John Peckham

"Even when archbishop, he confined to style himself 'frater Johannes humilis,' was assiduous in prayer and fasting, and wore only the poorest clothing. When, as provincial prior, he attended a general council at Padua, he travelled all the way on foot rather than break the rule which forbade friars to ride. When... he visited Lewes priory, he showed his affection for the monks and his own humility by sharing their simple fare in the refectory. The Franciscans styled him moon of their order, Pope Nicholas IV being the sun; both died in the same year, and the Worcester chronicler commemorates the event in verses: Sol obscuratur, sub terra luna moratur, Ordo turbatur, stellarum lux hebetatur. The sun darkens, below earth moon abides judgement, The order is disturbed, starlight dims."

"Peckham's 'Register' is the oldest of the Canterbury Registers now preserved at Lambeth. The earlier records of the see were removed by Archbishop Kilwardby."

"Where the rights of the Welsh church did not interfere with his own authority, Peckham was not severe. He begged the king to respect their ancient rights and privileges, and protested against the suppression of customs which differed from those in use in England, reminding the king how easily an embittered clergy might rouse the people to rebellion."

"For some years the discipline at Christchurch had been in a very bad state, and some of the obedientiaries had been guilty of "Converting public trusts "To very private uses," and thus incurred the penalty of excommunication. The convent indeed was almost in a state of mutiny. In order to escape from claustral discipline, the monks were in the habit of staying at the convent manors, on the pretext of looking after the tenants, and while there ventured to keep purses of their own and live like ordinary men of the world. At the last election of a prior, the convent had forced Ringmer to take an oath which hampered his action as a reformer. When the archbishop tried to put down these abuses, some of the monks, "certain sons of Belial," tried to make a bargain and drew up articles on which they insisted for a time. But the majority was too strong. They were obliged to renounce them, and the paper was publicly burnt by the archbishop. Some monks who were opposed to the prior fled, but were recaptured about the end of 1284. The king, why we know not, was angry about this..."

"The book which Peckham wrote in the defence of his order against William of St. Amour was probably written before he became archbishop... but the unpopularity of the friars among the clergy had extended to England, and he was obliged to defend them... They are accused by one of our chroniclers of gaining a temporary shelter on the lands of an abbey, just to rest... then, hastily building a wooden altar and covering it with the consecrated stone they carried, they celebrated mass, and it was impossible to eject them. He complains too of their poaching... by hearing the confessions of those who were ashamed to confess to the parson whom they saw every day, or who scorned to do so because he was as vicious as themselves or were afraid of his blabbing their secrets when drunk. The clergy of England... attempted to stop this abuse... and asserted that it was an unlawful... In this they were technically wrong, for pope Martin IV... had confirmed... the power of committing to "friars of the said order... the office of preaching, of hearing confessions and absolving penitents..." with a strict prohibition of any interference. The pope, however, stipulated that the faithful must confess to their parish priest once a year. But this was not observed... for the theological faculty at the university of Paris in the same year gave it as their opinion that no one was bound to confess the same sins specifically to two persons. This would be, says Peckham, to straiten the way of eternal life which the Holy Father intended by this privilege to widen."

"Peckham jealously watched over any encroachment of his rights on the part of the temporal power, and was especially careful not to allow clerks to be tried by secular judges. We find him interfering in this way in the case of a murder which shocked the city of London even in that age of violence."

"One of the latest documents of a personal nature is the licence to the bishop of Hereford to confer orders at Wye in March 1292, in place of the archbishop, whose health, both bodily and mental gave way some time before his death. In September this event was so soon expected that prior Henry of Eastry wrote him a letter to remind him that he had promised to be buried in the cathedral and had chosen a place of rest there. All his predecessors, said the prior, reposed in the cathedral, and it would be a great scandal and a bad precedent if he did not do the like. As to the disposal of the archbishop's body the Prior had his wish. The archbishop was buried on the 19th December in the north cross aisle, near the spot where his predecessor Becket was murdered. On the tomb is an oak figure in fairly good preservation... The figure is not fixed, and it has been suggested that it did not originally belong to this tomb... but the face appears to be rather individual than conventional. It bears some resemblance in features to the figure on the archbishop's seal, of which there is a good specimen among the archives in the cathedral."

"There are engravings of the [tomb] monument in Parker's De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ and Dart's History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, the latter of which was published in 1726. Both are apparently from the same plate. ...There are more recent engravings in Blore's Monumental Remains of Noble and Eminent Persons, 1826, and in Britton's Cathedral Antiquities vol. i., p. xviii. The tomb must have been expensive, and funeral magnificent, for archbishop Parker tells us that Peckham left 5,305l. 17s. 2¼d., and when his executors rendered their accounts... 5s. 6d. was all the surplus they could show."

"According to Weever, Funeral Mon. 221, his heart was buried in Christchurch, London, behind the high altar."

"Prospectiva communis domini Johannis Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, . . Fratris ordinis minorum dicti psau ♃ ad unguem castigata per eximium artium et medicine ac juris utriusque doctorem ac mathematicum peritissimum D. Facium Cardanum Mediolanensem in venerabili colegio juris peritorum Mediolani residentem. The subject of the treatise is not what is now called perspective... but it is principally concerned with elementary propositions of optics, such as the incidence of rays of light, reflexion and refraction, the non-existence of colour without light, the construction of the eye, the appearance of objects at a distance (viz., spheres as planes, and squares as oblongs); and spherical, cylindrical, and concave mirrors, whose property of conveying heat is described. The work is divided into three parts... The third treats of the stars, the rainbow, and the milky way."

"There is an illumination of the "Spera secundum fratrem J. de Pecham archiepiscopum," executed not long after the archbishop's death. In the centre is the Mouth of Hell, inscribed "Infernus." Round it are concentric circles, and on the top God sitting in an attitude of benediction. The circles are thus named Spera terre, coloured green, Spera aque, blue with white waves, Spera aerie, yellow Spera ignis, red, Celum Lune, Celum Mercurii, Celum Veneris, Celum Solis, Celum Martie, Celum Jovis, Celum Saturni, Celum Sidereum, sive Stellarum, Celum Crystallinum, sive Applanes, Celum Medium inter empireum et cristallinum motum motu simplicissimo, Celum empireum fixum et in motum, in quo est tronus Salomonis et locus Dei et Spirituum ...The Celum Medium is white. The Celum Empireum of a purplish colour, wider than the others, with 10 circles on it alternately red and yellow. The cusped circle, in which is placed the throne of God, cuts into this sphere and rests on the Celum Medium. The Deity has long hair and beard... The throne is ornamented with round headed apertures like windows. The background is blue. The description, whether written by the archbishop or not, no doubt contains his views on astronomy in a few words."