liiiiiiiil f ^0^m^ BX 4917 .S32 1915 Schaff, David Schley, 1852 John Huss JOHN HUSS JOHN HUSS —HIS LIFE, TEACHINGS AND DEATH— AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS -^ BY DAVID S.'SCHAFF, D.D. PROFESSOR OF CHtfeCH HISTORY, THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY l^on debemiis consuehidinem sequi sed Chrisli exemplum et veritatcm Not usage are we to follow but the example of Christ and the truth — Huss's letter, written from prison, Constance, June 21, 1415 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 191S Copyright, igis, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published May, 1915 PREFACE John Huss belongs not to Bohemia alone. He has a place in the reUgious history of Europe and the West. For the three communions of Christendom his career has an in- terest. As for the Greek church, some of its historians find in his preaching, and the preaching of his predecessors a reminiscence of the original type of Christianity prevalent in Bohemia which, they hold, was of Oriental origin. The Roman Catholic communion cannot forget that his personality and teachings occupied the attention of the famous council of Constance and was the concern of the great theologians and churchmen of his age, and that his sentence to death as a heretic threatened the permanent alienation of Bohemia from the apostoHc see and also involved that country in some of the most lamentable reUgious wars Europe has seen. Individual Catholics may follow Bishop Hefele and admire Huss's moral heroism in the face of death, but no official proposition has been made to remove the opprobrium which was cast upon his name by the council of Constance as the church has done in the case of Joan of Arc, from whom it has not only removed the condemnatory sentence of a con- temporary ecclesiastical court but whom it has even beatified. To Protestants Huss appears as a forerunner of the Reformation by his assertion of the authority of the Scrip- tures and his definition of the church. Moreover, to all who follow with interest the progress of toleration in mat- ters of religious opinion and general thought, he occupies the place of a martyr to the sacred rights of conscience. A modern circle, whose bounds cannot be well defined, may find in him an advocate of the principle that in the religious vi PREFACE domain, so far as human judgment goes, the criterion of a Christian profession is daily conduct — a criterion expressed in the maxim, often quoted by Huss: "By their fruits ye shall know them." Some will be attracted to Huss chiefly by the fidehty to conviction which he maintained even in the presence of a horrible death; others by those principles which he defined with more or less clearness and which were opposed to the system built up during the Middle Ages and abhorred by the churchmen and theologians of Huss's own age. From whatever standpoint he may be regarded, as a heretic or as an advocate of forgotten Scriptural truth, as a contumacious rebel against constituted church authority or as an advocate of the just rights of conscience, the five-hun- dredth anniversary of his death at Constance, July 6, 191 5, -y will again call attention to his personality and his teachings and, as is hoped, promote the study of the foundations of church authority in such an irenic spirit that the cause of the mutual recognition of Christians, one of the other, may be advanced. Is it too much to hope that the solemn study of this man's Christian aims and death may promote the dis- position to regard with tolerance doctrinal errors when the persons who hold them are moved with devotion to the per- son of Christ and the promotion of good- will among men ? This biography is intended not only to set forth the teach- ings and activity of John Huss and the circumstances of his death but also to show the perpetuation of his influence upon the centuries that have elapsed since he suffered at the stake. "He being dead yet speaketh." In departing from Huss's own spelling of his name — Hus — which is the usage in Bohemia, I am influenced by the fact that the form Huss is more familiar to our eyes and agree- able to our general usage in spelling. It is to be noted that Loserth, the author of the volume, WicliJ and Hus, has adopted the form Huss in his article in the Herzog Encyclo- PREFACE vii pedia, and Karl Miiller also in his Church History. As for the spelling of Bohemian names written with an accent, as Palec, they are given in this volume as Palecz — this spelling representing the pronunciation in the Czech tongue. The name of the king contemporary with Huss is given as Wenzel rather than Wenceslaus, the Latin form, or Vaklav, the Bohemian form, although there is an inconsistency when the saint is called St. Wenceslaus. The author is not acquainted with Bohemian. Such a knowledge, so far as he is able to make out, is not necessary to a just and full study of Huss. His Bohemian writings, which are not translated, are of a homiletic and devotional character and add nothing to our knowledge of his teachings and only a few facts in his career. His chief works are all in Latin, into which his letters, so far as they were written in Czech, have been translated. Moreover, most of the works of Bohemian authors on the subject of Huss are found in German, as by Palacky, or in English, as the two recent works by Liitzow. All the Latin writings have been consulted. Moreover, I have used the chief Life of Huss written in Bo- hemian, that of Doctor Flajshans, in a translation made for my / private use by one of the Bohemian students of the Western Theological Seminary, Mr. Alois Husak. The following is a list of original authorities upon which the life of Huss must be based and also a list of most of the secondary works bearing on the subject. All have been used in the preparation of this volume except the Czech works of Huss which have not been translated into Latin, and the writings of Tomek. HUSS'S LATIN WRITINGS Historia et Monumenta J . Hus atque Hieronymi Pragefisis Confessortnn Christi. Nurnb., 1558. 2 vols. Reprinted Frankf., 171 5. 2 vols., pp. 627, 542 — containing the bulk of Huss's treatises and letters, and also sermons, with Luther's prefaces of the three editions of cer- tain of Huss's writings, Wittenberg, 1536, 1537, acts and docu- viii PREFACE ments of the council of Constance, the shorter account of Huss's life by Mladenowicz, a life of Jerome of Prague, etc. I have cited the Frankfurt edition, although both editions have been on my table and used. Documenta Mag. J. Ems. 140J-1418. Ed. Francis Palacky. Prague, 1869, pp. 755. Contains Huss's letters, Mladenowicz's full account of Huss from his journey to Constance to his death, the different lists of charges made against Huss and one hundred and twenty other official documents, with some added matter translated from the Bohemian, Huss's alleged catechism, etc. It would be difficult to find such a full and well-organized collection of materials bearing on the life of any other historic character. The editions edited by Wenzel Flajshans — Expositio Decalogi, Prague, 1903, pp. 51; de Corpore Christi, Prague, 1904, pp. 35; de Sanguine Christi, Prague, 1904, pp. 42; super IV. Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, in connection with Doctor M. Kominkova, Prague, 1905, pp. 772. Sermones de Sanctis, Prague, 1907, pp. 405. All prefaced with elaborate introductions in German. HUSS'S CZECH WRITINGS K. J. Erben: 3 vols., 1865-1868. Vol. I contains Expositions of the Decalogue, App. Creed, etc. Vol. II, the Postilla Huss Boh. sermons. Vol. Ill, a Com. on the Song of Solomon and letters. F. Zilka: under the title The Spirit of Utiss' Works, 3 vols., 1901. Mares: Letters of Hus, Prague, 1891. 2d ed., 1901. TRANSLATIONS Letters of John Hus, trsl. with introductions by H. B. Workman and R. Martin Pope, London, 1904, pp. 286. Huss: Treatise on the Church, de Ecclesia, trsl, with notes, David S. ScHAFF, New York, 191 5. German trsl. of Sermons by W. von Langsdorff, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 150. C. von Kugelgen: Die Gefangenschaftshriefe des J. Hiis, a reprint of the Wittenberg ed. 1536, Leipz., 1902, pp. 30. OTHER AUTHORITIES Van der Hardt: Magnum Constantiense Concilium, 6 vols., Frkf. and Leipz., 1700. An invaluable collection of documents gathered with vast industry but thrown together without regard for chrono- logical or logical order, bearing upon Huss and the council, Jerome of Prague, etc. Contains also works of Gerson, Clemangis, Nie- heim, and Lives of Gerson, d'Ailly, etc. Illustrated with many PREFACE IX portraits of distinguished personages, twenty-four pages giving the coats of arms of princes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries. Mansi: Concilia, vols. XXVII, XXVIII. Ulrich von Richental: Chronik des Constanzer Concils, 1414-1418. Ed. Buck, Tubingen, 1882. Finke: Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1410-1414, Miinster, 1896. Mirbt: Quellen zur Gesch. des Papsltums. 3d ed., 191 1. iENEAS Sylvius: de Bohemorum origine ac gestis historia. Cologne, 1523- J. CocHLiEUS (Dobneck): Histories Hussitarum, Mainz, 1549. MODERN WORKS F. Palacky (d. 1876), a descendant of the Bohemian Brethren and royal historiographer of Bohemia: Geschichte von Bohmen, Prag, 1836, sqq. 3d ed., 1864, sqq., 5 vols., to 1526. Put upon the Index, trsl. into German 1846 by J. P. Jordan — Die Vorlaufer des Husi- tenthums in Bohmen, new ed., Prag, 1869 — Urkundliche Beitrage zur Gesch. des Husitenkriegs, 1873, 2 vols. Best authority on Bohemian history. Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, vol. VII, 1874. J. A. Helfert: Hus und Hierojiymus, Prag, 1853, pp. 332. J. B. Schwab: J. Gerson, Wurzburg, 1858. C. A. Hofler: Mag. J. Hus und der Abzug der deutsch. Studenten und Professoren aus Prag, i4og, 1864, pp. 325. W. Berger: /. Hus und Kdnig Sigmund, Augsbg., 1871. A careful study. P. Tschackert: Peter von Ailli, Gotha, 1877. F. VON Bezold: Kdnig Sigismund und die Reichskriege gegen die Husiten, 3 vols., Munich, 1872-1875. E. H. Gillett: The Life and Times of John Buss, or the Bohemian Reformation of the Fifteenth Century, Boston, 1864. 2 vols., 3d ed. 1871. Based on the sources. G. V. Lechler: /. Wyclif and His English Precursors, Lond., 1884. A. H. Wratislaw: John Hus, Lond., 1882. Also Natl. Lit. of Bo- hemia in the Fourteenth Century, Lond., 1878. J. LosERTH, Prof, at Graz : Wiclif and Hus, trsl. from the German, Lond., 1884, pp. 366. Also Huss, Art. in Herzog, 8 : 472-489. Vaclav Flajshans: Mislr Jan Receny Hus z Husince (Master John, called Hus of Husinecz), pp. 486, Prag, 1904. The most elaborate biography in Czech, by a liberal Catholic. X PREFACE Count Lutzow: Life and Times of Master J. Bus, Lond., 1909, pp. 398 — also Hussite Wars, Lond., 1914. Oscar Kuhns: John Huss, the Witttess, N. Y,, Cinti., no date. Otto von Schaching: Jan Hus und seine Zeit, Regensb., 1914, pp. 272. Follows Helfert, though lacking Helfert's ability, in pro- nouncing Huss the first of modern revolutionists. N. Hauri: J. Hus, ein Wahrheitszeuge, Constance, 191 5, pp. 63. Also J. Foxe: Actes and Monuments, 3 : 405-579. Substantially accurate. Art. Huss, in Schaf-Herzog and the Cath. Encyclopedia. H. Radshall: The Universities of Europe, Oxford, 1895, vol. II. M. Creighton: Last Popes of the M. A. Vol. I. J. H. Wylie: The Council of Constance to the Death of J. Hus, Lend., 1900. Lea: History of the Inquisition, 2 : 462 sqq. Workman, Age of Hus, Lond., 1902. Schaff: Church History, vol. V^, pt. 2. The Works of Wyclif, 1885 sqq., especially the de Ecclesia, with introd. by Loserth and the de Dominio divino and de civili Dominio, with introductions by Poole. W. W. Tomek: The writings of this Czech author on the university of Prague, 1849, and the city of Prague, 1855, 1 know only through quotations. TESTIMONY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE TO JOHN HUSS May 23, 1416, Monumenta, i: 103 O virum inefabilem, venerandcs prafiilgentem specula sanctitatis. O virum humllem tnagnce pietatis radio coruscantem, qui contemptor divitiaruni usque ad excussum sinum pauperibus ministrabat ; qui genua pr onus fleeter e ad egenorum lectos non recusabat ; qui lachrymis duros ad posnitentiam provocabat, animosque feroces ineffabili dul- cedine mulcendo mitigabat ; qui vitia generaliter cunctorum, prcesertim, superbi cupidi et opulentis Cleri, antiquis et oblitis scripturarum remediis quasi novo quodam et inaudito incentivo ex magna charitate funditus exurebat, apostolicisque innixus vestigiis tota sua cura primcBvcB Ecclesice mores in Clero restaurabat et populo ; qui etiam in verbi Jortitudine et sapientia cceteros superabat, in omnibus omnia exercens opera charitatis, puree fidei et inviolabilis vcritatis . . . ut in omnibus fieret Magister vita; sine pari. O matchless man shining above all by the example of splendid sanc- tity. O humble man flashing with the ray of great piety, who contemned riches and ministered to the poor even to the opening out of his bosom, — who did not refuse to bend his knee at the beds of the sick, — who brought with tears the hardened to repentance, and composed and softened untamed minds by his unspeakable sweetness, — who burned against the vices of all men and especially the rich and proud clergy, basing his appeals upon the old and for- gotten remedies of the Scriptures as by a new and unheard of motive, conceived in great love, and who following in the steps of the Apostles by his pastoral care revived in clergy and people the righteous living of the early church, — who by braveness and wisdom in utterance excelled the rest, showing in all things the works of love, pure faith, and undeviating truth . . . that in all things he might be a Master of life without compare. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Age in Which Huss Lived i General estimate of Huss — The period, 1300-1500 — Boniface VIII — The Unam sanctam — The mediasval papacy — Thomas Aquinas and the papacy — Treatment of heresy — Attacks against the papacy — Dante, Marsiglius of Padua — The German mystics — The Humanists — Disciplinary reformers — Reformers before the Reformation — The Avignon exile and papal schism — Huss in the midst of these movements. II. Huss AND THE BeTHLEHEM ChAPEL ig Huss's birth and school life — At the university — Rector — Or- dained priest — Preacher at Bethlehem — Prague as an intel- lectual and religious centre — Charles IV, Petrarch, ^neas Sylvius — The Bethlehem chapel — Bohemian preachers — Konrad of Waldhausen — Milicz of Kremsier — Matthias of Janow — Huss's sermons — Preaching before the synod — The Bethlehem chapel pulpit — Huss's Christmas meditation — Palacky on Huss as a preacher. III. Huss's Debt to Wyclif 43 "^ The university of Prague — Wyclif's writings carried to Bohemia — Wyclif's teachings — His treatment in England — His defini- tion of the church — His influence at the university of Prague — Its decision on the Wyclifite Articles — Waldenses. IV. Huss AS A National Leader 58 Three currents in Prague — Archbishop Zbynek — Huss as synodal preacher — Attacks clerical vice — The blood of Wylsnack — The parts of Christ's body — Relics — Document from Oxford about Wyclif — Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim — Zbynek summoned by the pope to search for Wyclifite heresy — Indictment against Huss — The doctrine of rema- nence — Zbynek's reply — "No heresy in Bohemia" — Call of the council of Pisa — Breach between Wenzel and Zbynek — Wenzel's withdrawal from the Roman obedience — Sigismund — Wenzel's sympathies for Huss — Germans and Czechs at the university — Wenzel changes the charter — Secession of the Germans — Huss's responsibility. w V. In Open Revolt Against the Archbishop . . 85 Council of Pisa — Huss supports Alexander V — Huss indicted at Rome — Alexander orders chapels for preaching closed and Wyclifism punished — Zbynek decrees the burning of Wye- xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE lif's writings — Huss's appeal — Sermon of defiance — The writings burned — Huss excommunicated — Wyclif defended in public addresses — Huss's assertion of freedom of inquiry — "^■"^i Richard Wyche — Huss appeals to John XXIII — King and queen intercede — Huss's procurators — Huss cited to Rome — Refuses to obey — Indignities to Zbynek — Formal attempt to reconcile Zbynek and Huss — Zbynek's withdrawal from Prague — Turns to Sigismund — Zbynek's death. VI. Huss Resists the Pope 107 '•'^ Huss's case a European affair — John Stokes's visit to Prague — Huss's reply to Stokes — The sale of indulgences — Ladislaus — John XXII I's two bulls — Huss's resistance — Treatise against indulgences — A crusade for killing Christians — Jerome of Prague — Parody on the burning of Wyclif's books — Rioters executed — Wyclif's XLV Articles stigmatized by Palecz — Huss's reply to the eight doctors — Pope has no business with the material sword. VII. Withdrawal from Prague 133 Huss's aggravated excommunication — Interdict pronounced over Prague — Huss's appeal to Christ— Effect of the inter- dict — Wenzel calls on Huss to withdraw from Prague — Huss at Austi — Konrad, archbishop of Prague — 111 fame of Bo- hemia — Huss's letters — His use of Scripture — Wyclif's books burned at Rome — Commission appointed to settle the dissension — Palecz's protest against the decision — Gerson's XX charges — The opposition to Huss. VIII. Before the Council of Constance 161 Purpose of the council — -Sigismund promises the salvus con- diictus — Certificates to Huss's orthodoxy — The journey to Constance — The council — Huss's arrest — Imprisoned at the Blackfriars — Huss's sickness — Correspondence — The com- mission of inquisition — Sigismund's arrival — His attitude to Huss — Jerome's first arrest. DC. Before the Council of Constance . . .^. . 191 John XXIII's flight — Panic in Constance — Huss removed to Gottlieben— Protests from Bohemian nobles — Distribution of the cup in Prague — Huss's attitude— Transferred to the Franciscan friary — Huss's hearings June 5, 7, 8 — The formal charges — Sigismund's address — d'Ailly's counsel — Sigismund's last words to Huss — Huss and conscience — Huss and the council. X. Condemned and Burned at the Stake .... 228 Sigismund's confidential address — Last four weeks of Huss's life — Called upon to abjure— Last meeting with Palecz — Huss on the pope — The council — Last messages — Use of the Scriptures — Distribution of the cup — Huss's books con- CONTENTS XV CHAPTER PAGE demned to the flames — A final deputation from the council — Arraigned in the cathedral — Bishop of Lodi's sermon — ^Sen- tence pronounced — Degradation from the priesthood — The way to the stake — The last scene. XI. Huss's Place in History 260 --^ Among his own people — In his age — Did Huss know he was a heretic ? — Condemned according to law — Huss's four funda- mental errors — Sigismund's treatment of Huss — The safe- conduct — Huss's understanding of it — Huss and Luther — The Hussite hymn-book — Huss and liberty of conscience — Gerson's attitude — The Reformation. XII. Huss's Writings and the Hussites 304 Arnold of Brescia, Huss, Savonarola — Polemic works — The Treatise on the Church — Debt to Wyclif — Commentary on the Lombard's Sentences — Hymns — The news of Huss's death at Prague — Revolt in Bohemia — Efforts to appease Huss's followers — Jerome of Prague burned — Poggio's letter — Martin V — Calixtines and Taborites — The university on Huss — Crusades against the Hussites — Basel council grants the use of the cup — The downfall of Hussitism — The Mo- ravians — Huss's followers in Prague to-day — Huss's spirit in Bohemia. Appendix I. Chronological Table 337 Appendix II. A Spurious Work on Huss . . . 341 Tndex 343 JOHN HUSS CHAPTER I THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED Siimma philosophia est Christus, dens nosier, quern sequeiido et dis- cendo sumiis philoso'phi. — Wyclif, de Ver. Scrip., I : 32. The supreme philosophy is Christ, our God, and in following him and learning from him we are philosophers. In John Huss, Bohemia has made its one notable and permanent contribution to the progress of Western culture and religious thought. Other names the general student as- sociates with its people are Jerome of Prague, Charles IV and the bhnd King John. Jerome's name is linked with the name of Huss. Charles IV acted an important part in the history of his time through the university which he founded and his patronage of letters, which made Prague a centre of study. The blind king of Bohemia, John of Luxemburg, occupies a place in the romance of English history. He fell in the thick of the fight at Crecy, 1346, and furnished to the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales the motto, Ich dien, I serve, which the Black Prince appropriated. Strange to say, the honor so freely accorded to Huss in Protestant circles is still denied him by the vast majority of his own countrymen. Not two per cent of the population of Bohemia is Protestant. Outside of that small and respect- able circle a change has been taking place in the last few years in the feelings of Bohemia toward its eminent citizen. Once the idol of his people, his memory was for centuries obscured by religious prejudice. Every memorial of him, where possible, 2 JOHN HUSS was destroyed and the Bohemian people were taught to be- lieve that he, ''whose heart beat so warmly for his own nation and for God's law,"^ was its worst enemy, an emissary of evil, not of good. This change has been going on since 1848, when religious liberty was granted by the Austrian government. Huss has come to be looked upon in ever- widening .circles as the chief of Bohemian patriots, and his patriotism is celebrated with bonfires in Southern Bohemia yearly on July 6, the supposed date of his birth. This is in spite of the unbroken attachment which prevails in that section to the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a group of free-thinking persons in Prague, not closely bound to Catholic institutions, who go further in honoring his memory. They have been foremost in making preparations to com- memorate the five-hundredth anniversary of Huss's birth by the erection of a monument on the public square of Prague, with which Huss's own cause and the career of his followers are so closely identified. This fifth centenary, occurring in 19 1 5, will serve to call attention afresh to the debt which the religious institutions of the West and the cause of religious toleration owe to the Bohemian reformer. It is doubtful, if we except the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, whether the forward movement of rehgious enlightenment and human free- dom have been advanced as much by the sufferings and death of any single man as by the death of Huss. Augustine, Ber- nard, Luther — to speak only of religious characters — exer- cised their influence by their lives and writings; Huss chiefly by his sufferings in prison and the flames. Paul's death was an incident in his career. In dying, Huss accomplished more than he did by living. Huss's career belongs to a movement which was going on during the two centuries separating the productive period of ^ Flajshans, Expositio Decalogi, p. ii. Liitzow, Life of Hus, p. 63, says: "Hus was the idol of the Bohemian people, whose greatest representative in the world's story he remains." THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 3 the Middle Ages and the period of the Reformation. During these two hundred years — 1300 to 1500, or from the reign of Boniface VIII to Luther's theses, 15 17 — a forward impulse of thought manifested and maintained itself leading away from the compulsory authority of the church and the hier- archy of the Middle Ages, and pushing toward the intellec- tual and religious freedom of modern times. The mind of Europe was striving to get rid of the sacramental fetters with which it had become bound by the papal decrees and the speculations of the Schoolmen and to find its way to the as- sertion of the rightof the individual to immediate communion with God and individual sovereignty in matters of conscience. The dissatisfaction with the old mediaeval order found isolated but strong expression from individuals here and there, and at the same time gleams of the new order about to be introduced in the sixteenth century shot forth suddenly like Northern Hghts, though they as suddenly disappeared. By the year 1300 the faculty for governmental construc- tion and the theological ingenuity of the mediaeval mind had exhausted themselves. For two hundred years before that date the Crusades had been actively prosecuted from the con- quest of Jerusalem, 1099, to the abandonment of the last foot of soil possessed by the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 139 1, a period which witnessed the complete development of the me- diaeval papacy and church. During the next two hundred years, up to the time of the Reformation, single [^individuals from Italy to England protested against these constructions. In the end they succeeded, while the armies of the Crusades failed. The former two hundred years, the period of the Cru- sades, saw the rise of the great Mendicant orders, the full bloom of the scholastic theology, the estabhshment of the papal inquisition, and the perfection of the sacramental system which was regarded as being as essential to salvation as fire is to heat a cold body or medicine to cure sickness. The latter period of two hundred years heard protests against 4 JOHN HUSS the existing order which were based on Scripture, reason and history — a new tribunal. These were stifled one after the other till the voice was heard as from another Nazareth, the voice from the North, a region from which little good was expected to come. John Huss was one of those who joined this protest against the mediaeval order, who helped to dis- credit the infallible authority of the papal monarchy and to advance the cause of individual rights in matters of belief and practice. The three mighty constructions of mediaeval thought, if we omit the universities and the cathedrals, were the absolute papacy, the sacramental church and the inquisition. The famous bull, Unam sandam, issued by Boniface VIII, 1302, ^constitutes an epoch in the history of papal dominion ^d the coercive jurisdiction claimed for the church. It gave final expression to the theory of the jurisdiction of the papacy. Intended to break down the opposition of Philip IV of France, who was asserting the independent rights of kings, it set forth in unambiguous terms the pope's claim to supreme authority in all mundane affairs and made salvation to depend upon personal submission to him. Boniface was giving expression to no new assumption. In compact statement he gathered up the claims which his predecessors had been constantly making for more than two centuries. The strongest cham- pions of these claims had been Gregory VII and Innocent III. These pontiffs affirmed that the papal office founded in Peter combined supreme authority in the church and also over princes. They compared the ecclesiastical and the civil powers — sacerdotium and imperium — to the sun and gold on the one hand, and to the moon and lead on the other hand. Gregory, 1073-1085, solemnly announced that the state had its origin in evil — greed and ambition, cruelty, plunder, and murder. The church is an institution of divine appointment estabHshed when Christ said to Peter: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church," Matt. 16 : 18. This THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 5 masterful ruler found the pope's right to set up and depose kings authorized in the Old Testament, quoting with pecuHar delight the words of the prophet Jeremiah, i : 10: "See, I have this day set thee over the nation and over the kingdom, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to over- throw, to build and to plant." In his conflict with the em- peror Henry IV, he not only deposed that monarch, the heir of Charlemagne, but released his subjects from allegiance and had a rival emperor elected to take his place. Gregory died in exile, not defeated and not a victor. Innocent III, 1198-1216, who died in the full possession of his power, declared that, as Peter alone went to Jesus on the water, so the pope has the unique privilege of ruling over the nations of the earth. As the moon gets its light from the superior orb, the sun, so the emperor and princes get their authority from Christ's vicegerent on earth. The pope judges all and is judged by no man. To the tribunal of God alone is he responsible. Innocent's bull, per Venerabilem,^ claiming for the pope the plenitude of power — plenitiido potestatis—- was quoted in later times as the authoritative statement of papal rule over both realms. This principle was well ex- pressed by Thomas a Becket addressing the clergy of Eng- land: "Who presumes to doubt that the priests of God are the fathers and masters of kings, princes, and all the faith- ful?" About the same time the monk Caesar of Heisterbach gave voice to the popular opinion when he compared the church to the firmament, the pope to the sun, the emperor to the moon, the clergy to the day, bishops and abbots to the stars and the laity to the night. Innocent's favorite figure for illustrating the relation of church and state was taken from the head and the body. As the head contains all the faculties that control the body so the papacy possesses all prerogatives necessary to rule the church. The supremacy over both realms, which the papacy cov- 1 Mirbt, 138 sq. 6 JOHN HUSS eted, it got. If Gregory VII's conflict with Henry IV ended in a drawn battle, the conflicts of subsequent pontiffs with sec- ular princes had a better issue. The house of Hohenstaufen fought in vain against their supreme jurisdiction and so did John of England. The vaHant Frederick Barbarossa was brought to terms by Alexander III at the Peace of Venice, 1 177. The painting in the doge's palace and another in the Vatican, depicting this event on large canvases, represent Alexander sitting on a throne with his feet on Barbarossa's right shoulder as the emperor lies prostrate. The Venetian picture contains the words: "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder," Psalm 91 : 13. The able Frederick II, excommunicated again and again by two popes, and by the decree of Innocent IV deprived of the allegiance of his sub- jects, died without an army and with his empire in revolt. John of England, forced by the interdict and the rebellion of his nobles, yielded his crown as a fief to Innocent III, and for the pledge of a yearly tribute to be paid by himself and his successors received the crown back again. Boniface VIII's bull of 1302 exceeded in its arrogant lan- guage the edicts of his predecessors, but not the extravagance of their claim for the apostolic office. It was issued at a time when the fresh atmosphere of a new age was beginning to be felt. It was a brave retort that the king of France made when he bade Boniface remember that the church was made up of laymen as well as clerics. The Catholic historian, Cardinal Hergenrother, accurately presents the case when he says that Boniface did not deviate from the paths of his predecessors nor overstep the legal conceptions of the Middle Ages.^ The Unam sandam declared that in the power of the church lay the two swords, the spiritual and the material; the spiritual to be used by the church, the material for the church and at its nod. The temporal power, if it deviate from the right * Kirchengesch., 2 : 597. Schaff, V, 2 : 25-29, gives the Latin text of the bull with English translation. THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 7 path, is judged by the spiritual, whose executive is the pope. He is subject alone to the judgment of God. Going beyond this assertion of jurisdiction over princes, Boniface declared that for the salvation of every human creature it is altogether necessary that each be subject to the Roman pontiff. The prerogatives asserted by the popes were buttressed with theological arguments by the corypheus of the School- men, Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274. He took the position that as to Christ himself, so all princes and kings are subject to his vicar, the Roman pontiff, and it is necessary to salvation to yield submission to the pope.^ The language used by Boniface was simply other terminology for what the great theologian had advocated. This bull was a battle-ground of discussion for the next two centuries and its twofold assertion the bomb which helped to shatter the medieval theory of authority. WycHf, Huss and other writers referred to it again and again to contest its truth and condemn its audacity. If the absolutism of the papacy was doubted and discred- ited after 1300, likewise was the theory of the church as elaborated by the Schoolmen. According to them, the church is a visible institution for dispensing salvation. Its bound- aries are the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven on earth and are as distinctly marked as were the boundaries of the republic of Venice. The sacraments, which it is in the power of the church to administer, have an efficiency in themselves and, like drugs and food, impart to the sinner spiritual life and continue to maintain him in life. They introduce him into the kingdom of the faithful, nourish him during his earthly pilgrimage, and with the viaticum and the cleansing of the oil of extreme unction send him on the way to the other country. This sacramental efficiency is dependent upon the ' Quod subesse Romano pontifici sit de necessitate salutis. — Schafif, V, i : 674, 777. DoUinger says that Thomas was the first theologian to discuss the theory of papal infallibility as an integral part of systems of theology. 8 JOHN HUSS dispensation of a sacerdotal order receiving its authority and its grace by ordination, so that, no matter how immoral the priest may be, his words accompHsh the transubstantiation of the bread and wine and render the other sacraments dis- pensed by his act efficient in the recipient. This imposing construction of the church reared by dexterous scholastic reasoning, which ignored entirely or misinterpreted a large body of apostoHc teaching, was sub- jected to rational doubt and free Scriptural inquiry after the death of Boniface VIII and the last of the greater Schoolmen, Duns Scotus, d. 1308. The Schoolmen subjected the reason to church authority. They applied to the Scriptures no in- dependent investigation. They knew no Hebrew or Greek. They presented the opinions of the Fathers, collecting them into an iron-clad body of dogmas. Their theological soph- istry threatened to bury the Scriptures in the tomb of doc- trinal tradition, but men here and there again began to study the sacred text and to measure ecclesiastical dogmas by its plain teaching and common sense. This is what Wyclif, Huss and others did. Next to the papacy and the church the third great elabora- tion of the period of the Schoolmen was the inquisition, the machinery for the abolition of ecclesiastical dissent. Heretical depravity it was called, for heresy was not an intellectual opinion only: it was depravity. This inquisition followed from the definition of the prerogatives of the papal office and the functions of the church. Here the great Schoolmen and the great popes again speak. To both alike, heresy — that is, dissent from the dogmatic teachings issued by the church and disobedience to the rule of the hierarchy — was a crime. Thomas Aquinas's Summa of Theology was in full accord with the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council presided over by Innocent III, 12 15. A heretic, having no rights in the church, has also no rights whatever on earth — not even the right to live. THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 9 The church acquired rights over the individual by bap- tism and these rights extended to the deprivation of life. Innocent likened heretics to Joel's locusts and to the foxes which spoil the vines. Like cUppers of coin, they are to be burned, affirmed Thomas Aquinas. To quote this the- ologian: "They are not only to be separated from the church by excommunication but also excluded from the world by death." The spiritual authority might consign heretics to perpetual imprisonment, and, as it was forbidden to execute the death penalty, it turned them over to the civil tribunal with the full understanding that they were to be punished, if necessary, unto death. This penalty it made sure by threat- ening with extreme church punishments civil tribunals which failed to administer it. The codes of Frederick II and the law of Louis IX of France enacted that heretics condemned by the church should be executed out of the world. ^ These three institutions — papal absolutism, the church as an organization dispensing Hfe and the absolute right to dis- pose of heretics by death, inherited from the age of the great popes and the great Schoolmen — controlled the official thought of Western Europe until attacked by Luther. Six months before he nailed up his theses, Leo X solemnly reaffirmed the pretensions of Boniface VIII's famous bull. But in the mean- time these three institutions were questioned or openly as- sailed by individuals who may be grouped in five different groups. To one of these groups John Huss belonged, and he represented the attack against all these three institutions, the papal monarchy, the church, and the inquisition. In this opposition there was a movement running in the direction of the recognition of the supreme authority of Scripture and the rights of conscience, for both of which Huss stood. The first of these groups was the group of pamphleteers ' Dollinger-Reusch, Card. Bellarmin, says that at the demand of Gregory IX the Roman senator took an oath to seize heretics pointed out by the in- quisition and to put them to death within eight days of their ecclesiastical sentence. lo JOHN HUSS who flourished in the first half of the fourteenth century and assailed first the temporal claims of the papacy and then its spiritual claims. Its most eminent representative was Dante, d. 132 1, who in his tract entitled Monarchy, and in other writings, wrote in favor of the independent authority of the empire and the supremacy of its jurisdiction within the civil sphere. He accepted the accuracy of the tradition that Constantine, in reward for his baptism by Sylvester and his recovery from leprosy by that pope's cure, bestowed upon the pope the government of Rome and all the regions of the West. This falsehood was distributed through Europe about 850 by the spurious Isidorian Decretals and was for centuries be- lieved to be as true as the Gospels themselves. It was not until the close of the fifteenth century that Laurentius Valla proved the whole story a fraud. Dante went no further than to pronounce Constantine incompetent to bestow such power upon a pope. That right belonged to God alone, who had made the two spheres distinct. He rejected the figure com- paring the two powers respectively to the sun and the moon. His famous lines might well have been quoted by Huss in his Treatise on the Church, where he emphasized the ills which had come to it through Constantine's fictitious gift. " Oh ! Constantine, how much ill was cause Not thy conversion, but those rich domains Which the first wealthy pope received of thee." — Inferno, 19 : 115, Dante freely put popes in hell, including the simoniac Boniface VIII. In France, moved by the controversy which Philip IV was having with Boniface, the Dominican John of Paris, d. 1306, and jurisconsults like Peter Dubois, d. after 132 1, struck the same note. These publicists insisted the church should keep itself clear of "Herod's old error" ^ and follow ' Scholz, Puhlizistik, etc., p. 315. i— THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED ii Christ who, in his earthly career, disclaimed worldly author- ity. John refuted forty-two reasons given for the pope's omnipotence in temporal affairs. The pope is the representa- tive of the church, not its lord, appointed to be the moral teacher of mankind and the overseer of men's spiritual con- cerns. The contrary view, the view of Innocent III, was represented by other publicists who were concerned to de- fend Boniface's bull and memory. Amongst those who went farthest were Alexander Triumphus and Alvarus Pelayo, who ascribed infallibility to the pope and extended his jurisdic- tion beyond the confines of Christendom and over the heathen. Along the line of this contention was the action of the coun- cil of Vienne, 13 12, which forbade sovereigns to allow their Mohammedan subjects to exercise the ritual of their religion.