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CHAP. bury Hall; in which were to be a Warden and eleven Scholars, of which (as was afterwards suggested on the part of Archbishop Langham) the Warden and three of the Scholars were to be monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, and the other eight, secular priests. Of these the Bishop pitched on & John de Wiclif of Merton College to be one, whom he afterwards made Warden. This limitation of the Wardenship to a Monk of Christ Church, appears by the form of nomination yet in being in one of the registers of Christ Church, Canterbury; a copy of which I have put in

the Collection. As to the members of this Hall, the royColl. No. 1. al licence granted to the Archbishop for founding it, and appropriating to it the rectory of Pageham in Sussex, mentions ha certain number of Scholars, religious and secular. Coll. No. 2. William de Islip's confirmation of the gift of the manor of Wodeford, stiles them Clerks, and Mr. Wiclif himself, in his petition or libel against Wodehull, calls them clerical Steph. Bir- scholars. These were to study logic, and the civil and ching. ibid. canon law; and the Archbishop, for their maintenance, setp. 46. tled on them the parsonage of Pageham, and the manor of Wodeford, in the county of Northampton, to which he in

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p. 182.

tended, if he had lived, to have added the parsonage of Ivy CHAP. Church, in Romney Marsh in Kent; but, as Birchington observes, he died, and left this work imperfect. However, the Archbishop having got the rectory of Pageham and manor of Wodeford, to be settled on this his new foundation, he purchased some old houses which had been ruined by a late storm, and fitted them up for the reception of his scholars; which accordingly he placed there himself, and chose one Henry de Wodehall, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, and formerly of Abingdon, to be the first Warden. Of this Wodehall we have the following account: Hist. et AnIn the year 1361, having a mind to take his Doctor's de- tiq. Oxon. gree, he attempted to take it under a secular student, on the account of saving some charges that he must have been at otherwise. This being contrary to the usages of the University, his Abbot, Roger de Thame, who was then Abbot of the Monastery of Abingdon, of which Wodehall was at this time a Monk, dissuaded him from it. But finding that, notwithstanding his persuasions, Wodehall still resolved to make an attempt to take his degree that way, the Abbot sent letters to the Regent Masters, in which he desired they would repel this Monk of his from such inceptorship. But Wodehall made the Chancellor so much his friend, that he obtained his grace, notwithstanding all the opposition that was made by the Proctors and some few of the Masters. This occasioned a difference betwixt the *Chancellor and the Proctors, which was carried to that * Nicholas de Aston, height, that the Chancellor ordered the Proctors to be ex-s. T. P. pelled the Congregation House. On which one of the Proctors went to the Abbot of Abingdon, who then resided at London, and so effectually convinced him of the rash boldness of Wodehall, that he was forbidden his degree. But by the intercession of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who favoured Wodehall, and of the Chancellor, the Abbot was at length prevailed with to consent that he should take his degree, or be admitted to be an inceptor by himself.

It was then customary, on such occasions, for the can

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CHAP. didates for degrees in divinity, to present the Regents in Arts with robes. One of the Proctors who was entitled to these honorary presents, having formerly opposed the Monk, had none of them sent to him. This the Proctor resented so far as to stop Wodehall his degree, until satisfaction was made to him, by Wodehall's swearing in verbo dignitatis suæ, that he had sent by his servants these honorary presents to the Proctor's lodgings; but he not being at home, and the servant finding nobody with whom he might trust them, they were brought back again; but that they were ready at any time to be delivered to him. And so at length Wodehall was admitted to his degree.

It must be after this, that Wodehall was chosen by the Coll. No. 5. Archbishop to be Warden of Canterbury Hall: since he was then a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, and Doctor of Divinity. By the form of nomination, it appears that Archbishop Islip made Wodehall Warden, after he was named with two others by the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury; who supplicate his Grace to make one of the three, which he pleases, Warden of his Hall. For thus the Archbishop had ordained, That the Prior and Chapter Coll. No. 4. of Christ Church, Canterbury, should, as the ordinance is worded, chose out of their Chapter three fit persons, and nominate them in a common writing to the Lord Archbishop. By the same ordinance, his Grace reserved to himself and his successors a power of removing the Warden of this new Hall at pleasure, or whenever he or they thought fit, and that too i summarily, without any process or formal suit of law; unless his Grace, with the unanimous assent and consent of the Chapter, should think fit, for the Warden's laudable administration, and other merits, to perpetuate and establish him in the office for term of life.

