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Fasciculi Zizaniorum I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

James Crompton
Affiliation:
Department of History, Rhodes University, Grahamstown

Extract

Fasciculi Zizaniorum. has become the bible of ‘Wycliffite’ and early protestant studies. The best known collection of materials relating to John Wyclif and his heresies, and roughly contemporary with what is described, it is the most important single source for the history of John Wyclif. The full title—Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri Johannis Wycliff cum Tritico—is derived from the description which precedes the opening narrative in the MS. A great deal more is included in the MS. than this title would at first sight suggest. The collection also contains much about the heresies of the Oxford followers of Wyclif, about his leading opponents and the cases of many early Lollards. It also includes the Latin text of the two statutes against Lollards, De Haeretico Comburendo of 1401 and the Leicester Statute of 1414. To these Lollard materials are added the proceedings of the Council of Constance against Wyclif, John Hus and Jerome of Prague, and summaries of condemnation of heresies made by the Church before Wyclif's day, beginning with those condemned at Oxford and Paris in the thirteenth century. The other works are mostly concerned with the age-long controversies over Apostolic Poverty and the Mendicant Orders: a selection from the writings of archbishop Fitzralph of Armagh; the proceedings against the Irish Cistercian, Henry Crump, in 1392; the Protectorium Pauperis of the Carmelite, Richard Maidstone; the Defence of the Carmelite Order written in 1374 by Richard Hornby. The last two works in the MS., a sermon by John Hornby and the well known treatise against Wyclif's Trialogus by the Franciscan, William Woodford, are incomplete.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

page 35 note 1 This work is found complete in several manuscripts. It was printed in Gratius, O., Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum, ed. Brown, E., London 1690, i. 191Google Scholar ff.

page 35 note 2 In order of acquisition it is MS. 3113; in the Summary Catalogue it is MS. 3629, and it is briefly described. See A Select Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, ed. Madan, F., Craster, H. H. E. and Young, N. Denholm, Oxford 1937, it. pt. 2, 710–11Google Scholar.

page 35 note 3 This quire was blank until filled up with notes by Bale; it has modern foliation: i-viii. The rest of the MS. is made up of quires of 8 throughout. The first seven quires are foliated 1–54 in a contemporary hand; fols. 55, 56 in Bale's hand. These quires are marked at the bottom of the folios a 1–4—g 1–4. The remaining quires (21) are foliated (fols. 57–223) in a contemporary hand, except for some in Bale's hand (fols. 99–104, 159, 215, 218–23). Each quire is marked at the bottom i-iv. There are two folios 104: one marked in a contemporary hand, the other in Bale's hand. This is why there are 224 folios in the MS., but the foliation ends at 223. Bale's folio 104—a fragment of a Carmelite sermon—is a later insertion, though the quire in which it is found only contains 8 folios. What happened to the original folio in this quire is a mystery.

page 36 note 1 I am indebted to Mr. D. Rogers of the Bodleian Library for this information.

page 36 note 2 Foxe, J., The Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, J. and Stoughton, J., London 1877, iii. 292Google Scholar, 705; Mozley, J. F., John Foxe and His Book, London 1940, 29Google Scholar.

page 36 note 3 Ed. Gutch, Oxford 1792, i. especially 491–510, 524, 551–2.

page 36 note 4 London 1748: s.v. Walldenus Thomas sive Vallidenus (747).

page 36 note 5 History of the Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif, with a collection of papers not before printed, London 1720Google Scholar, repr. Oxford 1820. A list of the documents printed from Fasciculi Zizaniorum by Lewis is to be found in the Rolls Series edition (given below), p. lxxxiii. Lewis's work was written as part of a heated controversy occasioned by the English translation of Varillas's Histoire du Wicliéfanisme. Lewis said that in writing it he had made use of transcripts made by archbishop Wake from MSS. in the Bodleian Library. It would appear from this that Wake's name can probably be added to the list of those who used the MS. Fasciculi Zizaniorum.

page 36 note 6 London 1828.

