Richard Fleming (bishop)
Richard Fleming ( 1385 – 25 or 26 January 1431), Bishop of Lincoln and founder of Lincoln College, Oxford, was born at Crofton in Yorkshire. Biography. Fleming was descended from a gentry family. His aunt, Cecily Fleming had married Robert Waterton, 'Henry IV's esquire and right-hand man'. His nephew, Robert Flemming, was likely an illegitimate son of Robert Flemming, esquire, of Wath, near Ripon (d.1459). Fleming was educated at University College, Oxford. Having taken his degrees, he was made prebendary of York in 1406, and the next year was junior proctor of the university. In 1409 he  was appointed to the committee of twelve censors who were commissioned to examine the writings of John Wyclif and determine the heretical ideas they contained. Later that year he was accused of supporting some of Wyclif's errors in a public disputation, for which he incurred the censure of Archbishop Arundel. Fleming must have either been exonerated or renounced his supposed heresy because he was still a member of the committee of censors when its list of Wycliffe's errors was published in 1411 (Nighman, 2003, pp.208-10). Before 1415 Fleming was instituted to the rectory of Boston in Lincolnshire . He attended the Council of Constance from late 1416 to early 1418 where he delivered a number of sermons which survive, all of which reveal a strong concern for clerical reform (Nighman, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2008a, 2008b). He was nominated to the see of Lincoln by papal provision on 20 November 1419 and on 28 April 1420 he was consecrated as bishop of Lincoln by Martin V in Florence. He attended the Council of Pavia and Siena in 1428–1429 and, in the presence of the pope, reportedly made an eloquent speech in vindication of the rights of the English "nation