Meanwhile, Russell, now no longer warden, fled to Rome ‘to defende the forsaide erronye doctrine’[1637]. On August 12th, 1425, he was imprisoned by order of the Pope, first in the Pope’s, then in the ‘Soldan’s’ prison. The following January he escaped from prison and fled to England, where he was received for one night by the Friars Minors of London. He seems to have remained at large for more than a year. He surrendered or was captured in March, 1427, and on the 21st of that month, in accordance with the papal decision, he read in English a complete recantation of his doctrine on tithes at Paul’s Cross[1638], and was then handed over to the Bishop of London to be imprisoned during the Pope’s pleasure. He was at liberty again in 1429 when he incepted as D.D. at Oxford, and paid £10 to the University instead of giving a feast to the Regents[1639]. The University showed its hatred of his teaching by adding to the oaths which had to be taken by every inceptor in every faculty[1640], a disavowal of Russell’s teaching on tithes[1641]. The oath has already been quoted at length in Chapter VI.
_Super Porphyrii Universalia compendium_, by William Russell, Friar Minor.
_Comment. in Aristotelis Praedicamenta_, anonymous, but probably by the same author.
MS. Oxford:--Corpus Christi Coll. 126, fol. 1, and fol. 4.
=William de Melton= in 1427 went about the country preaching against tithes,
‘and teaching seditious doctrines among the common people in many places by uncircumcised words.’
He had probably taken a degree at Oxford, as the University was appealed to to stop his preaching. The University wrote to the Duke of Gloucester and the King’s Council, and secured his arrest. Melton was brought back to Oxford, and is said to have recanted over and over again on his knees[1642]. He is probably the same as William Melton of the Friars Minors, S.T.P.[1643], who was preaching at York in 1426, on the subject of the mystery plays.
‘He commended the play to the people, affirming that it was good in itself and very laudable; but for several reasons he induced the people to have the play on one day and the Corpus Christi procession on the second, so that the people might be able to come to the churches on the festival’[1644].