^ Hergenrother and Pastor complain that Alexander Triumphus carried matters beyond the limits of truth, making the pope a semi-god, the absolute ruler of the world. The attack upon the theocratic pretensions of the papacy was followed by an assault upon the supreme spiritual func- tions claimed for it and the priesthood. This group of pam- phleteers had its chief representatives in Marsiglius of Padua and John of Jandun. In part Ockam also agreed with them. These all supported the claims of Lewis the Bavarian in his conflict with John XXII and John's two successors. Mar- siglius has been called by eminent Catholic historians, Dol- linger. Pastor and Funk, a forerunner of Luther and Calvin. With great clearness he asserted some of the essentials of the Protestant Reformation, and in some respects he went beyond the Reformers, as when he declared that the people them- selves are the source of authority and select their own rulers. His tract Defensor pads — Defender of the Peace — is a bold manifesto against the hierarchical organization of the church. The pope's claim of plenitude of power contradicts the true nature and idea of the church. The highest earthly tribunal ' Schaff, V, I : 519. 12 JOHN HUSS in church matters is the general council. Laymen have the right to sit in it as well as clerics. The orders of bishop, priest and deacon are of human origin. The function of binding and loosing is declarative, not judicial. The right to inflict penalties Ues with the Christian congregation, the body of Christian believers. The Scriptures are the ultimate seat of authority. John XXII, 1327, condemned the tract as con- trary to apostolic truth and declared its reputed joint authors, Marsighus and John of Jandun, sons of perdition, sons of Belial, pestiferous men, beasts from the abyss.^ Marsiglius was equal to the pope in finding forcible epithets and de- nounced John as the great dragon, the old serpent. It is I remarkable how short a time had elapsed between Thomas [Aquinas, the great architect of the mediseval system of the )church and papacy, and these violent democratic assaults. The second group, the German mystics, disparaged the ^^ mediaeval system by their habits of piety rather than by their '^^ writings. They breathed a different atmosphere from the Schoolmen and lived apart from the conflict over worldly authority. This remarkable body of men, preaching and spreading by example the precepts of practical Christianity, . did not openly attack a single dogma of the church. They had nothing to say about its outward constitution or the sacra- ments. Nevertheless, in the person of Meister Eckart, they brought upon themselves condemnation from the pope him- self, and, in the persons of Hugo de Groote and other leaders of the movement from the Lowlands, they called forth sus- picion and attacks from the Franciscan order. The move- ment was in the interest of personal piety and every-day Christianity. These men walked in secluded paths of spiritual devotion. They preached in the vernacular tongue. They taught schools. They wrote tracts on the immediate com- munion of the soul with Christ. They copied manuscripts. Their teachings were opposed to the dogmatic method of ' For John's bull, see Mirbt, 166. THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 13 the Schoolmen. The little book called The German Theology and also Tauler's sermons influenced Luther. GodHness is more than a doctrine, more than a ritual. It is a state of the soul, a habit of daily conduct. In the soul religion is to be sought, not in outward sacramental conformities. The word conversion — Kehr — was coined anew, and the thing it^ represented was in fact, though not professedly, opposed to sacramentarianism. They insisted upon separation from the world in contrast to separation from society, upon the son- ship of believers, upon love and simple faith, upon walking with God. "wisdom," said Tauler, ''is not studied in Paris but in the sufferings of the Lord. The great masters of Paris read large books and that is well; but people who dwell in the inner kingdom of the soul read the true book of life. A pure heart is the throne of the supreme judge, a lamp bearing eternal light, the sanctuary of the only-begotten Son." Glorifying all honest daily occupations, he says: "One can spin, another make shoes, and all these are the gifts of the Holy Ghost. I tell you, if I were not a priest, I should esteem it a great gift to be able to mend shoes, and I would try to make them well so as to be a pattern to all." It was better, one of them said, to have simple faith than to pry into the secrets of God. Whittier makes known their spirit in the lines: "God has sent the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple faith Wisdom the weary Schoolmen never knew." As Loofs has well said: " German mysticism emphasized above all dogmas and external acts the necessity of the new birth." •• Their names have no place in the records of councils, but the soil on which they labored and built their schools was the soil on which German Protestantism sprang up. A third group of men, who flourished in this period of two hundred years, were the Humanists. In Italy first they broke ^ Dogmengeschichte, p. 631. 14 JOHN HUSS a new path for intellectual culture and freedom. The classic literature of Greece and Rome, the church, following the ban of St. Jerome, had taught for nearly a thousand years, was an unclean thing. All Christians were to keep away from the infection. Under the impulse of Dante, Petrarch and Boc- caccio other studies than the study of theology came into vogue. Scholars turned with deUght to the artistic and literary treasures of the Old World, to its mythology and history. They discovered again the wonders and beauties of the earth around them. They made the Italian the avenue of their thought and prepared the way for the breaking up of the monopoly of ecclesiastical Latin. Nicholas V and other popes joined with the Medicis of Florence and other noble families in patronizing the new culture and collecting li- braries and treasures of art. The North, learning from Italy, added some new elements, and Reuchlin and Erasmus started Hebrew and Greek scholarship on its modern paths and en- gaged in the study of the Bible, as the Southern Humanists had not. A fourth group of men, produced in the latter half of the fourteenth century, included the ecclesiastical and discipli- nary reformers. They are associated with the great Reforma- tory councils, Pisa, Constance and Basel, 1409-1449. With the aid of discipline and law they sought to correct abuses which prevailed in the church. In incisive pamphlets they set forth the ills of Christendom and agreed upon a general council as the means for curing them. The principle that such council, representing the whole church, is above the pope, advocated by Ockam, was taken up and presented with conciseness and clearness by Konrad of Gelnhausen. He was followed in the same path by such men as Henry of Lan- genstein, Gerson, d'Ailly and Nieheim. The discussion centred in the university of Paris, which became the influen- tial sponsor of the supremacy of councils. With this group of ecclesiastical reformers the question was one of the adminis- THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 15 tration of the church. For fifty years Europe was turned into a parliament which listened to the arguments of famous teachers on the questions of disciplinary reform. With the names of the men of these four groups and the principles for which they stood Huss must have been well ac- quainted. The subjects of their tracts were the primary issues of their times. Huss probably read a large number of them, written from the date of Boniface's death down to his own day. Although he repeatedly cites Boniface's bull and com- ments upon it, it may seem strange to us that he did not quote some of these writers by name. But in neglecting to do so, he was following the custom of the fifteenth century in regard to quotations. The fifth group were the reformers before the Reformation, men whose paths led far away from the principles of the medi- aeval church. They urged the principles of the pamphleteers who assailed the papacy. They insisted on personal piety. They urged church reforms. But more, they were dogmatic innovators. They were widely separated in time and their spheres of activity— WycHf in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Italy, and Goch, Wesel and Wessel in North- western Germany — yet they agreed in essential particulars, if we except Savonarola, whose demands for reform were political and moral. Nevertheless, by resisting the pope's authority and appealing to the decision of a general council, and by holding forth the Scriptures prominently in the pulpit, Savonarola has a place in this group. He was burned as a heretic, 1498, after being officially separated from the church. The artist who constructed the monument of the Reformation at Worms did not go astray in placing him at the side of Wyclif, Huss and Peter Waldo at the feet of Martin Luther. Wyclif and Huss, however, were the arch-heretics of this period who opposed the three mediaeval constructions — the papacy, the church and the inquisition. Relying upon Augustine's definition that the church is the body of the elect. i6 JOHN HUSS they contested the proposition that what the visible church teaches must be beHeved because the church teaches it. They turned away from an infalHble pope and an infalHble visible church to the living Christ, who rules personally in the hearts of believers and in the Scriptures. They questioned or denied the church's right to punish heretics and schismatics with physical punishments. During the narrower period of Huss's life two movements of unusual importance were going on in the history of Latin Christendom, the Avignon exile and the papal schism. Both threatened the continuation of the papacy and the unity of the Western church. Huss was born during the Avignon exile, and he lived through the entire period of the papal schism, 1377-1417. Two years after the death of Boniface VIII, 1303, the transfer of the papacy from Rome to Avignon was accomplished. The bitter conflict between Boniface and Philip the Fair, a conflict which Philip continued to wage against Boniface's memory after the pope's death, was the occasion of the removal of the papal residence to the banks of the Rhone. During the seventy years that the papacy con- tinued there, the popes were all Frenchmen and little more than French court-bishops. Frenchmen constituted the large majority in the sacred college. The venality that was prac- tised in the papal household at Avignon and the moral cor- ruption of the place won for it from contemporaries the name of the third Babylon. Church ofi&ces were set for sale and lucrative livings were filled before their incumbents were dead, two or even three ecclesiastics paying for the right of succession and standing, as it were, in line until the living in- cumbent died and the others, one by one, filled out their turns. These provisions and reservations, as they were called, and the constant appeal of all sorts of cases from every quarter to the apostolic see made the Avignon court the scene of constant intrigue and bribery. The turbulent state of Italy and the fear that papal territory might be lost to THE AGE IN WHICH HUSS LIVED 17 the patrimony of St. Peter, even more than the appeals of Petrarch and the prophetic voices of Brigitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena, induced the last Avignon pope, Gregory XI, to visit Rome. Gregory, the pope whom Wyclif called "a terrible devil," died unwilHngly at Rome and while he was contemplating a return to France. The papal schism, which followed upon Gregory's death, was a far greater misfortune than the Avignon exile. Follow- ing the rule that the papal election take place where the pope dies, and overawed by the threats of the Roman populace, which demanded an- Italian pope, the curia elected the arch- bishop of Bari, known as Urban VI. Of the twenty cardinals at that time in Rome sixteen were Frenchmen and only four Italians. Urban was incapable of rising to his great oppor- tunity, and by his self-will and disregard of every dictate of prudence, he himself became a refugee and exile. The French cardinals, refusing to acquiesce in his election, chose the no- torious Robert of Geneva, who assumed the name of Clement VII and continued the papal court at Avignon. The two popes — one on the Tiber and one on the Rhone — hurled the anathema one at the other, and Western Europe for forty years witnessed the scandal of two earthly heads of the church and was divided between two "obediences." As a result many dioceses were divided in their allegiance and had rival bishops, as was the case with Mainz, Liege, Basel, Constance, Chur, and other dioceses. Pastor has said: "The papal schism was the greatest misfortune which could have befallen the church." The best talent of the age, as already intimated, was devoted to the discussion of methods for the abolition of the schism and the reunion of Christendom. Bohemia, to which Huss belonged, was true to the Roman line, but an element of un- certainty in its religious affairs resulted from the constant efforts of the Avignon popes to attract the allegiance of its king to themselves. With the example of the universities of Paris and Oxford before it, the new university of Prague was k i8 JOHN HUSS compelled to investigate the foundations of the papal office and the place which the supreme pontiff occupied in the church. During this most critical period of the papal schism Huss was a student at the university and an active participant in the church affairs of his people. With the propositions which came from the university of Paris and from individuals in- tended to heal the schism he must have been thoroughly familiar. The Reformatory council of Pisa, summoned, 1409, to accomplish this result, was held when he was in the full tide of his activity and its debates he must have followed with intense interest. In the presence of the second Reforma- tory council, the council of Constance, which brought about the deposition of three popes and elected a fourth, he himself stood; however, as a prisoner under trial for his life. CHAPTER II HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL Johannes Htiss lingua potens el mundioris vita opinione clarus. — .^neas Sylvius, Hisl. Boh., chap. 35. Huss, forcible of speech and distinguished by the reputation of a pure life.^ John Huss was born in Husinecz, a village in Southern Bohemia, near the- Bavarian frontier, about the year 1373, and died at the stake in Constance, July 6, 141 5. The year 1369, which has sometimes been given as the year of Huss's birth, seems to be too early, for it would necessitate Huss's being thirty-two years old at the time of his ordination to the priesthood, the canonical age being twenty-five.^ The exact day of Huss's birth we have no means of determining, and the sixth of July, observed by the Catholic population in parts of Bohemia, seems to have been suggested by the day on which his death occurred. Usually he signed his name John Hus. In official documents it was given as Magister or even Doctor Johannes of Husinecz. The custom of associating the place of birth with the Christian name was common, as in the cases of John Wyclif, John Gerson and John Rokyzan. The Czech word hus means goose and it was made the oc- casion of many a pun by Huss himself as well as by his friends. A friend writing about him from Constance said that the Goose was not yet cooked and not afraid of being cooked, and ^ The comparative, mundioris seems to indicate an advance upon Huss's force of speech. A distinguished professor of Latin suggests the trsl. " a sin- gularly pure life," citing Cicero, Calo Major, who speaks of old age as loquacior, particularly talkative. - Palacky and Tomek accept 1369, but Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 67, Gillett and Liitzow, 1373. Flajshans, p. 12, inclines to 1373, although he says the date may have been as late as 1376. Huss was baccalaureus, 1393, the re- quired age being sixteen. Flajshans, p. 42, giving the different old spellings of Huss's name says he is called J. Huss de Hussinecz in a court document, June 2, 1402. 19 20 JOHN HUSS Huss wrote: "If you love your poor Goose, see to it that the king sends him guards."^ Of Huss's boyhood and his university career our knowl- edge is scant. His parents were poor but not in necessitous circumstances.^ His father, whose name was John, died when he was a child, and, according to Flajshans, the son was called in his youth after his father, Jan Michaluv. His mother seems to have devoted much attention to her son's care and was wont to accompany him to school. Later she went with him to Prague, when he entered upon his university career. He had brothers whom he recalled with affection in his last days, and one of these brothers had sons whom Huss, writing shortly before his death, commended for a trade, as they seemed to him not to be fitted for the spiritual office. Of his school Hfe at Prachaticz, a neighboring town to his birth- place, we know no details with certainty. The exact date of his entrance upon his studies in the university of Prague is uncertain, though it was probably 1389. There he studied in the department of the arts and philosophy and also theology. From this time on we find his name spelled Jan of Husinecz. To use the technical language of the time, he was promoted to the degree of B.A. 1393, B.D. 1394, and M.A. 1396. Huss never reached the doctorate of theology and, until the end, called himself bachelor of sacred theology or as in his let- ters Magister J. Hus. He helped to support himself by sing- ing on the streets and in churches, as Luther did a hundred years later. His piety and his poverty are ahke attested by his purchase of a pardon at the sale of indulgences at the Wyssehrad in the Prague jubilee year 1393. He says that he spent his last four pennies in purchasing the certificate of forgiveness. Referring probably to the years before his ma- triculation at the university, he notes in his Bohemian Com- ^ Doc, 80, 100. 2 Palacky, Gesch., 3 : 191. According to Flajshans, Husinecz had a popu- lation of 1,800. For the scanty legends of Huss's life, see this author's Life, p. 22. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 21 mentary on the Decalogue that when he was a hungry little student he made a spoon out of bread and ate the peas with it and then ate the spoon also. It would seem that Huss was not a remarkable student, as the university lists put him midway in the groups receiving degrees. A statement in one of his letters reports that, be- fore he entered the priesthood, he was fond of playing chess, and he thought it necessary to confess that he had frittered away time and provoked both himself and others to anger over the game. University students at Prague had to run the gauntlet. It was a common thing for loose women to frequent the houses where students roomed and even to take permanent lodgings in them.^ It is fair to assume that Huss's private life was above reproach. Even down to the last moments in | Constance no charge was ever brought against his character. The withering public attacks he made against vicious clerics from the earliest period of his pubHc activity failed to call forth a single charge against his personal purity. This judg- ment is also borne out by the warm personal friendship of people of all classes, which he enjoyed from the mechanic to the highest nobles of the realm, men before whom his life was as an open book, ^neas Sylvius, afterward Pius II, in describing Huss's death, spoke of him as distinguished for the reputation of a Hfe of purity— a remarkable testimony from a man whose record was marked by illicit amours, and who was severe upon Huss's heresy and the Hussites. In 1401 we find Huss lecturing on the Sentences of Peter -| the Lombard. A proof of the respect in which he was held ! was his election the same year as dean of the faculty of phi- losophy, and a still greater proof was his election, in 1402, to the office of rector of the university, a position he at that time filled for six months. The qualities of eloquence, moral \^' elevation and personal magnetism ascribed to him at a later / K period must already have had prominent exercise to explain ^ Tomek, as quoted by Liitzow, p. 69. 22 JOHN HUSS this gift of the highest university distinction. He was a marked man in the eyes of students and faculties. Huss was ordained to the priesthood in 1401, His own statement that in preparing for the clerical office he had had in mind the safe shelter and goodly apparel a comfortable living would bring him must not be taken to exclude higher motives. His first sermons, so far as we know, were delivered in St. Michael's church. Bernard, its incumbent, Huss at a later date pronounced "a very great enemy of the Word of God." At times he dined with Bernard, and a remark made on one of these occasions was made the subject of a charge against him at Constance, that he held to the remanence of the substance of the bread and wine after the words of institu- tion at the Lord's Supper. In the year 1402 Huss's career as a preacher began with his appointment to the pulpit of the Holy Innocents at Bethlehem. The young priest, not thirty years old, was soon one of the most noted popular preachers of his century and the chief ecclesiastical figure of his own country. The Holy Innocents became the conspicuous religious centre in the city of Prague. Huss's voice reached men of all classes, from the king to the beggar, cleric and lay. He exalted his office and, in using the title bachelor of divinity, often coupled with it the title, "rector and preacher of the chapel of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem in the old and large city of Prague." 1 Prague — Praha in the Czech — with which Huss's name is as closely associated as Savonarola with Florence, Calvin with Geneva, or Knox with Edinburgh, has from time im- memorial been the metropoHs and capital city of Bohemia. This land, with nearly seven millions of people, almost sur- rounded by mountain ranges, and watered by the river Moldau and other streams, is a part of the Austrian empire. The national Slavic feefing of the people is bound up with ' Doc, 387, 466, etc. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 23 the Czech language and Bohemia's former history as an in- dependent kingdom. The land was the meeting-place of Slav and German. In Huss's day a considerable and in- fluential part of the population of Prague was German, and the conflicts between the elements were frequent. Since 1848, when a certain freedom of administration was accorded, the German element has sensibly declined. Now scarcely a fifth of the population is German, and to a visitor the signs over the shops and the conversation in the streets seem to be al- most exclusively in Czech. The Christianization of the land dates from the baptism of the Bohemian prince Borivoj, 873, under the preaching of the Eastern missionary, Methodius, who with his fellow mis- sionary Cyrillus, had labored in Moravia. A century later the influence of the Eastern church gave way to the authority of Rome and, 973, the bishopric of Prague was founded with Adalbert as the first bishop. It was at first a part of the arch- diocese of Regensburg and then of Mainz. In 1344, Prague became an independent archbishopric. In Huss's time it included the sees of Olmiitz and Leitomysl. The old national saints are Ludmilla and Wenceslaus. Stress is laid by Russian historians on the Eastern origin of Czech Christianity, and the Hussite movement has even been portrayed as a partial re- turn to that type as seen in the restoration of the cup to the laity. The Bohemian clergy, it seems, continued to be married until the thirteenth century, when the Roman rule of celibacy was enforced. In 1088 the royal crown was conferred by the emperor Henry IV on the Bohemian prince Wratislav for the support he rendered Henry in the conflict with Gregory VII over investiture. The royal title became hereditary with Premysl, who was crowned in 1198, and it remained in his house until the assassination of Wenceslaus III in 1306. During the period of Huss's activity the house of Luxemburg ruled in Bohemia. John of Luxemburg, the father of the emperor 24 JOHN HUSS Charles IV, was elected king by the Bohemians. This dynasty became extinct in Sigismund, who occupies a place of great prominence in Huss's last fortunes at Constance. From the date of his death, 1437, except at short intervals, the king- dom has been subject to the house of Hapsburg. The Bohemian ruler, in whose reign Huss was born, Charles IV, 1346-1378, was the most conspicuous political figure of his age and Bohemia's chief princely benefactor. His reign is looked back to as the golden era of his country. Never before or since has its prosperity been more generally acknowl- edged or its influence in Europe so appreciable. Seven years of residence at the court of his uncle, the king of France, gave the prince opportunity to become acquainted with the cul- ture of Western Europe. As Roman emperor he issued the famous Golden Bull, 1356, which determined the rules for the election to the imperial crown. The document imposed the duty of summoning the seven electors and presiding over their deliberations upon the archbishop of Mainz, and the right to crown the emperor on the archbishop of Cologne. The elections were to take place at Frankfurt. Of the four lay electors, the king of Bohemia was made cupbearer, and the Count Palatine, the duke of Saxony, and the margrave of Brandenburg respectively seneschal, marshal, and chamber- lain of the empire.^ During Charles's reign, Prague was transformed into one of the notable capitals of Europe. That sovereign encour- aged literature and the arts and laid the foundations of the massive palace on the Hradcany hill — Hradschin. He built convents and churches and constructed the bridge across the Moldau, one of the architectural wonders of the age, which still remains, after the passage of five centuries, the chief medium of commerce between the two parts of the city. Early in his reign Charles was in correspondence with Petrarch, ' Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 231, who quotes from Marsiglius and Schiller. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 25 the leading literary figure of his times, and on his visit to Italy, 1354, met the poet. Petrarch, who applauded Charles as the Augustus and patron of learning, looked to him for the liberation of Italy. He paid the emperor the high compli- ment of saying: "We look upon you as an Italian." As a commissioner from Milan, 1356, he visited the Bohemian cap- ital, calling it the extreme limit of the barbarians. Charles invited the Italian man of letters to make the city his home, and Petrarch was about to accept and go North when he was stopped by wars and the bad roads. ^ Further evidence of the prominence of Bohemia at this time is furnished in the History of Bohemia, the volume written by ^Eneas Sylvius, afterward Pope Pius II. This description, written with elegant literary taste, covers the natural features and resources of the country as well as the origin and annals of the people, ^neas dwells upon the architecture of the stone bridge across the Moldau and praises Charles as a builder, the patron of letters, the founder of religious establishments, and the giver of peace. He also gives a valuable characterization of Huss and the Hussites, by whose madness, he declared, the name of Bohemia was as much tarnished as it had been illuminated by the constancy of brave men.^ In the days of Huss, as ^neas says, Prague was divided into three parts. The oldest portion, known as the Wyssehrad, was built around a castle, the ancient Bohemian acropolis, on the right bank of the Moldau. It was also the site of an extensive monastery. The castle was destroyed in the Hussite wars. The old town was close down on the river's bank and included the buildings of the university, the churches of St. Michael's and St. Gallus, and the famous Teyn church, which ^ J. H. Robertson, Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, N. Y., 1899, devotes a chapter, pp. 329-377, to the relation between Charles and Petrarch. 2 Introd., Sicut Hiissitarum insania Bohemicum nomen labcfactavii ita el fortlum virorum constantia illustravit. 26 JOHN HUSS was the church of the Utraquist wing of the Hussites until 162 1, and is still one of the memorable monuments of the city. Here is the famous old town square, with the old town hall, -^ built 1381, a portion of which still remains. In one of the council-chambers hang pictures representing John Huss be- fore the council of Constance and the election of John Podie- brad as king, March, 1458. In this part of the city are situ- ated the old Jewish cemetery and synagogue, among the very oldest on European soil, and the university buildings.^ On the left bank of the Moldau, is the Hradcany con- taining the palace of Charles IV and buildings erected by the Hapsburg kings, as well as the historic palaces of the Wallenstein and the Schwartzenberg princes. Here, also, is the great cathedral of St. Vite, begun in 1344, and containing the relics of St. Wenceslaus and St. John Nepomuk. In the construction of the latter's shrine three thousand seven hun- dred pounds of silver were used. The Bethlehem chapel, which was In the busy and con- gested old town, is as closely associated with Huss as the Anastasia — the church of the Resurrection — at Constanti- nople was associated with Gregory Nazianzen, who preached within its walls his famous discourses on the Trinity. Both buildings have been completely destroyed, the chapel in Prague by the Jesuits in 1786. It was founded in 1391 as a place for preaching in the Czech language. The founders were two laymen, the merchant Kriz, who gave the site, and the nobleman John Miihlheim of Pardubicz, one of King Wenzel's counsellors, who erected the building and endowed it. It was called Bethlehem — House of Bread — "because the • common people and the faithful of Christ might there be - refreshed through preaching." In his letter giving his apos- toUc benediction to the chapel, 1408, Gregory XII repeated ^ /Eneas, who speaks of the old town as magnificis operibus ornata, reports one of the outbreaks against the Jews in which one thousand were slain with- out regard to age or sex, chap. s:^. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 27 that it was founded for the preaching of the Word of God — pro usu predicationis Verbi Dei} Provision was made that two sermons should be delivered every Sabbath and festival day, except during the Advent and Lenten seasons, when the number was reduced to one. The chapel was not the centre of a distinct parish but was within the bounds of the parish of St. Philip and St. James, and its incumbent had no inde- pendent jurisdiction over a district, although he celebrated the mass and performed other church offices. The right of appointment inhered in the Miilheim family. Later, pro- vision was made for an associate preacher, and a house was built for the priest adjoining the chapel. It was stipulated that the offerings should be applied to the maintenance of poor students at the university. The first preacher at Bethlehem, John Protiva, was fol- lowed, in 1396, by Stephen of Kolin, a member also of the university faculty. With the latter was associated John of Stiekna, a noted preacher. At the time of Huss's appoint- ment Nicholas Zeiselmeister was the parish priest, a man whom Huss first accounted a friend and then a foe.^ From the time Huss entered upon his duties, March 14, 1402, the Bethlehem pulpit was the chief centre of religious attraction in Prague. ^Eneas pronounced Huss "a powerful speaker." His power of eloquence, however, could not ac- count for the lasting impression he made on the religious con- viction of his generation and his becoming the chief prophet of his people. No preacher was ever more attached to his pulpit than Huss was to his chapel. In the dark hours of his im- prisonment he recalled it with warm affection, and its services even occupied his dreams. Among his last messages were letters addressed to the congregation accustomed to worship within its walls. The dignity of the preaching function Huss asserted with much emphasis, as did Wyclif before him, insisting, as in his Treatise on Ike Church, upon the priest's * Doc, 340 sq., 394. Mon., i : 115. • Sermones de Sanctis, p. iii. 28 JOHN HUSS right to preach as being conferred on him in his ordination, and to be taken away from him by an ecclesiastical superior only when the preacher subverted his office by advocating opinions evidently injurious or heretical. Although the chapel was devoted to preaching through the medium of the Czech language, the most of Huss's extant sermons are not in Czech, the explanation of which is that the outlines were prepared in Latin and the discourses freely deUvered in the native tongue. Popular preaching, as has been said, was no new thing in Prague. For half a century before Huss's appearance preachers had stirred the city by sermons in German and Czech. The most notable of Huss's forerunners in the Bo- hemian pulpit were Konrad of Waldhausen, Milicz of Kremsier and Matthias of Janow.'^ Konrad of Waldhausen, an Aus- trian belonging to the Augustinian order, settled in Prague at the invitation of Charles IV, 1360. Here he preached until his death, in 1369, first in St. Callus church and then in the Teyn. His sermons were a popular sensation. They soon emptied the churches of the Mendicant orders. Of the discourses of the Mendicants he used the following words: "As soon as I came to Prague the mass of the people forsook the churches of the friar preachers with their fawning dis- courses— blandis sermonibus—sind have followed me to this day, and that in spite of the vigor with which I have rebuked and punished them. " On one occasion when he was preaching at Saaz, in 1365, Franciscans sought to drown the preacher's voice and break up the services by ringing the bell, but Konrad dismissed the congregation from the church and preached in the open air. So great were the throngs which pressed to hear him that he was at times obliged to leave the Teyn church and set up his pulpit in front of it on the public square. He preached both in German and in Latin. ' For these preachers and others, see Palacky, Vorlditfer des Hiissitenthums in Bokmen and Gesch. Bohmens, III, i : 158 sqq. Also Loserth, Wiclif and Hits, 38 sqq., 301 sqq., and Flajshans, Introd. to the Sermones de Sanctis. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 29 Waldhauser, as he was also called, was a preacher of re- pentance and righteousness, and attacked spiritual pride, avarice, luxury, usury, and other sins. The effect of his sermons was shown in changed lives. Women, it is reported, laid aside their jewelry and their rich garments, influenced by his warnings. The more he condemned vice and unnecessary adornment the more, he said, did the attachment to him grow. Konrad also used, as he himself informs us, the sharp thorn of the Word against the simony of the clergy, and especially of the monks, and arraigned them for commending spurious relics. "It is folly," he exclaimed, "to run after the head of St. Barbara when it is found not in Prague but in Prussia."^ To the complaints he made against the monks, the arch- bishop replied that they were outside his jurisdiction and had their own superiors to whom they were amenable. Irritated by Konrad's censures and popularity, the Do- minicans formulated against him eighteen charges, to which the Augustinians added six more. Four of them ran as follows: Those who receive boys or girls into convents for money are eternally damned. No one in Prague preaches the whole truth. Monks are fat with goods and need no money. Members of orders had been commissioned to kill him. In reply the preacher publicly declared that the friars were so little like the first members of their orders that they would not only be disowned by them but be stoned. In this also they had changed. In the early days they had been in con- stant rivalry and strife; now they were united in the effort to break down his usefulness and the influence of the Word of God. A contemporary, Adalbert Ranconis, eulogized Kon- rad "as a defender of Christ's truth, an example of religion and sobriety, the mirror of virtue, and preacher of the Gospel." * St. Barbara, a martyr, is said to have been a beautiful maiden whom her heathen father gave over to the authorities and whom they punished with torture and burning. Her legend is very uncertain both as to place and the time of her death. She is the patron saint of the artillery and was invoked against the ravages of tempest and fire. 30 JOHN HUSS At Konrad's death a preacher of equal or greater fame was made his successor in the Teyn church, Mihcz, of Kremsier, a town in Moravia.^ For five years, until his death in 1374, he carried on Konrad's work. In 1363 he suddenly gave up positions of honor and emolument in the imperial chancery and as canon of St. Vite and archdeacon of Prague to devote himself to poverty and preaching. After serving for a few months in the parish of Bishop Teinitz, he returned to Prague and preached successively in the churches of St. Nicholas and St. ^gidius before being transferred to the church of Teyn. Here his popularity was so great that, on occasion, he was forced to preach three times a day. Yea, we know of his preaching five sermons on a single day, once in Latin, once in German, and three times in Bohemian. The last was his vernacular and, by using it, he strengthened the national feeling of the Czechs. Milicz's indictments against vice and corruption were directed against all classes, lay and cleric, even to the hierarchy. So effective were his appeals that the part of the city known for its houses of ill fame as Venice — Benatky, that is dedicated to Venus — un- derwent such a transformation that it came to be known as New Jerusalem. Scores of fallen women — Janow reported two hundred — did penance and renounced their former mode of life. New buildings were erected in the neighborhood under the patronage of Charles IV, where penitents were housed and a semi-monastic community maintained. Milicz's mind became fired with the prophecies of anti- christ and the last days, and he dwelt frequently, as later did Huss, on "the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place," Matt. 24 : 15. He announced the coming of antichrist in the period 1363-1367, wrote a special treatise on the sub- ject, and explained as of antichrist every thought and act * "Noch grosseren Namen und Ruhm ah Konrad erwarb sich Milicz und hatte dafiir auch noch viel grbssere Anfechtungen zii ertragen als sein Vor ganger, Kon- rad." — Palacky, Vorlaufer, p. 18. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 31 contrary to love and humility. Before a large assembly, as it appears, he arraigned Charles IV himself as antichrist. For this he suffered imprisonment at the hands of the arch- bishop of Prague. Attacked by the clergy, he appealed to the pope. In 1367 he visited Rome, where he waited in expecta- tion of Urban V's return from Avignon. He posted on St. Peter's a notice of his purpose to preach on the subject of the near approach of antichrist. This brought upon him the hand of the inquisition, which seized and imprisoned him. Set at liberty, he gained the ear of the cardinal of Albano, who had accompanied Urban on his brief visit to Rome. He returned to Prague, where, stung by his attacks, the monks drew up twelve articles against him, which they forwarded to the papal court at Avignon. According to Matthias of Janow, who left a detailed eulogy of Milicz, no one not moved by the spirit of antichrist could be in his presence without breath- ing in love, grace, and sweetness, and no one could hear him without being edified. Among the charges brought in the articles were these: antichrist had already come, clerics had no right to hold personal property, taxes collected by priests on houses and vineyards are usury, and frequent communion should be practised. He asserted that, if a priest might cele- brate three times a day, so the people might communicate three times a day.^ Gregory XI condemned the articles and ordered Milicz to desist from pubhc ministrations, "pro- vided the facts were such as we are informed they are." The accused preacher set his face toward Avignon, where he was again befriended by the cardinal of Albano and preached be- fore the cardinals. He died June 29, 1374. Matthias of Janow, who praised his devotion to the poor and outcast in the fervor of his preaching, calls Milicz a son and copy of the Lord Jesus Christ and almost the likeness of the Apostles in word and deed. If possible, a more popular exponent of the Gospel than ' Palacky, Vorlaufer, 39-46, for the twelve articles in Latin and Czech. 32 JOHN HUSS Konrad and Milicz was Matthias of Janow. The son of a Bohemian knight, he studied six years in Paris, so that he was known in Bohemia as the Parisian master. He spent some time in Rome and on his return to Prague was appointed to a canon's stall in St. Vite's and to the position of confessor there. At his death, 1394, he was buried in the cathedral. Janow exercised his influence as effectively outside the pulpit as in it. In a volume entitled The Rules of the Old and New Testament — De regulis veteris et novi testamenti — he applied the precepts of Christianity to the conditions of his age.^ His observations, based on the study of the Bible, were given to him, as he asserted, in answer to prayer. The Bible he emphasized as the sufficient text-book of religious conduct, and the twelve fundamental articles he drew from it con- cerned the imitation of Christ in daily life rather than ec- clesiastical dogmas drawn from the Fathers. On every page the author shows his interest in the religious welfare of the laity. His own religious awakening Janow compared to a re- ligious fire which had entered his heart, and whose flames burned brighter as he lifted up his soul in prayer to God and to Jesus Christ, the crucified. The Bible had been his friend and bride from his youth up. It was to him the mother of love and knowledge. "I have used in my writings," he says, "the Bible above all else and in less degree the sayings of the doctors, because the Scriptures occur to me quickly and copiously and because the most divine truths are there set forth most lucidly and self-evidently. ... I have always found in and through them satisfactory explanations for every question and consolation for my soul in all my persecutions, trouble, and sadness. I always flee for refuge to the Bible, 1 Palacky, Vorldufer, 58-80, gives excerpts. Neander, Cli. Hist., Engl, trs., 5 : 191-235, gives large space to Matthias and advocates the view first pre- sented in a paper read before the Academy of Sciences, Berlin, 1847, that Huss was strongly influenced by Matthias independently of Wyclif. This view has been made impossible by later studies. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL ^^ which is my dearest friend." He chose it as his companion even on his travels, while others took with them relics. He contrasted the mandatory arrogance of papal bulls with the invitations of the Gospel. His teaching which gave the most offense was the recommendation of frequent communion for the laity. He deplored the idea that a communion once a year was sufficient for the soul. Even as the eye needs the sun constantly, so does the soul need the bread of the altar. These views brought him into conflict with the church authorities. Synodal decrees forbade the communion to the laity oftener than once a month and enjoined laymen to ad- dress prayers to images. In 1389, Janow signed a formula of retraction, and in five articles affirmed his belief as follows: I. That sacred images are no cause of idolatry. 2. That images should be adored. 3. That relics, including the bones of saints and the garments of Christ and the Virgin Mary, are to be worshipped, and the saints in glory profit us more than the living on earth. 4. That, by partaking of the bread of the altar, we are made mystical members of Christ. 5. That the laity is to be exhorted to take the communion daily. ^ As a punishment for propagating these errors Janow was inhibited for half a year from preaching and performing priestly functions outside his own parish. These three preachers and reformers prepared the minds of low and high for the messages of Huss. They preceded him in emphasizing the authority of the Scriptures, though in this respect they di3rnot go to the lengtlT that he went, and in publicly rebuking the worldliness of the clergy. Without doubt, Huss was influenced by their example, but for his guiding principles he did not look to them. For these he leaned not upon a Bohemian but upon John Wyclif. ' The text in Doc, 699 sqq. According to Rokyzan's statement at the coun- cil of Basel, 1433, Janow also recommended the giving of the cup to the laity, a recommendation from which he promised to desist. It is probable he never held this view. Through Jacobellus of Mies and others, Janow exerted an influence upon the Hussites. 34 JOHN HUSS Other preachers combined to give lustre to the Prague pulpit and preached in the Slavic at the time of Huss's studies in the university and later. Among them were John of Stiekna, d. 1405, whom Huss called "the excellent preacher with a voice like a trumpet," Peter of Stupna and Stephen of Kolin. Indeed, Prague was the metropolis of popular preach- ing in the latter half of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. And in this respect we cannot help but compare and contrast Bohemia with England before the Reformation as depicted by Hugh Latimer. In his sermon preached before Edward VI, March 22, 1549, he said: "If there was ever a man that preached in England in times past, in the pope's times, as peradventure there were two or three, straightway he was taken and nipped in the bud with the title of a heretic." The use of the Czech as a vehicle for religious thought and literary effort was greatly advanced by Thomas Stitny, a classical Bohemian author who died about 1400 and used the native tongue not only in devotional works but for learned discussions. His style is said to be a model to this day. The use of the Czech in the pulpit and on the written page strength- ened the national spirit. With this movement Huss was in full sympathy, and these sympathies with the Czech in- stitutions combined with his high aims and eloquence to give him the position of a leader of his people. And, to say the least, none of his predecessors in the pulpit and none of his contemporaries excelled him in these respects. At least nine collections of Huss's sermons in Latin are extant, in addition to his Bohemian sermons.^ The Scrip- tural element abounds. Huss's exposition is clear and the 1 See the list in Flajshans, De Sanctis, Introd., pp. iv-vi, and the sermons printed in the Mon. II, where nine sermons are designated as S3Tiodal ser- mons, pp. 35-84, and twenty-eight as preached against antichrist. Flajshans calls in question the genuineness of parts of these sermons or sermons as a whole, without, however, going into particulars. His collection, De Sanctis, was discovered in 1897 in a Ms. in the library of Prague. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 35 message applied with directness and simplicity. There is nothing in them the wayfaring man cannot understand. The doctrinal element is not missing, but chief stress is laid upon Y moral conduct and edification. We miss in them the illus- trative element which makes Luther's sermons so real and vivid. The needs and rights of the lay-folk are always in Huss's mind and he has no mercy on the faithless priest who offends against his vow of chastity, practises simony, or with- holds spiritual benefits from those who do not pay him money. After the period of his struggle with the ecclesiastical author- ities of Prague had. fairly begun, the references to the stages of the struggle are frequent and elaborate. Long quotations are introduced into the sermons from Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, and other ecclesiastical writers. Looking through his seventy-seven sermons on the church festivals, we find discourses on Matthew, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Stephen, and other characters of the New Testament, and also on Bohemian saints such as Adalbert, St. Ludmilla, and St. Wenceslaus. There are no less than twenty-five sermons on the Virgin Mary and her festivals. These sermons, preached in 1403, are free from the atmos- phere engendered by the later struggles in which Huss was engaged. There is no departure from the usual dogmatic teaching of the church. For example, the assumption oflj-^' Mary is accepted as well as the annunciation and her vir- ginity. Following the style of the medieeval theology, he refers to her passage after passage of the Canticles. She is the star that arose out of Jacob and the rod out of Israel, Num. 24 : 17. As a star is not affected by foreign impres- sions, so she was without corruption in the conception and birth of Christ and in her contact with the world; nor was there any corporal putrefaction at her death. She is "as fair as the moon, as clear as the sun, terrible as an army with ban- ners," Cant. 6 : 10. She trod on the serpent's head. A pas- 36 JOHN HUSS sage to which Huss returns again and again in elaborating her merits is Luke lo : 38, "He entered into a certain village" — castellum. The village or fortified town was Mary, into whom Jesus entered when the Word was made flesh. Mary is full of pity and most gracious, who stands in God's presence making intercession for us poor sinners and especially for those who seriously seek her aid. She is to be imitated in her humility as against the devil, in her poverty as against the lusts of the world, and in her chastity as against the temp- tations of the flesh. As for her assumption, Huss told his hearers that the angels looked on with the same wonder with which they looked on at the ascension of Christ. It is a matter of uncertainty whether Mary ascended in soul only or en- veloped with her body. Upon the whole, the argument seems to be that she ascended with her body as did Moses. At this early period Huss took the ground he afterward assumed in his Treatise on the Church, that not Peter, but Christ, is the rock on which the church is built. In favor of this interpretation, he quoted the famous passage from Augus- tine's Retractations and confirmed it from I Cor. 3. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus." ^ He refers to the abuse of the power of the keys and claims for all the Apostles equally the right of loosing and binding. In these sermons the church is defined as the whole number of the elect— /o/w5 numerus predestinatorum. At the meetings of the synod of Prague, before which he was appointed several times to deliver the opening sermon, as well as in the Bethlehem pulpit, Huss seemed to have been without fear in denouncing the vices of the clergy and the hierarchy and their indifference to the spiritual needs of the people. HireHng ministers called forth his scathing rebuke. Preaching from John 10 : 12-16, he said: "Such a minister is known from three things. He does not concern himself for his ofiice as a shepherd; he flees when persecution arises; he ' De Sanctis, 80-84. HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 37 seeks after hire rather than to follow Christ's commands. He invents all sorts of precepts and rules in order to plunder the people. Such ininisters speak evil in high places, call- ing out that all who disobey them are heretics and that they have the power to condemn to hell. Yea, they claim power to control heaven with their tongues, preaching that they have authority to open it to whom they will and to release from pain those who pay money. They open the door of heaven to persons immediately upon their death. These hireling priests are wolves preying upon the flock and are of antichrist, the great wolf, Jer. 5:6. They are now so many in number and so influential that they seize faithful shepherds who feed their flocks on the pastures of God's Word, and put them to death as heretics." The following excerpts from his sermons will sufl&ciently illustrate his homiletical method. Preaching on Christ's words, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- ness?" Huss said: "This means that, first of all and chiefly, I be engaged in that which concerns my Father and not in the service of any creature whatsoever. And why did Christ give this answer ? Because he came into the world for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth. And let this be an admoni- tion to fathers and mothers that they put no stumbling-block in the way of their children serving God. If children follow their own wills, parents should at once seek after the cause of their doing so and study how they may properly admonish their children and set them in the right path. And children should take their lessons from the conduct of Jesus, not to withstand their parents and be angry against them. For Jesus spoke in humble tone when he asked his father and mother, 'Why do ye seek me?' So every man, and especially prelates, should take Jesus' treatment of his parents as an example that they may first of all seek the profit of the church and have respect to God more than to any mortal man. For Jesus, setting aside the will of his earthly father and J 38 JOHN HUSS mother and doing the will of God, has taught us that every man should do the will of God, when he perceives that what God requires is something else than what our parents wish. Mary and Joseph did not want Jesus to remain in the temple but God wanted him to remain. Therefore, Jesus said to his father and mother that it behooved him to remain in the temple to instruct the doctors as the Father had commanded. Against this instruction priests very frequently offend who esteem men's precepts more highly than God's commands and obey man rather than God. And priests lead men to a false and sinful obedience, for many of them preach that the peo- ple should hearken to all the pope commands and obey him, inasmuch as the pope cannot err. They do not seem to know that many popes have been heretics. Other priests preach that laymen should yield obedience even when a bishop or a pope commands something that is evil, for in obeying they commit no sin and only he commits sin who issues the evil command. That is the devil's yoke, for the devil seeks to lead men into evil and does not concern himself upon whom the guilt of sin rests. Neither the one who commands nor X the one who obeys is without sin, as said the Saviour, Matt. 15 : 14: 'When a blind man leads the blind both fall into the ditch.' Here the Saviour was speaking of those prelates who, like the scribes and Pharisees, lead the people by their precepts to transgress the commands of God." In a sermon on Matt. 13 : 24-30 concerning the tares which were not to be pulled up lest the wheat also be pulled up with them, the interesting line of remark is followed that the tares are also in a certain degree useful to the wheat. They protect the wheat against the wind so that it can stand upright. At first it is not possible to distinguish the two and, in pulling up the tares, the wheat is apt to be trodden under foot or its growth in a measure hindered. In like manner bad men, if they are sparsely scattered amongst the good, are helpful to the good unto their lasting salvation, for they help HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 39 to confirm them in the power to resist evil and stand in the spiritual conflict. If there were no bad people there would be no temptations and, in consequence, no spiritual contest and reward. The destruction of all bad people in this world would inure to the hurt of the good. Sometimes, however, it is well that worldly princes pluck up the tares. But this they must do in accordance with the Word of God and they dare not follow human ordinances. It is fitting that they first seriously reflect upon what they propose to do and get advice from men expert in God's Word and use grace and prudence rather than severity so as to avoid doing hurt to the wheat or perchance pluck it up. Christ commanded Peter to avoid as a publican and heathen a person offending against him, provided the offender's sin was evident and the offender refused to hear holy church and to follow its counsel. But he did not command him to subject the offender to torture and death. In the same sermon, defining the kingdom of God, Huss found the following meanings in the Scripture: " i. It is the communion of saints in heaven, as when we pray ' Thy king- dom come.' 2. Christ himself, as when it is said 'The king- dom of heaven is within you.' 3. The church in this world or the communion of all Christians, of which Christ speaks, Matt. 3 : 41, as when he says: 'He will send forth his angels and they shall gather out of his kingdom all that offend.' 4. The dwelHng-place of the elect in heaven, Matt. 20 : 20, 'Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy kingdom.' 5. The Scriptures, Matt. 21 : 43, 'The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,' that is, the Scriptures will be taken from you and given to Christians who wiU use them to profit. Here belongs also Matt. 23 : 13, where Christ said of the scribes and Phar- isees, that 'they shut up the kingdom of heaven to men.' This they do by keeping back the Scriptures from the people 40 JOHN HUSS so that they may not read or understand them, and know how men ought to live; that they may not know how to punish the priests for their sins, or through knowledge of the Scrip- tures may not insist that the priests become better instructed in them. And again the priests keep the knowledge of the Scriptures from the people because the priests fear they will not receive the same amount of honor if the people are taught to read the Bible." The following is a Christmas meditation Huss wrote to his congregation of Bethlehem chapel during the period of his semi-voluntary exile from Prague, December 25, 1412: Dearest friends: To-day, as it were, an angel is saying to the shepherds: "I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people." And suddenly a multitude of the angels exclaim, saying: " Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good-will." As you commemorate these things, dearest friends, rejoice that to-day God is born a man, that there may be glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good- will. Re- joice that to-day the infinitely Great One is born a child, that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Rejoice that to-day a Reconciler is born to reconcile man to God, that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Rejoice that to-day He is born to cleanse sinners from their sin, to deliver them from the devil's power, to lead them from eternal perdition, to bring them to eter- nal joy, that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Rejoice with great joy that to-day is born unto us a King, to be- stow in its fulness upon us the heavenly kingdom, a Bishop to grant His eternal benediction, a Father of the ages to come, to keep us as His children by His side forever: yea, ther« is born a Brother beloved, a wise Master, a sure Leader, a just Judge, to the end that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Re- joice, ye wicked, that God is born as a Priest, who hath granted to every penitent absolution from all sins, that there may be glory, etc. Rejoice that to-day the Bread of Angels — that is, God, is made the Bread of men, to revive the hungry with His body, that there may be peace among them, and on earth, etc. Rejoice that God immortal is born, that mortal man may live forever. Re- joice that the rich Lord of the universe lies in a manger, hke a HUSS AND THE BETHLEHEM CHAPEL 41 poor man, that He may make us needy ones rich. Rejoice, most dearly beloved, that what the prophets prophesied has been ful- filled, that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Rejoice that there is born to us a Child all powerful and that a Son is given to us full of wisdom and grace, that there may be glory to God in the highest, etc. Oh, dearest friends, ought there to be only a moderate rejoicing over these things? Nay, a mighty joy! For indeed the angel saith: "I bring you good tidings of great joy," for that there is born a Redeemer from all misery, a Saviour from sin, a Governor of His faithful ones; there is born a Comforter for those in sorrow, and there is given to us the Son of God that we may have great joy and that there may be glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good-will. May it please God born this day to grant to us His good-will, His peace, and withal, His joy. It is no wonder that Bethlehem chapel was thronged. Its pulpit dealt in no theological abstractions. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, was in the preacher's hand a sharp weapon, wielded dexterously to lay open the sins and subterfuges of the conscience. It was the Word of Life offering the comforts of saving grace. Huss was a preaciici to the age in which he lived, to the congregations which pressed to hear him. His messages burn with zeal for pure religion and with sympathy for men. With his whole heart he was a preacher. Christ's chief command, as he reminded the arch- bishop of Prague, was to preach the Gospel to every creature, and when he was forbidden by archbishop and pope to longer occupy his pulpit he solemnly declared, in a letter to the chief civil officials of Bohemia, that he dared not obey the com- mands, for to do so would be to offend "against God and his own salvation."^ Preaching was the priest's primary duty. Huss followed worthily in the footsteps of his great pred- ecessors and went beyond them in the extent of his influence and in the novelty of his message. The following judgment is passed by the Bohemian his- ^ Doc, 4, 24. 42 JOHN HUSS torian Palacky upon Huss as a preacher/ which is given un- abridged, although we dissent from the last words, disparaging in a degree Huss's moral purpose: "His sermons, preached through a number of years, belong to the chief events of his age. Less coarse in his addresses than Konrad of Waldhausen, less enthusiastic in his views than MHicz, he made upon his hearers not so stormy an impression as his predecessors but, on the other hand, a far more permanent impression. He addressed himself to the understanding, aroused reflection, taught and persuaded, and at the same time was not lacking in pungent utterance. The keenness and clearness of his mind, the tact with which he got at the very heart of subjects under discus- sion, the ease with which he presented a case before his hearers' eyes, his wide reading, especially in the Scriptures, the de- cision and the logical consequences with which he pressed home a whole system of teachings secured for him great superiority over his colleagues and contemporaries. To this were added moral earnestness of character, a pious mind, a daily life in which enemies could find no stain, glowing de- votion for the moral uplift of his people and the reformation of the church, but also inconsiderate boldness, obstinacy, and unyielding conceit, noticeable ambition for popularity, and an ambition which looked upon a martyr's crown as the highest aim of human Ufe." • Gesck., Ill, I : 214. CHAPTER III HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF Wyclif ... the master of deep thoughts. — Huss, A pp. Creed, Doubtless Huss's experiences as a preacher would have been a repetition of the experiences of his predecessors in the pulpit of Prague, had not a new element of religious thought been introduced into Bohemia from abroad. Large and sym- pathetic audiences would have hung upon his words and perhaps rival priests and monks would have resented his strictures upon their clerical habits and spied out suspicious or heretical passages in his discourses and formulated them in charges. Like Matthias of Janow, he might have yielded to authority or, as did Milicz, have gone to Rome and sought to explain his utterances. Instead of this, his career ended in the awful penalty visited upon heretics. The explanation is offered in the foreign influence which moved him at the very foundation of his convictions and also stirred up the university of Prague, as few universities have been stirred by influences from without. This influence was the personality and teaching of John Wyclif, who died 1384, several years before Huss entered upon his studies in the university, and nearly twenty years before he was called to Bethlehem chapel. By the Englishman's writings Huss was fed and by the memory of his personality made morally strong. In the controversies over the EngHsh master's teachings, in which the university of Prague was involved, Huss stood out as the chief figure. Not because he had preached against the abuses of the clergy was he excommunicated, so one well acquainted with him, Andrew of Broda, said, 1414. Be- cause he was the advocate and defender of Wyclif he went 43 44 JOHN HUSS to the stake.^ As important as the influence of Paul upon the mind of Luther and more important than the influence of Calvin upon John Knox, was the influence of Wyclif upon the opinions and the career of Huss. Wyclif was the original and bolder mind — the pathfinder. Huss came after, was re- ceptive, but, as it proved, made a deeper impression upon his people. As moral personalities impelled by the truth they stand out with equal prominence in their generations. The first year of his pastorate at Bethlehem had not passed be- fore Huss was publicly identified with the Wyclifite discus- sions which were to agitate the university, keep in turmoil the body of its professors for more than a decade and also shake the ecclesiastical foundations of the Bohemian nation. In May, 1403, Wyclif 's teachings were brought to the official attention of the university by two members of the cathedral chapter as containing, it was charged, the seeds of heretical error. The university of Prague, founded by a double charter from the pope and Charles IV, 1347-1348, at once became the chief ornament of the Bohemian capital and made it famous throughout Europe as a seat of study. It was the first uni- versity north of the Alps in Central and Northeastern Europe. The universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford alone were more famous. Soon after their origin the universities of Europe became the restless centres of intellectual and literary life. Democratic in their constitution, they fostered free inquiry and were adapted to unsettle inquiring minds in the inherited institutions of church and society. They . owed their beginnings to the enthusiasm of single teachers, but Innocent III and other popes, quick to discern their impor- tance and their menace, early took hold of them and, in the case of Paris, prescribed its curriculum. However, they had a hard task in keeping their studies within safe limits. In fact, masters and students — who together were called the univer- * Doc, p. 520. HUSS'S DEBT TO W\TLIF 45 sity — constituted a world by themselves, a distinct corpora- tion. It is true that out of Bologna, the seat of the study of canon law, went forth the great popes, Alexander III and In- nocent III. But Paris issued some of the severest attacks against the theory of papal absolutism. With that institu- tion Gerson and d'Ailly were connected. Wyclif's teaching made Oxford a seat of heresy. Wittenberg, the last of the mediaeval universities, protected and fostered Luther. Hus- sitism was begotten at the university of Prague. The numbers given as attending the universities seem to have been greatly, exaggerated. Paris is reported to have had 25,000 students and Oxford 30,000, or, according to Wyclif, prior to his time 60,000, though for his own day he gives the reasonable figure of 3,000. Prague likewise was reported to have had in 1408 by one who hved but a short time later 30,000, with 200 masters, and 500 bachelors, a number alto- gether extravagant, according to Palacky.^ Flajshans gives the number at from 5,000 to 7,000, a number which includes retainers. The population of the city was then 80,000. The university of Prague, which had been preceded by a number of grammar-schools connected with the parish churches of the city, had the four faculties — theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. In 1372 the faculty of law was made a distinct body, with a rector of its own. German students who had flocked to Bologna and Paris, in the absence of other universities in the North, now turned to Prague. The universities of Vienna and Heidelberg were not founded till 1365 and 1385. Partial provision was made at Prague for the support of professors by gifts from the royal ex- chequer and contributions from the revenues of monasteries and chapter rights. Several special foundations were endowed for the aid of poor students. Oxford is mentioned in the annals of the Bohemian uni- ^Gesch., Ill, I : 183. Rashdall, 2 : 584 sqq., makes 1,500 to 3,000 the maximum number at Oxford. Flajshans, Mistr J. Hits, p. 46. - 46 JOHN HUSS versity in 1367 when the faculty of philosophy and the arts ordered its bachelors to use for their comments the writings — scripta et dicta — of its professors and the professors of Paris as well as the writings of members of the Prague faculties.^ The masters or doctors were allowed to give original lectures of their own — propria dicta dare. The German element in the Prague faculties and student body followed the principles of the NominaHsts, which had been adopted at Paris and taught that general concepts are mere names and are derived from individual existences. Following Wyclif and Oxford, Huss and the Czech element fed on Reahsm, which taught that general concepts have a real existence. Huss's realism was brought against him at his trial in Constance. The transmission of Wyclif's writings and influence to Bohemia was furthered by the marriage of Richard II of England, in 1382, to Anne of Luxemburg, sister of the Bo- hemian king, Wenzel. Anne, who died in 1394, was a woman of culture and carried with her to England copies of the Bible in Latin, Czech and German. Referring to the queen's interest in the Scriptures, Huss said that to make her out a heretic for having the Bible in translation would have been a Satanic folly .^ Among the Bohemians who followed Anne to England were students who went to Oxford for study. By the teachings of WycHf, Oxford had become notorious as a seat of advanced and even heretical thought, and young men predisposed to freedom of inquiry would easily be attracted there. At any rate, in Anne's reign Wyclif's writings were carried to Prague, where they were studied in the university. This is clear from Huss's own testimony. He wrote to the EngHsh CarmeUte, John Stokes, in 141 1, that Prague had possessed iRashdall, 2 : 223. Palacky, Gesch., Ill, i : 188, gives quotations from the Mon. Hist. Univ. Prag., recording the rule. ^Mon., I : 136. HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 47 and been reading Wyclif's works for twenty years and more.^ The statement of ^neas Sylvius, that the first to win ill fame in Prague by introducing Wyclif's manuscripts was a certain Faulfisch, is now doubted, and this person is identified with Nicholas Faulfisch, who, in 1306, carried with him to Bohemia an Oxford document attesting Wyclif's orthodoxy .2 It is certain, however, that among the earliest Bohemian students who carried copies of Wyclif's writings back from England to Bohemia was Jerome of Prague about 1401, the friend of Huss who followed him to the stake. On his trial at Constance Jerome deposed that he had copied Wyclif's Dialogus and Trialogus and carried them to Prague. Huss perhaps became acquainted, if not with Wyclif's writings, certainly with his teachings while he was still a student. Some of his teachers anticipated him in the knowledge of Wyclif's tenets. He himself made five copies of Wyclif's philosophical writings which are extant in the royal library of Stockholm, ''written with his own hand, 1398," and carried off by the Swedes, 1648, and he also made a translation of the Trialogus. As for Wyclif's doctrines, according to Sigismund's testimony at the council of Constance, they were known and spread in Bohemia when that king was but a youth.^ Sigis- mund was born 1368. Wyclif's doctrine of the Lord's Supper was known in Bohemia before 1400 and had already at that time unsettled some minds. One of these was the distin- guished Czech writer, Thomas of Stitny, who, writing in 1400, when he was in his seventieth year, declared his faith in the transubstantiation of the elements had been shaken.* Wyclif's name was held in even more honor in Bohemia than in his native land. In England, under the name of Lollards, dissenters adopted and perpetuated some of his * Mon., I : 135. ^ Hist, of Bohemia, chap. 35. See Loserth, p. 70 sqq. ^ Doc, p. 315. * Palacky, Gesch., Ill, i : 190. Loserth, p. 75 sq. On Stitny as a leader of Bohemian culture, see Palacky, p. 187 sqq. 48 JOHN HUSS teachings, as they also used his translation of the Bible. But his leading sympathizers recanted. In Bohemia the very names, Wyclifite and Wyclifist, were given to dissenters to indicate the extent of his influence. In Bohemia WycHf was called the fifth evangelist. Huss himself, in 141 2, was called by some of the Prague clergy in an appeal to the pope a "son of iniquity, a Wyclifist," the two expressions being practically synonymous.^ Gradually, after Huss's death, the designa- tion Hussite superseded that of Wyclifist. No man of the Middle Ages, if we except Marsiglius of Padua, was so independent in his thought or quite so fearless in his utterances as John Wyclif,^ and no churchman in the history of Christendom, not even Luther, has been more merciless in his attacks upon the existing church order or more uncompromising in his assaults upon the failings of popes. He had none of Luther's good humor, but his pen was as keen and mordant as a Damascus blade. Wyclif was a Schoolman and professor at Oxford. But he was more than a scholastic. He was a patriot, a popular preacher, and the champion of practical religious as well as theological reform. Strange to say, it was not until the closing decades of the nineteenth cen- tury that an effort was carried through to publish his works and not until the middle of that century did his translation of the Bible appear in print. Through the labors of the Wyclif society a stately array of his Latin works have been set before the public as also his English treatises, tracts and sermons through the editorial care of Arnold and Mathews. His tracts form a distinct chapter in the rich history of Eng- lish tractarian literature. They differ from the tracts of the Puritan age and the Oxford movement in this, that they had practically no opponents who replied with the pen. They and Wyclif's followers were met by the methods of the inquisition and with fire. ' Doc, p. 460. See Loserth, p. 83 sqq., and below. 