This establishment however continued not long. For whether the Archbishop could not bear the turbulent humour of Wodehall, or that he saw the design of his founi Absque judiciali strepitu.

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dation frustrated by the perpetual bickerings between the CHAP. Monks and the secular Fellows; the Archbishop two years after turned out Wodehall from being Warden, and his A. D. 1365. three fellow monks from being scholars of his new founded Hall, and in their rooms appointed John de Wiclif to be Warden, and William Selbi, William Middleworth, and Richard Benger, Clerks of the dioceses of York, Sarum, and Oxford, to be Scholars. Mr. Wiclif's letters of insti- Coll. No. 3. tution to the wardenship are dated at Mayfield, one of the Archbishop's seats, December 14, 1365: in them he is styled a person in whose fidelity, circumspection, and industry, his Grace very much confided, and one on whom he had fixed his eyes, for that place, on account of the honesty of his life, his laudable conversation, and knowledge of letters. Of the truth of this character the Archbishop could not well be ignorant: he having been, as was observed before, of the same College with Wiclif, and very near his contemporary there.

In this state did the Archbishop leave this his new foundation at the time of his death, which happened to be St. Mark's Day, (April 25,) the year following. But it did A. D. 1366. not long continue in it; for Simon Langham, Bishop of Ely, was on July 23, this same year, by papal provision, translated to the see of Canterbury. This prelate was first a Monk, and afterwards Abbot of Westminster, and therefore by inclination led to favour the religious, and take their part. Of this the Monks of Canterbury could not be insensible, and therefore, immediately on Langham's promotion, they applied themselves to him for redress. Accordingly, the Archbishop ejected Wiclif from the wardenship, and the three other seculars, whom Archbishop Islip had made Fellows of the Hall, in the places of the Monks, and made one John de Radyngate, a Monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, Coll. No. 4. Warden. This the Register tells us he did in March 1367. A. D. 1367. Radyngate continued but a very little while in this place; for the very next month the Archbishop removed him, and madek Wodehall again Warden, issuing out his mandate

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CHAP. to John de Wiclif, and the rest of the Scholars of the Hall, to yield obedience to him as their Warden. "This "Wiclif and the Scholars of the House refused to do, as "being contrary to the oath they had taken to the late Wicliff co- " Archbishop their Founder. But Archbishop Langham,

Expositio causæ pro parte Jo.

ram Summo Pontifice.

MS.

Expositio causæ Dom.

" in order to compel them to it, sequestered the parsonage "of Pageham, and by force took away the books, and "other things which the Founder by his last will had left "to the Hall."

Upon this Wiclif and the three expelled Fellows appealed to the Pope, and by their Proctor represented the case as is just now related. To which appeal the ArchbiSimonis shop replied to this effect; "That Simon Islep had for the Arch. et Mo- " increase of learning established a Hall, out of the revecoram Papa. nues of the Church and Archbishoprick of Canterbury, for

nachorum

MS.

"a Warden who should be a Monk, and three Monks and " eight scholars; that the Warden was to be named by the "Prior and Chapter of Canterbury, and chosen by the "Archbishop for the time being; that the Founder had " once made Henry de Wodehull a Monk and Professor of "Divinity, Warden, after the same Henry was named to "the wardenship by the Prior and Chapter of Canterbury, " and had given him the possession and administration of "the said College, in spiritual and temporal matters, and "that the parochial church of Pageham was annexed and "appropriated for the maintenance of the same Hall, which "the said Henry de Wodehull, and the Fellows, the Monks " and Scholars, had enjoyed for a considerable time. But, "that notwithstanding one John de Wicliffe in a lawful "absence of Henry Wodehull, and of some other monks " and scholars of that Hall, got himself made master by "craft, and de facto, at which the Founder (as Wiclif " pretends to excuse himself) who was then very infirm, "did connive: but it should not have been so by right. "That upon this, Simon Langham considering that the