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
