Life

He was probably educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but there is no record of his having graduated in that university. When Queen Mary

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 attempted to re-establish the friars in England, Bourchier became a member of the new convent at Greenwich

Greenwich

Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...

; but on the queen's death he left the country. After spending some years in Paris, where the theological faculty of the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 conferred on him the degree of doctor, he travelled to Rome. He at first joined the convent of the Reformed Franciscans at the church of S. Maria di Ara Coeli, and taught at Genoa and Turin. Subsequently he became penitentiary in the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano, where John Pits, his biographer, speaks of having sometimes seen him. Bourchier died, according to Pits, at Rome about 1586.

Works

He wrote several books, but the only one that survives is the Historia Ecclesiastica de Martyrio Fratrum Ordinis Divi Francisci dictorum de Observantia, qui partim in Anglia sub Henrico octavo Rege, partim in Belgio sub Principe Auriaco, partim et in Hybernia tempore Elizabethæ regnantis Reginæ, idque ab anno 1536 usque ad hunc nostrum præsentem annum 1582, passi sunt. The preface is dated from Paris, 1 January 1582. Other editions were brought out at Ingolstadt

Ingolstadt

Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...

 in 1583 and 1584, Paris in 1586, and at Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 in 1628.

Another of his possible works was a treatise entitled Oratio doctissima et efficacissima ad Franciscum Gonzagam totius ordinis ministrum generalem pro pace et disciplina regulari Magni Conventus Parisiensis instituenda, Paris, 1582. This was published under the name of Thomas Lancton, or Lacton, perhaps an alias of Bourchier. Luke Wadding

Luke Wadding

Luke Wadding was an Irish Franciscan friar and historian.-Life:Wadding was born in 16 October 1588 at Waterford to Walter Wadding of Waterford, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Anastasia Lombard . Educated at the school of Mrs...

 calls him, in his supplementary volume, 'Thomas Bourchier Gallice, Lacton vero Anglice, et Latinis Lanius, vel Lanio, Italis autem Beccaro' (an alternative form of Beccajo), and elsewhere exarkinson, the author of 'Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica,' consider them two distinct pepresses himself convinced of the identity of Lancton and Bourchier. Francis a S. Clara and Anthony Parkinson

Anthony Parkinson

Anthony Parkinson was a historian. In 1692 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Franciscan Convent of Douai; the following year he was approved for preaching and hearing confessions...

consider Bourchier and Lancton to be distinct.

Another treatise by Bourchier, De judicio religiosorum, in quo demonstratur quod a sæcularibus judicari non debeant, is mentioned by Wadding as in his possession, but only in manuscript; this was written at Paris in 1582. In 1584 he edited and annotated the Censura Orientalis Ecclesiæ de præcipuis Hæreticorum dogmatibus, which was published by Stanislaus Socolovius.