Bl. Agnellus of Pisa and the Oxford Franciscans 1224-2024

Today is the feast of Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, who was sent eight centuries ago to establish the Franciscans in Oxford. This octocentenary of the arrival of the Greyfriars in England is being marked by a series of celebratory events which began at Dover and Canterbury last Sunday. They conclude with a High Mass in the Dominican church in Oxford at 4pm on September 21st.

Bl. Agnellus dies in 1236 and his remains were preserved in the friary church until its destruction in the sixteenth century. It is possible they are still there. One suggestion is that they are in a garden adjacent to the site. Another, made by the late Fr Jerome Bertram, Cong. Orat.,who helped excavate the friary in the 1970s, is that they are under the fish counter in the Sainsbury's which now occupies part of the site…

I have posted about Bl. Agnellus in 2010 at Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, in 2011 at Bl Agnellus of Pisa, and in 2015 at Bl Agnellus of Pisa

I have posted more about the medieval Greyfriars house in Oxford in 2012 in Medieval Franciscans in Oxford and, slightly more generally along with the other friaries of the town and University, in a 2015 post Out and about Oxford with Friars

The Franciscan Capuchins established a new community at the church of St Edmund and St Frideswide together with an academic Hall of the University - now sadly closed - in 1928. The Capuchins are one of the later reformed Franciscan communities established in 1525. The return of the Conventual Franciscans, the successors of the medieval friars, to Oxford occurred in 2014 and that is is covered in Greyfriars return to Oxford

May St Francis, Bl.Agnellus, and all the Franciscan saints and beati pray for the Franciscan community and for us all.

Out and about Oxford with Friars

This morning I gave a tour for the community of the Oxford Franciscan Conventuals of the sites of the four medieval friaries in the city.We arranged to meet in Radcliife Square and thus I set off leading my group of Franciscans in their monastic habits around the city.

It has to be said that not much remains, indeed very little above ground of any of the four houses, but excavations, surviving records and texts and the eye of faith help. The buildings of the friaries had largely gone in all four cases by 1578 when Ralph Agas drew his aerial map of Oxford.

All four were situated just outside the city walls, and, as in other cities, strategically placed to minister to a particular quarter of the urban community. Certainly here in Oxford they all had extensive open space around them, and one of the Friars pointed out to me that the radical Franciscan Peter John Olivi (d.1298) defended the Franciscans right to have gardens for recreation in the debate on poverty within the Order. 

I understood also that one of the present community had seen a manuscript of receipts from one of the medieval friaries in Oxford which suggested they made an income from baking altar breads and from tanning.

We started with the Austin friary - now represented by the site of Wadham, including the King's Arms, and parts at least of the sites of Rhodes House and Harris-Manchester. At the south-east corner there a late medieval doorway can be seen from Mansfield Road which is probably part of the perimeter wall of the friary complex. The friary hosted regular academic disputations, known as "doing the Austins", after one of which Wyclif was informed of his censure by a Church council.

The Carmelite house started on the site of what is now Worcester College. King Edward II fleeing from the defeat of Bannockburn is said to have vowed a new site for the Oxford Carmelites if he escaped, and fulfilled it by giving the royal residence of Beaumont Palace, birthplace of King Richard I and King John, to them in 1317. Apart from the lane called Friars Entry - presumably on the site of the gatehouse - all that can be seen above ground is some pieces of window tracery in a garden behind Beaumont Street (developed at the beginning of the nineteenth century and crossing the site). It is not clear if this does come from the friary or has been rescued from another site in the city. I understand foundations of two substantial walls have been found either side of Beaumont Street itself which may well be those of the church - or possibly an earlier great hall of the palace.