2 For Wyclif, see Schaff's Church History, V, 2 : 314-358. HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 49 As a patriot, Wyclif gave his voice and pen to the Good Parliament of 1376, which repudiated the papal right to col- lect the annual tribute pledged by King John when he yielded England up as a fief to the apostolic see. The popular feel- ing against the usurpations and exactions of Rome and the monks found popular expression through Piers Ploughman, who exclaimed: ''Take her lands, ye lords, and let her live by domes "-tithes. The mutterings of the nation against foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which had been heard since the reign of William the Conqueror, found in Wyclif a more cul- tured and no less determined mouthpiece than the Plough- man. With a frankness which is startUng, he preached and wrote against the friars, their idleness and good Uving, and against the pope's secular authority. The old chronicler por- trays him as running about from place to place and barking against the church. He contended that the lords, in case of necessity, might seize the possessions of the clergy, and the pope he styled the antichrist, the proud and worldly priest of Rome, the most cursed of clippers and cut-purses. It was not until the last year of his life that Wyclif at- tacked systematically the strictly dogmatic tenets brought to perfection by the mediaeval church. As early as 1377 he was under the condemnation of the church authorities. Sum- moned in that year before Courtenay, bishop of London, he was protected by the duke of Lancaster, but the pope, Gregory XI, took up his case and issued a batch of at least five bulls against him addressed to the king, to the university of Ox- ford, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishop of London. These bulls condemned nineteen articles taken from his writ- ings as dangerous to state and church. Gregory called upon Archbishop Sudbury to imprison Wyclif until final sentence should be passed by the papal court ^ and, addressing the chancellor of Oxford, he charged WycHf with vomiting out from the filthy dungeon of his heart most wicked and dam- * Gee and Hardy, Documents, 105 sqq. 50 JOHN HUSS nable heresies, by which he proposed to bring destruction upon church and state aUke. The pontiff put him into the same category with those arch-destroyers and heretics, Marsiglius of Padua and John of Jandun. Among the nineteen condemned articles were the proposi- ; tions that priestly and papal excommunication is of no avail if not in accord with the law of Christ and that even a pope may be lawfully impeached by laymen. In spite of the papal edict, they were pronounced by the Oxford masters true, al- though to the ear they sounded ill. WycHf saw the papal schism established and lived six years after its inception, a period fully long enough for him to discern the evils arising from a dual papal government iand to have forced upon his mind the question of the origin '.and authority of the papacy and the question of the nature 'and functions of the church. In pointing out abuses in church administration and doctrine, he went beyond Mar- siglius of Padua and undertook the positive work of con- struction. Like John Wesley, and General Booth of the Sal- vation Army, he undertook to relieve the spiritual destitution of England by sending out a body of "pore priests," as they were called, and laymen who should preach the Gospel up and down the land — men whom Bishop Courtenay arraigned as "itinerant preachers who teach erroneous, yea, heretical asser- tions, publicly, not only in churches but also in public squares and other profane places, and who do this under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authority." "In 138 1," so Walden reports, " Wyclif began to determine matters upon the sacrament of the altar." The denial of ^ transubstantiation constituted the subject of the first three of the twenty-four articles listed against him by the Earth- quake council, which met in 1382 under the presidency of Courtenay. Christ, Wyclif asserted, is not in the sacrament of the altar essentially, truly and really in his own corporal HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 51 presence. The other more important heresies ascribed to him were that a bishop or priest in mortal sin cannot ordain, con- ^^ secrate, or baptize; that after Urban VI's death the English church should acknowledge no pope but become independent like the Greeks and that it is contrary to Scripture for ec- . clesiastics to hold temporal possessions. Wyclif was inhibited from preaching at Oxford and was thenceforth confined to his parish of Lutterworth. The chronicler, Walsingham, no doubt represented the official clerical opinion when he characterized the death of Wychf as ''the death of that instrument of the devil, that enemy of the church, that author of confusion to the common people, that image of hypocrites, that idol of heretics, that maker of schism, that sower of hatred, that coiner of lies, who, when he died, breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of darkness." The dead was not left in peace. By Archbishop Arundel's bidding, Wyclif's writings were suppressed and by ; the Lateran decree of 1414 were ordered burned. And against his followers the English Parliament, in 1401, issued the law that heretics should be burned. The list of nineteen errors ascribed to him by Gregory XI grew enormously. The council of Constance accepted forty-five. Netter of Walden increased the number to more than threescore. An Oxford doctor of divinity, the Bohemian John Lucke, enlarged it to two hundred and sixty-six, and Cochlaeus, in his work against the Hussites, to three hundred and three heresies, a weight heavy enough, it would seem, to crush the most callous of heretics and appalling enough to frighten away any good churchman. Almost all the distinctive doctrines elaborated by the mediaeval theology were either questioned or flatly denied by Wyclif. He insisted that the Bible should be put into the hands of the people. It is the Book of Life — liber vitcB — the Christian Faith — fides Christiana — the whole truth, the im- maculate law. Its authority is supreme and its precepts to 52 JOHN HUSS be obeyed, no matter what the church may set up as command- ments. The priesthood's chief duty is to make known its contents. Every Christian should have it in his native tongue, that he may follow Christ and come to heaven, Huss knew of WycHf's translation and in his reply to John Stokes made the statement that WycUf had translated the whole Bible out of the Latin into Anglo-Saxon.^ In taking this position in regard to translations of the Bible and their popular circulation, as well as in regard to its supreme authority to which every individual has the right to appeal, Wyclif was out of accord with his times. In 1408 the synod of Oxford forbade translations in the absence of church authority. ''The complement of the wickedness of John Wyclif, that pestilent writer of damnable memory," Arch- bishop Arundel pronounced to be that, "he prepared a new translation of the Scriptures into his mother tongue." And the year before Huss's death the English Parliament forbade the reading of the English Scriptures upon forfeiture of "land, cattle, life and goods." WycHf's definition of the church as the body of the elect was opposed to the current tenet that the church is the cor- poration of the baptized presided over by the pope and hier- archy and the popular idea that the church is the pope and the cardinals. As for the papacy, Wyclif uttered far more vigorous words about individual popes than did Huss. He put pontiffs into hell as freely as did Dante. He declared not only that the papacy is not infaUible but likewise that it is ^ not necessary to the church. Obedience to it is always to be determined by the agreement of the papal commands with the teachings of the Scriptures. Basing his doctrine of the keys and his attack upon the worldly dominion of the papacy upon his interpretation of Matt. 16, Wychf also was the forerunner of Huss. But in one vital respect Huss held back from the Englishman's views— the doctrine of the eucharist. ^ Monumenta, i : 136. HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 53 Not without uncertainty, at one time in his career as it would appear from the testimony of others, Huss held to the old view. The charge of holding to the remanence of the material elements continued to be made against him to his dying breath. However, his writings stand for the doctrine of tran- substantiation. In one of his Bohemian sermons on the Apostles' Creed he set forth this view when he said: "The humble priest doth not exalt himself above the Virgin Mary or say that he is the creator of Christ, the Son of God, but that the Lord Christ by his power and word, through him, causes that which is bread to be his body; not that at that time it began to be his but that there on the altar begins to be sacramentally in the form of the bread what previously was not there and therein."^ Further reference to Huss's position in this matter will be made later. The English reformer, abandoning the doctrine of trans- mutation, pronounced it a novelty taught by the modern church — novella ecclesia. He praised God for having been de- livered from the laughable and scandalous errors taught in regard to it. It is a lying fable and idolatry. Christ is in the elements virtually and potentially as a king is in his dominion and the sunhght in the glass, and in no other way. In breaking the glass you do not break the sunbeam. The^> impossibility of an elemental transubstantiation Wyclif based I- ^ upon the philosophical consideration that the substance of \ a thing cannot be separated from its accidents or propertyj^ Transubstantiation necessitates transaccidentation. He also laid stress upon the figurative meaning of Christ's language instituting the Supper. The theory that the substance is changed while the accidents remain he pronounced "grounded nether in Holy Writt ne reson ne wit but only taughte by newe hypocritis and cursed heretikis that magnyfyen there own fantasies and dremes." ^ Erben, quoted by Wratislaw, p. 352. 54 JOHN HUSS These and other teachings, carried from the older uni- versity across the channel to Bohemia, took root not only among certain of the clergy but also among the nobility, and threatened the old religious order. Before the first clash occurred in the halls of the university of Prague, it seemed as if the entire theological faculty were going over to Wyclif . But the faculties soon became divided into two antagonistic factions. Among those who imbibed the Wyclifite principles before Huss were his teachers and warm friends, Stanislaus of Znaim and Peter Palecz; and the saying went about that Wyclif begat Stanislaus of Znaim, Stanislaus of Znaim begat Peter of Znaim, Peter of Znaim begat Palecz, and Palecz begat Huss.^ When the church began to proceed in earnest against Wychfism, all but Huss abandoned their views and became willing subjects to the church authorities. The formal breaking-out of the dissension over Wyclif is set by the chronicle of the university on September 28, 1403, the date on which the articles, presented by the two mem- bers of the cathedral chapter, were appointed to be read, discussed and finally determined. They consisted of the twenty-four articles condemned at the Earthquake council, 1382, and twenty-one others extracted, or alleged to be ex- tracted, from Wyclif's writings by John Hiibner, a Pole and a master in the Prague university.^ The main propositions were as follows: The substance of bread remains in the sac- rament after the words of institution, and Christ is not cor- porally present. — A bishop or priest hving in mortal sin can- not ordain, consecrate at the Lord's Supper, or baptize. — It is heresy to assert that it is of the essence of the Gospel that Christ ordained the mass. — Where there is true contri- ^ Huss's Reply to Palecz, Mon., i : 318. '^ A. D. 1403 incepit notahiUs dissensio in clero regni Bohemia, magistris, sacerdotibus et prelatis, propter quosdam articulos ex J. Wyclejf doctoris Anglici libris non bene extractos. Palacky, III, i : 196. See also Berger, XXXV, XXXVI. Doc, p. 328-331, gives all the XLV Articles and Gee and Hardy, Documents, p. 108 sqq., gives the twenty-four. HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 55 tion of heart, outward confession is of no profit. — God ought to obey the devil. — A reprobate pope is a member of the devil's household and has no authority over the faithful. — The Holy Spirit forbids clerics to hold worldly possessions. — No prelate may pronounce excommunication unless he know beforehand that God has excommunicated the ofTender. — A prelate excommunicating one who has appealed to the king is a traitor to God and the civil power. — Those who, on ac- count of a decree of excommunication, cease to preach the Word of God or to listen to it are excommunicate. — A deacon or presbyter may preach in the absence of license from pope or prelate. — No one in mortal sin may exercise the author- ity of civil lord or prelate. — Temporal lords may seize the worldly possessions of clerics who habitually offend. — The public may at will rebuke offending lords. — Tithes are pure alms and parishioners may withhold them from offending curates. — Those who enter a religious order are made more foolish thereby and less capable of obedience to God's com- mands. — Holy men endowing religious orders have sinned in so doing. — Friars ought to support themselves by the labor of their hands. — The prayers of the reprobate are of no avail. — All things come of necessity. — Universities, university studies, and the graduation of masters profit the church as little as the devil does. — To endow the clergy is against Christ's law. — Constantine erred in endowing the church. — The church of Rome is the synagogue of Satan and the pope is not the immediate vicar of Christ. — The election of the pope by cardinals was introduced by the devil. — It is not necessary to salvation that one believe that the Roman church is supreme over other churches. — The belief in in- dulgences is foolish. — Augustine, Benedict and Bernard were damned if they did not repent of having had worldly pos- sessions and having founded religious orders. By a majority vote, the university forbade all to hold, preach, or assert these articles either in private or in public. 56 JOHN HUSS Our record has come down to us certified by the seal of an imperial notary who was present. The presiding officer on the occasion was the Bavarian, Walter Harasser, who suc- ceeded Huss as university rector. Instead of healing dif- ferences, as has been said, this decision was the real starting- point of the religious controversy which raged in Prague for a dozen years or more. Many of the articles concerned ques- tions about which there was wide-spread unrest in the church, such as the nature of the ei^charistic sacrament, the valid- ity of prelatical fulminations, and the liability of clerics to deposition, even by the civil power, for unworthy conduct. The charge was made and properly, that some of the articles misstated Wyclif's opinion and Huss wanted to know whether the falsifiers of a man's teachings were not as deserving of punishment as were two men who a short time before had been burned in Prague for adulterating saffron. Stanislaus of Znaim went to such lengths in defending the articles that some of the masters refused to listen and left the room. Throwing a copy of one of Wyclif's writings on the table, Palecz announced his readiness to defend it in the face of any one who dared to say a single word against it. The obligation which Huss was under to Wyclif, for large paragraphs in his writings, will be referred to further on. It is enough here to say again that Huss was considered to be Wyclif's faithful disciple. The Englishman Stokes rep- resented this opinion at the council of Constance, when he said to him: "Why do you glory in these writings, falsely labelling them as your own, since, after all, they belong not to you but to Wyclif, in whose steps you are following?" Certain it is, that Huss was deeply infected with Wyclif- ism, and it was chiefly for his attachment to Wyclif that he got into trouble at Prague and was burned at Constance. There is no evidence to bear out the statement, made by yEneas Sylvius in his History of Bohemia, that Huss had de- rived his views from the Waldenses. yEneas, who spent HUSS'S DEBT TO WYCLIF 57 some time in Bohemia and calls the Waldensian sect wicked, an insanity and a leprosy, mentions amongst its dogmas, that bishops are equal to the Roman pontiff, there is no dif- ference between priests, the lives and not the sacerdotal dig- nity of priests are of avail, there is no purgatorial fire, prayers for the dead are useless and the invention of priestly avarice, images of the saints are to be destroyed, priests should re- main poor and be content with alms, every one is free to preach the Word of God, auricular confession is of no avail, prayers to the saints are useless for they cannot help us and it is enough to confess our sins in secret. The followers of Peter Waldo very early carried their doctrines across the Alps and planted them in the diocese of Passau, just beyond the frontier of Bohemia, and to other parts of Austria. In the early part of the fourteenth century a bishop estimated their numbers at eighty-five thousand, and Dominican and Franciscan inquisitors were despatched to Passau to put the heresy down. Nowhere does Huss make the slightest intimation that he was in any way dependent upon the Waldenses for his teach- ings. The fact that he laid stress upon the primary principle in vogue among them expressed in the words: "We ought to obey God rather than man" is probably only a coincidence. The Bohemian Brethren, who were followers of Huss, drew from the Waldenses. Gerson and other writers at the time of the council of Constance joined together the Waldenses and the Wyclifists as flagrant copartners in heretical de- pravity. Huss explicitly denied all dependence upon the Waldensian heresy.^ ' Gerson, Du Pin's ed., 2 : 227, etc. Doc, 32. Mon., I : 371, 379. Schafif, Ch. Hist., V, part i, p. 493 sqq. Flajshans, 37, 38. CHAPTER IV HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER Super omnia vincit Veritas: vincit, qui occiditur, quia ei nulla nocet adversitas, si nulla ei dominatur itiiquitas. — Letter to Christian of Prachaticz, 1413. p Above all else^ truth conquers. He conquers who is put to death j because no adversity harms him if no iniquity has rule over him. Three mighty currents were running through the life of Prague. The first, a moral movement, involved the moral improvement and efficiency of the clergy; the second, a movement of doctrinal reform, centering in the views of Wyclif; the third, a patriotic movement in which the Czech population were seeking supremacy over the German ele- ment and the management of all Bohemian affairs. In all three, as a preacher of righteousness, as a religious reformer and as a patriot, Huss was the acknowledged leader. He had the elements of popularity and leadership. His sin- cerity of purpose was evident, his devotion constant, his en- ergy unflagging, his courage fearless, his daily life Hfted above reproach. His moral earnestness and power of utterance at first attracted the confidence and then aroused the hostihty of the archbishop of Prague, Zbynek of Hasenberg, but bound ^^// a large constituency of the people firmly to himself and won the friendship, if not the determined support, of the court with the king, Wenzel, and his consort Sophia. Like Atha- nasius, as it would seem, he was by nature shrinking, and his boldness was the product of a moral conviction strong as steel. The temper of his thoughts was not in accord with the general principles which the church had learned from the Schoolmen and the great popes. Huss did not go as far as Wyclif in the expression of dissent and, like Luther at the 58 n HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 59 first, he thought himself to be in full agreement with the church's teachings. In this he was mistaken, but his mental temper was antagonistic to the attitude of the Schoolmen, im- ^^%-^ posed by them and the popes upon their times. He was consciously a reformer of church discipline and morals, un- consciously a reformer of its doctrinal position upon the basis of Scripture, as he understood it, and as the supreme consti- ' tution of the church. -* In 1403, after a year's vacancy, the see of Prague was filled by the appointment of Zbynek Zajik of Hasenberg, whom we shall know here as Archbishop Zbynek. He was the fifth incumbent of the see. Two of his predecessors, Arnest of Pardubicz and John of Jenzenstein, were men of more than ordinary abifity as administrators. One of them, Ocko of Wlaschim, was the first Bohemian to be made a cardinal, 1379. Arnest was bent upon church reform and his pro- vincial statutes were long referred to as a code fitted to correct clerical remissness and vice. On occasion, Huss, who called Arnest "the holy archbishop," referred to these stat- utes, as to the article ordering fornicating clergymen to be deprived of their living and expelled from the diocese, and archdeacons and parish priests who connived at such vice to be condemned as though they were guilty of the same crime.^ Zbynek was a soldier as well as a priest — no scholar "7 — and the rumor went that he was unable to read. He is J said to have been the last of the Bohemian archbishops to wield the sword and go at the head of armies. In 1404, lead- ing the king's troops, he dislodged the robber chieftain Nicholas Zul, and two years later engaged in campaigns in Bavaria. To Zul, Huss became spiritual ad\'iser, accompanying him to the gallows. Such an influence did Huss exercise that the brigand asked the throng who stood by to pray to God that he might be forgiven. An early distinction which Huss received from the arch- ' ExposUio Decalogi, ed. Flajshans, p. 27. 6o JOHN HUSS bishop was his appointment as synodal preacher, 1404, a distinction which he received a number of times thereafter. By the appointment of the first archbishop, Arnest, the synod of Prague met twice a year for the discussion of the religious condition of the diocese and the promotion of the efficiency of the clergy. So much confidence had Zbynek in Huss's purity of purpose that he instructed him to bring to his attention any irregularities in the fives of the clergy of which he might become cognizant. Huss took his appointment se- riously, and in a letter addressed to the archbishop in 1408 spoke of the responsibifity which the charge had imposed, and at the same time complained that criminal priests were indulging vices without rebuke while priests in lowly positions and faithful in the performance of their duties were being imprisoned or exiled as though they were heretics. Zbynek supported the progressive movement and the intellectual freedom which were being furthered by Huss, Palecz, and other preachers. This favor was openly given until 1407, when Huss delivered the last of the synodal discourses. In these discourses he proceeded from attacks on the indiffer- ence and laxness of the priests of Prague to attacks upon the archbishop and the pope himself. In spite of the efforts of the first archbishop of Prague to advance clerical purity and efficiency, the visitation records of Huss's time show that priests kept concubines in separate houses, had sons and daughters, were guilty of promiscuous fornication and adultery, and entered into taverns and par- ticipated in the convivialities. Huss charged them not only with unchastity but with simony and avarice, making ecclesi- astical acts the means of personal gain and self-indulgence. In his Bohemian sermons, he says the present backsliding priests have so fenced themselves with antichristian ordi- nances that if any one takes aught from a priest, even justly, or if a priest is seized in the commission of adultery or rob- bery, a stop is immediately put to the divine services, espe- HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 6i dally if the priestly adulterer or robber is imprisoned. If, again, a box on the ear is given to a priest in a quarrel in a tavern, and there is a dispute about dice or women, cita- tions and excommunications are issued. If, however, a priest's blood be drawn, they put a stop to divine services and compel the guilty person to go to Rome, saying that none save the pope can absolve a man who draws a priest's blood. But, if a priest cuts off a person's foot or hand or kills an irmocent person, neither is the priest put under the ban nor a stop put to divine services. Why so? Because one devil does not pick out another devil's eye.^ Huss's reference to the exemption of priests from punishment re- minds us of what Luther said in his address to the German nobility: "If a priest is killed, the whole country is laid under the interdict. Why not also if a peasant is killed?" Again, Huss said from the pulpit: " Our bishops and priests of to-day, and especially our cathedral canons, and lazy mass- celebrators, hardly wait for the close of the service to hurry out of church, one part to the tavern and the other part hither and thither to engage in amusements unworthy of a priest, yea, even to dance. The monks prepare dances and entertainments in the public houses in the hope of winning the people and being intrusted with masses, and these ras- cally ministers of the devil never for a moment think that at the celebration of the Lord's Supper Christ gives to the disciples his own body and blood. . . . Like Judas, who went away to the high priest to sell Christ, many of our priests, profligate in their lives like beasts, run away from the table of God, the one to serve mammon, the other wanton- ness, the one to the gaming-table, the other to the dance or chase, all of which are forbidden to priests. And these very ones who ought to be leaders in imitating Christ are his chief enemies." In another sermon, he exclaimed: "Has a church no ^Langsdorff, p. 57. For quotations from the parish registers, see Loserth, 295-301. \ 62 JOHN HUSS vested property, then it has no priests. Whence arise simony and the haughty pride of priests over the people? Whence their adulterous lives? Whence wars and priestly cursings and quarrels among popes, bishops, and priests? The dogs snap at and bite one another because of the bone. Take the bone away and they will cease fighting. All this comes from the poisonous love of money, the unrighteous mammon con- demned by Christ."^ In the first of his sermons before the synod, on John 15 : 27,2 he cited as personal qualities of true bishops and priests, hu- mility, chastity and poverty. ''There are many of you," he said, "who by wine-drinking and drunkenness are much more tainted than laymen. As laymen walk with their canes to the churches, so these clerics go to the beer-hall with canes, and when they return they can hardly walk, much less talk, and, least of all, do they know what is demanded of the priestly office. The richer among them go to entertainments provided out of the charitable funds, where food and drink are served, more abundant in quantity and more rich and dainty than citizens and even nobles are accustomed to have, and where Christ with his passion is banned. When the blood becomes heated, they talk of women and acts of lust in most wanton language. They fail to attend vespers or cut the vesper service short, and even during the celebra- tion of the mass they do not cease to walk to and fro in the church and pass unbecoming and unchaste remarks. They ought like dogs to be turned out of the house of God, where they give such reproach and scandal to the hearts of simple laymen." Huss might have reminded his hearers that even a former archbishop of Prague, John of Jenzenstein, attended balls but, moved by a large loss of life which occurred in an accident at one of them, he turned to acts of penance.^ ' Langsdorff, 2, 24. - Monti menta, 2 : 35 sqq. ^ Palacky, Gesch., 34. Jenstein resigned in favor of his nephew, 1386. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 63 As for poverty, he spoke, as he said, what he knew when he declared that there "were among the priests hawkers and hucksters who sold horses, wine, and other goods and at higher prices than the usual layman did and were moved by greater cupidity. To gather moneys for palatial churches, dedicated to saints and all too ornate, festivals were held and pilgrimages instituted as if the very festivals of the Apostles were being celebrated, and at these, as it is said, the purses of the poor are emptied more by lies than by humble entreaties. Prelates should be told that at one lie, which is deserving of damnation, God takes more offense than He is pleased by the erection of a large church, even though it be built of gold." In the last synodal sermon, preached 1407, on Eph. 6 : 14,^ "Having your loins girt about with truth and having on the helmet of salvation," he urged the clergy to be at the fore- front of the spiritual battle, popes, cardinals, patriarchs, arch- bishops, bishops, abbots, archdeacons, as well as simple priests and friars. He adduced as heretics the sons of Eli who forgot the duties of their priestly office. With the aid of quotations from Bernard, Augustine, Matthias of Janow and others, and texts of Scripture he assailed the vices of the clergy — neglect and sacrilege, cupidity and plural livings. He condemned "the quest for money by the offer of special indulgences, spurious reUcs, and garish pictures. In these ways and in others, by playing upon the fears and ignorance of the people, they minister to their own self-indulgence and ease. Of all heretics, the simonist who traffics in holy things is the worst. More tolerable than such heresy is the heresy of Macedonius and the Pneumatichoi. For these continue to recognize the Holy Ghost as a creature and a servant of God, the Father and the Son. But the simonist makes the Holy Ghost his own personal servant by trafficking in spiritual things. May they shrink back from their wickedness who imitate Jeroboam in selling the priesthood and consecrate ' Monumenla, 2 : 47 sqq. 64 JOHN HUSS men priests no matter how wicked their lives may be. May they shrink back lest they get the leprosy of Gehazi, who took pay for dispensing God's grace. May they shrink back who follow Judas Iscariot, who bartered away what was holy and for whom Christ said it had been better if he had not been born." The popular strength of the movement in the direction of the reform of church abuses found hopeful expression in the archbishop's act appointing a commission, of which Huss was a member, to investigate the alleged miraculous qualities of the holy blood of Christ, exhibited at Wylsnack. Wylsnack was a town in Brandenburg, northwest of Berhn. The relic was first shown in 1383 and attracted throngs of pilgrims from Bohemia, Hungary, and other parts of Europe. In its day it was probably the most famous object of devotion in Central Europe. Among the more notable miracles ascribed to its agency was the success given to a knight who, after having vowed to devote his armor to the holy blood, killed his op- ponent, Frederick, in a duel. Another much-talked-of case was that of a certain robber, Peter, who was imprisoned for his crimes. Making a vow to the relic, he was able to break his fetters and escape the prison walls. The case which attracted most attention in Bohemia and probably precipitated the archbishop's investigation was the case of Peter of Cachy. This citizen of Prague had a withered hand and, going to Wylsnack, carried with him a silver duplicate, which he laid on the altar as the price of the hoped-for cure. His hope was not realized, but to his amazement a priest announced in the church, when Peter happened to be present, that a miracle had been done and the Praguer's hand healed. Lifting up his infirm arm, Peter cried out: "0 priest, what a Har thou art! See my hand is still as much withered as it was be- fore." The commission, which included, besides Huss, Stanis- laus of Znaim and probably Palecz, reported that the relic HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 65 was a fraud and the archbishop followed up the report with a decree forbidding all pilgrimages to Wylsnack.^ The investigation was followed by a heated discussion in the university as to whether all of Christ's blood was glorified or not. And for the moment it seemed as if this question had obscured the importance of all other theological debate and efifort at church reform in the city. It called forth from Huss's pen a treatise entitled The Blood of Christ — de sanguine Christie Here the author states the claim made for the miraculous relic justified the archbishop who had acted "as a true shep- herd" in ordering the investigation, and makes an argument to prove the liquid a fraud. The argument is based upon Scripture, the authority of the church, and reason. For the statement that the entire body of Christ — hair, beard, and blood, yea, all the parts of Christ's earthly body — are glori- fied and no one of them exists on the earth, he adduced such Scripture texts as I Cor. 15 : 19, ''It is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body," and Luke 21 : 18, ''Not a hair of your head shall perish," as also the words revealed to David, "Thou shalt not suflfer thy Holy One to see corruption," Psalms 16 : ID. In regard to the red spots shown on gar- ments alleged to have been worn by the Virgin and on the cross and thorns from Christ's crown, these were only an ap- pearance; the substance was not there. Christ's foreskin, which was reported to be in Rome, was not genuine, in spite of the fact that the number deceived thereby was large. Like- wise Christ's beard and the milk from Mary's breast, shown in Prague, were frauds, even though the worshippers believing them genuine were many. It was fitting that none of Christ's ^ Dociimenta, 332. ^ Monumenta, i : 191-202. Flajshans ed., pp. xvi, 39, with literature in Introduction. Flajshans, p. xvi, pronounces the value of the tract historical and not dogmatic, inasmuch as the Catholics deny Huss's conclusion as to relics of Christ, because Huss left out one of the considerations advanced by Thomas Aquinas; and Protestants, on the other hand, do not find enough refer- ences to Scripture or else find the Scripture texts inapposite. 66 JOHN HUSS blood be annihilated or putrefied and that all the blood which he shed be glorified with his body. The second argument proved that the alleged miracles performed at Wylsnack were deceptions upon the basis of the testimony of persons reported to have been cured. The relic was said to have restored sight to the blind and to have helped the prisoner to escape from jail. But the commission dis- covered that two women, who were reported to have received their sight, swore before a notary that they had never been blind, and a boy, reported as having had a foot healed, was worse off after his visit to Wylsnack than he was when he went there. In spite of the commission's report, Huss's tract and Zbynek's decree, the relic continued, doing its mission of de- ceiving the unwary for more than a century. But the dis- cussion, started in the university over the question whether any of Christ's blood is on the earth, excited interest beyond Prague. It was made the subject of discussion in the uni- versity of Vienna, received special notice in the universities of Leipzig and Erfurt, and a synod held in Magdeburg, 141 2, called upon the bishop of Havelberg, in whose diocese Wyls- nack was located, to put an end to the deception. Huss de- clared that at Wylsnack they did not know what they adored, but that "we adore Christ's body and blood, extant at the right hand of God and hidden in the venerable sacrament." Wylsnack was still a place of pilgrimage in Luther's day, as Luther tells us in his Address to the German Nobility. In 1552 the pyx was broken in which the relic was held and the relic itself thrown into the fire. The most notable case of Christ's blood was the relic which reached England in 1247. Its arrival was celebrated with distinguished solemnity. The king of England, Henry III, after fasting and keeping watch all night, accompanied by the priests of London in full canonicals and with tapers burning, carried the vase containing the holy liquid from St. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 67 Paul's to Westminster, and around the church and the palace. The king, bareheaded, proceeded on foot, holding the sacred relic above his head. The bishop of Norwich preached the sermon on the occasion and, at a later date, Robert Grosse- teste preached another, defending the genuineness of the blood by reasoning which displayed great scholastic ingenuity. Matthew Paris, who gives a detailed description of the relic, called it "a, holy benefit from heaven."^ Among the cases of bloody hosts was the one reported by Caesar of Heisterbach two centuries earlier at St. Trond, Belgium. He had" seen it himself and spoke of it as a miracle to be recorded for the benefit of the generations that were to come after. The fragments of the cross, which the piety of the Middle Ages revered as genuine, came to be so numerous that Clement V solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the mul- tiplication of the wood of the sacred tree. The decision issued against the use of Wyclif's writings by the university of Prague, in 1403, had the result of in- creasing the curiosity to know what Wyclif's views were. In fact, clerical and scholarly opinion in Prague was in a fer- ' Among the most notable collections of relics it has been my privilege to see was the collection shown by the cathedral of Aachen in September, 1909. It is exhibited every seven years. I was told that the day before my visit 11,000 people had paid their mark for admission in addition to the poor, who are admitted without fee. Hanging up against the wall of the passageway through which we passed were notices, " Beware of pickpockets," so that the ancient relics of Stephen, part of the sponge handed to Christ on the cross, two of the Apostle Thomas's teeth, and others scarcely less remarkable, displayed a few feet away, were not sufficient to ward off these modern sinners. The most notable specimens in the collection are the four greater relics — the undergarment which Mary wore when Christ was born, Christ's swaddling clothes, the garment he wore around his loins on the cross, and the sheet on which the head of John the Baptist was laid after he was put to death. The two latter, it is said, contain blood-stains but, though placed where the material was seen, were not unfolded. Mary's garment was displayed in its full proportions within a glass case, at either end of which a priest sat who, receiving rosaries intrusted to him by worshippers, thrust them inside the case and, touching them against the sacred garment, returned the beads to the owners. Since 1200, so the official account of the cathedral states, the septennial exhibition has occurred and the pilgrimages have been going on. 68 JOHN HUSS ment over the English Schoolmen. Zbynek was forced into the discussion by a summons from Innocent VII, 1405, call- ing upon him to extirpate the errors of WycHf sown in his diocese. The papal document was issued in answer to an appeal which reached the pope from Prague. A synod, convened in 1406, reaffirmed the action taken by the university three years before and threatened with the penalty of excommunication all who denied that the bread and wine after the consecration were the real body and blood of Christ.^ A number of laymen as well as clerics were cited before the archbishop's court charged with holding the Eng- lishman's view, but were dismissed — an issue largely due to Huss's presence. The same year a document reached Prague bearing the seal of Oxford university and purporting to have been is- sued by its chancellor and its masters.^ The bearer, Nicholas Faulfisch, also had with him a piece of Wyclif's tombstone which he had broken off at Lutterworth. The document attested the excellency of Wyclif's life, the profundity of his teachings, and the sweetness of his memory as matters known to all. He knew how to study the best interests of the church. His conversation to the day of his death was so excellent and pure that it exposed not a single dark corner to suspicion. In his lectures, preaching, and discussions he was a strong defender of the faith, and, as a writer on all subjects philoso- phical, theological and practical, he disposed of by considera- tions drawn from Scripture and in a cathoHc manner all who blasphemed Christ's religion; Oxford had not had his equal. Nor was he convicted of heretical depravity, nor was his body given over to the flames. Far be it from our prelates that they should have condemned a man of such probity as a heretic. 1 Palacky, Gesck., 213. Note, quoting the Chron. Univ. Prag. Doc, 332-5, for the synodal acts. ' Monumenta, 2 : 542. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 69 This eulogy fanned the flames of controversy in Prague. Already Bohemia had got the ill fame of being heretical on account of the prevalence of "Wyclifites and errorists" within its borders.^ The Bohemian element at the univer- sity, if not exclusively concerned about Wyclifism, was far more concerned about it than all other elements combined. This element, or "nation," officially took up the matter May 20, 1408, in an assembly consisting of sixty-four doctors and masters, one hundred and fifty bachelors, and nearly one thousand students.