Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/206

Peckham matical errors, which included such absurdities as that ‘ego currit’ was good Latin, were of no importance; but the logical and philosophical questions were more serious. Chief among them was the vexed question of the ‘form’ of the body of Christ, which involved the received doctrine of the Eucharist. The doctrines in question were maintained by the Dominican rivals of Peckham's own order, and their condemnation appeared to impugn the reputation of the Dominican doctor St. Thomas Aquinas. The archbishop's action consequently raised a storm of opposition. In his letter to the chancellor on 7 Nov., forbidding the assertion of the condemned opinions, Peckham was at some pains to declare that he intended no hostility to the Dominicans. But a month later he had to complain that his orders had been disregarded, and that the provincial prior of the Dominicans had made an attack on him in the congregation of the university. The prior, he said, had misrepresented him; he was actuated by no hostility to the Dominicans, nor to the honoured memory of St. Thomas; he had no intention to unduly favour his own order, and his censure was supported by the action of his predecessor. On 1 Jan. 1285 Peckham wrote to certain cardinals in defence of his proceedings (Reg. pp. 840, 852, 862, 864, 870). The enmity of the Dominicans, however, still continued, and on 1 June 1285 Peckham complained in warm terms of an attack made on him in an anonymous pamphlet, written apparently by a Cambridge Dominican (ib. pp. 896–901). On 28 March 1287 he ordered the archdeacon of Ely to inquire into certain slanders against him at Cambridge (ib. p. 943). It was the same heresy as to the ‘form’ of the body of Christ that led to the trial and condemnation of the Dominican Richard Clapwell [q. v.] by Peckham in April 1286 (ib. pp. 921–3; Ann. Mon. iii. 323–5).

Peckham's other relations with Oxford were friendly. On 31 July 1279 he wrote to the chancellor confirming the privileges of the university (Reg. p. 30). On 24 Nov. 1284 he remonstrated with the bishop of Lincoln on his interference with the privileges of the university (ib. pp. 857–8); but he was unable to support the masters entirely, and on 27 Jan. 1281 advised them to submit (ib. p. 887, cf. Pref. iii. pp. xxxvii–xxxviii). As archbishop, Peckham was patron of Merton College, and on several occasions intervened in matters concerning its government (ib. pp. 123, 811–18, 836).

Peckham's health, both bodily and mental, began to fail some time before his death (cf. Flores Hist. iii. 82). On 20 March 1292 the bishop of Hereford had license to confer orders in his place (Reg. p. 1055). Peckham died at Mortlake, after a long illness, on 8 Dec. 1292 (Ann. Mon. iv. 511; Anglia Sacra, i. 793; the date is variously given, but see Registrum, Pref. iii. p. liii). In the previous September Henry of Eastry had written to the archbishop (, Concilia, ii. 184–5), reminding him of his promise to be buried in the cathedral, and Peckham was buried accordingly on 19 Dec. in the north cross aisle near the place of Becket's martyrdom (Cont., ii. 300). His tomb is of grey Sussex marble, with an oak recumbent effigy under a canopy. There are engravings of the monument in Parker's ‘De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ,’ and Dart's ‘Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury,’ both apparently from the same plate; there are other engravings in Blore's ‘Monumental Remains of Noble and Eminent Persons,’ and in Britton's ‘Cathedral Antiquities,’ vol. i. pl. xviii (Registrum, Pref. iii. pp. liii–lv). Peckham's heart was buried in the choir behind the high altar at the Grey Friars of London (Cotton MS. Vit. F xii. f. 274). He is stated to have left 5,305l. 17s. 2¼d., though the Dunstable annalist (Ann. Mon. iii. 373) says he left little treasure. In his will he named as his executors the Friars Minors of Paris (cf. Fœdera, i. 800). Peckham completed the foundation in 1287 for a provost and six canons at Wingham, Kent, which had been designed by Kilwardby (, Monast. Angl. vi. 1341–2; Registrum, iii. 1080; cf., Cal. Papal Registers, i. 548). Some of the buildings of the archiepiscopal palace at Mayfield, Sussex, may date from his time (Sussex Arch. Coll. ii. 235).

Peckham was learned and devout, and in his conduct as archbishop was clearly actuated by a sincere love of justice and hatred of oppression. His defects were due to an exaggerated sense of the importance of his office, and of the superiority of the ecclesiastical power. Trivet well describes him as ‘a zealous promoter of the interests of his order, an excellent writer of poetry, pompous in manner and speech, but kind and thoroughly liberal at heart.’ The Lanercost chronicler (pp. 101, 144) speaks of his humility, sincerity, and constancy in the duties of his office, and of his strict observance of the Franciscan rule. Even when archbishop, he contined to style himself ‘frater Johannes humilis,’ was assiduous in prayer and fasting, and wore only the poorest clothing. When, as provincial prior, he attended a general council at Padua, he travelled all the