Enciclopedia Cattolica

NICOLA DE FAKENHAM

Nicola of Fakenham

Volume VIII · p. 1081 · 1952

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Image from page 1081
Image from page 1081
Image from page 1081
Image from page 1081

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

NICHOLAS OF FAKENHAM. - English Franciscan theologian of the 14th–15th centuries, probably born in Fakenham, in the county of Norfolk, died at Colchester in 1407. He was doctor and master of the University of Oxford and provincial minister of England from 1395 to 1402.

Friend and confidant of King Richard II, he received many favours from him. He was also invited by the king to draft his treatise on the Great Western Schism: *Determinacio pro Urbano seu Bonifacio*, completed in Oxford on 5 November 1395. With prudence and learning, he reviews all the reasons that demand a swift resolution of the schism and suggests various means to achieve this end. His work was of notable importance because it aroused the interest of the University of Oxford and the English in resolving the disastrous schism.

Bibl.: Wadding, *Annales*, ad a. 1418, n. 18; id., *Scriptores*, p. 177; Sbaralea, II, p. 272; G. Little, *The Grey Friars in Oxford*, Oxford 1892, pp. 70, 252–53; Fr. Bliemetzrieder, *Traktat des Minoritenprovinzials von England Fr. Nicolaus de F. (1395) über das grosse abendländische Schisma* (presentation and text of the *Determinacio*), in *Archivum Franciscanum historicum*, I (1908), pp. 577–600; II (1909), pp. 79–91; A. Teetaert, *Nicolas de F.*, in *Dictionnaire de théologie catholique*, XI, cols. 613–14.