John Bankin (fl. 1347–1387),[1] was the prior of the Augustinian convent, London, and a religious controversialist (a supporter of John Wycliffe who turned opponent).[2]
Biography
editBankin was born in London and educated in the Augustinian monastery of that city and afterwards at Oxford, where he attained the degree of doctor of divinity before 1382.[3]
In the early years of the 1370s Bankin appears to have been a supporter of John Wycliffe. Christina von Nolcken states that “In 1371 Bankin and another Augustinian friar (perhaps Thomas Ashbourne) laid articles before parliament urging the use of clerical endowments to help finance the war in France. In making such a proposal they were voicing what seem to have been widely held ideas that are known to be ones that Wycliffe supported.”[4]
By the end of the decade Bankin had turned against Wycliffe, probably because he disliked the contents of Wycliffe's De eucharistia (published in 1380).[4] He attended the provincial council of Blackfriars which condemned certain of Wycliffe's opinions in May 1382.[5] Bishop Bale states that Bankin was a popular preacher and an able disputant. Poole 1885, p. 136
Works
editBishop Bale states that his writings comprise Determinationes and Sermones ad Populum, as well as a book Contra Positiones Wiclevi.[6] Of these works, however, no copies are known to be extant.[7]
The ambiguity of the manuscript of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum,[8] which ignores the distinction between n and u, has led Shirley to print the name Baukinus; and Foxe anglicises it as Bowkin.[9] The n, however, appears in two other copies.[10][11]
Notes
edit- ^ Also spelt John Bankyn and John Banekyne
- ^ Poole 1885, pp. 136, 136.
- ^ von Nolcken 2009 cites J. Bale, Scriptorum illustrium Maioris Brytanniae, quam nunc Angliam et Scotiam vocant: catalogus, 2 vols. in 1 (Basel, 1557–9); facs. edn (1971)
- ^ a b von Nolcken 2009.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 cites Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 286, 499; cf. pp. 272 sq.: ed. Shirley, Rolls Series.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 cites Script. Illustr. Catal. vi. 97.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 cites Bodl. Libr. e Mus. 86, fol. 65 b, col. 1.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 cites Fox Acts and Monuments, i. 495, ed. 1684
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 cites Fasc. Ziz. p. 499, and Wilkins, Council. Magn. Brit. iii. 158.
- ^ Poole 1885, p. 136 notes "The additions which Pits (Relat. Hist. de Rebus Angl. i. 539, 161) makes to Bankin's biography are ostensibly derived from the Fasciculi; but neither the edition nor the manuscript of this work contains anything beyond the bare name of the friar, and Pits's notice may be safely taken as a simple catholic version of Bale. The article in J. Pamphilus, Chron. Ord. Fratr. Eremit. S. August. (Rome, 1581, quarto), is equally unoriginal".
References
edit- von Nolcken, Christina (May 2009) [2004]. "Bankin, John (fl. 1347–1387)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1307.
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Poole, Reginald Lane (1885). "Bankyn, John". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.