William of Nottingham I
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William of Nottingham, OFM (Latin: Guilelmus de Nottingham, Gulielmus Notingham, or Willelmus de Notyngham; d. 1254),[1][2][n 1] was an English Franciscan friar who served as the fourth Minister Provincial of England (1240–1254).
The Franciscan Order supposedly reached Nottingham in 1230,[4] settling in the Broad Marsh.[5] The son of well-off parents, William entered the order early in life[3] and may have attended Robert Grosseteste's lectures at Oxford.[1] His brother Augustine also joined the Franciscans.[6] He served under Pope Innocent IV and followed the pope's nephew Opizzo east when he was appointed Latin Patriarch of Antioch.[6] While there, Augustine served as titular archbishop of Laodicea in Syria.[6]
Without holding lesser offices,[7] William was appointed vicar of Haymo of Faversham, the third Minister Provincial of England in 1239,[8] and was elected to succeed him upon Haymo's promotion to Minister General of the Order in 1240.[3] As Minister Provincial, he appears in the chronicle of his friend Thomas of Eccleston as a helpful and wise cleric with good humor and strong force of character, "thinking nothing of incurring the anger of the powerful for the sake of justice".[3] He was a contemporary of William of Esseby[9] and enlarged the Franciscan houses at York, Bristol, and Bridgwater.[10] He resisted other proposed expansions, however, with the admonition "I did not become a friar for the purpose of building walls".[11] He had the roof removed from the London chapel and the embossments on its cloister scraped away[11] but provided lecturers from the universities to visit all the larger convents.[3] He resisted inroads by the Dominicans, traveling to the papal court in 1244 to obtain a letter restraining their proselytizing. (He probably attended the general chapter at Genoa[12] during this trip,[3] although Eccleston's account of its activities seems to have been mistaken.)[12] In 1250, John of Parma held a chapter at Oxford, taking a referendum as to whether William should be confirmed in or deposed from his post; the vote was unanimous in his favor.[3]
Little states that he was supported by the general chapter at Metz the next year and, probably at the same time, carried a decree rejecting Pope Innocent IV's laxer Expositio Regulae in favor of Gregory IX's Expositio.[3] Mellors states that he was deposed by the Council of Metz nine years after taking office.[4] En route to the papal court, his socius[clarification needed] contracted the plague at Geneva[4] or Genoa.[8] William remained and tended to him, catching the infection himself and dying around July[3] 1254.[2] Mellors claims he was buried in Marseille.[4]
The English Franciscans, indignant at his deposition,[when?] had meanwhile reëlected him unanimously.[3] He was succeeded in his position by the Minister Provincial of Germany, Peter of Tewkesbury.[13]