Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/351

 to him on 10 Aug., and accordingly he opened parliament on 9 Nov., delivering the sermon in English (Rot. Parl. iii. 98). In this parliament the charters granted to the villeins were annulled. Courtenay resigned the chancellorship on the 18th, and it has been suggested that his retirement, which was completed by the surrender of the seal on the 30th, may have been connected with a desire to see some amelioration effected in the condition of the villeins. Early in 1382 Courtenay received a formal complaint from parliament against Wycliffe, dwelling, as it seems, not merely on his heretical opinions, but on the disturbance of the peace of the realm occasioned by his preachers, demanding that the archbishop and his suffragans should take decisive measures against him, and promising them the support of the crown. Accordingly, on the close of the parliament, Courtenay nominated a committee of bishops, doctors, friars, and others to pronounce on the opinions of the reformers. This council, as it was called, held its first session for business on 21 May, in the monastery of the Black Friars, at London, in the presence of the archbishop. Its proceedings were disturbed by the shock of an earthquake; and from this circumstance, to which each party gave a different meaning, it was called the ‘Synod of the Earthquake.’ Wycliffe's opinions were condemned, and on the following Whitsuntide a solemn ‘procession’ or litany was performed in London, at which Courtenay appointed Dr. John Kynyngham to preach against them. The archbishop further attacked the whole Lollard party at Oxford. While proceeding against a prominent member of it named John Aston [q. v.] at the Black Friars, on 20 June, he was interrupted by the Londoners, who broke into the room where he and his council were sitting. At Oxford his commissioner, Dr. Peter Stokys, was so terrified that he believed his life to be in danger. Courtenay recalled him, and compelled Dr. Rygge, the chancellor, who favoured the Lollards, to beg pardon on his knees. On Rygge's return to Oxford he again acted with the Wycliffites. The archbishop now appealed to the council, and after a short struggle brought the whole party to submission. On 18 Nov. he held a convocation of the clergy at St. Frideswide's, and received the recantation of the leading men of the party. It is asserted that Wycliffe appeared before him. This is highly doubtful. It is certain that if he did so he did not, as his enemies pretended, make any recantation, and that he was allowed to depart unmolested (, col. 2649). In this year Courtenay obtained a statute commanding the sheriffs and other officers of the king, on the certification of a bishop, to arrest and imprison all preachers of heresy. This statute did not receive the assent of the commons, and on their petition it was repealed in the next parliament, as an infringement of their right of legislation. Courtenay, however, held royal letters empowering the bishops to imprison persons accused of heresy in their own prisons, and to keep them there until the council should determine what should be done with them. In 1388 the king, at the demand of parliament, issued letters calling on the archbishops and bishops to seize heretical books, and to imprison teachers of heresy. Accordingly the next year Courtenay made an attack on the Leicestershire Lollards, in virtue of the letters of 1382. He laid the town of Leicester under an interdict until the offenders were discovered, and having found them received their recantations on 17 Nov., imposing slight penances on them. In 1392, while the king was sitting in council at Stamford, the archbishop held a council of bishops and clergy at the house of the Carmelites in that town, and received the abjuration of a heretic. The failure of the attempt at legislation in 1382 had, however, left the churchmen no other means of enforcing submission than that which belonged to their old spiritual jurisdiction (, Constitutional History, ii. 488, iii. 356).

In 1382 Courtenay began a visitation of his province, and after he had visited Rochester, Chichester, Bath and Wells, and Worcester, he proceeded to hold a visitation of Exeter. Here he met with resistance; for after he had, according to custom, ordered the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishops to be suspended, he delayed his visitation so long that the period during which such suspension could lawfully be continued had elapsed, both in this and in other dioceses. The bishop, Thomas Brentingham, therefore warned the clergy and people of his diocese to pay no heed to the archbishop's visitation, and finally appealed to Rome on the matter. Nevertheless Courtenay proceeded with his visitation, and excommunicated all who disobeyed him, the bishop himself among them. The bishop's men caught one of his officials near Topsham as he was carrying a citation directed to their master, ordering him to appear before the metropolitan, and this they forced the man to eat, wax seal and all. The king was so enraged at this, that the bishop was glad to make his peace with the archbishop and to drop his suit at Rome. The Bishop of Salisbury tried to secure himself by pleading that the right of visitation had lapsed with the death of Pope Urban VI, who had granted bulls empowering the archbishop to hold it,