page 36 note 7 London 1858.

page 37 note 1 Oxford 1865. It was revised for the Wyclif Society by J. Loserth in 1924.

page 37 note 2 He confuses David Wilkins with bishop John Wilkins; op. cit., ix, lxxxi. He says that Netter bequeathed his books to the London Grey Friars: ibid., lxxi. The Statute 2 Henry V St. 1 c. 7 is wrongly given as 2 Henry IV c. 7: ibid., lxxii. Johannis et Pauli in the MS. is wrongly transcribed as Petri et Pauli (ibid., lxxviii); on the same page Ussher's annotations are attributed to Anthony Wood. His chronology of Wyclif's life is completely unreliable.

page 37 note 3 The parts which are to be found in J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova Collectio, Venice 1782, are listed by Shirley in Fasciculi Zizaniorum (Rolls Series, 1858), lxxiii-iv.

page 37 note 4 Williams, A., ‘Protectorium Pauperis, A Defence of the Begging Friars by Richard of Maidstone, O. C.’, Carmelus, v (1958), 135–80Google Scholar.

page 37 note 5 Fols. Viiiv, 155v 215.

page 37 note 6 Select Cat. ii., pt. 2, 1043.

page 37 note 7 Ibid., 990; i., ed. R. W. Hunt (Oxford 1953), xviii-xix, 115.

page 38 note 1 His handwriting appears on fol. iv.

page 38 note 2 Douglas, D. C., English Scholars 1660–1730, 2nd ed.London 1951, 25, 196–7Google Scholar.

page 38 note 3 Fols. 77, 110v–19. Tanner (op. cit., 47) says that the manuscript was ‘olim penes Baleum et clar(issimum) Usserium’.

page 38 note 4 A copy of a letter from Ussher to Cotton has survived, dated 22 March 1628/9, which says that he was much beholden to Cotton for the loan of books. (Bodl. MS. Smith 71 (SC 15677), 159. There are other letters from Ussher to Cotton on pp. 115, 131, 133). See also The English Library before 1700, ed. Wormald, F. and Wright, C. E., London 1958, 202Google Scholar.

page 38 note 5 Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, iii, London 1737, 339–49Google Scholar.

page 39 note 1 Abbot, T. K., Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin 1900Google Scholar, iii. See also Lawler, H. J., ‘Primate Ussher's Library before 1641’, Royal Irish Academy Proc., 3rd Ser., vi, No. 2 (1901), 216–64Google Scholar.

page 39 note 2 Bodl. MSS. Barlow 10, 13 (SC. 6436, 6421).

page 39 note 3 Bodl. MS. Junius 11 (SC 5123).

page 39 note 4 Bodl. MSS. Fell, 3, 1, 4. (SC 8687–9). These books really belonged to Salisbury Cathedral and were only borrowed by Ussher.

page 39 note 5 H. O. Coxe, Catalogi Codicum MSS. Bibl. Bodl., pt. 2 fasc. 1, Oxford 1858, MSS. Lat. 19, Misc. 243, 347, 414, 517, 598, 666, 669, 680.

page 39 note 6 This hand starts on fol. 54 and continues to fol. 159v. It most frequently appears in fols. 131v–49.

page 39 note 7 For a list of early editions of Foxe see A Short Title Catalogue of Books printed in England and Scotland and Ireland 1475–1640, compiled by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, London Bibliographical Society 1926, vol. A–H: Nos. 11222–8.

page 39 note 8 The most recent works on John Bale are: J. W. Harris, John Bale: a Study in the Minor Literature of the Reformation, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, xxv. No. 4, Illinois 1940; H. McKusker, John Bale, Dramatist and Antiquary, Bryn Mawr 1942; Davies, W. T., ‘A Bibliography of John Bale’, Oxford Bibliographical Society Proceedings and Papers, v (1946), 202–79Google Scholar.

