are said to have embraced such subjects as logic, the humanity of Christ, civil dominion, and the endowment of the church. Those works of his which have survived are: 1. ‘Ingressus contra Wicclyff.’ 2. ‘Acta contra ideas magistri Johannis Wyclif,’ an answer to a tract by Wycliffe. 3. ‘Secunda determinatio contra Wyclyff. De ampliatione temporis,’ a rejoinder to Wycliffe's reply. 4. ‘Tertia determinatio contra Wycliff. De esse intelligibili creaturæ.’ These four tracts, which may be referred to 1363, are contained in ‘Fasciculi Zizaniorum’ (MS. E. Mus. 86 in the Bodleian), which was edited for the Rolls Series in 1858 by the Rev. W. W. Shirley (pp. 4–103). Another manuscript of these tracts is Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 103. Bale speaks of a fifth tract of Kynyngham's, ‘Determinatio quarta ad auctoritates J. Wyclif,’ inc. ‘Jam restat dicere ad auctoritates,’ &c., but this is only a portion of No. 4 (cf. Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 80). Other treatises ascribed to Kynyngham are: 1. ‘Sermones de tempore.’ 2. ‘Sermones de Sanctis.’ 3. ‘Contra propositiones Wiclivi,’ inc. ‘Ut ait Cassiodorus.’ 4. ‘Super Sententias, lib. v.’ 5. ‘De Angelis,’ or ‘De Natura Angelica.’ 6. ‘De Nativitate Christi.’ 7. ‘De ejus Passione.’ 8. ‘De Spiritu Sancto.’ 9. ‘Commentarii Metaphysices.’ 10. ‘Ad quædam loca allegata.’ 11. ‘Quæstiones Varii.’ 12. ‘In Scripturas Commentarii.’ Bale gives the first words of some of these, but none of them seem to be extant.
Kynyngham's name is sometimes spelt Kenyngham and Kiningham, while Wycliffe calls him Kylyngham. The form Cunningham is probably due to Dempster, who claimed him for Scotland, and attached him to the family of the Earls of Glencairn. Dempster also states that he studied at Paris, and was offered but refused the bishopric of Paderborn (Hist. Eccl. x. 763).
[Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. Shirley (Rolls Ser.), see index; Leland's Comment. de Scriptt. Brit. p. 386; Bale's Heliades, Harleian MS. 3838, ff. 30, 31, 73; Bale, De Scriptt. Brit. vi. 4; Pits, pp. 564–5; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 213, s.v. ‘Cunningham;’ C. de Villiers's Bibl. Carmelitana, ii. 21–3.]
KYRLE, JOHN (1637–1724), the Man of Ross, born at the White House, in the parish of Dymock, Gloucestershire, on 22 May 1637, was eldest son of Walter Kyrle of Ross, Herefordshire, where the family had been settled for centuries, by Alice, daughter of John Mallet of Berkeley, Gloucestershire. From his father, who was a barrister, a justice of the peace for his county, and M.P. for Leominster in the Long parliament, Kyrle inherited in 1650 estates at Ross and elsewhere worth about 600l. a year. He was educated at the Ross grammar school and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 20 July 1654, but took no degree. A silver tankard holding five pints, embossed with his arms and inscribed with the words ‘Poculum charitatis ex dono Johannis Kyrle de Ross in agro Herefordiensi et hujus Collegii commensalis,’ but without date, is still preserved at the college. Kyrle was admitted a student of the Middle Temple in 1657.
After leaving the university Kyrle retired to Ross, where he lived a life of extreme simplicity, devoting his surplus income to works of charity and the improvement of the town and countryside. He owes his fame largely to the eulogy of him which Pope introduced into his third ‘Moral Epistle’ (1732) on information supplied by Jacob Tonson. An enthusiastic amateur architect, builder, and landscape gardener, nothing pleased Kyrle better than to advance a neighbour the funds necessary for enlarging or rebuilding his house, stipulating only that he should himself plan and superintend the execution of the work. His own estate he greatly improved by extensive plantations of timber. His favourite tree was the elm, of which he planted two avenues on either side, east and west, of Ross Church. He also acquired from Lord Weymouth in 1693 a lease for five hundred years of a small eminence near the church called the Prospect, which he dedicated to the public and laid out in walks shaded by ornamental trees interspersed with shrubberies. In the centre he erected a fountain, which, having become ruinous, was removed in 1794. The right of the public in this plantation, having been disputed in 1848, was, after prolonged litigation, secured in 1857 by a conveyance of the land to the town commissioners in perpetuity. Pope's lines plainly attribute to Kyrle the construction both of Ross Church and the raised stone causeway which connected the town with Wilton. Both, however, were in existence for centuries before Kyrle's time. It is said in a letter of 1746 (Spence, Anecdotes, 1820, pp. 423–5) that he gave a gallery and pulpit to the church, the spire of which was reconstructed in 1721; and the same letter implies that a fine avenue of elms along the Causeway was planted by him. Pope's further statement that he fed the poor in the marketplace possibly means, as suggested in Chambers's ‘Book of Days,’ ii. 557, that he acted as almoner to the lord of the manor in the distribution of a weekly dole. ‘He feeds yon almshouse’ may refer to Rudhall's Hospital, which was in close proximity to Kyrle's house. The character of general mediator
