Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stephen of Exeter

635392Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 54 — Stephen of Exeter1898Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

STEPHEN of Exeter (fl. 1265), is the supposed author of the ‘Annales Domus Montis Fernandi ab anno XLV usque ad annum MCCLXXIV,’ which is contained in a manuscript in the archiepiscopal library at Armagh. He was apparently born in 1246, and entered the Franciscan order at Multyfarnham, Westmeath, in 1263. Other accounts connect him with Strade in Mayo, where there was a house of the Franciscan order, which Jordan of Exeter, lord of Athlethan, or his son Stephen gave to the Dominicans in 1252 (Archdale, Monasticon Hibernicum, p. 509). Stephen of Exeter may have been a member of the family of the lords of Athlethan. He has been claimed both by Dominican and Franciscan bibliographers, and is called Stephen Hibernicus, and, by an obvious error, Stephen of Oxford.

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 692; Hardy's Descript. Cat Brit. Hist. iii. 207; Quétif and Echard's Script. Ord. Præd. i. 348; Wadding's Scriptt. Ord. Min. p. 218; Sbaralea's Supplementum in Wadding, p. 666.]

C. L. K.