Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/202

Fitzralph Salvatoris' mentioned below (see the dedication to that work). In the meantime some complaints appear to have been laid against him before the king in respect of his behaviour in Ireland, where he was said to have presumed upon the favour he enjoyed at the pope's hands. The king's decision went against him. First, 20 Nov. 1349, the archbishop's license to have his cross borne before him in Ireland was revoked (, Fœdera, iii. pt. i. 190 seq., ed. 1825), and next, 18 Feb. 1349-50, the king wrote to the Cardinal of St. Anastasia to procure the disallowal of Fitzralph's claim of supremacy over the see of Dublin, and to the archbishop commanding his return to his diocese (ib. 192; the two letters of 18 Feb. appear, in this edition of the Fœdera only, also under date 1347-8, at pp. 154 seq.) But down to the end of the year at least we find Fitzralph's claims supported by riots which called for active measures on the part of the government (ib. pp. 211 seq.) At Avignon, as has been seen, Fitzralph had thus appeared as the official spokesman of the secular clergy, and this attitude he maintained after his return to Ireland. How matters reached a crisis six years later not uite certain. Wadding, speaking for the Franciscans, asserts that he had attempted to possess himself of an ornament from one of their churches, and, being foiled in this, proceeded to a general attack upon the order, for which he was summoned, at the instance of the warden of Armagh, to make his defence at the papal court (Ann. Min. vii. 127, ed. 1733). He does not, however, name his authority. Fitzralph's own account, in the 'Defensio Curatorum,' is that in 1356 he visited London on business connected with his diocese, and there found a controversy raging about the question of 'evangelical poverty.' On this subject he at once preached a number of sermons, laying down nine propositions, which centred in the assertion that poverty was neither of apostolic observance nor of present obligation, and that mendicancy was without warrant in scripture or primitive tradition. Out of these 'seven or eight' sermons four were printed by Johannes Sudoris at the end of his edition of the 'Summa in Quæstionibus Armenorum.' They were all preached in English at St. Paul's Cross, and range in date from the fourth Sunday in Advent to the third Sunday in Lent 1356-7. The dean of St. Paul's, Richard Kilmington (or Kilwington), his old friend from the time when they were together in Bishop Bury's household, stood by him (, Vitæ Pontif. ap., Bibl. Brit. p. 197) ; but the anger of the English friars was hotly excited, and the Franciscan, Roger Conway [q. v.], wrote a set reply to the archbishop's positions. It was then, and in consequence of this discussion, Fitzralph asserts (Defensio Curatorum, ad init.), that his opponents succeeded in procuring his citation to defend his opinions before the pope, Innocent VI, at Avignon. The king forbade him, 1 April 1357, to quit the country without special leave (, iii. pt. i. 352) ; but the prohibition seems to have been withdrawn, since he was at the papal court before 8 Nov., on which day he preached a sermon in support of his position, which has been frequently published, and exists in numerous manuscripts, under the title of 'Defensio Curatorum contra eos qui privilegiatos se dicunt' (printed by John Trechsel, Lyons, 1496 ; also in Goldast's 'Monarchia,' ii. 1392 et seq., Frankfurt, 1614; Brown's 'Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum,' ii. 466 et seq., and elsewhere). It was probably in connection with this sermon that Fitzralph completed and put forth his treatise 'De Pauperie Salvatoris,' in seven books, of which the first four will shortly be published for the first time as an appendix to Wycliffe's book 'De Dominio Divino' (edited by R. L. Poole for the Wyclif Society). The interest of this work is partly that it resumes the catholic contention against the mendicant orders which had been accepted by the council of Vienne and by Pope John XXII, and links this to a general view of human relations towards God which was taken up in its entirety by Wycliffe, and made by him the basis of a doctrinal theory which was soon discovered to be, if not heretical, at least dangerous. Fitzralph, however, suffered no actual condemnation ; it is hard to see how he could have been made to suffer for maintaining a position which had been upheld in recent years, though in different circumstances, by the highest ecclesiastical authority ; and it is likely that he died at Avignon before judgment was pronounced, or perhaps even contemplated. A notarial instrument of the case, of which, there is a copy in the Bodleian MS. 158, f. 174, contains the information that Fitzralph's case was entrusted by the pope to four cardinals for examination, 14 Nov., and gives the particulars on which this should proceed. But unfortunately we have no record of the conclusion arrived at. Wadding (Ann. Min. viii. 127 et seqq., ed. 1733) states that while the inquiry was going on the pope wrote letters, 1 Oct. 1358, to the English bishops restraining them for the time from any interference with the practices of the friars to which Fitzralph had made objections ; and that in the end silence was imposed upon the archbishop, and