A Statesman and Divine of the Thirteenth Century.[10]
“Let me be the remembrancer,” says Fuller when describing the worthies of Lancashire, “that Hugh of Manchester in this county wrote a book in the reign of King Edward the First, intituled, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis’ (Of the Dotages of Fanatics). At which time an impostor had almost made Eleanor the queen-mother mad, by reporting the posthume miracles done by her husband, King Henry the Third, till this our Hugh settled her judgment aright. I could wish some worthy divine (with such Lancashire doth abound) would resume this subject, and shew how ancient and modern fanatics, though differing much in their wild fancies and opinions, meet together in a mutual madness and distraction.”
The historians of Lancashire have generally followed Fuller in regarding Hugh of Manchester as a native of the county, but there is nothing to identify him with certainty, for his name may be referred alike to Lancashire or to Warwickshire, and the tests that can now be applied are not decisive. The pedigree in Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” does not show our churchman, though there is a Hugh de Mancestre who was one of the justices of Warwickshire 29, 30, 31, and 32 of Henry III. In the thirty-sixth year of that King he had a grant of free warren. He was then coroner for the county and next year escheator. He died 37 Henry III., leaving two sons, Simon and Walter. There is no place assigned to Hugh in this genealogy, but even if he belonged to the stock he may have been a collateral relative or he may have been omitted as a member of a religious order having theoretically no further interest in worldly affairs.
The date of his birth is unknown. Fuller, following the authority of Pits, says that he was, “when _Adolescens_ [a youth], a Dominican; but when _Juvenis_ [a young man] he changed his copy, and turned a Franciscan. Say not he degraded himself, choosing a later order then he left; for it seems that amongst them the last is counted the best, as of a more refined perfection. He was a great scholar, and highly esteemed in that age for his severity and discretion.” He was a Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Theology, and afterwards Provincial of the Franciscan Order in England. The most interesting incident in his life is that already named, and which led to the production of that one of his works which is most frequently named. The death of Henry III., in 1272, removed a good man but an incompetent monarch from a world where moral excellence does not supply the deficiency of administrative ability. But the rule of not speaking evil of the dead led some after Henry’s death to invest his memory with a sanctity that approached to a popular canonization. We may again quote Fuller, who is relying upon the authority of Bale: “An impostor happened at this time, pretending himself first blind, then cured at the tomb of King Henry the Third, so to get coin to himself, and credit to the dead King. But our Hugh discovered the cheat; and, writing a book, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis,’ dedicated it to King Edward the First, who kindly accepted thereof, preferring that his father’s memory should appear to posterity with his true face, than painted with such false miracles.” It is a matter of regret that this book has not survived; since it is creditable to an age when superstition too often conceded an unwarranted belief in baseless claims. That Hugh of Manchester had the skill to detect the imposture is honourable to his intellect, and Edward I. must be commended for the candour that rewarded the scholar who had dispersed from the kingly father some of that odour of sanctity with which ignorance had surrounded his memory.