Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pateshull, Peter
PATESHULL, PETER (fl. 1387), theological writer, was a friar of the Augustinian house in London and took the degree of doctor of theology at Oxford. When Pope Urban offered chaplaincies for sale, which exempted monks from their orders, Peter bought one from Walter of Diss. Much influenced by Wiclif's ‘De Realibus Universalibus,’ he began to preach against his order. One of his sermons, in the church of St. Christopher, London, was interrupted by twelve friars of his house, and a riot ensued, which was quelled by the sheriffs and one of the friars. His followers recommended him to put his charges in writing. He did so, and nailed them to the door of St. Paul's Cathedral. He charged the friars with treachery to the king and country, and with gross immorality. Sir William Neville [q. v.], Sir Thomas Latimer, Sir Lewis Clifford, and others gave him encouragement. Thomas Walsingham (ad an. 1387) says he recanted on his deathbed. Leland says he attacked the sacraments of the church, the avarice, pride, and tyranny of the pope, and that his works were severely repressed by the papacy. Bale gives a list of Pateshull's writings, orthodox and unorthodox, the latter of which were burnt; but none are known to be extant.
[Walsingham's Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, ii. 157; Capgrave's Chronicle of England, p. 244; Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannica; Bale's Scriptorum Illustrium Catalogus, p. 509; Leland, De Scriptoribus, c. 437; Pits, De Illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus.]