HAYMO OF FAVERSHAM

Franciscan liturgist, the only English minister general; b. probably at Faversham in Kent, England; d. Anagni, Italy, 1244. He was already a priest and a theologian of established reputation when he joined the Franciscan Order in Paris in 1226 or 1228 (see franciscans). From the first he was an influential figure; he held office as custos of Paris and as lector at Bologna, Padua, and Tours, and was a member of a papal mission to the Eastern Church in 1233–34. He became the ringleader of the group of Paris masters who, from 1236, organized opposition to elias of cortona, and he was their spokesman in the chapter in which Elias was deposed in 1239. He succeeded Albert of Pisa as provincial minister in England in 1239, and as minister general in 1240. He was deeply committed to a program of reform that ensured that the new constitutional framework, inaugurated in 1239, became established on a secure basis. He modified some of the new statutes, noting criticisms from other Franciscans and what the Dominicans were doing. His legislation gave the general chapter a clearer control over the minister general, and fundamentally altered the composition of the order by disqualifying lay brothers from holding office and virtually ending their recruitment. His other outstanding achievement was his scholarly revision of the liturgy. The Ordinals he produced were so convenient and comprehensible that they were adopted throughout the Church.

Bibliography: Sources. thomas of eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. a. g. little (2d ed. Manchester 1951). s. j. p. van dijk, ed., Sources of the Modern Roman Liturgy: The Ordinals by Haymo of Faversham and Related Documents, 2v. (Studia et documenta Franciscana 1 and 2; Leiden 1963). Literature. a. pisvin, Catholicisme 5:539–540. r. b. brooke, Early Franciscan Government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, Eng.1959). l. hardick, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 4:1325. s. j.p. van dijk and j. h. walker, The Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy (Westminster, Md. 1960).

[r. b. brooke]