John Peckham

"And therefore, Sire, altho' I am ready, so far as is in me, to dedicate the place for the Cistercian monks at Meynan, yet I could not do it without the full assent of the bishop and of his chapter, and of the parson of the place, who, with plenty of other people, have a very great horror of the approach of the forsaid monks. For though they may be good men, if God please, still they are the hardest neighbours that prelates and parsons could have. For where they plant their foot, they destroy towns, take away tithes, and curtail by their privileges all the power of prelacy."

"As you see double if you push the eye out of its place with your finger; so prelates, through evil counsel, judge a priest to be worthy of two benefices, when he ought to be contented with one."

"Formerly the Church with its prelates of old time, was golden in wisdom, silver in cleanness of life, brazen in eloquence, which are three things needful to a preacher; that is, brightness of wisdom, cleanness of life, and sonorousness of eloquence. But of the feet, the last, that is the modern prelates, part is iron through their hardness of heart, and part is clay by their carnal luxury."

"[Perspectiva communis was written to] compress into concise summaries the teachings of perspective, which [in existing treatises] are presented with great obscurity."

"Light from a concave luminous body is received most powerfully at the centre. The reason for this is that, for every point of a concave body, perpendicular rays, which are stronger than others, converge in the centre. Therefore the virtues of celestial bodies are incident most powerfully in and near the centre of the world."

"Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators; among the great things of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations most illustriously elevates the minds of its investigators; perspective must therefore be preferred to all human discourses and disciplines, in the study in which radiant lines are expounded by means of demonstrations and in which the glory is found not only of mathematics, but also physics: it is adorned with the flowers of one and the other."

"Another Oxford writer who appreciated experimental science was John Pecham... In his Perspectiva Communis Pecham gave a very clear and concise summary of contemporary optics, based largely on Alhazen, Witelo, and pseudo-Euclid's De Speculis. His book contained nothing original but it remained a popular text book until the seventeenth century."

"In the study of light, he said, the argument proceeded both from the effect to the cause and from the cause to the effect, and he prayed God, the light of all, to help him. He arranged his work as a structure of theory built up from a set of empirical facts and the rules of geometry, with the argument sometimes ascending inductively to a 'common nature' and the grasping of a universal, and sometimes descending deductively by 'composition' to consequences by means of which a theory could be verified or falsified by experiment."

"Giambattista della Porta, who seems to have been the first to try combinations of lenses to form a microscope, based his optical work almost entirely on that of Roger Bacon, Witelo, and Pecham."

"Pecham's Perspectiva was published in as many as nine editions, one in Italian, between 1482 and 1627."

"In the realm of psychology (in the medieval sense), Pecham's writings are extensive. ...each soul is created singly and "daily" by God. The soul... is everywhere in its little world as God is everywhere in the the bigger world. The soul is united to the body as a form is to matter. ...The human will is free and cannot be coerced by anything else. ...The will is free to the extent that it can withhold consent to the dictates of practical reason."

"The Perspectiva is a clear and concise summary of the science of light at the time... a popular text on optics until the seventeenth century... used and cited by many medieval and Renaissance scholars, including Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Kepler."

"The difference between Pecham's Tractatus de perspectiva and his Perspectiva communis is striking. The former has significant religious content and was apparently intended as a devotional aid. The latter deals exclusively with optics, and reveals neither biblical nor theological influence."

"Following Ibn-Haytham [ and his Book of Optics with regard to the Moon illusioin ] Pecham supports the intervening objects theory. However, the interposition of vapours is also thought to produce enlargement by refraction. This work probably predates Pecham's Perspectiva communis (1275)."

"There were many natural philosophers, particularly in the West, who looked to al-Kindi for support in their defense of a combined intromission-extramission theory. Grosseteste, an early defender of such a combined theory, was in all likelihood familiar with al-Kindi's De aspectibus and probably had al-Kindi in mind when he wrote: "However, mathematicians and physicists, whose concerns is with those things that are above nature, ...maintain that vision is produced by extramission." Later in the thirteenth century Roger Bacon and John Pecham also appealed to the authority of al-Kindi to support their contention that rays issue from, as well as enter, the observer's eye."

"Bacon's scientific interests were also shared by John Pecham, future Archbishop of Canterbury, who may have been among his students in his days as a secular master, and who certainly lived with him in Paris in the 1260s and 1270s. Pecham's later work on optics, astrology and astronomy was influenced by Bacon."

"The marked superiority of Ibn al-Haytham's treatise did not necessarily cause interested readers, even those of intelligence, to reject the Optics out of hand. On the contrary, it was precisely among the most avid disciples of Ibn al-Haytham in the West—the so-called Perspectivists, whose members included Roger Bacon, Witelo, and John Pecham—that Ptolemy's Optics found the most eager audience."

