William of Nottingham

William of Nottingham, OFM (, , or ; 1254), was an English Franciscan friar who served as the fourth Minister Provincial of England (1240–1254).

Life The Franciscan Order supposedly reached Nottingham in 1230, settling in the Broad Marsh. The son of well-off parents, William entered the order early in life and may have attended Robert Grosseteste's lectures at Oxford. His brother Augustine also joined the Franciscans.

Without holding lesser offices, William was appointed vicar of Haymo of Faversham, the third Minister Provincial of England in 1239, and was elected to succeed him upon Haymo's promotion to Minister General of the Order in 1240. As Minister Provincial, he appears in the chronicle of his friend Thomas of Eccleston as a helpful and wise cleric with good humor and strong force of character, "thinking nothing of incurring the anger of the powerful for the sake of justice". He was a contemporary of William of Esseby and enlarged the Franciscan houses at York, Bristol, and Bridgwater. He resisted other proposed expansions, however, with the admonition "I did not become a friar for the purpose of building walls". He had the roof removed from the London chapel and the embossments on its cloister scraped away during this trip, although Eccleston's account of its activities seems to have been mistaken.)

Works "A Good Sermon on Obedience" , copied in the style of the 3rd quarter of the 13th century, is attributed to William. On the authority of Eccleston, he is also responsible for A Concordance of the Four Gospels

This William is also often credited with a Commentary on the Gospels which remained well known for centuries, but it should be properly attributed to the later English Minister Provincial also known as William of Nottingham.