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papers which he thought best represented his work.1
Of his books, those which won him distinction were The Grey Friars in
Oxford (Publ. Oxford Hist. Soc. XXI. 1892); Roger Bacon
Commemorative Essays (1914), which he edited and to which he
contributed an introduction on Bacon's life together with a
bibliography: Studies in English Franciscan History (1917), being
the Ford lectures which he delivered at Oxford in 1916: a little Guide
to Franciscan Studies (1920): Oxford Theology and Theologians,
1282-1302, in conjunction with F. Pelster (Oxford Hist. Soc., 1934):
and Franciscan History and Legend in English Medieval Art (Brit.
Soc. Franc. Studies, XIX. 1937).
His chosen subject led him into Kent, and he contributed a
paper on "The Grey Friars of Canterbury" to Archæologia
Cantiana (XXXIV. 1919), while amongst his articles on friaries in The
Victoria County History was one on Kent Friaries (V.C.H. Kent, II.
177-208, 1926).
Little was always ready to devote time and energy to the
encouragement of historical learning, and he served |
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on numerous learned societies such as the Royal
Historical Society, of which he was a vice-president, the Canterbury and
York Society, of which he was chairman, the Institute of Historical
Research, University of London, and as president of the Historical
Association.
To attempt a portrait of him would need a more skilled hand
than the writer of this note possess. For his many friends it would of
course be out of place, for they have their own memories to treasure.
For those who did not know him it must be enough to say that no man,
least of all so lovable and sensitive a personality as that of Andrew
Little, could devote many years to reflection on St. Francis without
catching something of the humility and the charm of that mysterious
character. Of Little it might be said, in words once spoken about his
friend Paul Sabatier: "I never met a historian who impressed me as
he did—an idealist who was also an exact
scholar, and also a lover of his kind."
C.H.W.
1 Franciscan Papers,
Lists, and Documents. Manchester Univ. Press, 1943. |