[1][2] He was born at Lavenham, Suffolk, and, after becoming a Carmelite friar at Ipswich, studied at the University of Oxford, where he is said to have graduated D.D.
; but in the colophon to his tract against John Purvey he is called simply 'magister'.
John Bale gives a list of sixty-one treatises ascribed to him, De Villiers names sixty-two, and Davy sixty-three.
In Sloane MS. 3899 (fourteenth century) there are twenty-four short treatises by Lavenham on logical subjects ('De Propositionibus,' 'De Terminis,' &c.).
Other extant works ascribed to Lavenham are: Among the other treatises given by De Villiers are 'Abbreviationes Bedæ' (it has been suggested that this is the abbreviation printed by Abraham Wheloc in his edition of Bede), 'Compendium Gualteri Reclusi' (perhaps Walter Hilton), 'De Fundatione sui Ordinis,' a treatise called 'Clypeus Paupertatis' (suggesting Lavenham had taken part in the controversy concerning evangelical poverty), a commentary on Aristotle's 'Ethics,' tracts on physics and astronomy ('De Cœlo et Mundo,' 'De Proprietatibus Elementorum'), together with 'Quæstiones,' sermons, and similar works.