SIMON

See also:

• SIMON LANGHAM (d. 1376)

LANGHAM (d. 1376)  , archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal, was born at Langham in Rutland, becoming a monk in the abbey of St Peter at Westminster, and later prior and then abbot of this house . In 136o he was made treasurer of England and in 1361 he became bishop of Ely; he was appointed chancellor of England in 1363 and was chosen archbishop of Canter-bury in 1366 . Perhaps the most interesting incident in his primacy was when he drove the secular clergy from their college of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, and filled their places with monks . The expelled head of the seculars was a certain John de Wiclif, who has been identified with the great reformer Wycliffe . Not-withstanding the part Langham as chancellor had taken in the anti-papal measures of 1365 and 1366 he was made a cardinal by Pope Urban V. in 1368 . This step lost him the favour of Edward III., and two months later he resigned his archbishopric and went to Avignon . He was soon allowed to hold other although less exalted positions in England, and in 1374 he was elected archbishop of Canterbury for the second time; but he withdrew his claim and died at Avignon on the 22nd of July 1376 . Langham's tomb is the oldest monument to an ecclesiastic in Westminster Abbey; he left the residue of his estate—a large sum of money—to the abbey, and has been called its second founder .