"Witelo seems to have used the Optics more sparingly than Bacon, and this trend continues with John Pecham, whose Perspetiva communis reveals no unequivocal borrowings and has only a handful of possible ones."

"In the four mediaeval documents which form the text of this volume, we have an interesting survival of the efforts of three of the earliest of the English Reformers. For John de Thoresby and John Peckham, the Northern and the Southern Primates, no less than John de Wyclif, the Oxford scholar and leader, deserved that title. All three men were anxious, before everything else, to amend the carelessness and the inconsistency of the clergy, and the consequent ignorance and corruption of the laity of their day."

"In 1278 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Nicholas III., in spite of the attempts made by Edward I. to gain the preferment for his chancellor, Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells; but was not consecrated till the spring of the following year. He was well received by the king and showed himself a strong prelate, a determined foe of pluralists, and quite ready to champion the cause of ecclesiastical reform against the king himself, when need arose."

"Like Thoresby in the following century, he was most assiduous in his endeavours to improve the education and the discipline of the clergy of his province; and to this end mainly, summoned the Council which sat at Lambeth, from the 7th to 10th of October 1281."

"It has been observed that as Wycliffe displays a bias against prelates and friars, so does Peckham against the secular clergy, and this is shown by his Lambeth Canons. But that monks came equally under his lash when they deserved it, is proved..."

"Follow the Constitutions... which consists of the Lambeth Canons, ix—xiii. They run in the name of the Archbishop, who begins by stating his desire to remedy present evils, and his hope to make progress in that direction, by the favour of Christ, and with the assistance of his brethren and bishops. Ignorance on the part of the clergy is the source of error in the people whom they are bound to guide. Therefore he directs that every priest shall explain to his people simply and clearly, four limes a year, the Creed, the ten commandments, the two precepts of the Gospel, viz., love to God and man, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues, and the seven sacraments of grace. Furthermore, lest any priest should put forward the excuse of ignorance, he (the Archbishop) will explain briefly in what these things consist. And a short and simple exposition of the elements of faith and practice, completes this division of the Canons of the Council of Lambeth."

"[There was a] long standing contention between the sees of York and Canterbury as to the right of either metropolitan to bear his cross erect in the province of the other. ...Peckham, on hearing that his brother [ William of Wickwane, Archbishop] of York had returned from abroad, and was intending to pass through his province with his cross erect, wrote a letter forbidding the clergy to show him any mark of respect, ordering them to shut the church-doors in his face, and threatening all persons, clerical and lay, with excommunication, who ventured to supply him with food, or render him the slightest service."

"Peckham was a stern man; intolerant of those, who differed from him in opinion, or who ventured to disobey his orders. But, if he was harsh to others, he was, at the same time, severe to himself. If he was rigid in exacting, from others, a strict observance of their vows, he himself was an example of the obedience which he enforced."

"The Minorites [ Franciscan Order of Friars Minor] went forth, in their long grey coats and hooded cloaks, with their rope girdles and bare feet, to preach the gospel, with more sincerity, perhaps, in their humble days when Peckham was their provincial minister, than ever afterwards."

"Peckham, with Roger Bacon, contended against the narrow views of certain of the superiors of the order, who dreaded learning, and forbade the formation of a library. A library was eventually formed, in spite of their opposition, and the room to contain it was erected at the expense of the far-famed Whittington."

"On his going to Rome, he received an appointment from the pope, being made Causarum Auditor, or Lector Palatii. The two titles describe one office. Being now both a theologian and a lawyer, he was well qualified to dispute with those heretics, who were summoned to Rome; and this, for the two years that he held the office just described, appears to have been his duty."

"The whole conduct of the monks of Canterbury, from the time of Becket's death, had in fact been directed to two objects: to emancipate themselves from the abbatial authority, as well as from the archiepiscopal jurisdiction of the primate, and in the case of elections, to force a monk into the primatial see. They were a set of turbulent, unprincipled men, always ready to side with the pope, against the king, and against the suffragans. ...no one could object to the appointment of Friar John. In the parishes, in the universities, among the nobles, as well as among the masses of the people, the mendicants were at this time popular; and the pope was willing to show his impartiality, in nominating a Franciscan as the successor of a Dominican. We can easily understand the unwillingness of Friar John to accept the office. He was a sectarian, who loved his order more than he loved the Church; and he did not consider an archbishopric superior to the high offices among the Franciscans, to which he aspired. But he was obliged to yield, and was consecrated by the pope himself, on the 19th of February, 1279."

"Although Peckham affected much humility, discharging for himself many acts, which his predecessors had hired servants to perform; and although, to mark his humility, he still called himself Friar John; he was, nevertheless, a pompous little man, both in his gait, and in his manner of expressing himself."

