WILLIAM OF NOTTINGHAM, SENIOR. - English Franciscan, d. at the Chapter of Metz in the spring of 1250. In 1239 provincial vicar of England, in 1240 he became provincial. As such, in 1244 he subscribed to the Constitution of Henry III for the University of Oxford, by which a special tribunal for scholars was established and which is the basis for the jurisdiction of the Chancellor.
G. was a diligent student of Holy Scripture, and it seems that he studied at Oxford under Grosseteste, whose friend he was. He energetically promoted the study of theology and the 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 greatly esteemed and loved by his friars, and when the general of the Order, John of Parma, wished to depose him at the Chapter of 1248, for a reason unknown to us, he met with the general disapproval of the English friars, who elected him again. In 1250 he went as legate from the Pope.
He wrote a commentary on the Gospels, called Unum ex quatuor or also: De Concordia Evangeliorum, which has as its foundation the work of Clement of Llanthony, and was much esteemed in the Middle Ages, as the great number of manuscripts shows.
[son of?] Sir Hugh of Nottingham. He is often confused with G. of N. senior. He was the 17th provincial of England, whereas the senior was the 4th.
In 1322 he was present at the General Chapter of the Order at Perugia and subscribed 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 constituted the beginning of the revolt of the whole Order against John XXI (H. Holzapfel, Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens, Freiburg im Br. 1909, p. 69).
The work Determinatio pro lege Christianorum and a commentary on the Sentences of Lombard are attributed to him. Moreover, to both Williams many works are ascribed by Sbaralea and others, but these are uncertain.
Bibliography4 works
Arduino Kleinmans