^ Among the professors were Peter and Stanislaus Znaim, Stephen Palecz, Jacob of Mies, and Huss. Huss protested against the unconditional condemnation of the XLV Articles and the assembly went so far as to modify the decree issued by the whole university in 1403 and con- tented itself with ordering that the articles should not be taught in a way to give a heretical or erroneous sense. Fur- ther, it was agreed that Wyclif's statements should not be taken up at public disputations and that bachelors of the- ology should avoid lecturing on Wyclif's three tractates, the Dialogus, Trialogus and de Eucharistia. Immediately before as well as after this convention, clergymen, including Nicholas Welemowicz and Master Mat- thias of Knin, were indicted before the tribunal of the inquisi- tion in Prague, at the head of which stood the Franciscan, Jaroslov, titular bishop of Sarepta. This tribunal had been estabhshed in the city in 13 15, and early in its history put to death in a single year fourteen Beghards.^ Welemowicz, called Abraham, was charged with being a Waldensian. He declared laymen might preach as well as priests. When bid- den to take the oath upon the Gospels and the crucifix, Huss, who defended him, quoted Chrysostom to show that an oath is not to be required by any created thing but only by God. ^Doc, 154, 2,zz, etc. * For the numbers, see Palacky, Gesch., 221 sq. ' Wetzer-Welte, 10 : 287. 70 JOHN HUSS The vicar-general, Kbel, turning upon him, exclaimed with passion that he was there not to argue but as a spectator.^ Huss complained that wicked and incestuous priests were left untouched while some of the best were being indicted. In spite of Huss's intercession, the accused was kept in prison and later banished by the archbishop. Pressed by a summons from Gregory XII, May 15, 1408, and at the king's instance, the archbishop instituted "a diligent and searching investigation" in his diocese for proof whether Bohemia was Wyclifite and heretical or not. The re- sult was such that at a general synod made up of the clergy and the constituency of the university, held two months later, July 17, 1408, the archbishop felt justified in announc- ing that not a single person could be found in the diocese of Prague holding heresy or addicted to error, and he informed the pope that Bohemia was true to the Catholic faith all through.^ So prominently identified was Huss with the new doc- trines, that his attitude called forth from certain of the clergy in 1408 an indictment against him addressed to the archbishop. The charges were that in the Bethlehem chapel, before a large audience made up of men and women, he had declared, at variance with the teaching of the Fathers, that it was a sin for the priests to take money for burials and celebrating the sacraments. He made the clergy odious in the sight of the people by announcing that he wished his soul to be where the soul of Wyclif was — vellet animam suam ihi fore ubi est anima Wyclef^ — and following Wyclif he held to the remanence of f the bread and wine after the words of institution. While he was dining with the rector of St. Clement's he had struck the table with his fist and exclaimed: "What is the Roman church? There antichrist has planted his foot." He was also charged with preaching often and abusively against the clergy so as to bring it into disrepute with the people as it had never before been up to that time. It is possible that ^ Doc, 184 sq. ^ Mon., i : 109-114. ^ Doc, 153 sqq., 173-184. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 71 Huss had been indiscreet in his language of detraction and too sweeping in his accusations, but the central charge, upon which it was hoped to make out the case against him and forever discredit him, was the charge of WycUfry. In his Reply to these accusations, Huss afiEirmed that he had said that the priest has no right to demand fixed fees for spiritual ministries and that this position was in agree- ment with canon law. Whatever was given was to have the quahty of a voluntary gift. Simony was condemned in the persons of Gehazi and Simon Magus. When he asserted he would be glad to be where Wyclif was, he was expressing a hope — vellem esse in spe uhi est anima Wycleff—" for every man," he said, "so far as I know, who is not condemned by Scripture and revelation, will be much higher than I myself at the last day, and I much fear lest Christ, when he calleth such an person and myself say, to me ' Give him room ' and I begin with confusion to take the lower place. For, whom neither Scripture nor the church by revelation pronounce damned, I dare not condemn, for the truth says: 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' The argument is fooHsh and against Christ's law which runs: 'He asserted heresy, therefore is he condemned.' Similarly we might say: 'He was a Jew, a pagan, a usurer, or a publican, therefore is he damned.' It is foolish for the reason that the dying thief heard from Christ the words: 'This day shalt thou be with me in Para- dise.' The judges would argue well if they argued in this way, namely, 'such and such a man affirmed heresy and did not do penance; hence he is damned.' " In this Reply, Huss did not distinctly deny the remanence of the substance of the elements in the Lord's Supper, but seemed to evade the question by calling upon the archbishop to bid his adversaries take note of the archbishop's official announcement that, after a diligent investigation, no man had been found "who erred on the subject of the venerable sacrament." When this charge was repeated in 1414, Huss 72 JOHN HUSS absolutely denied it, declaring that he had constantly affirmed that what the people saw at the elevation of the host in the form of bread and wine was the body of Christ, and this they saw by faith. As for the charge of extravagance in dwelling upon the lives of the clergy, he quoted the Old and New Testaments to show that he had followed the examples set forth therein. The Master had exposed the sins of both people and clergy, and, instead of flattering the Pharisees and scribes, called them a wicked generation and pronounced the devil their father. Huss's Reply, which was elaborate, is written in a spirit of strong assurance. The advocacy of the new views was not confined to ser- mons and tracts and university discussions. As the Flagellants and the Lollards had their popular songs, so at Prague at this time a new hymnody came into being and popular songs were sung embodying views expressing the religious sentiment of the people, but also ridiculing the bishops and the inquisitorial party. All of them, with the exception of four, were forbidden to be sung by the archbishop.^ The next step on the archbishop's part was to prevent the working of Wyclifite infection by destroying all copies of Wyclif's writings. The action of the university and Huss's attitude toward Wyclif indicated plainly enough that Wyclifite teachings were current. Huss's Reply did not satisfy the conservative wing of the clergy. They followed him in his walks and attended his chapel to catch heretical sentences and to put them down for use against him. Nothing but the complete humihation of the Bethlehem preacher would satisfy some of these sleepless guardians of the truth and orthodox teachings. Zbynek had to choose between this wing and the popular preacher, and in choosing the latter he would risk the censure of his superior, the pope. The con- ditions forced him to become a Wyclifist himself and jeopar- * Documenla, t,2,2,. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 73 dize his own good standing or to treat Huss with suspicion and deal with him according to the strict usage of the church. The air was filled with disturbing rumors, but it was evi- dently not without much reluctance that the archbishop took the latter attitude. In the settlement of the issue, the king and the members of his court were to be involved. The peo- ple were predominantly with Huss, as were also many of the clergy. The queen had made him her confessor and, in com- pany with the ladies of her suite, attended Bethlehem chapel. The king's sympathies also seemed to lean in that direction, but policy made it expedient for him to preserve the pope's favor and to prevent, if possible, the appearance of any division among his people on religious questions. The situation in Prague was unexpectedly complicated by two contemporary events, the settlement of the papal schism and a change in the constitution of the university of the city. The scandal of the rent in Christendom with two con- tending popes, one at Avignon and one at Rome, was drawing to a close. It had now continued for thirty years. The last popes in each line — Angelo Correr, cardinal of Venice, known as Gregory XII, elected 1406, and Peter de Luna, known as Benedict XIII, elected 1394 — were men of ability and te- nacious of power, each equally convinced of the justice of his claims. Both of them uttered the most pious laments over the rift in the Christian world of the West and the evils of the double papacy. Both pontiffs called themselves ''servant of the servants of God." It was a serious crisis. Not only the university of Paris, but individuals all over Europe had worked in the interest of its solution. The pontiffs professed to be ready to do almost anything to bring the division to an end — everything except resign, and thus open the way for an- other election, or submit their claims to an impartial umpire. Gregory wrote to his rival on the Rhone that, Hke the woman who was ready to renounce her child rather than see it cut asunder, each of them should be willing to cede his 74 JOHN HUSS authority rather than be responsible for a continuance of schism. He quoted the words: "Whosoever abaseth himself shall be exalted and whoso exalteth himself shall be brought low." Benedict replied, pronouncing the schism abominable, detestable, dreadful — execranda, detestanda, diraque divisio. Gregory announced himself as passionately in favor of uni- fication, so passionately that he was willing to cross by land or by sea — by land with a pilgrim's staff, or by sea in a fishing- smack — to meet Benedict and to arrange for union. "Time is short. We are both old men," wrote back Benedict. "Has- ten and do not delay in this good cause. Let us both embrace the ways of salvation and peace." Nothing could have been finer; the sentiments were beyond praise, the language was pathetic. The one lamented that the division was pitiable, the other that it was most destructive. Had they proved by act the sincerity of their words they both would have deserved canonization. The Catholic historian, Pastor, has said that none of the popes were big enough of soul to put an end to the schism. It remained for thirteen cardinals, forsaking the two obediences, to take the first practical step leading to the desired reunion. They met at Livorno and called the oecu- menical synod, which convened at Pisa, 1409, for the purpose of heahng the schism and, as the formula ran, reforming the church "in head and members," which meant from the papal chair down. The king of Bohemia, Wenzel, following his father, Charles IV, had consistently acknowledged the obedience of the Roman line and maintained his loyalty to it in spite of the attempts made by Clement VII to win Charles to the Avig- non obedience. The call of the Pisan council gave a well- grounded hope for a settlement of the papal question, and Wenzel withdrew from the obedience of Gregory XII to as-^ sume a neutral attitude. The king called upon the univer-jj sity of Prague and the clergy to decide for neutrality. In HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 75 doing so, they would be imitating the action of the clergy of France. Zbynek resisted the king's wishes and continued for the time being to acknowledge Gregory. Following the ad- vice of its rector, Henning of Baltenhagen, the university decided not to proceed to a vote on the question, for it was found that the Bohemian student body or nation supported the king, and the three other nations were opposed to the proposition to adopt an attitude of neutrality. This diver- gence of view constituted a new element in the controversy between Huss and the church authorities by drawing the/i court into sympathy with him and developing the breach with the archbishop. The cleft between the king and the archbishop was widened by the king's order,* January 22, 1409, forbidding his subjects to render obedience to Gregory XII. The cardinals he ad- dressed as "our most dear friends, zealous for peace and the universal church of the most true God." He also forbade the Bohemian clergy to receive briefs from Gregory until the council had rendered its decision. He sent a delegation to the cardinals, which included Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim, both of whom were seized by Balthasar Cossa, the cardinal of Bologna, afterward John XXIII. Balthasar re- leased them from prison only after urgent protests from the university of Prague and the cardinals.^ It has been surmised that Balthasar's pretext was the supposed WycHfite leanings of these two men, but the release was not procured without the payment of money. The king's withdrawal from the obedience of Gregory XII was no doubt due in part to that pontiflf's reluctance to crown Wenzel emperor. He was hop- ing that the council would provide for his recognition as against his rival, Ruprecht. At the death of his father, Charles IV, Wenzel, who was only fifteen at the time, received as his dominion Bohemia, Silesia and parts of Bavaria and Saxony. He proved to be a * Doc, 348 sqq. * See the letters, Doc, 345 sq., 363 sq. 76 JOHN HUSS vacillating prince, given to pleasure and debauchery. His lack of decision and habitual indolence won for him the title "the Lazy." In 1395 he parted with the dukedom of Milan and other possessions in Lombardy to the Visconti for one hundred thousand florins, and in a fit of drunkenness at Rheims ceded Genoa to France. He had a passion for hunt- ing-dogs. His first wife, Joanna, so it was rumored, died, 1386, from the bite of a monster dog which the king kept in his bedroom and which flew at her throat as she arose one night from bed. His second wife, Sophia, a Bavarian prin- cess, was faithful and devoted to her husband in all his changes of fortune.^ Wenzel had a stormy reign. It was a series of conflicts between him and his barons and him and Sigismund, his brother, who had been endowed by Charles with Branden- burg, and through marriage obtained the crown of Hungary, 1387. He held the Hungarian crown for more than half a century. More than once Wenzel was seized by a faction of his nobles, who resented the favorites through whom he ruled. On one occasion he was released by his youngest brother, John of Gorlitz, who died at the age of twenty-five in 1396. In view of his incapacity Sigismund, in 1396, was called in to his help as vicar of the kingdom, to which by Wenzel's child- lessness and later by pact he was heir. On the pretext of his neglect of the empire and his abuse of the church, Wenzel was deposed from his office of king of the Romans by a majority of the electors, led by Count John, archbishop of Mainz, and Ruprecht was elected in his place, 1400. Instead of being concerned for his brother's interests, Sigismund was continually seeking his own advantage, and in 1402 put Wenzel under the guard of the duke of Austria at Vienna. The king made his escape from prison, again won the support ' ^neas Sylvius, chap. 33, says: "Wenzel was most unlike his father, a follower of pleasures and avoiding work." Petrarch calls him venator robustus ■ — a hardy hunter. Of Sophia ^neas says: "She was by far the superior of her husband." HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 77 of his nobles and resumed his throne. Later amicable relations were restored, and in 141 1, after Ruprecht's death and with Wenzel's assent, Sigismund was crowned king of the Romans. Personal sympathies, the lukewarm support given him by Gregory XII, and the continued devotion of Zbynek to Gregory's obedience, all these considerations were adapted to draw the king's favor to Huss, and so they did. The dele- gation, sent by the king, appeared at Pisa, March, 1409, and announced the king's allegiance to the pope elected by the council, Alexander V. On the other hand, Zbynek remained true to Gregory until September, 1409, when he, too, trans- ferred his allegiance to Alexander. The Pisan council, re- garded as oecumenical by Gerson and Bossuet and so declared by the council of Constance, has in these latter days fallen under the universal condemnation of Catholic historians. Hergenrother-Kirsch in a tone of irony calls it the "unblessed Pisan synod" — segenlose Pisaner Synode. And Pastor pro- nounces it the "essentially revolutionary convention" — we- sentlich revolutiondre Versammlung. When Huss announced himself fully on the side of the king in the matter of papal allegiance, the archbishop turned against him. He himself, as he wrote to the college of car- dinals, had urged the duty of loyalty to it. The archbishop inhibited him from exercising priestly functions and preach- ing. In his remonstrance, Huss expressed his pain that for the first time the archbishop should feel called upon to pro- nounce him disobedient, but at the same time he reaffirmed his allegiance to the Pisan council, and to the archbishop's author- ity, so far as it was lawful. He also replied that he had not censured the clergy, but had rebuked their vices and their failure to serve the people.^ Huss intimates that his attitude of neutrality was construed by Zbynek as though it had been a complete renunciation of Gregory XII, which he denied. When Zbynek censured Huss he also censured all the masters ' Doc, 5 sq., 1 66 sq. 78 JOHN HUSS of the university for their loyalty to the council, but Huss was the only one singled out by name. He was the foremost man in adopting the new order of things. This condemnation by Zbynek, as Huss himself wrote to the cardinals, 141 1, was the starting-point of all his troubles.^ The difference of opinion within the faculties and student body of the university on the question of papal obedience which Wenzel's demand revealed was the immediate occasion of a revolutionary change in its charter. By this change the preponderance of power in the government of the institution was taken away from the foreign nations and transferred to the Czech nation. The change was a revolution in which Czech patriotism fought for the mastery. Here again Huss was the leading figure. The troubles which followed had as their result to identify him still more closely with the Bo- hemian cause and also with the court, but, on the other hand, the part he took in securing a change of the charter aroused the embittered hostihty of the German element in Prague. The government of a mediaeval university, such as Bologna and Paris, was in the hands of the body of professors and students who were grouped in ''nations," that is, the aggrega- tion of persons coming from one or more countries. The system was recognized at Prague from the beginning, and the rivalry between the Bohemian nation and the three foreign nations had been of long standing. Each of these nations had a vote; namely, Bohemia, including Czechs, Hungarians, and Moravians; Bavarfa, including Austrians, Swabians, Franco- nians, and dwellers on the Rhine; Poknd, including Poles, Lithuanians, and Russians; and Saxony, including Saxons, Swedes, and Danes.^ The four faculties of theology, medi- cine, law and the liberal arts were at first under a single rector, with the archbishop of Prague as chancellor, the arch- ^ Doc, 21. Moil., I : 117. Ecce accusationis mem ac gravaminis exordium principale. - See Rashdall, 2:212. Palacky, Gesch., 228 sqq., with his quotations from the Chron. Univ. Prag. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 79 bishop having the right of promotion or giving degrees, as we would say. After 1400, when the university of Cracow was created, the Polish students withdrew from Prague so that the constituency of the university of Prague was narrowed down to students who spoke Czech and those who spoke Ger- man. The Germans had three votes, the Czechs only one, and the rivalry between these elements was popularly com- pared to the rivalry between the Samaritans and Jews. In the city of Prague the German population, though by no means so numerous as the Czech, possessed influence out of all proportion to its size. The city records were kept in German, the proceedings in the council chamber were car- ried on in the same language, and sixteen out of the eighteen members of the council were Germans.^ There was German preaching and the old town was predominantly German, and this element was striving for the ascendancy where it did not already possess it. As for the university, it seemed not only just that it should be ruled by Czechs but such government came to be identified by them as a national issue and as one in which the honor of their language was at stake. As Italian had been dignified by the pens of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, so the Bohemian was being magnified by men like Huss and Stitny. The feeling of rivalry between the two races was in- creased by the conflict over the German throne. Ruprecht's troops had entered Bohemia and committed great depreda- tions. Huss declared: "Us Bohemians the Germans oppress, seizing all offices of state while we are silent. According to all laws of God, nature and the propriety of things, Bohemians in the kingdom of Bohemia should be foremost in all ofiices even as the French are in the French kingdom and the Ger- mans in German lands." Exalting the national spirit, he ex- claimed: "The Czechs are more wretched than dogs or snakes, * In a sermon on Matt. 13 : 24-30 Huss speaks of the use of German at the city hall by doctors, canons and monks. See Hofler, 232. 8o JOHN HUSS for a dog defends the couch on which he Hes and, if another dog drives him away he fights, but we let the Germans op- press us and occupy all offices without complaint." The jealousy had several times found heated expression, especially in 1390 in a case involving the distribution of bene- fices and scholarships. This dispute called forth interference from the king. Now that the feeling again ran high over the subject of WycUfism and universals and also in the matter of papal allegiance, the racial suspicions were aroused to an un- exampled pitch. A commission presented the case to the king at Kuttenberg — Kutna Hora. Wenzel promised to protect the Germans, and turning upon Huss, who was present, re- proved him with such vehemence for having introduced heresy into the kingdom that Huss sickened and took to bed. But Huss had gained the favor of Nicholas of Labkowicz, who stood high in the king's favor and helped to bring about in the king a change of mind in regard to the affairs of the university. To this result, no doubt, a commission from France contributed, which at the time was visiting the king's court, and reminded him that at the university of Paris the French had three votes while the foreign elements or nations had together only one vote. The three votes corresponded to the Gallic nations, Picard, Norman, and French. The king's final state of mind was set forth in a document issued by him January 18, 1409, and read before the univer- sity a week later. It set aside the stipulation of the original charter and gave the Bohemian nation three votes and re- duced the votes of the foreign nations from three to one.^ Referring to the rule in force in the university of Paris, the decree pronounced it highly unseemly and unjust for foreigners to have larger voting power at Prague than the native Bo- hemians. The three nations were stirred to the very depths by this decision. They regarded the change as a breach of faith. In vain did they protest to the king, insisting upon the ' The papers are given, Doc, 347-363. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 8i rights pledged at the foundation of the university. They predicted that the new law would mean the destruction of the institution and the loss of the three nations. A compromise which they proposed provided that the Bohemians should have elections and examinations of their own. At the same time the three nations agreed to stand to- gether and bound themselves by a solemn oath that they would quit Prague and not return unless they were reinstated in all the old privileges. The news of the king's action was taken to Huss on his sick-bed. On his recovery he pubUcly praised the king for his goodness to the people, and from the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel, as was charged, called upon the congregation to thank God that the power of the Teutons was reduced and the Bohemian appeal had won. Forcible measures were necessary for carrying out the new order. In May, 1409, Wenzel, through his messenger, appeared at the university, demanded the resignation of the German rector, Henning von Baltenhagen, and installed his secretary, a Czech, Zdenek of Labaum, in his place and Simon of Tissnow as dean of the faculty of philosophy. The king's action was defended on the ground that the Bohemians had multiplied greatly during the fifty years since the uni- versity was established and ''had risen above the foreigners in every science and faculty." The original reason for the dis- crimination, therefore, no longer held. The Bohemian nation should rule in its own territory. The Teutonic nation would not give up to the Bohemians the supremacy at Vienna or Heidelberg. The principle of Luke 6 : 31 should prevail: "As ye would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise." The Bohemian nation should be at the head and not at the foot in its own university. To the king belonged the prerogative of regulating the affairs of a Bohemian in- stitution. The passage in regard to the tribute-money and the passage bearing on obedience to the king in the first 82 JOHN HUSS Epistle of Peter were quoted to show that the German nation should yield obedience to the king's mandate. The canon law and the civil law agreed in giving to the inhabitants of a land the rule over foreigners who might happen to be within its borders. True to their oath, the foreign professors and scholars seceded in a body, with bag and baggage. On a single day two thousand withdrew from Prague, and, according to ^neas Sylvius, five thousand altogether.^ Many of them went to Leipzig, where that university took its start from this seces- sion, 1409. Cambridge owed its origin to a secession of students from Oxford, and Paris university had also witnessed secessions. The university of Prague, which was at once re- duced to five hundred students, was eulogized by the council of Constance, 141 6, as having been originally ''that noble university — studium Pragense — which was numbered amongst the greatest jewels of our world. From being, without doubt, the chief school among the Germans, it had been turned by partisan envy into a desert and solitude."^ Since the emi- gration of the Germans the institution has remained a Bo- hemian school, with a separate faculty for German students. With the secession, the city also lost its importance as a Ger- man centre of trade. The honor, or the stigma, of being the chief author of this change fell upon Huss, although he denied the charge of 1 ^neas Sylvius, chap. 35. Una die supra duo millia Pragam reliquere; nee dm post circiler Iria millia secuti, apiid Lipsicam Misna civitatem . . . universale studium erexere. Procopius, a chronicler of the fifteenth century, follows the figures of /Eneas. So Berger, p. 64, who includes in the number the dependents of the emigrant students, and Kiigelgen, Gefangensehaftsbr., p. ix. Cochlceus, Hist. Huss, p. 114, speaks of 30,000 students at Prague. XXX millia stude.ntum ante Huss. pcstetn. Two thousand, he says, emigrated to Leipzig and 3,000 to Erfurt. Holler, p. 247, gives the number of those who left Prague as at least 20,000. The matriculation rolls of the university of Leipzig show less than 1,000 students the first year, but this number cannot be taken as decisive for the size of the secession. Some of the students went to other universities. * Doc, p. 649. HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER 83 being responsible for the expulsion of the Germans. To the end of his life he suffered from German opposition, which the change aroused, and at Constance he was faced with some of the teachers who had been forced away from Prague and had emigrated to Leipzig. Constitutions often outlive the circumstances under which they are born. From our standpoint, although the Prague university may never have quite regained the position it lost in 1409, the transfer of the administration to the hands of the Bohemians was proper. The motto of "Bohemia for the Bohemians" was natural though it was offensive to the German element. Prague was the centre of Bohemia and Bohemian life. The reduction of German patronage was to become inevitable by the increase of the number of German universities and the foundation of the university of Basel by Pius II, which the intellectual and literary awakening of Germany demanded.^ When accused of fanning the passions between the Teutons and Bohemians in his preaching, Huss denied the charge and declared he loved a good German better than a bad Bohemian brother and good Enghsh priests than wicked Bohemian priests.^ Huss's popularity was shown by his being elected the first rector under the new order, October 15, 1409. From thenceforth the university was associated with Hussitism, much as Oxford was with Wyclifry. The older members of the theological faculty were now about to withdraw from Huss, ' Hofler wrote his work on Huss and the change of the university charter for the purpose of showing that Czechism, which was responsible for the change in the charter, committed a great mistake and that, instead of attempting to make Bohemia the rallying ground of Slavism, the Czechs should endeavor to make it a bond of union between the East and the West. He insists upon the early German influence in Bohemia from the time of Charlemagne, when it was a part of Charlemagne's empire, and Wladislaus II, who received the crown from Barbarossa. As for the university, he praises its early fame, but pronounces the change of charter a breach of faith and a violation of the just rights of the German element. Hofler, p. 250, quoting Scrpp. rer. Boh., says the university was a gold-mine for the city of Prague. ' Doc, 724. 84 JOHN HUSS whether they had supported him in his Wyclifite views or only as regards the administration of the institution. On the other hand, the younger members followed him. In 141 7 the council of Constance suspended the privileges of the school, but it went on supporting the practice of communion in both kinds, which it adopted soon after Huss's death. CHAPTER V IN OPEN REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP Si hie pro hareiico habendiis est, haud facile quisquam omnium quos unquam sol vidit, vere Christianus haheri poteril. — Luther, Pref. to Huss's Letters, 1537. If Huss is to be regarded as a heretic, then may scarcely any one of all upon whom the sun has looked down be truly held to be a Christian. The change in the management of the university being made, Huss was the chief popular force in the city as well as the leader in the university itself. As Berger has well put it: "The Bethlehem chapel obscured the cathedral." The justice of this statement was put to the test in the open struggle between the preacher and the archbishop. The in- terest Bohemia felt in the Pisan council and the election of a new pope almost completely receded before the interest in the measures about to be taken for the extermination of the so-called Wyclifite heresy in Prague. The public burning of the English teacher's books by the archbishop, Zbynek, in 1410, is the most notable act of that prelate's episcopate and his culminating blow directed against the new party. This spectacular event marks a crisis in the religious troubles in Prague and Huss's career. The council of Pisa, which received with distinction Wenzel's deputation, decided in favor of his claim to the crown of the Romans against his rival, Ruprecht, who died within a year thereafter. Led by d'Ailly and others, the council proceeded courageously to carry out one part of its programme, June 26, 1409, by the election of the Cretan, Philargi, car- dinal-archbishop of Milan, to the papal dignity. He assumed 8s 86 JOHN HUSS the name of Alexander V. His election he is supposed to have owed to Balthasar Cossa, who saw in the pope's advanced years a probability of his early death and the possibility of his own election as his successor. In neither hope was he dis- appointed. Alexander wore the tiara less than a year, dying May, 1410. r There were now three popes, each having his own college of cardinals. And the spectacle was seen at Prague of two lines being acknowledged, the Pisan line by the king and Gregory XII of the Roman line by the archbishop. Threat- ened by a mob, Zbynek put the city under interdict and re- tired for a season to Rudnicz — Raudnitz — carrying with him treasures from the crypt of St. Wenceslaus in St. Vite's cathedral. Wiser counsels prevailed, and following the king's example he acknowledged Alexander's claims September 2, 1409.^ The announcement was celebrated in the capital city by the ringing of the great bells on the city hall, the celebra- tion of the mass, and the singing of Te Deums in the churches and convents. Six hundred bonfires were lit in front of as many buildings and a procession, headed by the mayor, pro- ceeded through the streets. Huss had been on the side of the king, and his sermons in Bethlehem chapel were such as to increase the opposition of the archbishop's party. Statements taken down from his sermons and alleged to be heretical and abusive were embodied by priests in a new complaint to Zybnek.^ The charges were the old charges dressed up, in part, in new clothes. They ac- cused Huss of calling Rome the seat of antichrist and every priest, taking money for sacramental acts, a heretic. It was also charged that he was not only not ashamed to praise Wyclif, but that he openly proclaimed his personal attach- ment to him. Among the signers of this document was ^ Doc, 368-373, give Wenzel's profession of loyalty to the Pisan council and Zbynek's to Alexander V. See Palacky, Gesch., 246, note. * Doc, 164-169. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 87 Michael Deutschbrod, usually called Michael de Causis, whom we shall often meet in the days of Huss's imprisonment and trial in Constance. Masters and students, representing the dissent of the university from these charges, sent a protest to Rome and a commission was also despatched by the archbishop, who had changed his mind in regard to the religious conditions of his diocese. The archbishop's commission reported that heresy due to WycHfite teachings had spread. In his reply to Zbynek, dated December 20, 1409, Alexander V gave the archbishop instructions to proceed forthwith, and as if in the pope's own name, against the insidious heretical infection. Using the language of Innocent III, the pope stigmatized heresy as a wickedness which creeps like a cancer — nequitia serpit ut cancer. This wickedness plainly enough was dis- tilled in the articles of the condemned arch-heretic, John Wyclif , and more particularly in his articles on the eucharist. This heretical depravity threatened to split the church, and, to prevent the spread of the poison, he enjoined the arch- bishop to proceed in the course upon which he had entered and bade him associate with himself a council of four doctors of theology and two jurisconsults. This council should take measures to prevent the further dissemination of Wyclif's views in the university or other places, threatening to apply the treatment due heretics. Preaching to the people was to be stopped except in cathedral, parish and conventual churches. This prohibition forbade all preaching in all chapels, even such as had special papal authority. Wyclif's writings and tracts were to be given up to the archbishop, and in that way be removed from the eyes of the faithful. The bull meant that Wyclif's name was to be execrated and Huss silenced. It did not reach Prague until March, 14 10. Zbynek immediately proceeded to carry out its in- structions by appointing the council. In June the drastic decree went forth from the archbishop's palace ordering 88 JOHN HUSS Wyclif s books gathered up and burned, and forbidding all preaching except in the cathedral, collegiate, parochial and conventual churches. The document repeatedly called Wy- clif heresiarch and condemned as containing heretical state- ments seventeen of his writings, including the Trialogus, Dialogus, the de corpora Christi, and a volume of his sermons, and ordered all copies of them brought to the archbishop's palace within six days. All who retained in their possession books of Wyclif were to be solemnly excommunicated in the churches of Prague with the ringing of bells and the dashing of lighted candles to the ground. All communication with such persons was forbidden — in meat and drink, in talk and conversation, in buying and selling, on the street and market- place, at the fire or bath — cibo, potu, oratione, lociitione, emp- tione, venditione, via, foro, igne, halneo. So little suspicion did Huss have that he was in error that he carried his own copies of Wyclif to Zbynek, asking him to point out the errors in them. These fulminations were met by Huss in an appeal to the pope on the ground that the pope had been falsely and badly informed and in a similar appeal to the archbishop on the same ground.^ The excitement in the city was intense and a distinct party was developed which stood by Huss. Within five days of the publication of Zbynek's decree, the rector and the community of teachers and scholars of the university joined in a solemn refusal to comply with the archbishop's demands on the ground that the royal and papal charter gave the archbishop no authority over the university in the matter of teachings and books. The latter came under the juris- diction of the civil, not the ecclesiastical, authorities. The university appealed to the king for protection and the king went so far as to persuade the archbishop to withhold the execution of his decree until Margrave Jostof Moravia, a man 'Alexander and Zbynek's bulls, Doc, 374-386. Huss's description of this beginning of processes against him, Doc, 188 sqq. Mon., i : 109, 293. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 89 with some scholarly reputation, should reach Prague and pass the condemned books under review. Huss had sent to the prince a copy of a translation of the Trialogns} On June 22, which was the Sabbath, Huss preached to an immense throng. He referred to the decree calling for the burning of WycHf's writings and charged that Alexander V had been misinformed with regard to the religious conditions in Bohemia. Alexander, he said, had also been imposed upon to beHeve that the Bohemians held doctrines of WycHf which were contrary to the faith, but he thanked God that he him- self had not found a single Bohemian who was a heretic. At this the congregation exclaimed: "They He, they lie!" "Behold," Huss went on, "I have appealed against the arch- bishop's decree and do now appeal. Will you stand by me?" The people then called out in Czech: "We will and do stand by you." Continuing, Huss declared it was his duty to preach and he would go on preaching or be expelled from the land or die in prison because popes could he and had Ued, but God cannot Ue. He then called upon the congregation to be stead- fast and not intimidated by the decree of excommunication.