page 40 note 1 Bale, in his account of himself, simply says that he was at Cambridge: Summarium, Ipswich 1548, 243. The mistake appears to spring from his account of Simon Alcock, founder of Jesus College, where he mentions the association of Cranmer and Downes with Jesus. He merely says that he knew them and that he had disputed in the Schools with Downes: this is not evidence that he was at Jesus. See Summarium, 209v; Catalogus, 632.

page 40 note 2 There seems to be uncertainty whether he was at Ipswich or Doncaster first. For our purpose it is unimportant. We have accepted the chronology in Davies, op. cit., 207–8.

page 40 note 3 His trials and tribulations at this period Bale describes in The Vocacyon of Johan Bale to the Bishopric of Ossorie, printed in Rome at the Castel of St. Angello, December 1553, reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, vi, London 1810, 437–64.

page 41 note 1 From a letter to Matthew Parker, July 1560, preserved in the Cambridge University Registry: quoted McCusker, op. cit., 59. The letter was printed by Luard, H. R. in Cambridge Antiquarian Society Communications, iii (1864–76), 157–73Google Scholar.

page 41 note 2 Fols. iii–viv, vii–viii, 159–59v, 214–14v, 223.

page 41 note 3 Fols. 54v–56v, 119v, 128, 149, 158v, 159v, 215–215v.

page 41 note 4 Fols. 98v–103v.

page 41 note 5 Fols. 158, 165v–6, 169, 171v, 172v, 174, 181, 182v, 191v–5v, 243v, 244v.

page 42 note 1 In Anecdota Oxoniensia, Medieval and Modern Series, pt. ix.

page 42 note 2 Ibid., 224, 452.

page 42 note 3 London 1549.

page 42 note 4 Ibid., G. 2. Quoted, in part, in McKusker, op. cit., 51.

page 43 note 1 Catalogus, pt. ii, 159–67.

page 43 note 2 James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Cambridge 1912, 1. xviiGoogle Scholar.

page 43 note 3 Dr. McKusker devotes chap, ii of her book to Bale's Irish Library. She reprints Bale's List and identifies many surviving MSS. The numbers which she allocates to individual works in the List are used here (op. cit., 32–47). This chapter she originally published under the title The Books and Manuscripts of John Bale’ in Trans. Bibliographical Soc., xvi (1935), 144–65Google Scholar.

page 43 note 4 McKusker, op. cit., 62.

page 43 note 5 Some MSS., like Trinity College Dublin MS. C. 3. 12 and Lambeth MS. 61, fols. 118–42 both came into Ussher's possession but thereafter had separate histories. Both belonged to Bale but neither is mentioned in the list of his Irish Library. (For the T.C.D. MS., see Index, op. cit., xvii).

page 43 note 6 McKusker, op. cit., 60 (Luard, 158).

page 43 note 7 Luard, op. cit., 159, 166. Robert Cage was presented to the vicarage of Yalding in 1560 (Foedera, ed. T. Rymer, London 1713, xv. 563).

page 44 note 1 Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford MS. 255 (Coxe), fol. 136. I am indebted to Mr. N. R. Ker for this reference.

page 44 note 2 For Whitlocke see D.N.B.; J. Venn and I. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. i: From the earliest Times to 1751, Cambridge 1927, iv. 395Google Scholar; Neve, Hardy-Le, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, Oxford 1854, i. 594Google Scholar.

page 44 note 3 For Darrell, who was also a prebendary of Lichfield, see: Le Neve, op. cit., i. 49, 119, 603; Venn, op. cit., Cambridge 1922, ii. 12.

page 44 note 4 For the interesting story of this MS. of Flores Historiarum (Lambeth MS. 1106) see W. Stubbs, Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, i (Rolls Series 76, 1882), xlvi, xlviii. It was owned in turn by Nicholas Brigham, John Bale, William Darrell, Sir James Ware, Henry Hyde second earl of Clarendon (who bought it in Ireland and placed it in archbishop Tenison's library), James Bridges duke of Chandos and Richard Widmore, librarian of Westminster Abbey, who sold it to archbishop Secker.