We then crossed the western side of the medieval walled urban area, and out by the site of Littlegate, to look at what remains of the Dominican gatehouse, now built into the Centre for the Deaf. East of it was the church - its plan recovered in part by excavations in the early 1970s - and now covered by modern housing and part of the Magistrates court. This was the burial place from 1312-1315 of Piers Gaveston, and I gather what may have been his tomb was found in the cloister during the excavations. As Gaveston was excommunicate at the time of his death he would not have been interred in the church. His body was subsequently removed to King's Langley and the Dominican house there.

Just to the west and straddling the town wall was the Franciscan friary. Today a piece of grass protects the remains of the choir of the church - like the Dominican site the stone foundations were largely robbed away - and there is a plaque to commemorate Roger Bacon (1214?-1292?), as well as the nearby street Roger Bacon Lane. He lived on in folk memeory as the bridge gate on the old Folly Bridge, demolished in 1779, became known, erroneously, as Friar bacon's study. The excavations of the early 1970s revealed the plan of the church - like the Dominican church it had a typical friary plan of unaisled choir and aisled nave, but here there was also an elongated north transept to house more altars along its east wall. This looks to be a unique feature, suggesting both the numbers of the friars and popular demand for Masses. 

At the moment building work is going on opposite the site of the church as part of the rebuilding of the back of the Westgate centre - one might hope this process will yield more about the history of the site.

The grassy area of the choir once held the shrine of Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, who led the first Franciscans to England and who died in 1236.

Bl.Agnellus of Pisa, 1195-1236

 Image: Franciscan Province of Great Britain website/Supremacy and Survival blogspot 

Also in the church was the heart of Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans and brother of King Henry III, who died in 1270, and the  body of his third wife and Queen Beatrix of Falkenburg. King Richard himself was buried at Hailes, his  Cistercian foundation in the Cotswolds that housed the relic of the Holy Blood.

The Great Seal of King Richard of the Romans

Image:Wikimedia

In the 1380s the community included Peter of Candia, born in Crete and one of the Greek-speaking Franciscans who were sometimes resident in medieval Oxford; he was elected as Pope Alexander V in the Pisan obedience in 1409, but died the following year.

Pope Alexander V

Image:www2.ucy.ac.cy

I also drew attention to the important library of the Oxford Greyfriars. They possessed the manuscripts, and also the sanctuary slippers, of Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln (d.1253), who had been a friend and patron of the Order.

 Bishop Robert Grosseteste

Image:simon1214.com

Sadly the library which had been an important centre for study appears to have been in decay on the eve of the dissolution when John Leland visited it.

This was a most enjoyable morning, and it was a pleasure to show the present Conventual Franciscans where their predecessors had lived, as well as to relax with them over coffee afterwards and share ideas about the life of medieval friars.

Bl Agnellus of Pisa

On this day last year I posted about Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, whose diocesan feast day it is, and thought I would link to that post which gives a biography of the founder of the medieval Franciscan house in Oxford.

He died there on May 7 1236, and some years afterwards his body was exhumed and found to be incorrupt, and yielding a supply of fragrant oil. The incorrupt body was preserved with great veneration until the dissolution of the house in the sixteenth century. Indeed it may well still be there on an as yet unexcavated part of the friary site.

His cultus was confirmed by Pope Leo XIII in 1882, and his feast is kept by the Order on May 7.

Bl. Agnellus of Pisa

Modern glass in Greyfriars Church,

Oxford

Image: Lawrence Lew OP on Flickr

Greyfriars Mass

Thanks to Joe Shaw I can now provide a link to photographs of the usus antiquior Mass at Greyfriars last Monday. Here is one of his photographs:

The whole set of 29 can be viewed here.They convey something of the dignified setting as well as the dignified worship offered. The preacher was Fr Mark Elvins OFM Cap., the Guardian of Greyfriars.