"The king, indeed, soon found cause to regret the consent that he had given, to the appointment of a friar to the primatial see of his realm. Peckham was not a true hearted Englishman, and was, invariably, engaged in furthering the interests of the pope, in opposition to those of the king of England and the Country."

"The archbishop, on the 2d of November, 1281, addressed a letter to the king, which, still further, proved the impolicy of permitting a friar to occupy the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury. He affirmed that Catholic emperors had submitted to the laws of the papacy, and abolished any local laws which were contrary to the same. Peckham... openly declared that whatever oaths he may have taken, he should feel himself absolved from them, if they interfered with his duty to the pope."

"We have a more pleasant scene presented to us, when the archbishop revisited the place of his early education, and showed his affectionate respect to the aged men, once his superiors, now placed under his jurisdiction. The archbishop arrived at Lewes. The chapter of the priory went out to meet him. They experienced the strange feeling, which old men often experience, when they pay obeisance to one, whom they have whipped when a boy. The Archbishop of Canterbury, arrayed in his pontificals, and in great state, joined the procession as it perambulated the town of Lewes. He preached in the great church; he granted indulgences; he sang the mass at the high altar. Having thus done all that he could do for the honour of the priory; having kept a high festival and feasted the poor; Brother John, as he is called in the "Diary," put off his splendid attire, and in his grey coat, rope-girdle, bare of foot, he entered the refectory, and partook, with his usual moderation, of the simple fare of the delighted monks. To receive such a mark of respect from a friar, usually the opponent of the monks, was an honour highly appreciated."

"A heavy charge may be brought against Friar John himself, in so far that he did not oppose, though we have no reason to believe that he instigated, the severe measures which were adopted in this reign against the Jews. ...Occasionally a prelate would take part against them, urged, by religious motives, to act against those who, in their unbelief, crucified the Son of God afresh. Such was the case with Peckham, and even with the more enlightened Stephen Langton. But the prelates, who were statesmen and lawyers, were generally on the side of Government, whose policy it was to extend protection to that great class, which formed a considerable part of the monied interest of the country."

"The feeling of the country had... become fanatical in its hatred of the Jews; and the House of Commons, in 1290, demanded that the whole race should be banished the kingdom. Edward I was one of the greatest of our sovereigns, but he was not sufficiently great to resist the spirit of the age, when it accorded with his own religious convictions, and, at the same time, with his worldly interests. Human nature is always the same. Fools are always numerous, and sometimes powerful, and wise men are not infrequently weak. We are not required to enter into a description of the measures which were adopted; for though Peckham, harsh, severe, and intolerant, was sure to be on the side of what are called strong measures, he did not take a prominent part in the proceedings against the Jews. We need only, therefore, mention, that the king, probably for their protection, first directed that they should be imprisoned; then made them pay for their liberation; and finally, banished them from the kingdom. Edward was enriched, at the time, by the confiscation of the property of the Jews; but... the country suffered more by their expulsion, than the Jews themselves, and the court itself eventually suffered, as the annual tax, which they had hitherto paid for protection, was now withdrawn."

"When the General of the Franciscans [ Nicolas IV ] ascended the papal throne, one of the first things he did, was to name as cardinal, Matthew Aquasparta, General of the Dominicans. No advantage of a personal character accrued to brother John from this event. But Matthew of Westminster sarcastically remarked, that the brothers of the Franciscan or Minorite order, regarded the pope as the sun, and the Archbishop of Canterbury as their moon. They thus set up their horn on high, and spared no order or rank in the Church of England."

"On the 4th of April, 1292, died Pope Nicolas IV.; and shortly after, brother John was released by death from the anomalous position, in which he had endeavoured to reconcile the poverty of the mendicant with the splendour of the primacy; his oath of allegiance to the King of England, with his vow of subservience to the will of the Roman pontiff. John Peckham died on the 8th of December, 1292. Matthew of Westminster remarks, that the sun of the Minorite brothers being obscured by the death of Nicolas, the moon soon suffered an eclipse. We gather from this author, that, before his death, Peckham had sunk into dotage; and he asserts that, having in his prosperity insulted many of his superiors, especially the Benedictines, he died unlamented,—at least by the monks."

"As a friar Peckham was naturally inclined to favour the pretensions of the papal see, and his tenure of office was marked by several bold though ineffectual attempts to magnify ecclesiastical authority at the expense of the temporal power. Almost his first act on landing [in England as the new Archbishop] was to summon a council to meet at Reading on 29 July [1279]. Among other acts at this council Peckham ordered his clergy to explain the sentences of excommunication against the impugners of Magna Charta, against those who obtained royal writs to obstruct ecclesiastical suits, and against all, whether royal officers or not, who neglected to carry out the sentences of the royal courts. Edward took offence at Peckham's attitude and... not only compelled him to withdraw the objectionable articles, but also made the archbishop's action the occasion for passing Statute of Mortmain or De Religiosis."

