Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leintwarden, Thomas
LEINTWARDEN or LEYNTWARDYN, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1421), chancellor of St. Paul's, was born in Herefordshire, and educated at Oxford, where he became master of arts and doctor of divinity, and was appointed fellow of Oriel College (before 1386), dean, and afterwards provost (1417-21). His election as provost was disputed for nearly two years (cf. Tyler, Henry V.) He is thought to have compiled in 1397 a register of the college muniments, which is still extant {Colleges of Oxford, p. 99, ed. Clark). He supported the archbishop against certain Lollard fellows of the college. Two manuscripts that belonged to Leintwarden are in Oriel and Merton libraries respectively. He was ordained acolyte on 18 Feb. 1390, and deacon 1392 (Register of Braybroke, bishop of London, ap. Tanner). In 1401 he succeeded John Godmanston as chancellor of St. Paul's. He refused at first to vacate his fellowship at Oriel on receiving this appointment, but seems to have done so before 1409.
He was still chancellor of St. Paul's in 1417. At a synod held by Archbishop Chichele on 26 Nov. in that year in London, proposals were adopted with a view to remedying the complaint of the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge that they were excluded from rewards and benefices, and Leintwarden was sent with the dean of Hereford to obtain the consent of his own university to these proposals. But the masters rejected the scheme, because it gave better benefices to the doctors than to them. Leintwarden died probably near the end of 1421. He was author of a 'Commentary upon the Epistles of St. Paul,' in fourteen books, and John Whethamstede, abbot of St. Albans, who highly praised Leintwarden in his 'De granis typicis,' ordered the work to be transcribed for the use of his monastery. The commentary is not now known to be extant.
Tanner confuses him with a contemporary Richard Lentwardyn, private chaplain to Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, who was presented by the dean and chapter of Canterbury, sede vacante, to the living of Aldington, near Hythe, in the archbishop's gift, on 1 Dec. 1390 (Courtenay's Register in Lambeth Palace Library; 1391 according to Hasted, Hist, of Kent) iii. 463). This Richard Lentwardyn was collated by the archbishop to Chartbam, near Canterbury, on 20 July 1392 (ib. p. 146). He was still rector of Chartbam in 1396. A Richard Lentwardyn exchanged some other preferment for the archdeaconry of Cornwall with Robert Braybroke on 5 April 1396 (Pat. 18 Ric. II, p. 2, m. 16, ap. Le Neve, Fasti, i. 398).
[Bale's Scriptt. Brit. cent. xii. No. 8; Pits, De Illustr. Angliæ Script. App. p. 886; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Wood's Hist. of Univ. of Oxford, i. 562 (Gutch), Hist. of Colleges and Halls, p. 126 (Gutch); Newcourt's Repert. Paroch. Londin. i. 113; Wilkins's Concilia, iii. 381; Hook's Lives of Archbishops, v. 110, ed. 1867; information from Oriel College Archives supplied by C. L. Shadwell, esq.]