ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



worship was neglected, he was to summon the said rehgious and others 

 concerned, and if the above was true, to augment the said vicarages and 

 their portions from the fruits of the churches, taking such measures as might 

 be necessary. 



Taught by their recent experience, the monks took care to elect as his 

 successor the nominee of the king, Richard Courtenay, LL.D., son of PhiHp 

 Courtenay of Powderham in Devonshire, fifth son of Hugh, earl of Devon- 

 shire, and kinsman of William, late archbishop of Canterbury, and of the 

 king. The pope went through the form of annulling the election, saying 

 that it was perhaps made by the monks and accepted by Richard in ignorance of 

 the fact that the see had been reserved by him during the lifetime of Alexander,^ 

 but he provided Courtenay to the see.'' The bishop was consecrated by Arch- 

 bishop Arundel at Canterbury, in the presence of the king and his nobles, 

 and had restitution of his temporalities ii September, 141 3.* He was con- 

 tinually employed on the most intimate affairs of state, and his suffragan,* 

 John, titular archbishop of Smyrna, who held the living of Threxton, lived in 

 the palace at Norwich, and performed all episcopal duties for him. The 

 cares of state left him no time to attend to the diocese, and even prevented 

 his installation, which he did not choose to have done by proxy, and so he 

 died before the ceremony was performed, 15 September, 141 5. He was 

 then in the suite of the king, and encamped with him before Harfieur, which 

 capitulated a week after his death. 



He was a man of great learning and strong character, and had been four 

 times chancellor of Oxford. When the archbishop, in his anxiety to extirpate 

 Lollardy from the college, had decided to hold a visitation there in 141 1, he, 

 as chancellor, repudiated the primate's jurisdiction, and barred the door of 

 St. Mary's against him, and for this action he was degraded from the 

 chancellorship by the king, who supported the archbishop.^ Had he lived, 

 Lollardy in Norfolk might have had a different history in the succeeding 

 years. 



His successor, John Wakering, who was elected by the monks 

 24 November, had held various important posts, having been Master of the 

 Rolls, keeper of the Privy Seal, and archdeacon of Canterbury. He was 

 consecrated at St. Paul's and received restitution of his temporalities 

 31 May, 1 41 6. He held an ordination in Norwich, 26 March, 141 8, this 

 being his first appearance in his diocese. His many appointments kept him 

 away from his diocese ; but during the last year of his episcopacy he lent 

 himself to a persecution of Lollardy there.* The new doctrines had taken 

 firmer hold than ever in Norfolk under the teaching of William White,^ who 

 after abjuring his heresies before a convocation held at St. Paul's in 1422, 

 had left Kent, the scene of his earlier labours, and taken refuge in Gillingham,* 

 where he recovered courage, gave up clerical attire and the tonsure, took a 

 wife, and helped to promote the movement which he found going on 

 vigorously in that part of Norfolk. In 1424' John Florence, a turner of 



' Cal. Papal Letters, vi, 453. ' Ibid. 



^ Rymer, Foedera, ix, 50. * Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Anglic, 145 ; Blomefield, iii 525. 



* Stephens, Hut. of the Engl. Ch. iii, 185. * Goulburn, Hist. 0/ Norwich Cathedral, 458. 



' Stephens, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. iii, 189. ' Ibid. 



Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iii, 585. 



247 