I am sufficiently vainglorious to include this image of my censing of the Deacon, Br. Nicholas Edmonds-Smith, of the Oxford Oratory:

Usus Antiquior at Greyfriars

Last night I was at Greyfriars in Oxford for a High Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

The church from Iffley Road

Isisbridge photostream on Flickr

This was celebrated as part of the events to mark the centenary of the church, which was built in 1910-11 and blessed on July 15th 1911, with first Mass being celebrated there the following day. Built originally to replace the old mission church of St Ignatius by the Jesuits the church and parish was transferred to the Franciscans in 1928. This year also appears to be the four hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Jesuit mission at Waterperry House in the southern part of the parish in 1611, from which the Oxford Catholic parish developed.

The interior of the church

Image from the Greyfriars website

The church is a handsome building in a romanesque style and has had considerable redecoration to mark the centenary, and great efforts had been made to enhance the church with flowers for the occasion. Those of us who had gone to help were made very welcome by the friars and the parish community.

The parish priest, Fr Ambrose, had been anxious to have a Mass celebrated as it would have been in 1911, and so last night there was a votive in the usus antiquior of St Edmund of Abingdon, who, together with St Frideswide, is the patron of the church. The celebrant was Fr Aldo Tapparo, parish priest of St Anthony of Padua in Headington. Music was provided by members of the Schola Abelis - one of whom remarked on seeing those of us who were assisting that the 'Traddy rentamob' were very much in evidence.

I was thurifer, as I was on the previous occasion this year in May when the usus antiquior was celebrated at the church, which I posted about in Pious exercises. Well, as I have been known to say, once a boy has a little black dress he can serve anywhere. One of the community was taking photographs of the Mass and I hope that, if I can find them, I can post some online.

Following the Mass there was a reception in the parish hall and a chance to meet up with old freinds both from Greyfriars and from the 'Traddy rentamob.'

Franciscan Art and Spirituality

At teatime I went to a most interesting and enjoyable lectutre by Fr Michael Lasky OFM Conv., who is currently based in New York, on Franciscan Spirituality and Art in the basilica at Assisi. The talk was given to the Oxford Centre for Franciscan Studies, who offer a consistently interesting and stimulating series of lectures.

Fr Lasky has worked as a tour guide in the basilica in the past and spoke with knowledge, enthusiasm and understanding about the church and its great cycles of paintings by the Master of St Francis, Cimabue, Giotto and other artists. His aim was to show the way in which the paintings expounded in visual form Franciscan thought and spirituality, an aim in which, despite the limitations of time, he succeeded.

The basilica with the entrance to the lower church

The basilica is used by the Franciscans, but owned by the Pope ( and hence the recent intervention in its administration by the present Holy Father). The foundation stone was laid by Pope Gregory IX in 1228, and the building consecrated by Pope Innocent IV in 1253. The cycles of paintings extend in date into the fourteenth century and beyond. The link above gives details.

The upper church of the basilica

Amongst the examples he spoke about were the paintings in the lower church from 1260-65 by the Master of St Francis. Following Thomas of Celano's Vita secunda of St Francis they pair the lives of Christ and and of Francis with complex and rich symbolism. Thus when Francis strips off the clothes his natural father had given him he is freed to say the Pater noster to his heavenly father as never before - now he truly is God's child. This parallels the image of Christ being stripped at the Crucifixion. This typology is pursued through the church. The scenes showing Christ at Emmaus and the post mortem validation of St Francis' stigmata are significantly placed within the grill which encloses the sanctuary - both events take palce when the subject has passed through death to eternal life.

Fr Michael siad he wanted to rescue St Francis from the bird bath, and his exposition of the famous image of St Francis preaching to the birds did that - what it is is an image of preaching the news of salvation to all the nations and to the created order.

St Francis preaching to the birds.

Attributed to Giotto,1297-99

The account of the preaching to the birds from The Little Flowers of St Francis is here, and there is an exposition of it here.

In the paintings from 1305-11 of the lower church vault, attributed to Giotto the symbolic pairing occurs again - this time Francis is presented as the new St Martin.

The possibility that the upper church may have been designed, or used, as a chapter room initially, with consequent changes in its decorative scheme was raised, as were such points as the way in which in the scene at San Damiano the crucifix leans forward so as to speak to the figure of Francis.

