Shouldham Priory in Norfolk (Monasticon, vi. 974), and a hospital at Sutton de la Hone in Kent (ib. p. 669), and was a benefactor to the hospital of St. Thomas of Acre in London (ib. p. 647).
[Roger of Hoveden, pref. to vol. iii., and 16, 28, 153, iv. 48, 53, 62–6; Benedictus, ii. 158, 213, 223; Ralph of Diceto, ii. 90; Matt. Paris, ii. 453, 483, 553, 559; Walter of Coventry, ii. pref. (all Rolls Ser.); Roger of Wendover, ii. 137, 262 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Dugdale's Baronage, i. 702, and Monasticon, iv. 145–8; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 62; Norgate's Angevin Kings, ii. 355, 393; Stubbs's Const. Hist. ii. 527.]
FITZRALPH, RICHARD, in Latin Ricardus films Radulphi, often referred to simply
as 'Armachanus' or 'Ardmachanus' (d. 1360),
archbishop of Armagh, was born probably in
the last years of the thirteenth century at
Dundalk in the county of Louth. The place
is expressly stated by the author of the St.
Albans 'Chronicon Angliæ' (p. 48, ed. E. M.
Thompson) and in the 'Annales Hiberniæ'
(an. 1337, 1360, in Chartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, ii. 381, 393, ed. J. T. Gilbert,
1884). Fitzralph has been claimed by Prince
(Worthies of Devon, p. 294 et seq., Exeter,
1701) for a Devon man, solely on the
grounds of his consecration at Exeter, and
of the existence of a family of Fitzralphs in
the county.
Fitzralph was educated at Oxford, where he is said to have been a disciple of John Baconthorpe [q. v.], and where he devoted himself with zeal and success to the scholastic studies of the day, which he afterwards came to regard as the cause of much profitless waste of time (Summa in Quæstionibus Armenorum, xix. 35, f. 161 a. col. 1). He became a fellow of Balliol College, and it was as an ex-fellow that he subscribed in 1325 his assent to a settlement of a dispute in the college as to whether members of the foundation were at liberty to follow studies in divinity. The decision was that they were not permitted to proceed beyond the study of the liberal arts (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 443).
It has been commonly stated that Fitzralph was at one time a fellow or scholar of University College ; but the assertion is part of the well-known legend about that college fabricated in 1379, when the society, desirous of ending a wearisome lawsuit, endeavoured to remove it to the hearing of the king's council. For this purpose they addressed a petition to the king, setting forth that the college was founded by his progenitor, King Alfred, and thus lay under the king's special protection. They further added, to show the services which the college had performed in the interest of religious education, 'que les nobles Seintz Joan de Beverle, Bede, Richard Armecan, et autres pluseurs famouses doctours et clercs estoient jadys escolars en meisme votre college' (printed by James Parker, Early History of Oxford, App. A. 22, p. 316, Oxford, 1885 ; cf. William Smith, Annals of University College, pp. 124-8, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1728). This audacious fiction with its wonderful inversion of chronology can scarcely be said to establish any fact about Fitzralph, except the high, if not saintly, reputation which he had acquired within twenty years of his death.
Fitzralph seems to have continued residence at Oxford for some time after the lapse of his fellowship, and about 1333 he is said to have been commissary (or vice-chancellor) of the university. It is more likely, however, that he was chancellor, although Anthony à Wood expressly states (Fasti Oxon. p. 21) that this is an error ; for when he goes on to say that the chancellor at that time was necessarily resident, and that Fitzralph could not be so since he was dean of Lichfield, it is clear that he has mistaken the date of the latter's preferment ; and one can hardly doubt his identity with 'Richard Radyn,' who appears in Wood's list as chancellor in the very year 1333, but whose name is written in another copy 'Richardus Radi' (Smith, p. 125. Radi being evidently Radi, the usual contraction for Radulphi). Fitzralph was now a doctor of divinity. On 10 July 1334 he was collated to the chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral (Le NEve, Fasti Eccl Anglic. ii. 92, ed. Hardy), and probably soon afterwards was made archdeacon of Chester. The last preferment must have been some time after 1330 (ib. i. 561). Bale, by an error, calls him archdeacon of Lichfield (Scriptt. Brit. Cat. v. 93, p. 444) ; it was to the deanery of Lichfield thai he was advanced by the provision of Pope Benedict XII in 1337, and installed 20 April (T. Chesterfield, De Episc. Coventr. et Lichf. in Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 443). An express notice of William de Chambre (Cont. Hist. Dunelm. in Hist. Dunelm. Script, tres, p. 128, Surtees Soc., 1839) mentions Fitzralph in company with Thomas Bradwardine, the future primate, Walter Burley, Robert Holcot, and others, among those scholars who were entertained in the noble household of Richard of Bury, bishop of Durham, a reverence which probably belongs to a date subsequent to Bury's elevation to the see in 1333 From his deanery at Lichfield Fitzralph was advanced by provision of Clement VI to the archbishopric of Armagh, and was consecrated at Exeter by Bishop John of Grandison and three other prelates on 8 July 1347 (Stubbs,