^ A few days later, June 25, 1410, Huss, who called himself Rector and Preacher of the Chapel of the Innocents, sup- ported by seven other teachers and students, made an elabo- rate and vigorous protest against the decree.^ The names of Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Palecz are missing among those who signed the protest. The action of Zbynek is con- demned, who, as chancellor of the university, had demanded the giving up of the writings which had been purchased or copied at great cost of labor and money. Only one ignorant of the Bible and canon law would think of burning books on logic, philosophy and mathematics containing no theological errors but, on the contrary, wholesome truths. If they con- tained errors, it was important for the masters and bachelors * Palacky, Gesch., 251. *Z>oc.,4os. 'Z)of., 386-397. Mom., I : 111-116. 90 JOHN HUSS to possess the books in order to refute them. Paul had quoted from Gentile writings. Nor did the New Testament condemn all books of pagan authors to the flames. Aristotle, Averrhoes, and other philosophers were studied though they might hold errors. By such a rule as Zbynek laid down, even the works of the Master of Sentences, Peter the Lombard, all of whose sayings were not accepted by the doctors, and the works of Origen and other doctors would have to be con- demned. In protesting against the closing of chapels to preaching, Huss entered into the history of Bethlehem chapel, founded by Count John Miihlheim, and the terms of the gift, includ- ing the stipulation, confirmed by the pope and Wenzel, that the preaching should be in the Bohemian language. The pro- hibition was against the example and teaching of Christ as well as the papal letters sanctioning the chapel. Christ had preached on the lake and on the mountain, in the street and on the highway as well as in the synagogues, and had com- manded his disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Zbynek's sentence, setting aside the Scriptures and the decrees of the holy Fathers, denied to the priest his in- herent right to exercise the office of preaching the Word of God. Huss again charged Alexander's bull was gotten up under mendacious and crooked information, and therefore Zbynek's bull with its inhibition was null. The case was pending at Rome. Huss and his associates affirmed that they had no purpose of advocating any errors in books condemned by Zbynek, and, for the reasons given, they intended to dis- regard and disobey Zbynek's bull — parere et ohedire non in- tendimus} In those things which pertain to salvation and the preaching of the Word of God they must obey God rather than man, and they appealed to John XXIII. In a letter written to the cardinals, 141 1, and a statement made in Con- stance, 1414, Huss declared that there were many chapels * Doc, p. 391. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 91 in Bohemia founded as places of preaching and confirmed by papal decree, and also that Zbynek had never read the books of Wyclif which he had condemned to the flames.^ On July 16, 1410, the day appointed for the burning, more than two hundred manuscripts of the English Reformer were piled in a heap in the court of the archbishop's palace on the Hradschin and burned. The approaches were carefully guarded by soldiers. Members of the chapter and many other clerics were present. The archbishop is said to have set fire to the books with his own hand. While the flames were consuming the precious volumes, aTe Deum was sung. ^Eneas Sylvius reports that many of them were richly bound, a fact he emphasizes over against "the madness of the Wyclifites." One of those who had participated in the clamor for the cre- mation was the rector of St. ^Egidius, Peter of Peklo, who affirmed he had descended to hell and seen Wychf there, a fancy in regard to which John of Giczin plausibly remarked that there were no other witnesses and for this reason, if no other, the deposition was a preposterous lie. It was this Peter who testified that he had often heard Huss say in public that we can be well saved without the pope.^ This method of attempting to put an end to a heretic's influence was of old standing in the Christian church. Soon after the council at Nice, the emperor Constantine ordered the books of the Arians burned. The books of Gottschalck advocating the double decree of predestination were given to the flames in the ninth century. In the twelfth Abelard's treatises were consigned to the flames in Rome before he could get to the holy city to make his proposed defense. And this spectacle at Prague points forward to the burning, a cen- tury later, in St Paul's Churchyard, London, of all the copies ' Doc, pp. 24, 189. The charge was made that Zbynek's bull had been purchased at Rome at a great price. ^ Doc, 178. For Giczin, see Loserth, Appendix, pp. 335 sq. Loserth, p. 120, cites a contemporary manuscript in the palace library, Vienna, which enumerates ninety Wyclifian tracts and treatises in circulation in Bohemia. 92 JOHN HUSS of Tyndale's New Testament which Bishop Tonstall could seize or purchase. The flames in the archbishop's courtyard only served to intensify the religious feeling in Prague. In popular songs Zbynek was lampooned as the ABC bishop: "Zbynek, Bishop A B C Burned the books, but never knew he What was in them written." Finding it expedient to seek safety from threatened violence, the archbishop withdrew to Raudnitz. Two days after the burning, July i8, he pronounced the ban of excommunication against Huss and seven other masters and students, mentioned by name, and their adherents, who "on frivolous grounds had sent the frivolous appeal to Rome." They were pronounced rebels and disobedient to the Catholic faith. The sentence was ordered announced in churches with the usual solemn ceremonies, the ringing of bells and the dashing of lighted tapers to the floor.^ The anathema which had so often silenced opposition and secured submission from kings and nations was in this case disregarded. It was looked upon as setting aside the cor- porate rights of the university as well as all right of being heard before the law. The party passion was so heated that even homicide was committed on the streets. On the Sabbath following Zbynek's decree, the priests announced the excom- munication amidst violent disturbances in many of the churches. In the cathedral itself, July 22, when high mass was being celebrated, the priest was forced by the uproar to leave the church, and on the same day in St. Stephen's six men rushed on the priest with drawn swords, threatening his life when he began to speak against Huss. The other party practised reprisal and punished all Hussite sympathizers venturing within the cathedral precincts. The public officials 1 Doc, 397-399- REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 93 of the city formally declared that the prohibition of preaching in the chapels and the cremation "had roused strife and hatred among faithful Catholics, started fires, and resulted in homicide."^ Huss and other defenders of Wyclif carried the matter to the public platform. Dividing several of Wyclif's writings among themselves, Huss and five others, after giving public notice, defended them in addresses in the churches during the last days of July and the 6th of August.^ Simon of Tissnow declared that the only excuse that could be given for the burning of Wyclif's books was Zbynek's ignorance. "There- fore," he said, "let him be spared and prayed for." Defend- ing the tract on the Decalogue, Jacob of Mies found in it "vital truth and evangelical doctrine, which it behooved every Christian to defend even to the death, yea, against princi- palities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world which had risen up against them." For his good life and con- versation WycHf, so Procopius assured his hearers, deserved to be regarded as " the evangehcal doctor." Only the wanton, the rich in the things of this world, and luxurious livers called him a heretic. He wished that Gamaliel's counsel had been borne in mind when the question of condemning the books was under consideration. Zdislav called Zbynek's bonfire a silly spectacle. Wyclif's writings were indeed most useful and if they deserved to be burned for containing alleged heresies then why should not the whole earth be burned up, for it was full of heresies, and why not all Jews and libertines who openly deny Christ as Lord. The condemnation and cremation in the archbishop's courtyard were not only a de- fiance of God and justice, but a damage to the whole kingdom of Bohemia by threatening the freedom of the university. * Palacky, Gesch., 253. Doc, 415. ^ Loserth, Appendix 308-336, gives the addresses of Simon of Tissncw and Procopius of Pilsen in full, and those of Jacob of Mies, Zdislav of Zwierzeticz and Giczin in part. Huss's defense of Wyclif's treatise on the Trinity. Mon. I : 131-135- 94 JOHN HUSS In the defense of Wyclif 's tract on the Holy Trinity based upon the spurious passage, ''There were three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one," I John 5:7, Huss announced him- self ready to stand against all who favored the burning of the books. That act destroyed sin in no man's heart, but did destroy many beautiful and profound thoughts found in Wyclif's works, and multiplied disturbances, envies, and re- criminations, and provoked homicide in the city. Like the Apostles, "he could not help but speak the things he had heard and seen." He was in duty bound to speak in the Bethlehem chapel though forbidden by the apostolic see and his diocesan. The condemnation and the cremation had worked ill for the kingdom of Bohemia, and, as for the prohibition of preaching — evangelizatio — it savored not of the way of Christ, who com- manded that his Gospel should be preached in the whole world. Even if WycHf's writings were found to contain her- esies, they ought no more to be burned than are good people to be burned who mingle with heretics or the wheat which is mixed with the chaff. Did not God promise to spare Sodom if even ten righteous men should be found therein? Huss then quoted Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose in favor of the read- ing of heretical books in order that heresies might be an- swered and confidence in the Scriptures established. Chrys- ostom suffered excommunication from his bishop rather than join in the condemnation of Origen's works. Christ himself condescended to dispute with the Sadducean and other heretics. Huss's treatise is far above the treatments of the other writers in the high rehgious tone it assumes as well as its matter. It shows a warm devotion to the English master and announces Huss's readiness to suffer for his convictions. His attitude was that of the open mind to dismiss old opinions for new ones which his conscience might determine to be bet- ter opinions. This attitude of mind he sets forth in a noble REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 95 statement largely drawn from Wyclif and quoted in another ^ part of this book. One of the most interesting letters preserved from Huss's pen was written in the midst of this turbulence, 1410, in reply to a letter from Richard Wyche, whom Huss denominates "a, companion of Wyclif in the labors of the Gospel." Wyche was a Lollard and was brought before the bishop of Durham in 1399 for his views on the sacrament of the altar and im- prisoned. He afterward renounced his offensive position and was appointed vicar of Deptford, One of his letters, recently discovered, addressed to friends in Newcastle, has been pub- lished in the English Historical Review. Wyche's communi- cation was full of sympathy and consolation, — "enough," Huss says, "even if there had been no other writing to nerve him to expose his life for Christ even unto death." Wyche addressed Huss as "his most dearly beloved brother in Christ," bade him labor like a good soldier of Jesus Christ, to preach the truth of the Gospel, and to call as many as he might be able to the way of the truth. Huss read the letter to a great multitude, whose number he estimated at ten / thousand, and so deep, according to his own words, was the impression which it made that the hearers asked him to trans- late it into their native tongue. In his reply to Wyche he begged him for the help of his prayers and thanked him again and again for the good things which Bohemia was receiving from blessed England— Jews- dicta Anglia. As for the condition of affairs in Bohemia, he asserted that the people which had walked in darkness had now seen the great light of Jesus Christ. Unto those that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death the light of truth had appeared. With the help of the Saviour, barons, counts, lords, and the common people, yea, all classes, were accepting the truth with great ardor. The people would listen to noth- ing but the Holy Scriptures, especially the Gospel and the Epistles, and wherever the Gospel was preached, in city, 96 JOHN HUSS village or castle, throngs welcomed the preacher of the sacred truth. But gently had he "touched the tail of Behemoth, which is Satan, and Behemoth had opened his jaws to swallow up both him and his brethren. He is furious and charges with lying tongue many with heresy, blows up the flame of church censure, and sends his threats to neighboring regions, and yet at home Behemoth had not dared to touch his own neck." Huss closed his letter by sending greetings "from the Church of Christ in Bohemia to the Church of Christ in Eng- land," and saying that "the king and his entire cabinet, the queen's barons, and the common people were for the Word of Jesus Christ." If we are to judge by the statements of this letter and the statements made in the appeal of the masters to the pope, June 25, 1410, the pressure to hear the preaching of the truth from the lips of Huss and by other preachers in Prague must have been very great. In the twenty-first chapter of his Treatise on the Church, Huss expresses himself as feeling that the time was one of rehgious awakening in which God in an unusual manner was revealing His truth to the people of Prague and endueing them with special power to endure under persecution. The party he represented was in some quarters called "the evangelical party." ^ The king gave proof of his favor for Huss by requesting that the archbishop reimburse the owners of Wyclif's writings for their loss and, when he refused, Wenzel sequestrated the incomes of the clergy who were taking part in the proceed- ings of excommunication. When two doctors of Bologna arrived in Prague to announce John XXIII's election, Wenzel and Sophia and a group of nobles interceded with them to use their influence in having Alexander's bull withdrawn. But Huss had openly resisted church authority. He was under excommunication and the ban of the archbishop had behind it papal authority. No longer was it simply a ques- ^Doc, 12-14, 394- Mon., i : 306, 331. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 97 tion of Wyclif's heresy. Huss himself, if he was not a heretic, was insubordinate to the church authorities. Writers usually / represent Huss's case at this time as being a revolt against church discipline and that only, and not against the accredited . dogmatic teachings of the church. There is some ground for this view. At the same time, Huss's teaching was too free to be within the limits prescribed by the church. He was al- ready in opposition to the dogma of the supremacy of the church as against the supremacy of the Scriptures. Al- though he had taken the ground that Alexander V had issued his decision upon the basis of false information, Huss had in effect exposed himself to the just charge of contumacy when he declared in Bethlehem chapel that it was his intention to obey God rather than man. Wyclif had been condemned in England and by Gregory XI, and the public defense which Huss and his colleagues made of Wyclif's writings was a most hazardous exercise of the right of private judgment, a right abhorrent to the ecclesiastical system built up in the Middle Ages. John XXIII, to whom Huss had appealed from the arch- bishop's mandate, put Huss's appeal into the hands of four cardinals, who had Wyclif's books examined by theo- logical doctors of Bologna. The majority of these doctors, after consulting with Paris and Oxford masters who were in Bologna, failed to find anything in them to call for their being burned or taken from the hands of students. On the contrary, they contained many good things. However, there were certain articles drawn from the Dialogus and Trialogus which should not be taught. The archbishop's party was also active at the papal court and John placed the case in the hands of Cardinal Oddo of Colonna, afterward Pope Martin V, with the result that Huss was cited to appear in person in Rome to be examined on the charges made against him.^ In the meantime, in personal communications addressed to ^ Doc, 190, 406. Mon., I : 109. 98 JOHN HUSS the cardinals, the king and queen were interceding for Huss. They protested against the archbishop's decree burning Wyclif's books and the closing of Bethlehem chapel to preach- ing. The king pronounced Alexander's bull precipitate, and asked that the edict against free preaching in the chapels might be withdrawn. It was based on the unfounded sus- picion that the hearts of the people of Prague were infected with heresy. "How," he wrote, "could the vine of Engedi be expected to flourish if the stalk of the Word of God were cut off at the root," that is, if preaching were stopped? In three letters to the pope the queen spoke with warm affection of Bethlehem chapel and the profit it had been to her and members of her court as the centre where the Word of God was preached. The decree prohibiting preaching would im- pede the flow of salvation for the people and herself. She begged the pope for freedom of preaching — lihertatio pradica- tionis evangeliccE. Helfert speaks of the undue interference of Sophia in the affairs of Huss. He says rightly that she had a considerable influence in promoting the growth of Hussitism. Other members of the court also addressed the pope in Huss's interest. Thousands had heard Huss at the Bethle- hem chapel, so wrote Baron Lacek of Krawar to the pope. The people were confounded and indignant at the silencing of Huss's voice and of being deprived of the Word of God — ver- bum Domini privari. To these intercessions and others like them the magis- trates of Prague added their petition, begging John XXIII that he might grant relief from the inhibition of preaching in the chapels, declaring at the same time that it would be the salvation "of our community for the Word of God to be preached more freely and copiously" as they had had proof in the good influence of a single preacher at Bethlehem chapel. In order to secure a withdrawal of the citation to appear personally before the papal court, Huss despatched a cele- REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 99 brated professor of canon law, John of Jesenicz, and two other procurators to Italy to plead his cause. From a jurisconsult of Bologna, Thomas of Udine, a Dominican friar, Jesenicz got a decision. Later Huss's representatives were thrown into prison. Jesenicz remained faithful to Huss to the end and had recourse to all the technicalities of the law to free him from the sentence of heresy. When Cardinal Colonna's citation was issued for Huss to appear in person before the curia, it called forth the re- newed interposition of the Bohemian king and queen. In letters to John XXIII and the cardinals, they prayed that Huss might be absolved from going in person to Rome.^ They both referred to him as their beloved and devoted chap- lain. The king demanded that Huss's accusers be enjoined to keep silent, that its privileges be restored to Bethlehem, and that Huss be allowed to go on with his work in the pulpit; for, he wrote, "it was not a seemly thing that in his kingdom a man so useful in his preaching should be exposed to the judg- ment of enemies and the whole multitude of the people thrown into unrest." Huss, the king declared, had been always ready to answer for his opinions before the university or any other tribunal. "The perils by the way" were the reason Wenzel gave for his asking Colonna that Huss be excused from personally appearing in Rome. The king also expressed the wish that Colonna visit Prague, become conversant with the conditions with his own eyes, and give Huss a hearing there. The queen, joining her husband in his requests, repeated that she had often heard Huss in the Bethlehem chapel and begged that for the honor of God and the salvation and the quiet of the people Huss might be relieved from all suspicion. The perils by the way, of which the king wrote, Huss him- self gave in his letters and in his Treatise on the Church, and also at Constance as a reason for not answering the curia's cita- tion in person. In a letter to the Bohemian council, December, ' Doc, 422-426. loo JOHN HUSS 141 1, he announced that traps were set for him all along the road with the intention that he should not return to Bohemia. In another letter he asserted that his procurators had advised him not to go, as it would involve the giving up of his work in Prague, and if he started he would be fooUshly exposing his life. At the same time, he affirmed he was ready with Christ's help to appear at Rome if thereby, or even by his death, he could profit some to salvation. Again, in his appeal from the pope's final decision, 141 2, he referred to these traps and he justified himself by referring to the imprisonment and spoHation to which Palecz and Stanislaus had been subjected in Bologna, 1409. He also alleged the cost of the journey to Rome, 300 miles away, and demanded trial in Prague the place where the assumed offense was committed.^ Neither the letters from the queen and the king and other persons high in position nor the solicitations of the king's personal representatives at the papal court, John Naas, a doctor of both laws, and John of Reinstein were sufficient to procure a withdrawal or modification of the summons of citation. In the proceedings, which led to the refusal of the cardinals to make any change, Zbynek was reported to have spent large sums at Rome.^ The next step was inevitable. For his contumacy. Car- dinal Colonna in February, 141 1, placed Huss together with all his followers and sympathizers under excommunication. Much as such a use of ecclesiastical prerogative is at variance with Protestant opinion in the twentieth century, the methods in vogue in that age left no sufficient ground for Huss's com- plaint that he was excommunicated without a hearing and without being guilty of heresy.^ For a reason unknown to us the case was taken out of Colonna's hands and transferred again to a commission of 1 Doc, 24, 32, 190, 466. Mon., I : 304, 324, etc. ^ Chron. Univ. Prag., as quoted by Palacky, Gesch., p. 264. Loserth, 170. ^ Doc, 191, 202. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP loi cardinals, including the enlightened cardinal Zabarella of Florence, who was to have a large part in the investigation of Huss's case at Constance. Again a change was made, and the case was put into the hands of Cardinal Brancas, who seems to have taken no further action for more than a year. Announcement was made of Colonna's excommunication, March 15, 1411, in all the churches of Prague except two, St, Michael's, whose rector was Christian of Prachaticz, and St. Benedict's. In Prague the archbishop and his clergy were sufTering indignities with the king's connivance if not at his express command. The city authorities took part in opposing the curia by withholding or diverting tithes and usufructs. Zbynek defended himself by the use of his judicial prerogative, launching the ban against the civil authorities of Prague and the Wyssehrad, and pronouncing the interdict over the city of Prague.^ But the preaching went on and the insults to the clergy who remained faithful to the archbishop did not abate. In spite of the king's order, the streets continued to resound with the derisive songs. Some of the turbulent priests were expelled by the king from the city, and, probably in view of the archbishop's disposition of the relics of St. Wenceslaus a few years before, Wenzel appeared in person in the cathedral and ordered the canons to produce the trea- sures hid in its vaults and shrines and bade his civil servants remove them to Karlstein. The position which the court and municipal authorities Jiad assumed would have made useless an appeal on the part of the archbishop for the enforcement of his ecclesiastical censures. The king went so far as to forbid any one to carry a civil case before the ecclesiastical court on pain of losing the perquisites of his office or the very office itself. Here we may be incUned to discern Wyclif's influence. A serious effort was now made by the contending parties * Doc, 429 sqq. I02 JOHN HUSS to heal the dispute and took the form of a pact signed by the archbishop and the university, July 3, 141 1, by which the entire controversy was referred to the king and his councillors for arbitration, both parties declaring that they entered into it of their own free will and agreeing to abide by the decision.^ The university had petitioned Zbynek to remove the decree of excommunication from Huss, and Palecz set forth con- siderations which would justify the archbishop in lifting the interdict from the city. One of the considerations put forth by the signers of this pact was the labor and expense that would be incurred in arguing the case at Rome. The docu- ment was signed in the presence of a company of noblemen and attested by the public notary, Nicholas of Prachaticz. Among the signers were Simon of Tissnow, the rector of the university, Stephen Palecz, John of Reinstein and Huss. The commission of arbitration, consisting of Wenceslaus, patriarch of Jerusalem and the bishop of Olmiitz, and Duke Rudolph of Saxony, Lacek of Krawar, and other leading noble- men, acted promptly. Their report, which was ready in three days, called upon the archbishop to submit to the authority of the king as his lord and to inform his holiness, the pope, that so far as he, the archbishop, knew, no errors were current in Bohemia, and that the difference between himself and the magistrates had been amicably brought to the king's court. He was to intercede with the pope to relax the ban of ex- communication for all persons upon whom it had been laid by the curia. The archbishop was also to Uft the bans of excommunication and interdict which he had issued. On his part, the king was to see to it that any heresy that might be detected be put down and that the deprived clergy were reinstated in their livings and their goods restored. The university was assured of protection in all the privileges and rights conceded to it up to that time by popes, Charles IV and Wenzel. 1 Doc, 434-443- REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 103 Huss, whose case was responsible for all the trouble in Prague, wrote, September i, 141 1, to John XXIII a sort of confession of faith and on the same day addressed the col- lege of cardinals. In his communication to John, which he read before the university, he affirmed his readiness, at all times, to make full confession of his faith. He believed in the deity of Christ and that not an iota of Christ's words would fail, that the church was founded upon an immovable rock and could not be destroyed. The bulls issued against him were based on false information. False was the charge that he 1; | had advocated the remanence of the bread and wine after = ^ 1 the words of consecration. False that, when the host was elevated, it was Christ's body and that, when it was replaced on the table, it was bread only. False, further, were the charges that he held that the priest in mortal sin does not perform sacramental acts, that temporal lords may deprive the clergy of their goods, that indulgences are of no avail, and that the civil power has authority to compel the clergy by resorting to the sword. False, also, was the charge that , he was responsible for the expulsion of the Germans from ^ the imiversity. As for his complying with the citation to appear at Rome, he was minded to obey but held back on account of the snares of death laid for him in Bohemia and outside of it, especially by the Germans. In holding back, he was following the advice of many friends and moved by the fear lest he tempt God by courting death. In his communication to the cardinals, he expressed his readiness to face the university of Prague, the Bohemian prelates and all the people and to make before them a plain and full confession of his faith, even if at the time of doing it the fires for heretics were being lighted. But the hope of peace which the proposed pact aroused was destined to disappointment. In abiding by its stipula- tions, the archbishop would be giving up rights which had / been won by the church through long and severe conflicts. I04 JOHN HUSS As Thomas a Becket soon forgot his promise of assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon and repented of his act on re- turning to Canterbury, so Zbynek quickly receded from his oath to stand by the action of the royal commission. Even a pope, Pascal II, on the ground of coercion, had receded from a solemn agreement with the emperor Henry V over inves- titure so soon as the prince was well on the northern side of the Alps. Zbynek went so far as to address the promised letter to John XXIII. ^ It is still extant, but it was never sent. In this communication he expressed the hope that his sanctity, "moved by his bowels of compassion, might dismiss and annul the excommunication and censures pronounced upon the honorable master, John Huss, and absolve him from personal appearance at Rome." The archbishop had determined to pursue a different course and now turned to Sigismund, hoping to win him to his side and, in view of the accession of influence which had accrued to Sigismund by his recent election as king of the Ro- mans and heir of the empire, to break down the opposition of his brother Wenzel.^ We would be offered a puzzHng dilemma if these two princes were proposed for ruler and we were obliged to choose between them. If Wenzel was fickle and weak of will, he was at least under the powerful control of a devoted wife who had the respect of the court. Sigismund was as profligate as his brother, though his profligacy did not break out in such coarse debaucheries, and he was also am- ^ Doc, 441 sq. Mon., i : iii sq. ^ At Ruprecht's death, 1410, the Count Palatine and the archbishop of Treves, both of whom still acknowledged Gregory XII, were for Sigismund as king of the Romans. Sigismund's cousin, Jost, margrave of Moravia, re- ceived the votes of the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz. On September 20, 1410, Sigismund was elected by three votes of the electoral college and, ten days later, Jost by the four other votes, including the vote of Bohemia cast by Wenzel. The rivalry between the claimants came to an end by Jost's death, January, 1411. The charge was made that he was poisoned and the real or supposed murderer was quartered alive. Jost's territory of Moravia was given to Wenzel, and since that time it has been a part of Bohemia. Pa- lacky, Gesch., 260 sqq. REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP 105 bitious and ready to weaken his brother's hold upon his subjects by every available means. In turning to Sigismund, Zbynek neglected not the cour- tesy of writing to Wenzel and gave as a reason for his course of action that Wenzel had refused to give him an audience and that the provisions of the pact had not been complied with. Those who remained faithful to him were still deprived of their usufructs, their vineyards and other lawful posses- sions. A priest was not handed over to his prison who for two years had lived with a nun. The parish priest of St. Nicholas had been seized and deprived of his goods although guilty of no wrong. Many priests had been forced into flight. In one word, hmits had been placed to the full and un- hindered administration of his office. The civil authorities had even neglected to restrain mob violence, which prevented his execution of acts of discipHne. It had become impossible for him to preserve his honor and certify to the pope that the persons under excommunication were guiltless of heresy. At the time this letter was written, September 5, 141 1, the archbishop was at Leitomysl, already well on his way to Hungary to meet Sigismund. Death struck him on the jour- ney three weeks afterward, at Pressburg. It is probable that, had Zbynek continued to Hve, the outcome of the struggle between Huss and the church authorities would have been / >' no different from what it was. Huss would have found no more reason for retracing his steps, and the archbishop could not have maintained his position in the church without re- ceding from the promise he made in the pact of July 3, 141 1, and which, on reflection, he must have been convinced he had entered into in haste. Moreover, that Huss and his fol- lowers had not sinned, Zbynek, as he wrote to Wenzel, could not force his conscience to believe. The only way for peace in Bohemia was for the innovator to undergo a radical change of conviction, and change front, or for the archbishop to fall in with the reforming party, and, renouncing papal alia- io6 JOHN HUSS giance, join with Wenzel, as later Cranmer joined with Henry VIII, in promoting a schism in the church. But Wenzel was a weak sovereign where Henry VIII was strong, and Zbynek had little zeal for religious reform while Cranmer had much. 4\ CHAPTER VI HUSS RESISTS THE POPE / concede that heretics should be subjected to force by the church that they may sincerely accept the faith and confess Christ and his law, for, although no one can believe except of his oivn free will, nevertheless a person may be forced to the physical acts which may entice him to believe. But it is one thing to compel and another thing to exterminate or put to death. — Huss, ad octo doctores, Mon., i : 399. Huss's case had ceased to be a local affair. It had become the concern of Latin Christendom. The papal curia was being defied. In England, what was transpiring in Bohemia was closely associated with its own discussions over Wyclif and the measures which were there being pushed against the adherents of the Wyclifite heresy. In France, Gerson, the great theologian of his age, was about to take up Huss's case in a series of distinct charges addressed to Konrad of Vechta, who had sent him several of Huss's works. In Bohemia, Huss and his fortunes were the absorbing topic which seemed to take precedence of every other public question. Zbynek's office was promptly filled by the election of Albik of Uniczow, a German of Moravia. He was the man the king wanted but incompetent. He had been a physician and accumulated a large fortune by his practice, which included the royal family. He had been married and had children. On the death of his wife, he betook himself to the priesthood. It was popularly held that in securing the office of archbishop, he paid large sums to the proper authorities in Prague and also to John XXIII. By reason of his age and incompetence he was soon superseded by Konrad of Vechta, a canon of the Wyssehrad. 107 io8 JOHN HUSS At this time, September, 141 1, occurred a picturesque episode in the visit of two Enghshmen, John Stokes and Hertonk van Glux. It became the occasion of identifying Huss in the pubHc mind more closely, if possible, with Wyclif than before. The Englishmen had been sent to Ofen by Henry IV to form a league with Sigismund. Henry IV, had met Sigismund on the continent, and Henry V, in the will which he made before starting for Harfleur, left a jewelled sword to Sigismund, his most dear brother, "as the stoutest defender the church had."^ In 1408 Sigismund had founded the Order of the Golden Dragon to fight against all pagans and heretics, Stokes was a licentiate of law of the university of Cambridge and Glux later was sent on another mission to Sigismund by Henry V, probably 1414. The commissioners were invited by the masters of the university to a banquet, but declined the honor, from a pur- pose as it would seem, to keep aloof from the religious dis- cussions which were rife at Prague. However, they were not successful. John Stokes, who seems for the moment to have forgotten the methods of diplomacy, in answer to a question gave it as his advice to every one wishing to retain his ortho- dox opinions to avoid reading or studying Wyclif's books. This advice, he said, he gave out of love to God and the love which a man ought to have to his neighbor, for, he continued, he knew well from experience the many evils arising from such study. Such a statement, though falling unadvisedly from an Enghshman of position, Huss could not let go unanswered. It was too damaging for those who had supported Wyclif in Prague and for those who did not sufficiently understand how far Wyclif was under condemnation in his own land. Huss caused a notice to be affixed to the ambassador's lodging challenging Stokes to public debate in the university and quoting the commissioner as having said that, "no man, ^ Wylie, pp. 9-1 1. On Glux and Stokes, see also Lenz, Konig Sigismund. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 109 no matter how well disposed he might be, and however well rooted he might be in sound doctrine, could read Wyclif without becoming involved in heresy." In a placard posted against the doors of the cathedral, Stokes disowned this form of statement and refused to enter into public debate at Prague on the ground that he was there as a member of an embassy and the audience would be partisan. At the same time, he signified his readiness to accept the challenge, pro- vided the discussion was set for Paris or any other university, or appointed to be held in the presence of the curia at Rome. He also announced his willingness to meet the travelling ex- penses of any disputant, provided he were unable to meet the expense himself. He further stated that, when he was asked in regard to the opinion held of Wyclif in England, he had replied that he was looked upon there as a heretic, that his works had been burned wherever hands could be laid upon them, and that his opinions had been officially pronounced heretical. Once again John Stokes and John Huss met face to face, during the council at Constance, when Huss disavowed the statement made by the Englishman, that he had seen in Prague a tract ascribed to the Bohemian master teaching the remanence of the bread. The matter was not at an end with Stokes's departure. After he left, Huss made an elaborate reply at the university.