentiam predictorum, magistri Cantebrigie commorantes ceperunt intendere circa editionem et promulgationem quorundam statutorum et super eis pluribus diebus tractare.

Et quum ilia statuta, de quibus edendis et publicandis tractabatur, tendebant in maximum preiudicium et derogationem multiplicem fratrum ordinum predictorum Cantebrigie commorantium, fratres qui ibidem remanserant non audebant huiusmodi statutorum editionibus sic preiudicialibus consentire nee ea dissimulare poterant superioribus suis, de quorum reditu sperabatur et in brevi sic agentibus in remotis.

Sed fratres predicti metuentes ilia statuta fieri subito et repente et solum in confusione dictorum conventuum redundare, et videntes ex tadturnitate et dissimulatione eis imminere pericula et gravamina intolerabilia, provocaverunt et appellarunt debitis loco et tempore ad sedem apostolicam ante editionem et publicationem ipsorum statutorum in modum qui sequitur in effectu.

ACTON, Thomas

A Franciscan of Cambridge ordained acolyte in September, 1456 (Ely Registers: Gray, f. 203).

ALBAN, John

A Franciscan of Cambridge ordained deacon in June 1517 (Ely Registers: West, f. 84b).

ALBY, John de

Custos of the Cambridge custody and licensed to hear confessions in the diocese of Ely on February 23rd, 1347 (Ely Registers: Lisle, f. 89). It is not actually stated that he was a member of the Cambridge house, but the fact that he was licensed for the Ely diocese strongly suggests it.

ALBY, Roger de

A friar of Cambridge some time before 1366 (J. R. Harris, The Origin of the Leicester Codex, pp. 23–5).

ALIFAX, Robert de

Fifty-sixth master at Cambridge, c. 1336 (Eccleston, p. 74). He was a scholar of considerable importance who achieved distinction at Paris and Oxford as well as at Cambridge. He was one of the few English scholars known to Bartholomew of Pisa (see Analecta Franciscana, iv, p. 339) and is mentioned by Wadding under the year 1334 (Annales Minorum, vii, p. 170).

In the quarrel between the University and the friars in 1303–6 the friars were in a strong enough position to defend themselves against the attacks of a body which not unnaturally resented the presence of theological schools which owed no allegiance to the Chancellor of the University and the corporation of regent masters. But though that dispute was settled, there remained material for further disagreements, for the fundamental question of the status of the friars in the University was left unanswered, and it was clear that there would be trials and troubles until this matter was cleared up. The fourteenth century saw this struggle, and in its latter half there was considerable tension between the two bodies, but in the century or so before the Reformation the University was making such strides forward, and increasing so greatly in power and prestige, that it was able more and more to enforce its will on the friars. But it was not until the Dissolution of the religious houses in 1536–9 that the problem was finally solved.

The settlement reached at Bordeaux on July 17th, 1306, seems to have been regarded by both sides as a reasonable compromise, for there is no sign of any further dispute for about fifty years, although Oxford was shaken by the bitter dispute between the University and the Dominicans which lasted from 1311 to 1320. During this period the Franciscan school at Cambridge seems to have made considerable progress.