Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/199

 cite the head of the University to appear before the Pope; but Wykeham and Langham took prompt action, and secured the quashing of the citation.

At twenty-seven Courtenay became Bishop of Hereford, a bull being obtained from Rome to cover the irregularity in point of age. He soon made his name known in Convocation, where in 1373 he protested vigorously against the heavy taxation of the Church both by the State and by the Pope. The latter had made a levy of a hundred thousand florins on the English clergy, and it must be admitted that the double burden was too heavy to be borne. Courtenay stiffened the resolution of his colleagues by "rising in anger and loudly declaring that neither he nor any of the clergy in his diocese would give anything until the King found a remedy for the evils from which the Church suffered." John of Gaunt wanted nothing better at the moment than such a declaration; and it was soon after this incident that the mission to Avignon was despatched. Convocation agreed to pay one-tenth to the King on condition that "the intolerable yoke of the Pope" should be lifted from their necks; and it was then that Bishop Gilbert and his colleagues were nominated. The easement of the Church in respect of papal exactions must in fairness be set off against the unsatisfactory results of the mission and subsequent Conference in the matter of reservations and provisions.

Courtenay's consecration as bishop had coincided with the exclusion of ecclesiastics from the higher political offices. When Sudbury was made Archbishop