^ After detailing the circumstances under which Stokes's state- ment had been made, he stated that not only did the honor of his own university, which had been using Wyclif's works for twenty years, demand a formal rejoinder, but also the honor of Oxford and the honor of King Wenzel. He gave reasons for his hope that Wyclif was among the saved. The argument was false that because Wyclif was held to be a heretic by many prelates and priests in England, France, and Bohemia therefore he was a heretic — as false as the ^Replica contra Angliciim J. Stokes. Mon., i ; 135-139. no JOHN HUSS argument that because the Turks, Tartars, and Saracens did not accept Christ as God, therefore he was not the Son of God. The burning of a man did not make his books heretical any more than the crucifixion made Christ a heretic. He chal- , lenged his adversary to show that Wyclif had held a single dogma at variance with the Scriptures. For thirty years, the English master had been read and studied in Oxford, so that Stokes's statement that no one had read and studied his books without being seduced into heretical paths was not true. It was not likely that his philosophical books would contain a breath of heresy, but, even if some of Wyclif 's books were found to contain heresies, this was no sufficient reason why they should be burned. Arius and Sabellius, it was true, drew their false tenets from the Scriptures, but in so doing they had misunderstood the Scriptures. If for no other reason, this rejoinder would be important for the three historical statements it contains and which have already been adduced, that members of the university of Prague had been reading Wyclif for t,wenty years, that Wychf translated the entire Bible into English, and that Anne of Luxemburg, wife of Richard II, had taken with her to England the Scriptures in Latin, Bohemian and German. Huss's words imply his belief that Wychf was called heretical for having given the Scriptures in English. To accuse Anne of heresy for having translations he pronounced a ''Luciferan silliness." Altogether, Huss's discussion with the Enghshman, John Stokes, was a most interesting episode in the literary history of the times. We now come to John XXIII's sale of indulgences in Prague and Huss's opposition which it aroused. As Luther one hundred years later, so Huss was forced into an attitude of open defiance of the pope by the sale of pardon for sin. No name of vender stands out prominently in Huss's ex- perience as does the name of Tetzel in the case of the Witten- berg monk. On the other hand, Huss at this point personally HUSS RESISTS THE POPE in antagonized the pope, John XXIII, as Luther did not antag- onize Leo X in his XCV Theses in 15 17. The occasion for the sale of indulgences was the call made by John for a crusade against Ladislaus, king of Naples. John issued two bulls summoning the dioceses of Prague, Magdeburg and other parts to a holy war against this prince and his followers. Ladislaus, left an orphan at seven by the assassination of his father, Charles of Durazzo, in 1384, had a stormy career,^ His ability was first tested in the assertion of his rights against a rival, Louis of Anjou. In 1389, he was recognized as rightful sovereign by Boniface IX, as he was later by Boniface's successor, Innocent VII, 1404-1406, both Neapolitans like himself; still later he was recognized by Gregory XII. Louis had the support of the Avignon pope. When Gregory was unable to maintain himself in Rome, Ladislaus occupied the city, 1407. The Pisan pontiffs, Alexander V and John XXIII, took sides against him. Ladis- laus was defeated in 141 1, but speedily recovered from his defeat and received support from the faithless John XXIII; but he became weary of his pontifical supporter and, am- bitious of unifying Italy, he retook Rome, June 8, 1413. His soldiers sacked the city and were accused of stalling their horses in St. Peter's church, trampling on the host and throw- ing out relics. Ladislaus died of a vicious disease or of poison a year later at Naples. The two papal bulls calling for a crusade, dated September and December, 141 1 2 stigmatized Ladislaus, "who sacrile- giously called himself king of Jerusalem and Sicily," a per- * Charles had been called by Urban VI, 1381, and given the crown of Naples in the stead of Johanna, who had supported the Avignon line. Against her Urban summoned a crusade. Charles turned against Urban, who excom- municated him and made his high dignity an object of ridicule, as Pastor says, by going four times a day to the window and with sound of bell and with burn- ing candles formally excommunicating Charles's army at Nocera. Charles had Johanna murdered, 1382. 2 ^neas Sylvius on Ladislaus's crusade, chap. 35. For the texts of the bulls, see Mon., i : 212-215. 112 JOHN HUSS jurer, blasphemer, schismatic and relapsed heretic, the friend of heretics, a conspirator against the papal see and the church and the supporter of that son of malediction, Angelo Correr — Gregory XII — heretic and schismatic. Men of every class and station, from the king and cardinals down, were adjured to gird on the sword against the refractory prince. "By the grace of God and the authority of the Apostles Peter and Paul" John promised to all who took the cross, being penitent, pardon and augmentation of eternal salvation, and also to those unable to go on the campaign who provided for substitutes or contributed to the cost of the sacred undertaking. The participants in this new crusade were to have the same in- dulgence as those who went across the sea to rescue the Holy Land. The crusade was pronounced a campaign "to protect the church, the mother and teacher of all the faithful, and to defend the city in which Divinity wished to dwell — seeing God had made it the foundation for the militant church even through the shed blood of the saints and also the seat of Peter." The crusade was the well-tried instrument employed by popes against heretics and disobedient princes — war by the sword for spiritual offenses. So Innocent III summoned Christendom against the Albigenses of Southern France and called upon the king of France to bring the refractory John of England to submission. So Innocent IV spread the flames of sedition against Frederick II and summoned Germany and Sicily to revolt against him, their sovereign. So Urban IV appealed to Charles of Anjou to proceed against Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, the young scion of "the poisonous brood of a dragon of poisonous race." And so, after Huss's death, popes were to invoke bloody wars against the Huss- ites themselves. In resisting John XXIII's appeal, Huss had before him the example of Wyclif , who resisted the crusade of Christian in conflict with Christian proclaimed by Urban VI against HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 113 Clement VII of Avignon and preached in England by Henry de Spenser, bishop of Norwich. In this case, the pontiff of the Roman line promised indulgence for a year to all who would enlist. The dead as well as the living were included in the benefits which were to accrue. Wyclif 's burning words were launched against the enterprise in his Cruciata, one of his last tracts.^ He pronounced it an expedition for worldly mastery and stigmatized the promised indulgence the abomina- tion of desolation in the holy place. Not from this tract, but from Wyclif's Treatise on the Church, in the portion treating of indulgences, did Huss draw copious extracts for his attack. In May, 141 2, Wenzel of Tiem, dean of Passau, brought John's bulls to Prague, and at the same time the pallium to Albik. To avoid as far as possible the scandals which at- tached to the sale of indulgences in Prague, in 1393, the arch- bishop stipulated that the amounts paid, which on the former occasion were graduated according to the condition of the suppliants, should in this case be left to the option of each individual. Tiem reserved Prague for himself and placed the money chests in three places, the cathedral, the Teyn Church and the Wyssehrad. The beating of drums aroused the in- different to sympathy with the holy trafHc. The other parts of Bohemia were farmed out to deans and rectors. In order to forestall any opposition Huss might be pro- posing to make, Albik summoned him to his presence to meet the papal delegates. Asked whether he intended to obey the papal summons, he replied that he would with all his heart obey the Apostolic mandates. Interpreting Apos- toHc mandates and papal mandates to be convertible terms, the legates exclaimed: "See, lord archbishop, he will obey the mandates of our Lord." To this Huss repHed: "My lords, understand me; I said that with my whole heart I am minded to obey the Apostolic mandates and to obey them in all points, but what I call the Apostolic mandates are the doctrines of ^ Latin Works, 2 : 577 sqq. 114 JOHN HUSS Christ's Apostles, and so far as the mandates of the Roman pontiff are in accord with the Apostolic mandates and doctrine, that is, according to the rule of Christ, so far I intend most certainly to obey them. But, if I find them to be at variance, I will not obey them even if you put before my eyes fire for the burning of my body," ^ The excitement over the bulls in Prague ran high. The peddling of pardons for money stirred Huss's soul within him, and in the pulpit, before the university and in a document which he joined others in signing in the Bethlehem chapel, March 3, 141 2, he gave no faltering expression to his high- wrought indignation. The document took up three questions. The first, in- quiring whether the pope is to be believed in, he answered by denying that he is to be beheved in in the sense in which we believe in God, although we may believe what the pope says and believe that he is pope. The second question, whether confession to the priest is essential to salvation, was answered in the negative. Here Huss quoted Peter the Lombard's statement and also employed the case of the publican who did not appear before a priest and yet was justified. Likewise, he referred to the cases of the patriarchs under the old law, young children, the dumb, and to those living in deserts or languishing in captivity, all of whom confess not to a priest, and yet, he said, it would be "an awful and diabolical piety to condemn them."^ ' Mon., I : 367. * In the matter of penance a complete change took place in the teaching of the church in the twelfth century. The theory of the early church elabo- rated by Tertullian was that alms, prayers, and other works of penance are eflacient to remove the penalty of sins committed after baptism. Beginning with Alexander of Hales, d. 1245, confession to the priest was made requisite to salvation. Peter the Lombard, who lived a century earlier, had taken the opposite view, contrition of heart and confession to God were sufficient. But Thomas Aquinas followed Alexander, and from that date four things were made necessary to penance— contrition of heart, confession to the priest, works of satisfaction and the priestly absolution. The Rheims version of the New Testament, 1582, translates the Greek word metanceo, usually "do penance," HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 115 The third question was as to whether any of Pharaoh's army drowned in the Red Sea or those destroyed in Sodom were saved. Quoting Jerome, Huss held it possible that some of those imfortunates were saved and that, without revelation to the contrary, mortal men ought not to affirm of any man that he is eternally damned. He maintains his view also on the basis of Christ's words: ''Judge not that ye be not Judged."^ In his commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, Huss does not make it quite clear what his position was on the subject of priestly absolution. He says, p. 605, that " God gave to priests the power of binding and loosing; that is, of showing the men who have been bound and loosed, and that they bind when they impose upon persons who have made confession the satisfaction of penance and they loose when they remit something of that satisfaction, or they bind when they place under excommunication and loose when they release from excommunication." This power is like the power which the priest had in the Old Testament in cures of leprosy — "they adjudge and show sins remitted of God." Huss's theological colleagues at the university were now ^ arrayed solidly against him. In formal meeting they charged him with proclaiming that the papal bulls were an evident token that antichrist was fully come, and the pope was to be 1 resisted as the chief enemy and adversary of Christ. Huss's J announcement that he would discuss the subject at the uni- versity was met on the part of faculty with a petition^ to the though not uniformly, and by so doing puts into the New Testament an in- stitution of the later church and mistranslates the Greek. The change to the later mediaeval view was helped on by a tract foisted upon Augustine in the twelfth century, de vera el falsa pcnitenlia, which Gratian incorporated in his Decretwn. ' Here Huss approached closely to the ground occupied a hundred years later by Zwingli, who extended the benefits of the atonement to good heathen like Socrates and Aristides and was strongly inclined to extend it to all the children of heathen dying in infancy, if he did not actually do so. The ground on which he based this hope was God's predestination, which is entirely of free grace. ' Doc, 448-451- ii6 JOHN HUSS archbishop to prohibit the discussion. Huss's statement about antichrist was ascribed to his dependence upon Wyclif. The Wyclifite articles had led to bitter dispute and discords not only in the university but among the people. The peti- tion laid down the principle that the pope has the right to give full remission of all sins — and that he might call upon the people to defend the Roman city against heretics and schismatics. The document also forbade bachelors of theology to discuss the papal bulls. Stephen Palecz, dean of the faculty, was one of the signers. In spite of this resistance of the theological faculty, the discussion was held in the university, June 7, 141 2. The attendance was large. The rector, Marcus of Koniggratz, presided. Huss's treatment was embodied in one of his most elaborate writings and is equal to any of them in clearness and force of statement. It is declared by Loserth to stand as the pre-eminent work among his writings and to be in its style a model of acute and telling argument.^ This judgment, how- ever, is not to be taken as inconsistent with the author's estimate of the Treatise on the Church, which, Loserth says, has "always been regarded as Huss's most important piece of writing by friends and foes alike." Here are set forth at length Huss's views on indulgences and the temporal authority of the pope. In his opening words he declares that the honor of God, the good of the church and his own conscience— /Jro^na con- scientia — were involved in his attitude to the transaction of John XXIII. He protested that he wished to say nothing contrary to the law of Christ, which was the narrow way of life and the truth. Against the fallacy of giving obedience to John's bulls, he brought considerations from the hmited authority of the papal office, from the wrong of using bad measures for the defense of the church, and from the error that gifts of money constitute no valid claim to plenary ab- * WicliJ and Hus, p. 141. Huss's Treatise, Mon. 1 : 215-235. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 117 solution from the penalty and guilt of sin — absolutio plenaria a culpa et poena. Acts not done from love of man cannot have God's approval, and, it is probable, that a decree re- sulting in the killing of human beings does not proceed from the love of Christ, nor can the impoverishment of a people to provide the means for such killing be consonant with God's will. As for the pardon of sins, the Christian priest enjoys the right to absolve from penalty and guilt, but he can actually absolve only with the aid of a special revelation. Wise priests absolve only on condition that the sinner feels sorrow for his sin, promises to sin no more, and puts his confidence in God's mercy, Ezek. 18: 21, 22. No one is capable of receiv- ing indulgence unless he be disposed thereto by God's grace. Pardon God alone can grant. As for getting money for wars, it behooves the spiritual powers to employ spiritual weapons, not carnal; offer prayer, issue writings to convince the heart, and, if necessary, suffer death. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Oh, that the Roman pontiff might accept and follow in humility this rule of Paul! Authority is not given Peter's vicar and bishops to draw the material sword. Their weapons should be tears and prayers. Nor should the pope authorize war for what seems to be to his own advantage in securing and confirming secular power. These positions Huss proved from Scripture and quotations drawn from Augustine, Jerome, Gregory and St. Bernard. Conceding that the church, which is the body of the faithful — universitas fidelium — has the two swords, the spiritual and the material, he insists that the church consists of three parts — the soldiery, the clergy, and the people — and that the material sword is to be wielded by that part of the church which is made up of the soldiery. And as the church's spiritual sword is not to be used by the soldiery of this world in the same way as it is used by the priests, so in like manner the material sword is not to be used < ii8 JOHN HUSS by the spiritual leaders of the church to fight against the bodies of men but by the secular soldiery, whose chief busi- ness it is to defend the law of Christ and his church. The distinction between the soldiery — militia — and the clergy is clearly made, as also the distinction between the two swords. The spiritual sword is the Word of God, Eph. 6. The material sword is referred to in Romans 13 : 4. "He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil." He who uses the spiritual sword does not draw the blood of the sinner. From Deut. 17:8 the people in their ignorance have the idea that all commands emanating from the pope are to be obeyed. They are certainly wrong. The pope is not to be obeyed when he calls for a crusade for the extermination of his enemies, whom he has before damned. Assuredly Christ did not proceed upon this principle. He rebuked James and John for wanting to call down fire from heaven upon his enemies. Let the pope ask himself why he summons Chris- tians to exterminate, not Samaritans but fellow Christians. Would that the clergy might make the life of Christ and the Apostles their example, and by patience and forbearance follow the Lamb who taketh away the sin of the world ! It behooves not the priest to strive or enter into litigation. The barter of pardons is contrary to the Scriptures. Peter did not sell Simon Magus the forgiveness of sins. The sale of remissions for sin by the papal commissioners is simony. Sins are to be remitted without money and without price. Prayer, fasting, and other good works the bulls make no men- tion of — only money. Why does the pope not have refuge in prayer rather than in gold and silver? Christ prayed for Peter that his faith fail not. And it is clear that he taught Peter, and through him his vicars, to have recourse in times of necessity to God by prayer and not to depend on money or corporal battle. Would that the pope followed Christ in interceding for his enemies, saying in the name of the church, HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 119 "My kingdom is not of this world," by doing good and bless- ing those that speak evil of it!^ The pope pretends to for- give sins in his own name. The chief power of the Apostles was preaching the Gospel. Even upon the penitent the pope cannot confer forgiveness. Did not Peter refuse to grant it to Simon Magus, bidding him pray to God that the thought of his heart might be forgiven? It is in ignorance that the pope offers absolution without making an exception even of the reprobate. In so doing he places himself above Christ. In order to grant indulgences discriminatingly, the pope would be obliged in all cases to know that God approves of his act, but such knowledge he often lacks from want of revelation and Scripture precept. How can he sell what God does not want sold? In offering pardons he arrogates to himself the prerogative which is God's alone, for indulgence is the remission of an injury done to God himself, and this power he cannot commit to a creature. If the pope knows who is to be absolved, then he actually knows who the pre- destined are. But that he knows as little as he knows the hour when Peter died and the day of future judgment. If he is capable of dispensing with the divine sentence, then he infinitely exceeds Peter. However, he is neither im- peccable nor infallible. The assertion that the pope cannot err is not only false but blasphemous, for in case he could not err he would be sinless, as was Christ — ipse papa non potest errare, est non solum falsa, sed et hlasphema. At the highest, his act is nothing more than the announcement which one makes who is appointed by God as a herald. It is not con- trary to the faith to hold that popes have gone to perdition. The papal gift of indulgence is not only a presumption, being against Scripture and the reason of things, but, as a matter of experience, it is found to be absurd. A man ap- prised of the bull, be he parricide, thief, adulterer, or simoniac, if he confess sins, though he be ever so deficient in his con- ' Mon., I : 220, 222. I20 JOHN HUSS trition, provided he gave money for this crusade — on him the pope would confer indulgence from guilt and penalty. On the other hand, a man not apprised of the bull, though he keep God's commands and have only venial sins, if he be contrite and confess and yet does not give money, he will not receive indulgence or pardon. At death, the former goes at once to heaven because he is absolved from the penalty of purgatory and from guilt; the other into purga- torial pains. As for a pope's giving indulgence to the dead, he might, if he had this power, abolish purgatory itself. For he might absolve all in purgatory and confer perpetual pardon and grace. There would be nothing to prevent this result but perchance his own envy and neglect. In fact, he might keep all from going to purgatory and, in that case, make of no effect the church's prayers and its other offices for the dead. At death every one would immediately fly to heaven, having no need of the church's suffrages.^ The pope's bulls absolve equally all, no matter what their sins may be — murder or venial faults. It is marvellous that the pope does not insert in his bull the quality and degree of the sins to be forgiven, as he inserts the amount of money to be paid. If one should unjustly put a thousand men to death, and another sin only venially, both being contrite would be released from penalty and guilt. And the latter, if he had more money than the other, would be expected by the commission to give more than the former, and for no other imaginary reason than the appetite for money. This whole- ^ Mon., I : 228. Wyclif, de Ecclesia, 570 sq., speaks of canonists and theologians who held " that the pope has power to grant indulgences to an in- finite number of persons for an infinite period of time and that therefore his power is infinitely greater than the power of a bishop, who can give indul- gences only for forty days." Having such power, "what excuse has he that he does not release from eternal damnation his neighbor, whom he ought to love as himself, and yet without sufficient grounds omits so to do? " Shall a man be excused who is commanded even to pull his brother's ox on the Sabbath day out of the pit if he neglects to free his brother's soul from hell ? HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 121 sale remitting from penalty and guilt savors of a deluge of satisfaction for offenses; so that the more people a man might put to death the more would God and man be under obligation to pardon. The man enlisting in the crusade might kill priests and even papal commissioners themselves and appropriate their money, and yet he would come under the terms of the indulgence. However, Huss does not know whether in the last case the pope would allow the validity of the indulgence unless the moneys were restored. The pope's call to a crusade, involving the kilHng of Chris- tians under Ladislaus's rule and their spoliation is plainly against Christ's word to Peter to put up his sword and the rebuke of the disciples who called for vengeance upon the Samaritan village. Therefore, it deserves no obedience. The Scriptures give not a single case of a saint saying: "I have forgiven thy sin, I have absolved thee." Nor can the case of a saint be discovered who gave indulgence for a given number of years or days from the penalty and guilt of sin. Huss closes his fiery tract by comparing a pontiff who uses the Scriptural power in an unwarranted way to a tyrant. One is to be disobeyed as well as the other. If the papal ut- terances agree with the law of Christ, they are to be obeyed. If they are at variance with it, then Christ's disciples must stand loyally and manfully with Christ against all papal bulls whatsoever and be ready, if necessary, to endure malediction and death. When the pope uses his power in an unscriptural way, to resist him is not a sin, it is a mandate.^ ^ Mon., I : 234. Huss makes large use of Wyclif in this tract, but it is an exaggeration when Loserth, p. 141, says: "From the definition of the indul- gence onward everything is the property of Wyclif. The most weighty parts are derived from that chapter of Wyclif's de Ecclesia which treats of indulgences and is taken word for word." Huss's definition of an indulgence is verbally the same as Wyclif's with some added words simplifying, Mon., i : 216, also p. 377; de Ecclesia, p. 549; and in many of the important points the treat- ments agree. Huss, however, has much material of his own pertaining to the general subject as well as bearing directly upon the contents of John XXIH's bulls. He refers more frequently to the Scriptures than does Wyclif, and most aptly, using the quotations with great effect in the cases cited and 122 JOHN HUSS The discussion which the indulgence campaign called forth not only constitutes one of the more important events in Huss's career, but is one of the sources from which we derive a satisfactory conception of his real views. The issue was distinctly stated and Huss's exact meaning not clouded by any of that uncertainty which arose from the repeated charges which he made at Constance, that his writings were misquoted and his views not accurately stated by his accusers. From the standpoint of the teaching of the church in that age, he was certainly a heretic. He had chosen anotheT foundation for his theology than the mediasval and papal system. He planted himself firmly on the Scriptures as the supreme authority in matters of faith and conduct. He held the teaching of free grace and Christ's immediate for- giveness, and thus set himself against the mediaeval dogma of penance and the necessity of priestly intervention. He denied the pope's infallibility. He insisted that pardon for sin was not to be bought with money, all papal bulls to the contrary. He enunciated the principle of the lordship of conscience. He asserted preaching to be the chief function of the priesthood. A most important result of the discussion which John's bulls aroused was the definite detachment of old friends at the university. The other members of the faculty of theology took sides against him by giving their active support to the bulls and definitely repudiating the teachings of Wyclif. Stanislaus of Znaim and Michael Palecz, friends of his student days, were from this time on arrayed against Huss, and be- came his determined accusers before the church authorities. At first Palecz had found palpable errors in Tiem's articles of absolution, but he underwent a change of mind. Palecz, Huss the case of the publican. To many things in Wyclif s treatment he makes no reference as to the thesaurus meritorum, p. 572. As I shall have occasion to say under the head of the de Ecclesia, Huss's treatment is free from the biting sarcasm which runs through Wyclif when he treats of the pope and the hierarchy, and Huss's method is better adapted to reach a popular audience. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 123 called "his revered teacher," "his former friend" and, "my chief companion" and Stanislaus "my teacher from whom I have learned many good things." But when truth was at stake, he preferred it to both. On this point he wrote: "Palecz is my friend, truth is my friend, and if both remain my friends, it is just to give the place of honor to the truth." ^ Another who had taken strong sides against him, and a bitter foe to the end, was Michael Deutschbrod, formerly parish priest in Prague, known as Michael de Causis, or the Pleader, from an honor conferred upon him by John XXIII as advocate in matters of the faith. As the representative at Rome of the party hostile to Huss, he needed not the special urging of priests in Prague to proceed with vigor in securing a drastic papal handling of the Prague situation, and especially of that son of iniquity — filius iniquitatis—'H.uss. Among the friends who stood by him was the one who was to follow him as a martyr at the stake, Jerome of Prague. Jerome followed Huss's address at the university with an address of his own which produced such an impression upon the student body that he was popularly regarded as having carried o£f the honors of the day. He was placed under excommunication as an advocate of Wyclif, and he and others were thrown into prison. Common fame had it that Jerome advocated the errors of Wychf, not only in Prague, but in Heidelberg, Vienna, and Hungary.^ At this juncture the popular excitement found dramatic expression in a procession headed by Wok of Waldstein, one of the king's favorites, followed by a noisy crowd of students. In the centre was a wagon on which a student stood clad as a harlot, with strings of bells around his neck and written docu- ^ Amicus Palec, arnica Veritas, ntrisque amicis existentibus sanctum est prceho- norare veritaiem. Mon., i : 318, 330, 331. Super IV. Sent., 20. Huss dated Palecz's estrangement from this time, ascribing it definitely to the difference over the sale of indulgences. Indiilgentiarum venditlo me ab isto doctore primum separavit. "^ Doc, 416 sqq., 429. 124 JOHN HUSS ments at his feet. The procession moved from the cathedral to the Moldau and then across the bridge to the old city. The books, thrown under a gallows, were committed to the flames. In this act, which was intended to be a parody of the burning of Wyclif's books, Jerome took a prominent part. An account has been left by one of the students who took part, Martin Lupac, d. 1468.^ The preachers of pardons had no easy time of it. Pub- lic ministrations were interrupted by acts of violence. The rioters, cleric and laymen, men and women, were thrown into prison. The king, many of whose courtiers were in sympathy with the disturbances, was forced to take note of them. When they broke out he was at his summer residence at Zebrak. Thither he called the magistrates of the three Prague towns and ordered them to punish with death all offending in any way against the papal bulls and those preaching the indulgences. In spite of this apparently de- cisive attitude on the part of her royal consort, the queen continued to attend services at the Bethlehem chapel and Wok remained unpunished. The riots culminated in the execution of three of the rioters, Martin, John, and Stafcon, written also Stasek, the last a shoemaker from Poland. Martin had cried out in one of the churches that the pope had shown himself to be anti- christ by announcing a crusade against Christians. John threw a vender of indulgences out of a convent. Stafcon had also protested in the church against the sale of pardons. Vivid accounts of these facts and the scenes that followed Huss gives in his Treatise on the Church and in his Bohemian sermons. In the hope of making a lasting impression, the magistrates summoned the populace to be present at the execution set for July 11, 141 2. Knowing that the three prisoners were sentenced to suffer for the views he had pro- mulged, Huss, accompanied by other masters and followed 1 Palacky, Gesch., 278. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 125 by a large body of students, hastened to the city hall, pro- tested to the magistrates in behalf of the accused, and an- nounced himself willing to suffer in their stead, whose alleged guilt was more his than theirs. On receiving assurance that they would receive no harm, Huss returned to his house. But several hours afterward the unhappy men were dragged from prison and hurried ojff to their death. From fear of the growing crowds, the executioner did his work before the usual place appointed for criminal exe- cutions was reached, and the public crier called out that all who might be guilty of a like offense would receive the same punishment. A number of voices were heard exclaiming that they were willing to suffer and they were forthwith arrested. White sheets provided by a woman were thrown over the bodies of the dead, and the throng of students, led by John of Giczin, lifted them up and carried them to the Bethlehem chapel, chanting the solemn chant, ''These are holy." There they were buried by Huss. In derision, the chapel was thenceforward called the Chapel of the Three Martyrs. 1 The tap-root of these disturbances was the Wyclifian scheme, and it was recognized that, until it was cut out, the restoration of quiet could not be looked for in the city. At the king's order, the university again sat in judgment, July 10, 141 2, upon the XLV Articles, with the aim of reviewing the original decree of 1403, which, it will be remembered, for- bade any one to affirm in private or in public these Wyclifian principles. Now, eight of the masters, including Palecz, Stanislaus and Andrew of Broda, passed a sentence stigmatiz- ing under three heads the articles as heretical, false, or scandal- ous. Among the alleged heretical articles were the denial of transubstantiation and that the pope is not the immediate vicar of Christ. The decree, issued in 1403, forbade any one ' Palacky, Gesch., Ill, pt. I, p. 280. ^neas Sylvius, 35, also says the three men were buried in Bethlehem chapel and their bodies looked upon as sacred relics. For the account in the Bohemian sermons, Doc, 725 sq. 126 JOHN HUSS to hold or preach any of the articles on pain of being held a heretic and called upon the king to execute civil penalties even to exile from the Bohemian kingdom. To these XLV Articles were appended six, or perhaps nine, others, pro- nouncing the penalty due heresy upon all who did not hold to the sacraments and the power of the keys in the sense held by the Holy Roman Church, who denied that reverence should be paid to relics or asserted that "the great anti- christ predicted in Holy Writ" had already come. The same punishment was invoked upon those who affirmed that customs of the church not plainly contained in the Scriptures have no binding force, that priests do no more than declare the penitent confessor absolved, and that the pope has no right to call upon Christians to fight against their fellow Christians in defense of the apostolic see and solicit moneys for that purpose in return for absolution. Accepting this sweeping sentence, the king had the reso- lution to order those holding the XLV Articles banished from the realm. At the same time he bade the doctors attempt to compose the difficulty by peaceable measures. At the call of the city magistrates a week later, masters of the uni- versity and clergy met at the city hall and reaffirmed the condemnation of the articles. At the same time, however, other masters, bachelors, and many students met at the university building and protested the articles had been con- demned without reasonable examination. In an elaborate defense made at the university, Huss vindicated at least five of them.^ No article, he affirmed, should be condemned which is not explicitly or by fair implication condemned in the Scriptures. He contended that those who cease preaching the Word of God or give up hearing it preached out of regard for a sentence of excommunication will be found traitors at the day of judgment, that every deacon and priest has the right to preach irrespective of a permission from the apos- ^ Mon., I : 139-169. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 127 tolic see or a bishop, that tithes are alms, that no one in mortal sin may validly administer the sacraments of baptism, the Lord's Supper, absolution, and ordination, and that the king may deprive priests unfaithful in their duties of their worldly support. No pope or bishop or other mortal, he insisted, has the authority to stop priest and deacon from preaching. A king has not the right to forbid his subjects giving alms. No more has a spiritual superior the right to forbid the giving of the spiritual alms of the sermon to those who are spiritually needy and thirsty. In an audience before the king at Zebrak, Huss, in vindica- tion of his views, offered to undergo a test on condition that each of the other eight doctors did the same, each of them as well as himself submitting to the ordeal of burning as heretics in case of failure to make good his position. All of the eight were present at the audience and refused to yield to Huss's suggestion. The situation was aggravated rather than ap- peased by the audience. Huss's unequivocal opposition to what was the tradi- tional view of the church came out if possible more distinctly than before in his reply to the writing of the eight doctors.^ It must be remembered that the eight had declared them- selves in favor of John XXIII's bulls of indulgence. In this document the chief question which Huss dwelt upon was the question of papal authority, which he treated chiefly in the light of the New Testament practice. He elaborated the essential principles laid down in the writings against John's bulls already adduced and took up the arguments of the doctors one by one. He made a clear distinction be- tween mandates issuing from the Apostles and commands contained in papal bulls. Bulls are only to be obeyed so far as they conform to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of the Apostles. Bulls had often been recalled or superseded or, in case of a pope's death, allowed to lapse. He had heard ' Responsio ad scriptum odo doclorum, Mon., i : 366-408. 