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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Keninghale, John

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938214Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 30 — Keninghale, John1892Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

KENINGHALE, JOHN (d. 1451), Carmelite, was a student at Oxford, and a friend of Thomas Walden [q. v.], who often mentions him in his letters, and chose him to take his ‘Doctrinale Ecclesiæ’ to Pope Martin V. Keninghale so won the pontiff's esteem that he was employed in the service of the papal see. He had before this become a Carmelite friar, and in 1430 was chosen twenty-fourth provincial of his order in England, at a council held at St. Albans. He resigned his office in 1444. He was present at the council of Bâle, and was confessor to Richard, duke of York, and his wife Cicely. Keninghale lived at Norwich, where he established a very fine library, and where he died 20 or 25 April 1451.

Keninghale wrote: 1. ‘Conciones Paschales,’ inc. ‘Ut refulsit sol in clypeos aureos,’ not known to be extant. 2. ‘In Aristotelem de Animalibus,’ the manuscript of which is preserved at Paris. Keninghale is sometimes called Peter, through confusion with Peter Keninghale (d. 1494), a Carmelite, who was born of a good English family in France. He studied at Oxford, became prior of the house of his order there on 21 Aug. 1466, and died there on 10 Nov. 1494. He is credited with the authorship of sermons and disputations, which do not appear to be extant.

[Leland's Comment. de Scriptt. pp. 441, 456; Bale, viii. 17, xi. 81; Harl. MS. 3838, ff. 35 and 96 b (Bale's Heliades); Pits, pp. 646, 684; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 452–3; C. de Villiers's Bibl. Carmelit. ii. 20–1, 576–7; Nouvelle Biog. Gen. s. v. ‘Kenyngale.’]