Thomas Prestbury

Shrewsbury Abbey, where Thomas Prestbury was abbot from 1399 to 1426.

Thomas Prestbury (aka Thomas de Prestbury and Thomas Shrewsbury) was an English medieval Benedictine abbot and university Chancellor.

Prestbury was the abbot at Shrewsbury Abbey from 1399–1426.[1] He was sometimes involved in conflict. In April 1399, King Richard II ordered that he should be taken into custody and committed to the Abbot of Westminster.[2] When he was elected to the position of abbot four months later, the king was captive. It is likely that Prestbury had Lancastrian leanings. Later he tried to make peace (unsuccessfully) before the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403).

Prestbury was twice Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1393–94 and 1409–10.[3] As the commissary of the Bishop of Lincoln, he oversaw the burning of John Wycliffe's books at Carfax in the centre of Oxford, in 1410.[4]

References

  1. Gascoigne, Thomas; Edwin, James; Rogers, Thorold (1881). Loci e Libro veritatum. Google Books.
  2. Gaydon, A. T. and Pugh, R. B., ed. (1973). "Houses of Benedictine monks: The Abbey of Shrewsbury". A History of the County of Shropshire. Volume 2. Victoria County History. pp. 30–37.
  3. Hibbert, Christopher, ed. (1988). "Appendix 5: Chancellors of the University". The Encyclopaedia of Oxford. Macmillan. pp. 521–522. ISBN 0-333-39917-X.
  4. Hugh Owen and John Brickdale Blakeway (1881). "Abbots". A History of Shrewsbury. Volume 2. Google Books. p. 121.
Religious titles
Preceded by
Nicholas Stevens
Abbot of Shrewsbury
1393–1394
Succeeded by
John Hampton
Academic offices
Preceded by
Ralph Redruth
Chancellor of the University of Oxford
1393–1394
Succeeded by
Robert Arlyngton
Preceded by
William Clynt
Chancellor of the University of Oxford
1409–1410
Succeeded by
William Sulburge