and Burley,1 and the like, when they tried to spread a flimsy veil over the web of lies that they were weaving; me who had stopped their bootless barking with the words of piety and truth ! Let him come on then (say we), that old beggar of a Bisignano Bishop ! Let him come on ! We'll take the measure of him, though he does paycock about the Kaisar's Court and call himself (save the mark) the Aposthle of the East : We'll let him find out what good his doting dreams will do him in a practical question. 'Twill be a pity if I, who have muzzled a whole pack of yelping hounds, find it a hard matter to put a collar on a poor old wheezing tyke, who has scarcely a bark left in him, and never had the least repute for brains !"
Dobner does not identify the writer of this letter, but there can be no doubt that it was Richard Fitz Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, a strenuous adversary of the Franciscans and other mendicant orders, who however proved too strong for him at last, and brought him into trouble which he did not survive.2
among the schoolmen. He was provincial of his order in England, and as such took a prominent part at a council held at Assisi in 1322 in support of the strict obligation to poverty. It was perhaps on this question that he had been at war with the Archbishop of Armagh. Ockham took part with Corbarius the Anti-pope, and was excommunicated by John XXII. He took refuge with the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, who was under the like ban, and died at an advanced age at the convent of his order in Munich, in 1347. (Cave, App., p. 28; Biog. Universelle.)
1 Walter Burley, another eminent English Schoolman, and tutor to Edward III, born at Oxford 1275, died 1357 (some say 1337).
2 A native of Dundalk ; he was held in high esteem by Edward and became successively Professor of Theology at Oxford, Dean of Lichfield, Chancellor of the University (1333), and Archbishop of Armagh (1347) . In his constant war against the friars we are told that "eorum vanarn et superbam paupertatem Oxonii in lecturis theologicis salse vellificare solebat ; episcopus vero factus acriori calamo confixit ;" statements which from the style of his letter can be well believed. They, also appear to disprove the allegation of Wadding that Fitz-Ralph's enmity to the friars first arose out of the resistance of the Franctcans of Arm Armaira to a piece of injustice on the part of the archbishop.
Some sermons which he preached in London in 1356 against the friars and the profession of voluntary poverty gave great offence. They accused him of heresy, and had him cited to Avignon where he was long detained. The questions perhaps involved very serious consequences to those who rashly stirred them, for only four years before, two Franciscans, for holding wrong opinions concerning the principle of poverty (though probably in a direction opposite to Fitz Ralph's) had been burnt
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