GUGLIELMO di NOTTINGHAM, senior. — English Franciscan, who died at the Chapter of Metz in the spring of 1250. In 1239 he was provincial vicar of England, and in 1240 became provincial. In this capacity, in 1244 he subscribed to the Constitution of Henry III for the University of Oxford, by which a special tribunal was established for scholars and which forms the basis of the Chancellor’s jurisdiction.
G. was a diligent student of Sacred Scripture, and seems to have studied at Oxford under Grossaresta, whose friend he was. He vigorously promoted theological studies and observance of the Franciscan Rule in its original purity. He successfully defended the interests of his Order in the Roman Curia against the Dominicans. He was highly esteemed and loved by his friars, and when the minister general of the Order, Giovanni da Parma, wished to depose him at the Chapter of 1248, for a reason unknown to us, he encountered the general disapproval of the English friars, who elected him again. In 1250 he went as a legate to the Pope.
He wrote a commentary on the Gospels, called Unum ex quatuor or also De Concordia Evangeliorum, which is based on the work of Clement of Langthon and was highly esteemed in the Middle Ages, as the great number of manuscripts demonstrates.
In 1322 he was present at the Order’s general Chapter in Perugia and subscribed, together with the other provincial ministers, the famous letter in which the Franciscans declared that the doctrine «de paupertate Christi» was not heretical but sound and Catholic. This act marked the beginning of the revolt of the entire Order against Giovanni XXI (H. Holzapfel, Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens, Friburgo in Br. 1909, p. 69).
The work Determinatio pro lege Christianorum and a commentary on the Lombard’s Sentences are attributed to him. In any case, Sbaralea and others ascribe many works to both Guglielmo, although their attribution is uncertain.