A HISTORY OF LONDON of the cathedral by the hair of his head. The Londoners shouted that they would not allow such an insult to their bishop in his own church, and the assembly seems to have broken up in confusion. Next day the citizens took up arms ; the duke and the marshal fled for their lives, and only the inter- vention of Courtenay prevented the burning of Lancaster's palace ; he besought the mob to refrain for the love of Christ, and not to stain with sedition that holy time of Lent, and promised that he would labour to avert the attack on the City.** A year later, when WyclifFe was being examined by the bishops at Lambeth, some Londoners (described by the chronicler as vile men of the City, not citizens) again intervened, this time on his behalf, and it is said that he owed his escape to their favour and care." It was a period of party strife in the City, and those who defended Courtenay and WyclifFe respectively may have been members of rival factions, or the anger of the citizens on the first occasion may have been directed solely against WyclifFe's unpopular maintainers. In 1378 some of the king's officers murdered in the abbey church of Westminster a man who had taken sanctuary there. The bishops excom- municated those concerned in the deed, and Courtenay published the sentence every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday at St. Paul's — even, it is said, after he had received a letter from the king asking him to desist. He did not attend a meeting of the royal Council at Windsor, and Lancaster is reported to have offered to fetch ' that contumacious bishop ' by force from London, in spite of the ' ribalds ' of the City.*^ Further evidence of Courtenay 's popu- larity is afforded by a letter sent in December by the citizens to the pope, asking him not to make their bishop a cardinal, because they would thus be deprived of his personal influence ; this request was renewed in the following April and May." The Court of Common Council ordered a record to be made in 1378 of the ancient City custom whereby the rector and parishioners of the church concerned, or failing them, the mayor and aldermen, might enforce the ful- filment of a bequest for religious uses, even if there were some legal irregu- larity in the will. They referred to the charter of Edward III, under which the citizens might devise property in mortmain without a licence, and mar- velled that so ancient a custom should have been called in question.*' The necessity for this ordinance is perhaps of some significance, but the evidence of contemporary wills tells strongly against any supposition that the Londoners in general sympathized with Wycliffe's views regarding the inordinate wealth of the Church. Except (after 1384) with regard to anchorites and pilgrim- ages there is no indication of decreasing devotion. The chief points in which the wills of this period differ from earlier ones are the frequent mention in " Chron. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), 1 1 7 et seq. (the account given by Stow, Annals, is practically a translation of this), 397 ; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), i, 325—6 ; Capgrave, Chron. of Engl. (Rolls Ser.), 231 ; Chron. Adae de Vsk (ed. Thompson), 4 ; cf. Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. H, 56, 57, Introd. p. v. " Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), i, 356, 363 ; cf. Fasc. Z;z. (Rolls Ser.), pp. xxx-xxxiii, and Stubbs, Const. Hist, ii, 464—5. For the contemporary City politics see Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. H, Introd. "Account of Westminster Abbey in this volume; Chron. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), Z06-1 1 ; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), i, 375-9. For WyclifFe's opinion on this case see De Ecclesia (Wyclif Soc), 142 et seq. ; and for the relations in 1 378 between Lancaster and the City, cf. Chron. Angl. 199-200, and Riley, Mem. 425. " Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. H, 116 ; cf Chron. Angl. 213, and Walsingham, op. cit. i, 382.
- ' Liber Albus (Rolls Ser.), 450 ; cf. 145.
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