Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/379

 the spirit of Oxford, so far as the academic element was concerned. The Lollards, as they now began to be generally called, were in favour; the University men would not hear them ill spoken of, and applauded those who did them honour. Rygge gave Stokys no active assistance, and the Carmelite wrote to Courtenay saying that he dare not carry out his behests for fear of death. The defiance was open and aggressive. Not only did Repyngdon call the men who had been condemned by Courtenay holy priests, and contrast their morality with the abuses which were rife amongst the wealthier clergy, but when Stokys came into the schools and prepared to inhibit him in the name of the Archbishop, the scholars drew their arms and threatened his life. Then he hurried back to London, leaving the Wycliffites masters of the field. Courtenay, naturally enraged at this resistance to his authority, sent such an urgent summons to the Chancellor, calling upon him to attend the adjourned meeting of the Synod on June 12th, that Rygge did not venture to disobey.

By way of celebrating the long-desired condemnation of the teaching of Wyclif—which was completed at the first sitting of the Synod—and possibly at the same time commemorating the irruption of the peasants and the murder of Sudbury, the bishops and clergy determined upon a grand open-air procession on Whitsunday. The people of London were already keen for a pageant of any kind, and they gathered together in crowds to see the priests and devout laymen marching barefoot through the