of the event at Orléans, attributed to a different city. In
any case, Francesco supposedly had to defend some
argument against another professor, Jacques de Revigny,
who was disguised as a student.
In England, Francesco was described as the king’s
consiliarius, familiaris, secretarius, and clericus. He
served Edward in various diplomatic and legal capacities
and attended meetings of the royal council, presumably
to advise the councillors on legal matters. In 1274–1275,
Francesco was one of the king’s proctors at a parlement
of Philip III of France in litigation against a rebel vis-
count, Gaston VII of Béarn. In 1276, Edward commis-
sioned Francesco to adjudicate a complaint of extortion
brought by Jews in Oxford against the local sheriff.
Also in 1276, he attended the Michaelmas parliament.
In 1278, Francesco acted as one of Edward’s procto-
rial emissaries to the papal curia, where he petitioned
unsuccessfully for the postulation of Robert Burnell
(royal chancellor and bishop of Bath and Wells) to the
archbishopric of Canterbury.
Francesco received considerable rewards from the
king: an annual salary of 200 marks, the custody of the
manor and castle of Dunster (May 1280), the manor of
Martleigh (June 1280), a lifetime pension of forty marks
per year (1281), and ultimately a severance payment of
400 marks. The grant of the message of Badelkyng by
Andrew de Scaccario (May 1275) was perhaps another
mark of royal favor. Perhaps Francesco taught civil law
at Oxford, but there is no evidence of this. His only con-
nections with Oxford were the royal commission regard-
ing the Jews’ complaint, and Edward’s offer of the use
of Beaumont Manor (the aula regis, or king’s hall); it is
uncertain for what purpose this offer was made. On one
occasion Francesco petitioned for the king’s favor; he
asked Edward to pardon a fellow countryman, Simone
Spinelli, for the commission of a homicide.
While Francesco was absent in England, he and his
brothers—all associated with the Ghibellines—were
condemned to banishment by a new government which
had come to power in Bologna in June 1274 and which
supported the papacy. In 1282, however, Francesco
returned to Bologna, where he was allowed to resume
his teaching post and to reclaim his confi scated property
after swearing loyalty to Pope Martin IV and to the city’s
government. Shortly thereafter the Bolognese govern-
ment passed an edict against the Ghibellines wherein
Francesco was specifi cally exempted from any penalty.
In 1286, his full return to public life was signaled by a
formal repetition of his oath of loyalty before Bologna’s
ruling council.
At some point in his career Francesco taught law
to Cino da Pistoia. There is an anecdote that Dino da
Mugello once substituted for Francesco and had the
temerity to criticize some detail in Accursius’s ordinary
gloss. On his return, Francesco, ever “the true and pious
defender of his father’s glosses” (according to Diplo-
vatatius), learned of this and insisted on repeating the
entire lecture in order to defend his father’s teaching.
Francesco’s reputation as a legal scholar must rest for
the most part on his teaching, since few of his written
works survive. Von Savigny (1834—1851) held that
most of the writings attributed to Francesco were in fact
by other authors. Francesco’s most important scholarly
work was a Casus or epitome of the New Digest which
begins Vlpianus iurisconsultus expositururs; it is avail-
able in an early edition (Freiburg im Breisgau, c. 1494)
and was included in the Paris edition of 1536 of the
Corpus iuris civilis. Two disputationes by Francesco
are still extant, and some consilia are attributed to him.
Cino noted some of Francesco’s opinions in his own
works, but he was probably referring to matters heard in
lectures, not to separate publications. The extant portion
of Francesco’s oration before Nicholas III (delivered in
autumn 1278) has been edited by Haskins and Kanto-
rowicz (1943).
A story in Cento novelle antiche tells of Francesco’s
proverbial avarice. On his return to Bologna, he was said
to have claimed a share of the profi ts that his former
students—now masters themselves—had earned during
his absence, and to have supported his request by citing a
right accorded in Roman law to absent fathers regarding
their sons’ property! Although this tale, if even partly
genuine, probably recalls some jest, Francesco did fi nd
it necessary in 1291 to petition Nicholas IV for absolu-
tion from the sin of usury. It seems that both Francesco
and his father had lent money to students at interest and
had received bribes from students.
Francesco had two wives, Aichina Guezzi and
Remgarda di Papazzone Aldighieri. Aichina Guezzi
probably joined him for some part of his sojourn in
England, because Edward sent her an invitation to do
so at royal expense. Nonetheless, Dante immortalized
Francesco in the Commedia (Inferno, 15.110) by placing
him in the seventh circle of hell among the sodomites.
No other text suggesting this character trait exists. Kay
(1978) suggests that Dante did not mean this charge in
a literal sense but rather was holding Francesco guilty
of “unnatural” opinions: a denial of world rule by the
Roman emperor and an exaltation—as evidenced by
Francesco’s oration—of papal jurisdiction independent
of the emperor.
When Francesco died, he was buried next to his father
in Bologna. It is said that the two shared an epitaph:
Sepvlchrvm Acvrsi Glosatoris Legvm Francisci Eivs
Filii, “The tomb of Accursius, glossator of the law, and
Francis his son.”
See also Cino da Pistoia; Dante Alighieri; Edward I;
Philip III the BoldFRANCESCO D’ACCORSO