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 that he had probably seen the original manuscripts. In his list No. 1 is ‘Super Sententias Lombardi, lib. 4,’ with the catch words ‘Utrum theologia sit scientia,’ of which Leland only gives ‘Utrum theologia.’ No. 2 is ‘quæstiones ordinarias, lib. 1.’ This is apparently identical with Leland's ‘Quæstionum libri 3,’ for while Leland gives the catchwords ‘Utrum relationes,’ Bale adds to those words ‘in divinis.’ Leland's No. 3 is intituled by Bale ‘Determinationes theologiæ lib. 1.’ To this work Leland appends no catchwords, but Bale ‘Utrum efficaci ratione possit.’ The catchwords of No. 4 run in Bale, ‘In disputatione de quolibet.’ In No. 5 both agree. Bale then adds 6. ‘Conclusiones Disputabiles, lib. 1.’ ‘Quod Quidditas Rei Naturalis.’ 7. ‘Pro cursu Scripturæ Sacræ, lib. 1.’ 8. ‘De Ecclesiastica Potestate, lib. 1.’ 9. ‘Sermones 60, lib. 1.’ 10. ‘Lecturas in Theologia, lib. 1.’ 11. ‘Contra Ockamum quoque in gratiam Romani pontificis aliqua scripsisse dicitur.’ Pits apparently appropriates Bale's list, with the exception that he identifies the treatise ‘De Ecclesiastica Potestate’ with the writings ‘contra Ockamum.’ The ‘Paradisus’ evidently borrows from Pits. The silence of his contemporaries attests that Walsingham's writings exercised no influence on his age.

Among the manuscripts in the possession of C. C. C. Oxon. is one intituled ‘Joannis Walsyngham quæstiones octo disputatæ apud Cantabrigiam et Norwicum.’ It begins ‘Utrum sola via fidei certificat.’ It is apparently in two hands. Possibly the first of these is the handwriting of Walsingham himself, for it follows, and is in the same hand as, a sermon of [q. v.], a contemporary of Walsingham, preached at Avignon during Walsingham's residence in that city.



WALSINGHAM, THOMAS (d. 1422?), monk and historian, is stated by Bale and Pits to have been a native of Norfolk. This is probably an inference from his name. From an early period he was connected with the abbey of St. Albans, and was doubtless at school there. An inconclusive passage in his ‘Historia Anglicana’ (i. 345) has been taken as evidence that he was educated at Oxford. The abbey of St. Albans, however, maintained particularly close relations with Oxford, sending its novices to be trained at St. Alban Hall and its monks at Gloucester College (, City of Oxford, ed. 1890, ii. 255). It is probable, therefore, that Walsingham was at the university. Subsequently, as the register book of benefactors of St. Albans Abbey preserved in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, shows, he held in the abbey not only the office of precentor, implying some musical education, but the more important one of scriptorarius, or superintendent of the copying-room. According to the register it was under Thomas de la Mare [q. v.], who was abbot from 1350 to 1396, that he held these offices. Before 1388 he compiled a work (‘Chronica Majora’) well known at that date as a book of reference. In 1394 he was of standing sufficient to be promoted to the dignity of prior of Wymundham. He ceased to be prior of Wymundham in 1409 and returned to St. Albans, where he composed his ‘Ypodigma Neustriæ, or Demonstration of Events in Normandy,’ dedicated to Henry V, about 1419. His ‘Historia Anglicana,’ indeed, is carried down to 1422, though it remains a matter of controversy whether the latter portion is from his pen. Nothing further is known of his life. Pits speaks of Walsingham's office of ‘scriptorarius’ at St. Albans Abbey as that of historiographer royal (regius historicus), and as bestowed on Walsingham by the abbot at the instance of the king. This king, according to Bale and Pits, was Henry VI, for both of them assert that Walsingham flourished A.D. 1440. The title of historiographer royal has probably no more basis than Bale's similar story of [q. v.] Bale makes his case worse by adding that Walsingham was the author of a work styled ‘Acta Henrici Sexti.’ This is now unknown. If the ‘Chronica Majora’ was written, as must be supposed, at the latest not long after 1380, Walsingham must have been of exceptional age for that period in 1440. It is quite inconceivable that he can have been writing histories after 1461, the virtual close of Henry VI's reign. The ‘Acta regis Henrici Sexti’ is therefore probably apocryphal, and Bale and Pits have post-dated Walsingham.

Recent research conjecturally assigns to Walsingham the following six chronicles: (1) ‘Chronica Majora,’ now lost, written before 1388.

(2) The ‘Chronicon Angliæ’ from 1328 to 1388, edited by Mr. (now Sir) E. M. Thompson in the Rolls Series in 1874. This was previously known to have been compiled