Christopher Davenport

Francis Davenport, O.M.R., also known as Francis of Saint Clare, (1598 – 31 May 1680) was an English Catholic theologian, a Recollect friar and royal chaplain.

Life He was born Christopher Davenport in Coventry, England, in 1598, the son of Alderman John Davenport and Elizabeth Wolley, and from the grammar school at Coventry went to Trinity College Dublin where he spent fifteen months, leaving it 22 November 1611. In 1613 he and his brother John Davenport proceeded to Merton College, Oxford, entering as "battelers" and taking Cook's commons; but the warden required them to enter as commoners or to leave the college; whereon in 1614 they transferred to Magdalen Hall. Here Christopher received his Bachelor of Arts degree on 28 May, his Dublin residence being allowed to count. His brother John subsequently became a noted Puritan minister and joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England. Leading a band of some 500 colonists from there, he founded the New Haven Colony in 1638, later a part of the Connecticut Colony.

Christopher Davenport, on the other hand, was converted to Catholicism by a priest living near Oxford and in 1615 went to the English College, Douai, Flanders (present day northeast France). Attracted by the efforts to restore the English Franciscan Province, he joined the Flemish Franciscans at Ypres, 7 October 1617. When he was professed the following year, under the name of Francis of St. Clare, he joined the English Franciscan Recollects, a reform branch of the Order of Friars Minor known for their strict practice of poverty, at the newly established friary of St. Bonaventure in Douai on 18 October 1618.

On 19 June 1637, Davenport was elected Minister Provincial of the Recollects, an office to which he was subsequently re-elected on 10 July 1650, and 4 June 1665. After the Restoration of 1660 he was appointed chaplain to Queen Catharine of Braganza, and returned to London, where he spent most of his remaining years with occasional visits to Flanders. In 1652, while serving as Provincial of his Order for England, Davenport published his most ambitious philosophical treatise, Paralipomena philosophica de mundo peripatetico, aimed at harmonizing Scotism with new astronomical and chemical discoveries.

Davenport's other works are:

Epistolium, continens confutationem duarum proposititionem astrologicarum (Douai, 1626); Apologia Episcoporum (Cologne, 1640); The Practice of the Presence of God (Douai, 1642); Systema Fidei (Liège, 1648); De Definibilitate Controversiae Immaculate Conceptionis Dei Genitricis Opusculum (Douai, 1651); Explanation of the Mundo Peripatetico (Antwerp, 1652); An Echiridion of Faith (Douai, 1655); Explanation of the Catholic Belief (1656); Manuale Missionariorum Regularium praecipue Anglorum Ordinis Sacti Francisci (Douai, 1658, 1661); Fragmenta seu Historia minor Provinciae Angliae FF. Minorum (2nd edition, Douai, 1661); 2nd edition online; Tractatus de Schismate praesertim Anglicano; Vindication of Roman Catholics (1659); Liber Dialogorum (Douai, 1661); Problemata Scholastica et controversialia speculativa; Corollarium Dialogi de Medio Aninarum Statu, Religio Philosophia Peripati discutienda (Douai, 1662, 1667); Opera omnia Francisci a S. Clara (Douai, 1665-1667); Disputatio de antiqua Provinciae Praecedentia (1670); Supplementum Historiae Provinciae Angliae (Douai, 1671).