It is now doubted if St Francis actually was ordained as a Deacon, and the scenes in whivh he is shown vested as such - the first Christmas crib, and his depiction on the lower cchurch vault in majesty - was in Fr Michale's opinion a decision to clericalise his image to avoid the problem of the perception of lay movements which were not under the control of the contemporary Church. The activities of groups such as the Spirituals and the Fratticelli posed very real problems to the Franciscan mainstream.

The lecture pointed out something of the richness of image and typology in the period. Fr Lasky conclued with the point that he had had students who queried the fact of the subtleties of medieval thought yet never queried the intricacies of the micro-chip.

This was a splendidly illustrated talk, which made one yearn to go and see Assisi for oneself - and that no doubt was part of the speaker's intention.

Bl. Agnellus of Pisa

Today is the feast appointed for Bl. Agnellus of Pisa OFM. in the Oxfordshire part of the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

I have based the following account on that in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.

The founder of the English Franciscan Province Bl. Agnellus was born at Pisa c. 1195, of the noble family of the Agnelli, and died at Oxford, 7 May, 1236. In early youth he was received into the Franciscan Order by St Francis himself, during the latter's sojourn in Pisa, and soon became an accomplished model of religious perfection. Sent by St Francis to Paris he erected a convent there and became custos.

Having returned to Italy, he was present at the so-called Chapter of Mats, and was sent thence by St Francis to establish the Order in England. Agnellus, then in deacon's orders, landed at Dover with nine other friars on 12 September, 1224, having been charitably conveyed from France by the monks of Fecamp. A few weeks afterwards they obtained a house at Oxford and there laid the foundations of the English Province, which became the exemplar for all the provinces of the order. Though not himself a learned man, he established a school for the friars at Oxford, which was destined to play no small part in the development of the University.However his solicitude extended beyond the immediate welfare of his brethren. He sent his friars about to preach the word of God to the faithful, and perform the other offices of the sacred ministry. Agnellus wielded considerable influence in affairs of state and in his efforts to avert civil war between King Henry III and the Earl Marshal, who had leagued with the Welsh, he contracted a fatal illness.

Thomas de Eccleston, the chronicler of the early Franciscans in England in his De Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam , and a student at the Oxford house in the 1230s, has a brief account of his death. Agnellus's body, incorrupt, was preserved with great veneration at Oxford up to the dissolution of the religious houses in the time of Henry VIII.

The cultus of Blessed Agnellus was formally confirmed by Pope Leo XIII in 1882, and his feast is[or was?] kept in the Order on 7 May.


There is a detailed history of the Oxford Greyfriars from the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire vol ii (1907) here which is well worth reading through, and gives details of the building work in the time of Bl. Agnellus.

Excavations before the building of the Westgate Centre in the early 1970s revealed much of the plan of the house, including the remarkable layout of the church, which added to the usual friary plan of unaisled choir and aisled nave an enormous north transept, elongated northwards in plan, with a series of chapels, presumably to provide for the number of Masses being offered by the friars. There are plans in Oxoniensia and in the medieval volumes of the History of the University of Oxford.

Today there is very little to see of what was once a leading house of prayer and study. A patch of grass in the angle of the road below the Westgate Centre indicates the site of the choir. On an adjacent wall is a plaque commemorating Roger Bacon OFM. Apart from an archway built into another building that is really all there is to see. In terms of quiz trivia however this is a site with the body of a Beatus (Agnellus himself), the heart of a King (Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, and King of the Romans 1257-72. His body was buried at Hailes Abbey), the body of a Queen (Richard's third wife Beatrix of Falkenburg, who died in 1277) and the site of the residence of a future Pope (Peter of Candia OFM, later Pope Alexander V 1409-10).

The website of the restored foundation of Franciscans in Oxford can be found at Oxford Greyfriars.