Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
6 - The Franciscans and their Graves in Medieval London
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The friaries of the English province attracted burials in their churches and cemeteries. Chroniclers provide examples of those interred in the order's churches. In some instances antiquarians provided lists of the people laid to rest in the order's churches. While the register of the London Greyfriars offers an incomplete catalogue of burials, it furnishes some information on the friars whose burial places were marked by inscriptions and monuments. The different chapels provided a burial place to friars who had held various offices in the order, such as suffragan bishop, minister provincial, guardian, lector, and royal confessor. Peter of Bologna, bishop of Corbavia and suffragan bishop in the diocese of London, was interred in the choir of the church along with members of the wider royal family and nobles. William Appleton was laid to rest in the Lady chapel along with military figures. Several friars were buried in the northern chapel, including John Bunggey. Roger Conway, a doctor of theology and former minister provincial, was buried in the choir. Several friars were buried in the cloister. James Walle, a former guardian of the London Greyfriars, the bishop of Kildare, and suffragan bishop in the diocese of London, was buried before the altars.
Keywords: London, Roger Conway, James Walle, Peter of Bologna, William Appleton, monuments of the dead, commemoration
The importance of friars in life and death needs little rehearsal. Friars were teachers and preachers, mourners, and intercessors. They were an important part in what Clive Burgess has termed ‘the spiritual armoury’ serving the living and the dead, and yet very little is known about their own commemorative intentions. The mendicant orders were not permitted to own personal property, and there are consequently no wills with lists of their possessions, such as their books, or any instructions for their burial and their own intercession. The almost complete loss of many friary churches in England has swept away the material evidence for any funerary monuments which they might once have had. The question ‘to what extent did the friars have monuments?’ cannot therefore be answered based on any extant remains. But for medieval London an important and often overlooked account, written on the eve of the Reformation, recorded 682 monuments in the Grey Friars church near Newgate.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Franciscan Order in the Medieval English , pp. 115 - 138Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018