Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/201

Fitzralph ''Reg. Sacr. Angl''. p. 55 ;, 1. c. ; , ''De Præsul. Hibern''. p. 20, Dublin, 1665).

The fact that Fitzralph owed both his highest preferments to papal influence renders it probable that he was held in favour at the court of Avignon, though it is certain that he was never made, as has been stated, a cardinal. It has not, however, been noticed that he was frequently in Avignon previously to his well-known visit in 1357. Among his collected sermons (of which, either in full or in reports, the Bodleian MS. 144 contains no less than eighty-eight) there are some which were delivered before the pope on 7 July 1335, in November 1338, in December 1341, in September and December 1342, and in December 1344, dates which may possibly even point to a continuous residence at Avignon, taken in connection with the circumstance that his sermons preached in England begin in 1345. He was cnce more in Avignon in August 1349, having been sent thither by the king of England on business connected with the jubilee announced for 1350. A memorial of this remains in the manuscript already referred to (f. 246 b), and in other copies, containing under this date Fitzralph's 'Propositio exparte illustris principis domini regis Edwardi III in consistorio pro gratia jubilea eiusdem domini regis populo obtinenda.' It is highly probable that it was this opportunity which brought Fitzralph into connection with the negotiations then going on between the Armenian church and the pope. The Armenians had sought help from Boniface XII against the advance of the Mussulman, and the pope had required them as an antecedent condition to abjure their heresies, which were set out in 117 articles (enumerated at length in . Ann. an. 1341, xlix et seq. ; summarised by, Eccl. Hist. iii. 157 n. 2, Engl. trans., Philadelphia, 1843). The Armenians held a council in 1342 (see the text in and, Vet. Scriptt. Ampliss. Coll. vii. 312 et seq.) ; the pope sent them legates, and a correspondence followed, which led to the visit of two of their body — Nerses, archbishop of Melasgerd (Manasgardensis), and John, elect of Khilát (Clatensis) — to Avignon for further consultation. Fitzralph took part in the interviews which were arranged with them, and at their request wrote an elaborate treatise in nineteen books, examining and refuting the doctrines in which the Armenians differed from catholic Christians. The book is called on the title-page 'Richardi Radulphi Summa in Quæstionibus Armenorum,' but the first book is headed 'Summa de Erroribus Armenorum.' It was edited by Johannes Sudoris, and printed by Jean Petit at Paris in 1511. The facts that Fitzralph dwells upon his personal intercourse with Nerses and John, and that he mentions Clement VI as living, seem to expose an error in Raynaldus, who says (an. 1353, xxv. vol. vi. 588) that it was Innocent VI who invited them in 1353. If this correction is accepted, there is no reason to doubt that the meetings with the Armenians, described at the opening of Fitzralph's treatise, took place during his visit to Avignon in 1349. On the other hand, the concluding chapter of the last book, which alludes to the troubles he had suffered from opponents, looks as though it were added at a later date, if, indeed (which is questionable on internal grounds), it is the work of Fitzralph at all. If his efforts to promote a reconciliation with the Armenian church redounded to Fitzralph's fame abroad as a champion of catholic orthodoxy, in England he had already won a position of high eminence as a divine, both by solid performances as a teacher and writer on school theology, and by sermons, many of which are extant, preached at various places in England and Ireland. These, though preserved or reported in Latin, are generally stated to have been delivered in English ('in vulgari'). One of them was preached 'in processione Londoniæ facta pro rege,' after the French campaign of 1346. He appears to have been popular on all hands, and in great request as a preacher. His visit to Avignon, however, in 1349, brought him, so far as is known, for the first time into that conflict with the mendicant orders which lasted until the end of his life, and left his posthumous reputation to be agitated between the opposed parties in the church. Previously he had often preached in the friars' convents at Avignon. Thus we possess his sermon at the general chapter of the Dominicans there, 8 Sept. 1342 (Bodl. MS. 144, f. 141), and another in the Franciscan church on St. Francis's day in this very year 1349. He was charged, however, on this visit, with a petition from the English clergy reciting certain well-known complaints against the friars. This memorial, 'Propositio ex parte prælatorum et omnium curatorum totius Ecclesiæ coram papa in pleno consistorio. . . adversus ordines mendicantes' (Bodl. MS. 144, f. 251 b he presented on 5 July 1350. Before this, not later than the beginning of May, Pope Clement had appointed a commission, consisting of Fitzralph and two other doctors, to inquire into the main points at issue ; but after long deliberation they seem to have come to no positive decision, and Fitzralph was urged by certain of the cardinals to write an independent treatise on the subject. This work, as he completed it some years later, is the treatise 'De Pauperie