, a Carmelite monk of great learning in the fourteenth century,
, a Carmelite monk of great
learning in the fourteenth century, was born at Walden in
Essex, about 1367. His father’s name was John Netter,
but he chose to be denominated, as indeed was very
commoil then, from the place of his nativity. He was educated among the Carmelites in London, whence he removed for the farther prosecution of his studies to Oxford.
Here he continued some years, and received the degree of
doctor in divinity, after which he returned to London, and
took the habit of the Carmelites. Being introduced at the
court of Henry IV. he became a favourite with the king,
and was appointed the principal champion of the church
against heretics, and especially those who had adopted the
tenets of Wickliff, Huss, or Jerome of Prague. In 1409
he was sent by the king to the grand council at Pisa, where
he is said to have been much admired for his eloquence and
learning. After his return to England, he was made provincial of his order; and Henry V. admitted him of his
privy-council, and appointed him his confessor. In 1415
he was sent to the council of Constance, and about 1419,
was employed to negociate peace between Uladislaus, king
of Poland, and Michael, general of the Teutonic order.
In 1422 the king died in the arms of Waldensis, at Vincennes in France. He became afterwards a favourite with
the young king Henry VI. and was appointed his confessor.
In 1430 he attended the king to France, and at Roan was
seized with an acute disease, of which he died Nov. 2, and
was buried in the convent of Carmelites in that city. He
appears to have been a man of abilities; Pits says that he
was master of the Greek and Hebrew languages, and in
general a polite scholar. His principal work, the only one
printed, is his “Doctrinale antiquum fidei ecclesias catholicse,
” Paris, de sacramentalibus
”), for the more speedy and effectual
refutation of the “insane dogmas, with which, he says, so
many of his countrymen were infected.
” Having framed
his compendium with great care, by a written injunction
under his own hand he ordered it to be preserved in the
registry of the see, for the benefit of his successors in their
examinations of “heretical depravity;
” pronouncing an
anathema at the same time against any one who should
obliterate the title, expressive of the design of the
performance and the name of the compiler. The original
copy of this “touchstone of error,
” which was completed
at Woburn on the feast of the Epiphany 1491-2, is still
extant in the library of University-college, Oxford.