"The chief political question in which Peckham was concerned was the Welsh war. The archbishop was anxious to put down the abuses in the Welsh church, and to bring it into greater harmony with English customs. ...he wrote to Llywelyn rebuking him for his infringements of the liberties of the church. In July 1280 he visited Wales, and made a friendly arrangement with Llywelyn... But a month later a letter of Peckham's, in which he asserted the reasonableness of Edward's claim to settle disputes on the marches by English customs, roused Llywelvn's wrath. The archbishop's ill-considered action led to the trouble which precipitated the end of Llywelyn's power. By the spring of 1282 the Welsh had broken out into open rebellion, and on 1 April Peckham ordered their excommunication. Towards the end of October Peckham joined the king at Rhuddlan, with the intention of endeavouring to mediate in person. On 31 Oct. he set out, against Edward's will, to meet Llywelyn... But prolonged discussion and negotiations between the archbishop and the Welsh prince failed to produce any terms to which Edward could give his consent."

"After Llywelyn's death Peckham appealed to the king on behalf of the Welsh clergy, and after the completion of the conquest, took various measures intended to bring the church in Wales into conformity with English customs, and also induced the king to adopt some measures for remedying the damage which had been done to the Welsh churches through the war."

"Peckham's ecclesiastical policy, like his political action, was marked by good intentions, but marred by blundering zeal and an inclination to lay undue stress on the rights and duties of his office."

"In his ecclesiastical administration Peckham applied himself with much zeal to the correction of abuses in the church. ...statutes were passed ...forbidding the holding of livings in plurality or in commendam. ...Much of Peckham's episcopate was taken up with systematic and searching visitations of various dioceses of his province, for the most part conducted by himself in person. ...His insistence on his visitatorial rights had involved him in 1280 in a dispute with the king, and two years later the suffragans of Canterbury presented him with twenty-one articles complaining of his procedure and of the conduct of his officials."

"Nor were Peckham's relations with individual bishops [of England] always satisfactory."

"Peckham was especially anxious to check the abuses of plurality, and his zeal involved him in several sharp disputes. ...A more serious case was that of Richard de la More, whose election as bishop of Winchester in 1281 Peckham refused to confirm, on the ground that he held two benefices with cure of souls without dispensation. The bishop-elect appealed to Rome, but, despite the opposition of some cardinals... Peckham won his case."

"Peckham's visitations naturally included the monastic houses, and his 'Register' contains a considerable number of injunctions and ordinances for the correction of abuses. ...The charge that he was actuated by enmity to the monks had perhaps no better ground than the fact that he was a friar."

"While he sometimes associated the Dominicans in advantages sought for his own order, he denied their claim to superiority, and asserted that the Franciscans, following the example of the apostles in their poverty, led a holier life than any other order in the church."

"Peckham's visitation of Lincoln diocese brought him to Oxford on 30 Oct, 1284, when he condemned certain erroneous opinions in grammar, logic, and natural philosophy, which, though censured by his Dominican predecessor, Kilwardby, had now [been] revived. ...Chief among them was the vexed question of the 'form' of the body of Christ, which involved the received doctrine of the Eucharist. The doctrines in question were maintained by the Dominican rivals of Peckham's own order, and their condemnation appeared to impugn the reputation of the Dominican doctor St. Thomas Aquinas. ...The prior [of the Dominicans], he said, had misrepresented him; he was actuated by no hostility to the Dominicans, nor to the honoured memory of St. Thomas; he had no intention to unduly favour his own order, and his censure was supported by the action of his predecessor."

"Peckham's other relations with Oxford were friendly. ...he wrote to the chancellor confirming the privileges of the university. ...he remonstrated with the bishop of Lincoln on his interference with the of the privileges of the university, but he was unable to support the masters entirely, and on 27 Jan. 1281 advised them to submit. As archbishop, Peckham was patron of Merton College, and on several occasions intervened in matters concerning its government."

"Peckham's health, both bodily, and mental, began to fail some time before his death. On 20 March 1292 the bishop of Hereford had license to confer orders in his place. Peckham died at Mortlake, after a long illness, on 8 Dec. 1292. In the previous September Henry of Eastry had written to the archbishop, reminding him of his promise to be buried in the cathedral, and Peckham was buried accordingly on 19 Dec. in the north cross aisle near the place of Becket's martyrdom. ...Peckham's heart was buried in the choir behind the high altar at the Grey Friars of London."

"Trivet well describes him [ in Annales sex Regum Angliæ] as 'a zealous promoter of the interests of his order, an excellent writer of poetry, pompous in manner and speech, but kind and thoroughly liberal at heart.'"