The church of SS. Edmund and Frideswide, Oxford. has recently acquired an interesting painting which has been placed over the high altar to commemorate the seventh centenary of the death of Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, the founder of the first house of the Franciscan order in the university.
The artist, Mr. James Perceval, has depicted Blessed Agnellus standing beneath the cross with St. FranCiSl the background is a composite picture of mediseval and modern Oxford.
The painting is an attempt to show the place occupied by St. Francis in the development of the Franciscan community in Oxford university.
From Oxford Agnellus laid the foundation of the English province of Friars Minor, which became the exemplar for all the provinces of the order.
Agnellus's body, incorrupt, was preserved with great veneration in Oxford from the time of his death, May 7, 1236, until the dissolution under Henry VIII.
Leo XIII formally confirmed his cuitris in 1882, and his feast is kept on May 7.
A second attempt is being made to revive the memory of the pre-Reformation friars by the erection of a shrine of our Lady of Pity, under which title she received special veneration from the old Oxford Franciscans.