during the first year of his office attended a general council of the order at Padua. A year or two afterwards he was summoned to Rome by the pope, and made ‘Lector sacri palatii,’ or theological lecturer in the schools in the papal palace, being the first to hold the office (Monumenta Franciscana, pp. 537, 552; Trivet, p. 300; Martin, i. p. lxi). The Lanercost chronicler (p. 100) states that Peckham lectured at Rome for two years; but he probably did not hold the office much over a year, for it is unlikely that he was summoned by John XXI; and Nicholas III, who favoured the friars, only became pope on 25 Nov. 1277. Peckham gained a great reputation by his lectures, which were attended by many bishops and cardinals. His audience are said to have always risen and uncovered as he entered, a mark of respect which the cardinals refused to continue after he was made archbishop, lest its meaning might be misconstrued (Rodolphius, Hist. Seraph. Religionis, p. 117 b).
In 1278 Robert Burnell [q. v.] was elected archbishop of Canterbury, in succession to Robert Kilwardby [q. v.] Nicholas III, however, quashed the election, and on 25 Jan. 1279 nominated Peckham to the vacant see, very much against his will (Ann. Mon. iv. 279–80; the date is confirmed by the dating of Peckham's letters from 1283 onward, cf. Registrum, pp. 508, 510; but the papal bull announcing the appointment is dated 28 Jan. cf. Bliss, Cal. Papal Registers, i. 456). According to Thomas Wikes (Ann. Mon. iv. 280), Peckham was consecrated on the Sunday in Mid-Lent, 12 March, but other authorities give the first Sunday in Lent, 19 Feb. (Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 116); the latter date is shown to be correct by entries in Peckham's ‘Register’ (pp. 96, 98, 177–8, 301, 305; cf. Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 46). Peckham did not leave Rome till some time after his consecration, and passed through Paris in haste, reaching Amiens on 21 May, in order to be present at the meeting there between Edward I and Philip III of France two days later (Registrum, pp. 3, 4). Edward received him kindly, and at once ordered the temporalities of Canterbury to be restored to him (ib. p. 6). On 26 May Peckham proceeded to Abbeville, and on 4 June crossed to Dover from Witsand (ib. pp. 8, 9). The order for restitution of the temporalities had been issued on 30 May, and restitution was made immediately on the archbishop's arrival (Pat. Roll 7 Edw. I, ap. 48th Report of Dep.-Keeper, p. 37; Ann. Mon. ii. 391, iii. 280). Peckham was not enthroned at Canterbury till 8 Oct., when he celebrated his entry in Edward's presence (ib. ii. 391).
As a friar Peckham was naturally inclined to favour the pretensions of the papal see (cf. Registrum, p. 240), and his tenure of office was marked by several bold though ineffectual attempts to magnify ecclesiastical authority at the expense of the temporal power. Almost his first act on landing was to summon a council to meet at Reading on 29 July. Among other acts at this council Peckham ordered his clergy to explain the sentences of excommunication against the impugners of Magna Charta, against those who obtained royal writs to obstruct ecclesiastical suits, and against all, whether royal officers or not, who neglected to carry out the sentences of ecclesiastical courts (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 40; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 115–16). Edward took offence at Peckham's attitude, and in the Michaelmas parliament not only compelled him to withdraw the objectionable articles (Rolls of Parliament, i. 224), but also made the archbishop's action the occasion for passing Statute of Mortmain or De Religiosis. In the same parliament Edward demanded a grant of a fifteenth from the clergy. The northern province granted a fifteenth for three years; Peckham after some delay held a convocation, and granted a tenth for two years, ‘so as to be unlike York’ (Ann. Mon. iv. 286). During 1280 a further subject of dispute arose with the king, owing to Peckham's claim to visit Wolverhampton and other royal chapels in the diocese of Lichfield as a matter of right; Edward contested the archbishop's pretensions, and Peckham, after some demur, had to substantially yield the point (Registrum, pp. 109, 178–84). Peckham was not daunted by his failure, and in a council at Lambeth in 1281 the bishops proposed to exclude the royal courts from determining suits on patronage, and from intervention in causes touching the chattels of the spiritualty (Ann. Mon. iv. 285). Edward peremptorily forbade the proposal (Fœdera, i. 598), and Peckham had once more to yield. The archbishop's conduct ‘no doubt suggested the definite limitation of spiritual jurisdictions which was afterwards enforced in the writ circumspecte agatis’ (Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 117). This legislation was not passed—in 1285—without further opposition from Peckham (Ann. Mon. iii. 317). In other matters Peckham was on not unfriendly terms with the king, and he intervened with success on behalf of Almeric de Montfort in 1282 (ib. iv. 483; Registrum, p. 361). But the chief political question in which Peckham was concerned was the Welsh war. The archbishop was anxious to put down the abuses in the Welsh church, and to bring it into greater harmony with English customs.
