Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/288

 of armed peasants, who killed them on the spot. Fleming's body was conveyed to the monastery of Voticium, about four miles from the scene of the murder, and solemnly interred in the presence of forty brethren.

His works are: 1. ‘Vita S. Columbani, Abbatis Bobiensis, cum annotationibus.’ This work, and the lives of some other Irish saints, with their ‘Opuscula,’ Fleming, before his departure for Prague, gave to Moretus, the famous printer of Antwerp, with a view to publication, but the design was not then carried into effect. The manuscripts afterwards were edited by Thomas Sirinus, or O'Sherrin, jubilate lector of divinity in the college of St. Anthony of Padua at Louvain, who published them under the title of ‘Collectanea Sacra, seu S. Columbani Hiberni Abbatis, magni Monachorum Patriarchæ, Monasteriorum Luxoviensis in Gallia, et Bobiensis in Italia, aliorumque, Fundatoris et Patroni, Necnon aliorum aliquot è Veteri itidem Scotiâ seu Hiberniâ antiquorum Sanctorum Acta & Opuscula, nusquam antehàc edita, partem ab ipso brevibus Notis, partem fusioribus Commentariis, ac speciali de Monastica S. Columbani institutione Tractatu, illustrata,’ Louvain, 1667, fol. pp. 455. This work is of even greater rarity than the scarce volumes of Colgan. A detailed account of its contents, by William Reeves, D.D., will be found in the ‘Ulster Journal of Archæology,’ vol. ii. 2. ‘Vita Reverendi Patris Hugonis Cavelli [Mac Caghwell],’ 1626. This biography was incorporated by Vernulæus in the panegyric of the deceased primate which he delivered at Louvain; and its chief facts are preserved by Lynch in his manuscript ‘History of the Bishops of Ireland.’ 3. ‘Chronicon Consecrati Petri Ratisbonæ,’ manuscript, being a compendium of the chronicle of the monastery of St. Peter at Regensberg. 4. Letters on Irish hagiology addressed to Hugh Ward, and printed in the ‘Irish Ecclesiastical Record.’

[Life by O'Sherrin, prefixed to Fleming's Collectanea; Ware's Writers of Ireland (Harris), p. 112; Preface to Colgan's Acta Sanctorum; Ulster Journal of Archæology, ii. 253; Sbaralea's Suppl. et Castigatio ad Scriptores Trium Ordinum S. Francisci a Waddingo aliisve descriptos, p. 573; Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vii. 59, 193; Brenan's Eccl. Hist. of Ireland, p. 512; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 809.] 

FLEMING, RICHARD (d. 1431), bishop of Lincoln and founder of Lincoln College, Oxford, was born of a good family in Yorkshire—Tanner says at Croston, but the name suggests a doubt as to the identification—probably about 1360. He entered the university of Oxford, and became a member of University College. He was junior proctor in 1407 (, Fasti Oxon. p. 37 et seq.), his year of office being still remembered in consequence of the fact that he caused one of the books of statutes and privileges of the university, still preserved in the archives and known as the ‘Junior Proctor's Book’ (or Registrum C), to be transcribed for him (Munimenta Academica Oxon. i. intr. xiv, 237, ed. H. Anstey, 1868). In 1408 there is a record of his payment of 6s. 8d. for the use of one of the schools belonging to Exeter College (, Register of Exeter College, p. 14, 1879), probably with a view to proceeding to a degree in divinity. He had already held, since 22 Aug. 1406, the prebend of South Newbald in the church of York (, Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, iii. 205, ed. Sir T. D. Hardy).

At present Fleming was, in some points at least, a warm adherent of the Wycliffite party, which still maintained its strength among the scholars of Oxford. In 1407 Archbishop Arundel had held a provincial council there, at which stringent decrees were passed against the reading of Wycliffe's books and an attempt made to regulate the studies of the university (, Conc. Magn. Brit. iii. 305). Two years later the archbishop persuaded convocation at its session in London to appoint a committee of twelve persons to examine the writings of Wycliffe, and to condemn them if any heresy should be found therein. Among these judges was Fleming, described as a student of theology (ib. p. 172, where the date is erroneously given as 1382; cf., History of the University of Oxford, p. 283, n. 2, 1886). After long debate and a delay which called forth a complaint from the archbishop, the majority drew up a report condemning 267 propositions attributed to Wycliffe as erroneous or heretical (, iii. 339). But the discussion appears to have excited the smouldering elements of heterodox opinion. The university was disturbed by disorderly manifestations of lollard feeling, and Fleming with another member of the committee itself declared openly for some of the obnoxious tenets. In December 1409 the archbishop addressed a mandate to the chancellor of the university, bidding him to warn the malcontents to abstain from defending Wycliffe's doctrines under heavy penalties. The language employed is remarkable for its contemptuous severity as applied to a man who had already been chosen by the masters of arts some years before to be their official representative as proctor: ‘Certæ personæ,’ wrote the archbishop, ‘dictæ universitatis, quibus digna non esset cathedra, attamen graduatæ, quæ