the episcopal confirmation. He obtained a bull of confirmation from Urban V, declaring that the election of a chancellor by the university was valid without the interference of the diocesan (Munimenta Academica, i. 229). His election displeased the friars; for he had taken part with the university in its struggle to enforce upon them obedience to its rules; and in spite of an agreement into which they had lately entered, they cited the chancellor to Rome. This, however, was an infringement of the rights of the crown, and the citation was quashed (ib. 226; Wood, Antiquities of Oxford, i. 480). Courtenay held prebends in the churches of Exeter and Wells, and on 24 March 1369–70 was made a prebendary of York. In this year also he was elected bishop of Hereford, and his defect in age having been made up by a papal bull dated 17 Aug., he was consecrated on 17 March 1370, and enthroned on 5 Sept. following. As bishop he allied himself with the party of the Prince of Wales and William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, who opposed the attacks made on the clergy by John of Gaunt, and he vigorously upheld the rights of the national church against the twofold oppression of the pope and of the crown, to which it was exposed. Neither at this, nor indeed at any other period of his career, does his conduct appear to warrant the assertion that he was ‘influenced by party, not principle’ (Hook, Lives, iv. 322). The welfare of the church of England and good government in church and state seem to have been the ends for which he laboured; and though, judged by the light of after days, some parts of his policy, such as his opposition to Lollardism, may fail to command sympathy, they certainly were not held to be contrary to the principles that became a loyal churchman or a constitutional statesman. He took a prominent part in vindicating the rights of the church in the convocation of 1373. When the king's demand for a subsidy was laid before the clergy, they declared that they were utterly undone by the exactions, not merely of the crown, but of the papacy, which were repeated nearly every year, and that they could help the king better ‘if the intolerable yoke of the pope were taken from their necks,’ and on this condition only they promised a tenth. Then Courtenay rose in anger, and loudly declared that neither he nor any of the clergy of his diocese would give anything until the king found a remedy for the evils from which the church suffered (Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 97; Wake, State of the Church, p. 303). The course of action seems to have been settled by agreement between him and Sudbury, bishop of London, who belonged to the Duke of Lancaster's party.
On the promotion of Sudbury to Canterbury in 1375, Courtenay was translated to the see of London on 12 Sept., and received the temporalities on 2 Dec. following. The struggle between the constitutional party and the court came to a climax on the meeting of the ‘Good parliament’ in the next year, and Courtenay was appointed a member of the committee of magnates associated with the commons to assist them in their deliberations (Rot. Parl. ii. 322; Stubbs, Constitutional History, ii. 428). The dispersion of the parliament was followed by the failure of its work. In the course of this year Courtenay served on a commission to settle a dispute that had arisen at Oxford between the faculty of law and the rest of the university (Wood, History and Antiquities, i. 488). About this time a bull of Gregory XI against the Florentines, with whom the pope was then at war, was brought into England. Wherever they were, the Florentines were to be pronounced excommunicate, and their effects were to be forfeited. Courtenay published this bull at Paul's Cross. He was always ready to obey the pope when the interests of the national church were not at stake. As a constitutional politician, he probably was glad to forward the downfall of the Italian merchants, from whom the king had long derived the money he wasted in extravagance, and as bishop of London he was no doubt willing to gratify the citizens, who were jealous of foreign traders. The Londoners pillaged the houses of the Florentines, and made a riot. This caused the interference of the city magistrates, and they sided with the king, who took the foreigners under his protection. The bishop was summoned before the chancellor to answer for his conduct. He was reminded that he had acted in defiance of the laws of the realm in publishing the bull, and was ordered to revoke certain words he had used at Paul's Cross. With some difficulty he obtained leave to do this by one of his officials, who declared from the pulpit that the people had misunderstood the words complained of (Chronicon Angliæ, p. 109; Fœdera, viii. 103, 135; Hook). At the meeting of convocation, on 8 Feb. 1377, Courtenay made a vigorous protest against the conduct of the archbishop in withholding the summons that should have been sent to the Bishop of Winchester. He pointed out the injustice with which the bishop had been treated by the government, and urged the clergy to make no grant to the crown until he had received his summons. His opposition was successful. Wykeham took his seat, and John of Gaunt, in whose interest the archbishop had acted, was foiled. The quarrel between the two