128 JOHN HUSS that the French and English would not admit John's bulls against Ladislaus. The papal legates who were commissioned to carry them to Apulia did not dare to show themselves in that territory. On the other hand, the Bohemians, less bold than Balaam's ass, had admitted the bulls and allowed indulgences to be offered. In the papal sale of indulgences in 1393, under Boniface IX, absolution from the penalty and guilt of sin was offered only for definite amounts prescribed by confessors, namely, upon the basis of the cost the pur- chaser or his family would be at to go to Rome on foot or on horse during the jubilee year. Certainly any man who had any knowledge of the law of Christ would say that this practice was in contempt of this law, for Christ plainly taught : ''Freely ye have received, freely give." The pope's fallibility was proved from the experiences and words of the Apostles. On his way to Damascus, Paul was stopped, and the papers made out by the Sanhedrin rendered invalid by revelation. The pope had likewise given letters, citing and excommunicating men and women who followed Christ's pure law and delivering them over to the secular arm. Such bulls should be resisted not only by the faculty of the university, but by the king and his council. In their messages, Peter, Paul, John and James sent salutations and encouragements to the churches, not sentences of condem- nation. Peter called the Roman see not Rome, but Babylon. "The church that is in Babylon saluteth you," he wrote. He did not say, "give me money." He did not curse and excommunicate those who preached the Gospel, but said: "Grace be with you and peace be multiplied." Christ's messages did not stigmatize those who persecuted him and crucified him. And yet the papal bull stigmatized Ladislaus and his friends as perjurers, schismatics, blasphemers, the defenders of heretics and conspirators against the church and called for their punishment. Christ taught that men should bless those that curse them and love their enemies. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 129 The priest indeed can absolve and give indulgence, but only as God has absolved before and as the priest's ab- solution is in accord with the law of Christ. Even laymen may remit sins, as appears from the Lord's Prayer. In taking this position, Huss follows Wyclif 's de Ecdesia. He condemns the popes for wearing the garments of Ceesar and a golden crown. People wishing to get under the shadow of Peter to- day pass into the presence of papal pomp and attire. Peter did not forbid Ananias's and Sapphira's interment as the pope forbids burial for those who refuse to obey his bulls. Such is the contrast of the lives of popes, cardinals, and clerics to the lives of the Apostles that, if they should try to cast out demons according to the power given by Christ, the demons would reply: ''Jesus I know and Peter and Paul and the other Apostles I know, but who are you?" As for heresy, nothing is so fatal to the good cause as hypocrisy. Evil that is manifest flees from the light and hides itself. Heresy is pernicious in that many are led away by it, but it is also useful because the faithful are tried by it and are led to isolate themselves from the unbeUeving. Heresy is an aping of the true doctrine and the ministries of the Gospel, and as a monkey has all of the members of a human being and in all things imitates him, so heresy has all the rites of the church and yet is not of the church. The power to remit sin it was customary to argue, Huss goes on to say, from the rite of baptism, in which the priest gives baptismal grace and delivers from all pain of hell and purgatory, so that in case the baptized child die, incurring no post-baptismal sin, it goes immediately to heaven. Huss's reply is that, in case of necessity, laymen and even women may baptize, but that it would be misleading to conclude from this practice that laymen also have the power to give remis- sion from all sin. The form of the statement "we absolve" belongs properly not to the pope, but only to God himself. The pope dare use these words only in a conditional sense: I30 JOHN HUSS "We absolve provided the sinner repent and does the works of repentance." ^ -^ Huss then takes up again the inhibition of preaching in chapels, first pronounced by Alexander V, and the waging of hostilities with the church's sanction, legalized by John against Ladislaus. The contention of the eight doctors was that behind him the pope had examples in the New Testament such as the Israelites' war against Amalek, but for the case in hand this historic example was insufhcient, for God never au- thorized war against Christians.^ The pope and clergy had no business with the material sword. Christ bade Peter put it into the sheath. John's mihtant bulls were also contrary to the precedents of church practice. The canon law laid down the rule that "no cleric should pronounce a judgment of blood or carry it out or be present when it is carried out." It is inconsistent for the pope to wish to put men to death on the plea that they are not submissive to papal authority or deprive the pope of temporalities, for he does not put the Jews to death who deny Christ's law. The reason is easily given. The Jews did not deprive the pope of temporahties, although they were accomphces of Ladislaus. Manifest heretics are to be coerced by the church in matters of the faith, but in such a way that they may be induced truly to believe in Christ and in his law, for no one can believe except of his own free will — nemo potest credere nisi volens. Nevertheless, a man can be forced to the out- ward acts which, as the needle carries the thread, may entice to real faith. The Lord bade them "to compel them" to go to the marriage feast, but to compel is one thing and to * Huss does not take up wars against the Saracens. In preaching the second crusade, 1147, and in his de Militibus Templi Bernard justified such wars on the ground that the Saracens held the Holy Land. It was better, he said, that pagans should be put to death than that the rod of the wicked should rest upon the lot of the righteous. The righteous fear no sin in killing the enemy of Christ. Christ's soldier can securely kill and more safely die. When he dies, it profits himself. When he slays, it profits Christ. It seems strange that, so far as I know, Huss nowhere refers to the papal crusades against the Wal- denses and Cathari. HUSS RESISTS THE POPE 131 put to death is quite another. Here Huss has in mind the famous words of Augustine uttered during his controversy with the Donatists. After moral measures of persuasion were found to be of no avail, the great Father recommended the use of physical force. He did not at any time go so far as to recommend the death penalty for heresy and insub- ordination to the church, but, as Neander showed, the counsel easily leads to the use of the death penalty, and Augustine's words were interpreted by Thomas Aquinas and the other Schoolmen to justify and teach the death penalty for heresy. In favor of the papal right to declare war against heretics, Huss continues, the doctors had not only adduced the case of Israel's treatment of Amalek and the cases of Samuel and Agag, Paul and Elymas, and Ananias and Sapphira, but had used such passages as John 14 : 12: ''The works that I do shall ye do also; and greater works than these shall ye do." They had also used Christ's treatment of the traffickers in the temple. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the pope is endowed of God with the same authority as Peter, when he calls for war, he ought in this case to start with those who rob the church, the simoniacs, which would mean starting at his own household. It is evident, however, that the pope is not omniscient and does not know everything that would be of profit to the church. He might act in all cases as Peter did, if he were in all cases filled with the Holy Ghost. As for the death of Ananias and Sapphira, it was not Peter but God who felled them to the ground, and the purpose was to strengthen the faith of the church. By pro- phetic endowment Peter discovered their deceit and prophesied the death of Sapphira. He was not acting in his own in- terests, but in God's interest, when he did what he did on that occasion. The armor with which the pope should be endued is described in the last chapter of the Ephesians. There he may read of the sword of the Spirit, a weapon meant for de- fense, as the Apostle indicates, and which was nothing more 132 JOHN HUSS nor less than the Word of God. The weapons there described, the pope and bishop should use, accompanying their use with prayer and tears. As for the summons of Pope Leo IV to the people to enlist against the Saracens, that was a summons for the people to defend themselves against their enemies, who were threatening Rome. But it was a very different thing for the faithful to gird themselves with the sword for the extermination of Christians and for the pope to do the same for the sake of earthly riches. The most a bishop has the right to do, in the case of a righteous war, is to consult with the princes and to exhort them to fight for their subjects. Moreover, princes and the people are under no obligation to obey their spiritual superiors except in so far as the com- mands proceed according to God's law. Even under such circumstances alone were the Jewish people obligated to obey their rulers, the scribes and Pharisees. These fervid writings, full of argument. Scripture and feeling, called forth by John XXIII's bull summoning Bo- hemia to war against Ladislaus, show that Huss had removed far from the mediaeval position that the church has an ab- solute right over those whom it has baptized and to see to it that heretics are put out of the world — exterminated, to use Huss's own word. The foundations of the church, Huss insisted, are spiritual. Its purpose is to persuade the sinner, to correct his errors and to heal his wounds, and not to put upon him any physical compulsion, unless, perchance, such a measure be fairly adapted to win him to faith in Christ and the Gospel. In the Treatise on the Church he said, as plainly as words could state it, that the heretic should not receive capital punishment. To save the body of the faith- ful by putting heretics to death is a principle the church has no authority to act upon, unless in such cases she is evidently inspired so to do. Her duty is to recall the errant and save the sinner by preaching. Faith, to be acceptable and real faith, must be a voluntary habit of the soul. CHAPTER VII HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE Nomen hceretici pra omnibus malis nominibus abhorrentium. — The Counsel of the Eight Doctors of the Univ. of Prague, Feb. 6, 1413. The name of heretic is to be abominated above all other evil names. The sentence of aggravated excommunication was await- ing Huss and the papal interdict was about to be laid upon the city of Prague.^ The announcement of the latter bull was followed by Huss's retirement from the city and his absence for a period of two years, October, 1412-October, 1414. Many supporters as Huss had, the larger part of the clergy still held back from his movement or openly declared against him. The old order had been tried for centuries and had prevailed against all attacks from heretics and princes. The conservative habit of mind clings to approved institutions. It is not so much its guilt that it does not appreciate the neces- sity for change or discern the signs of the coming time. It is given only to a few, moved by strong and independent con- victions and endowed with prophetic insight, to see beyond the order which from their earliest knowledge has been around about them. Even John the Baptist wavered, though he was appointed to be the forerunner. Later, another John, John of Staupitz, halted while Luther went forward. To those bold leaders who have opened out new paths, that prove to be good paths, across the oceans and toward new * In his Address to the German Nobility, V: 17, Luther speaks of 'ecclesi- astical suspensions, irregularities, aggravations, reaggravations, and deposi- tions, thunderings, lightnings, cursings, damnings, and what-not — all these should be buried ten fathoms deep, that their very name may be remembered no more.' 133 134 JOHN HUSS horizons of thought and feeHng, human society is under an unspeakable debt. Theirs is the cause of progress. To the latter group Huss belongs. In his case his former colleagues not only failed to approve of the wisdom of his course in threatening to break with the old, but it is quite possible they also felt a certain amount of jealousy for the popular feeling in his favor and, as Huss charged, fear of of- fending their superiors. In the case of Luther, the element of rivalry does not seem to have been an appreciable factor in the opposition to him when he entered upon his Reformatory career. No intimate friends turned against him and took a positively hostile attitude toward him. At the beginning of the year 141 2, Huss was attacked by one whom he designates "a. hidden assailant of the truth or an inquisitor." In his spirited reply entitled Against the Hidden Adversary — a writing which played a part in the coun- cil of Constance — Huss took occasion to defend his course in attacking the vices of the clergy. The charges made by his opponent were first, that Huss by his preaching had dis- credited the law, and second, that he was destroying the influence of the priesthood. Huss replied that he was not attempting to discredit the priesthood but to abash vicious and unfaithful priests. In taking this course, he was following Christ, who wept over Jerusalem, which was later destroyed by Titus. Christ entered into the temple, rebuked those who sold doves and cast them out. Charles IV, king of Bohemia, had protected the Word of God by restraining and reprimanding insolent and unfaithful priests. It is for kings to purge the church as Nebuchadnezzar released the three young men from the fire. There is an order of priest- hood which continues in heaven; it consists of all those who make an offering of themselves unto the Lord. This priest- hood, as well as the priests who ofiEiciate at the altar in this world, do justly in rebuking, evil and unfaithful priests. Upon the whole, the papal court of the Pisan line, next HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 135 to maintainmg its own existence, had no case to attend to comparable in importance with the refractory movement in Bohemia. It was kept well informed of what was happening. Michael de Causis was in Rome, pleading against the preacher of Bethlehem chapel. The hostile wing of the Prague clergy- was insisting that Huss be punished to the extent of the law. A communication which it forwarded to the pope in the be- ginning of 141 2, branded Huss as a heretic, a despiser of the keys, and a WycHfist.' It declared that "every heretic and schismatic deserves a place with the devil and his angels in the flames of eternal fire." Many men in high position and also an infinite number of women had been seduced to beheve the XLV Articles of Wychf. John was entreated to protect the sheep against ravening wolves and, if necessary, by turn- ing Huss and his sympathizers over to the civil arm. Thus the pernicious seeds might be prevented from germinating before it became impossible to exterminate them. Infamous though John XXIII was rumored to be, a very devil of a cardinal — diavolo cardinale — the communication addressed him as Most blessed father, most righteous and merciful prince of fathers. Ill treatment had been meted out to Jesenicz and the other pleader of Huss's case at Rome. They had been thrown into prison, although, as Huss wrote, they were free from all crime. His case, which had been transferred from Colonna and put into the hands of four cardinals, was now again committed to a single prelate, Peter Stefaneschi, cardinal of St. Angelo.2 The curial proceedings culminated in the ag- gravated excommunication pronounced by this cardinal, that is, the excommunication pronounced by Colonna reaffirmed with emphasis. It bound Huss in the tightest grip of the greater anathema. Under threat of excommunication, the faithful were instructed to avoid the contumacious son of the church in all places, public and private, at meat and drink, in * Doc, 457-461. * Doc, 461-464. 136 JOHN HUSS conversation, in buying and selling. They were to refuse him all hospitality, fire, and water. Should Huss after twenty- three days persist in his contumacy, then in all churches, chapels, and convents, on all festival days and Sundays, by the extinguishing of tapers and casting them to the ground, he was to be pronounced "excommunicate aggravate, and reaggravate."^ Every locality where he might tarry was to be placed under the interdict during the term of his so- journing there and for one natural day more. Divine services were to be held behind closed doors and the eucharist dis- tributed only to the sick. Should Huss happen to die while bound by the censure, church sepulture was to be denied him and, if he were already in his grave when the sentence was pronounced, his body was to be disinterred "on account of his rebellion and con- tempt of the Apostolic mandates as unworthy of church burial." In token of eternal curse three stones were ordered thrown against the house where he might be dwelling. Thus the sentence would be repeated which God had meted out to Dathan and Abiram, who were swallowed up alive of the earth. By speaking or standing or rising up, by walking or riding, by salutation or association, by eating or drinking, by cooking or laboring, by buying or selling by furnishing clothes or shoes, by giving drink or water or any of the other necessities of life, by offering consolation or any help what- soever, all the faithful of Christ were enjoined from having any part or lot with the unfortunate man, and any one pre- suming to do the same was also to share in the anathema- tization. Thus Cain's curse was put upon Huss as far as it was in human power to do it. He was a vagabond on ^ The greater and lesser anathema, according to Gregory IX, differed by the ritual solemnity with which they were pronounced. See Wetzer and Welte under Anathema. All writers on canon law, such as P. Hergenrother, pp. 566 sq., do not make this distinction. Huss, de ecclcs., chap. XXII, defines the minor excommunication as the deprivation of the sacraments; major as the separation from the communion of the faithful. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 137 the earth, deprived of all means of livelihood and of all human aid. Sentences as destitute of common human mercy and equally or more violent in expression had been pronounced before. Popes had felt free to invoke the terrors of this world and to extend furious execrations to the life that is to come. So the bull of Clement VI against Lewis the Bavarian in 1346 ran: "Let his going out and his coming in be cursed. May the Lord strike him low with madness and bUndness and fury of mind. May the heavens send forth against him their thunderbolts; And may the wrath of God omnipotent and his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, burn itself against him in this world and the world to come. May the earth fight against him and the ground open and swallow him up aHve. May all the elements contend against him, and all the saints who are at rest put him to confusion and in this world fall upon him with their vengeance." The bull blasphemously damned the emperor's house to desolation and his children to exclusion from their abode, and it invoked upon the father the curse of beholding with his own eyes the destruction of his children by their enemies.^ How far different was the spirit of Huss who, putting aside the fearful examples of divine punishment recorded in the Old Testament as of a nature suited exclusively to God's immediate execution, dwelt upon the mercy of the Gospel, Christ's refusal to grant the petition of the disciples to call down fire from heaven, and who again and again quoted as a rule of conduct for prelatical action and all daily Hfe the divine words: "Judge not that ye be not judged." ^ All evils that could hurt Huss in body and soul were invoked against him except the blow of the sword or con- suming fire, a sentence for which the church was, in theory at least, dependent upon the magistrate. Huss was a heretic, and in due time the church would find opportunity to turn 1 Mirbt, p. 167. Schaff, V, 2 : 98 sq. * Mon., 1 : 139, etc. 138 JOHN HUSS him over to the civil authorities for the punishment to which the custom of centuries had consigned heretics. Sentences, Hke this one against Huss, have been justified on the plea that they are beneficial for the church in preserving the flock from infection. The individual's rights in the sight of God as the supreme judge over hving and dead are made subject to the decision of an organization called the church, or rather to a restricted official group which is regarded as its rep- resentative. It was Huss's merit, as it was Wyclif's merit before and Luther's one hundred years later, to fight against this fell theory and to hazard his life, as they did theirs, for the Christian theory which prevails to-day. In the works already cited, Huss contended manfully for the rights of the individual, as we shall also find him doing in his Treatise on the Church and in other statements to the end of his fife. The time was now at hand for him to assert these rights for himself with all his might against the powers of the church which were against him. From the sentence of aggravated excommunication, which deprived him of everything but bare existence, Huss ap- pealed to the supreme judge, Jesus Christ — ad supremum judicem appellavi} The appeal is introduced by a confession of God as one in essence and three in person and of Jesus Christ, who suffered an unjust and bitter death to redeem from condemnation those elected from before the foundation of the world — Jesus Christ, who left to his disciples the highest example of suffering and the lesson that in memory of him they should commit their cause to an omnipotent, omnis- cient, and all-gracious Lord. Huss begged for the divine help and compassion in the midst of his enemies who were speaking and plotting ill against him and who were declaring that God had forsaken him. He recalled the examples of John Chrysostom and Andrew of Prague, who had appealed from ecclesiastical decisions, and especially the example of ^ Mon., I : 305, 325, 393. For the text of the appeal, Doc, 192, 464-466. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 139 Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln, who had appealed from the pope to the "supreme and most righteous judge who is not deceived by false witnesses or moved by fear." His friends of Bohemia of high and low estate, conjoined with him in the papal fulmination, he reminded of the busy activity of Michael de Causis at the curia. He also reminded them of John XXIII's refusal during a period of two years to grant a hearing to his procurators and the pope's neglect to give at- tention to the sealed testimony of the university and to his own reasons for not heeding the citation and appearing at Rome. Moved not by contumacy but by prudential concern, he had declined to appear, his very life, as it seemed, being threatened were he to enter upon the journey. The canonical course for a man accused of an offense, so he urged, was that he should be examined at the place where the offense was committed and be tried in an impartial court. In closing his protest, he commended himself, a bachelor of theology of the university of Prague, priest and authorized preacher at Bethlehem chapel, to "the most righteous judge, Jesus Christ, who knows, protects, and judges the righteous cause of every man perfectly, makes it known and most surely rewards his servants." Huss did not appeal to a general council, because, as he wrote in his Treatise on the Church, the calling of a council involved delay and also because a council was an uncertain mode of relief. Consequently, finding his appeal from Alex- ander V to his successor of no avail, he appealed to Christ. The interdict which probably was received in Prague in August, 141 2, brought with it fierce penalties which at once began to be felt. Priests refused to administer the sacraments, even the sacrament of baptism, and to accord the rites of sepulture. Some of the king's courtiers, it is said, joined in burying the dead. As for its effects upon Huss, even his old friends, Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim, made attacks upon him in the pulpit. Stanislaus, preaching before Duke I40 JOHN HUSS Ernest of Austria in the church of St. Mary the Virgin, in- veighed against the five Wyclifite articles defended by Huss; and in St. Gallus, Palecz declared Huss to be a worse heretic than either Sabellius or Arius, for he dared to intrench him- self behind the Scriptures. Palecz also used as an argu- ment against the Hussites their alleged timidity and boasted of the confidence and boldness of the other party. We can go, he said, "with our faith wherever we choose, but they dare not travel abroad, for in Germany or before the Roman curia, if they did not renounce their faith, they would be burned." Still another bull was forthcoming, which ordered Huss seized and delivered up to the archbishop of Prague or the bishop of Leitomysl to be condemned and put to death. The Bethlehem chapel was ordered razed to the ground as a nest of heresy. A mob of German citizens who had taken sides against Huss, and of Czechs led by a Bohemian, Chotek, furnished themselves with swords and other weapons and proceeded to the Bethlehem chapel with the purpose of executing the papal order, but their attempt was foiled by the congregation, which at the time was assembled for service.^ At a formal meeting in the town hall, Germans and some Bohemians voted to execute the pope's fulmination against the chapel, but the majority of the Bohemians present an- nounced themselves against it. On the other hand, the Hussites were not to be easily subdued. They gained the victory at the university by the election of Christian of Prachaticz as rector. The election was carried through in the face of the combined resistance of the theological masters. Prachaticz was a devoted friend of Huss and so remained to the end. Some of Huss's letters giving the deepest insight into his convictions were addressed to this noble man. Sophia, the queen, also remained steadfast and continued to attend the services at the chapel. John of Jesenicz, who ^ Doc, 727 sq. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 141 had escaped from his Italian jail, was seized and imprisoned on his return to Prague. Released through the intervention of the university, he held a public dispute in its halls, Decem- ber 18, 1412, seeking to prove that the sentences against Huss were without legal basis. Huss reports that both John XXIII and the cardinals received horses, silver cups, and other gifts as bribes from the party hostile to him, and intimates that one reason the case went against him at Rome was that Jesenicz declined to bribe the papal court. ^ It was evident that the king was inclined to support the excommunicated preacher, but to have done so openly would have been to defy the papal power. It would have meant for his realm civil war and for himself quite probably the loss of his crown. Popes were prepared for such emergencies. They had deposed Henry IV, Frederick II, John of England, Lewis the Bavarian, and, later, Elizabeth herself, and Wenzel had none of the strength of these strong personalities. As the electors, at the pope's demand, had chosen a rival emperor in the past, so at this juncture they would probably again have heeded a papal mandate to supersede the Bohemian king if one had been given. In fact, all that was required was for them to recognize his brother Sigismund, already elected heir to the throne. For such an issue that prince was, no doubt, quite ready. On a former occasion he had seized his brother at the appeal of the barons. Much more would he be ready to seize him in deference to a call from the spiritual head of Christendom. Had Wenzel been as strong and cautious a character as was later Frederick the Wise of Saxony, he might have become the patron of a radical and permanent reformation, as the elector became the patron of the Protestant movement by preventing any violence being done Luther by the Roman party and by insisting that Luther should have a fair hearing. It was a friendly act for Wenzel when he called upon * Mom., I : 408-420. Doc, 726. 142 JOHN HUSS Huss to withdraw from the city, which was suffering from the woes of the interdict. From the standpoint of expediency, it was also a wise thing for the king to give Huss this counsel. It is not to be supposed that Wenzel had any very deep religious convictions, although he may have felt the justice of Huss's attacks on local clerical conditions. Huss complied with the king's wishes. He left the city, October, 141 2, and his semi-voluntary exile, interrupted by occasional visits to Prague, continued to October, 1414, when he started on his journey to Constance. He found refuge and hospitality in the castle of Kozi hradek, belonging to John of Austi, in Southern Bohemia. People were soon asking where Huss was, though they had no thought that he was dead, as Albrecht Diirer and others thought of Luther after his seizure at the Wartburg. By withdrawing from Prague, Huss saved the city from the continued pressure of the interdict. It must be recalled that this extreme papal ban was equivalent to a religious starvation. Huss's removal by death or by exile was the indispensable condition of its suspension. His enemies at once took advantage of his retirement to make the damaging charge that he had been banished by the king or the still more damaging charge that he had fled from fear. In the earlier list of charges brought against him at Constance, 1414, was the charge "that he was expelled from Prague on account of rebellion and disobedience."^ There was some ground for the charge of banishment, provided a king's counsel is to be treated as tantamount to law, but no official order was issued. Huss's course afterward became the occasion of much trouble to his conscience, whether he had done right or not in leaving the city. Writing to the Praguers at the close of 141 2, he declared that he withdrew of his own will, and in so doing felt he was following Christ's example. In justifi- cation of his course he quoted the passages, "They sought to take him and he went forth out of their hands," John 10 : 39, ' Doc, 46, 203. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 143 and "Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the country near to the wilderness," John II : 54- Albik, who at this juncture retired from the see of Prague, was succeeded by Konrad of Vechta. The retiring prelate was provided with the provostship of the Wyssehrad, a rich office, and made titular archbishop of Caesarea. He bought a house which he occupied with his aunt and two daughters until his death in 1427. His successor, who was inducted into the office, July, 14 13, in his latter days espoused Huss- itism. The Bohemian heresy was fast becoming a byword, darkening the fair fame of the land throughout the Christian world. ^ In the hope of removing the causes of "the pestif- erous religious dissensions among the clergy," and acting in connection with the bishops of Olmiitz and Leitomysl, Wenzel called an extraordinary national synod, which met in Prague, February 6, 1413. The synod had laid before it memorials from the theological faculty of the university and from Huss, setting forth the conditions on which religious peace might be re-established. Huss was prevented by the sentence of excommunication from being present, and his position was defended, as seems probable, by Jesenicz and also by Jacobellus, of whom we shall hear more. The memorial of the theological faculty, drawn up by Stanislaus of Znaim and Palecz, took the position that the church's official decisions are final.- It was out of the prov- ince of the Prague clergy to sit in judgment upon the pro- nouncements of the papal see and to question whether they were just or not. On all subjects, doctrinal and disciplinary, ^ Regniim Bokemice infamia denigration. Doc, 495. Huss called it /«- famia sinistra et mendosa regni Bohemia, p. 491. 2 Doc., 472-504, gives the propositions in Latin and Czech, proposed by Huss and the theological faculty, and the statements of Jacobellus, the bishop of Leitomsyl, etc. 144 JOHN HUSS such as the seven sacraments, the worship of relics and regard for indulgences, Bohemia's glory had consisted in its strict orthodoxy. Bohemia had always felt and taught as the Roman Church taught and not otherwise. This reputation must be sustained and, if necessary, by recourse to the se- verest measures. The memorial affirmed that the pope is the head and the college of cardinals the living body of the Roman Church — corpus romancB ecdesice. They are the suc- cessors of Peter and the other Apostles. It is theirs to define the theology of the Catholic Church in all the world and to purge it of all errors. The causes of the trouble in Prague, it asserts, were three. The first cause was the refusal to accept the condemnation of the XLV Wyclifite Articles, including Wyclif's views of the seven sacraments. No one of these articles was Catholic. The second cause was the dispute in regard to the source of authority. Some made the Scriptures the only rule in matters of faith and judicial decision. This view set aside the ordinance of God, who had chosen to appoint the apostolic see as the tribunal of judgment. The true view Innocent III had laid down in his bull, per venerabilem, by his inter- pretation of Deut. 17 : 8-12.^ To confirm this interpretation as the memorial quotes. Innocent adduced the Lord's fictitious conversation with Peter outside the walls of Rome, when Peter was fleeing from the holy city. The Apostle, meeting the Lord, said to him: "Lord, whither art thou going?" He replied, "I go again to Rome to be crucified." Understanding what the Lord's meaning was, the Apostle returned again to the city. The third cause of the trouble was the denial to the de- cisions of the holy see finality in cases where what is purely good is not forbidden and the purely evil not com- *Mirbt. 138-140. Innocent also quotes I Cor. 6:3. "Know ye not that ye shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life? " HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 145 manded, as well as in other cases. Here the memorial quotes Matt. 23 13, 'All things that the scribes and Pharisees bid you, these do and observe.' These two passages from the Old and the New Testaments, Huss took up in his reply to the memorial and gave to them prolonged discussion in his Treatise on the Church. The measures which the theological faculty proposed for the settlement of the controversy were as follows: (i) That all the doctors and masters of the university take an oath in the presence of the archbishop and the other prel- ates denying that they held any of the XLV Articles. (2) That they accepted the seven sacraments and the veneration of indulgences and relics in no other sense than the Roman Church taught, whose head was the pope and whose body was the cardinals. (3) That submission be made to the decisions of the apostolic see and prelates in all matters whatsoever. (4) That Wyclif's teachings concerning the seven sacraments be declared contrary to Roman doctrine and false. All refusing to take the oath, professors, clergy, or lay- men, were to be punished with excommunication and exile from the realm. They were to be treated as heretics, "a name to be abhorred above all other evil names." The odious and scandalous songs, recently forbidden, should be suppressed, by royal command, on the streets and in taverns. As for Huss, he should be estopped from preaching or in any way impeding the public services of religion by his presence in Prague so long as he was under the condemnation of the curia. Absolution the faculty was willing to intercede with the curia to grant, provided Huss and his followers subscribed to the four conditions named above. In his counter-memorial Huss took the position that the existence of heretics in Bohemia was an assumption un- proved and that his own excommunication, being founded upon false information given to the apostolic see, was null. Stanislaus and Palecz themselves had at one time held and 146 JOHN HUSS defended many of those very Wyclifite articles which were now reprobated. How, then, could they honestly pronounce every one of them uncatholic? He appealed to the solemn agreement of July 6, 141 1, entered into by Zbynek on the one hand and the masters of the university and himself on the other, an agreement attested by solemn seals. He called for the observance of the customs and immunities of the kingdom of Bohemia and demanded the right to appear in a native synod and answer charges that might be brought against him. He also demanded that if the charges were not proved, the author should be punished according to the lex talionis. The king should issue a decree calling for public charges. In case no accusers presented themselves, then the Roman curia should be informed by the hostile party that Prague was not infected with heresy and that the kingdom had been defamed when charged with being heretical. The interdict should be lifted and also the papal decree against the free preaching of the Word of God. In demanding that regard be paid to the customs and immunities of Bohemia, Huss no doubt had in mind, as Loserth says, the practice followed in England. The ancient rites and customs of England were repeatedly invoked by the successors of William the Conqueror in their struggles against the encroachment of the papal see. When William was called upon by Gregory VII to do him homage, he replied : "Fealty I have never willed nor will I now. I have never promised it nor do I find that my predecessors did." He forbade papal letters to be received or published in the realm without his consent and no ecclesiastic was to leave the king- dom without the king's permission.^ Of these rights Wyclif was an intrepid defender and he advocated the renunciation of John's contract to pay annual tribute of one thousand marks to Rome. Fair as Huss's demand for an open trial may in this age ^ Gee and Hardy. Doc, 57. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 147 seem to be, the matter was quite a different thing in the fifteenth century. The pope's right to fulminate censures had been treated as absolute. The method of the inquisition was to regard a heretical suspect guilty, laying upon him the bur- den of proving himself innocent. With us the relation is re- versed; a man is treated as innocent until he is proved guilty. From the papal decisions there was no appeal. Absolute submission was the condition of rehgious existence and of life itself. To refuse it meant separation from eternal life as well as physical death. In defending Huss, Jacobellus took the advanced ground that a process should follow the rules of Christ's law, a course which would have carried the court back of the letter of the canon law. He demanded procedure against the clergy for simony, adultery, fornication and concubinage, and their renunciation of worldly goods and dominions. By their preaching, John Huss and his followers were laboring to secure obedience to Christ's law. The ill fame of heresy, said to attach to Bohemia, did not hurt the kingdom any more than ill fame could hurt the true child of God. Bohemia cannot be hurt, if it has the peace and concord of the saints. A memorial drawn up by other masters of the university denied the main statements urged by Palecz and Stanislaus. It opened by clearly repudiating the definition whereby the pope is the head of the church and the cardinals its body. On the contrary, Christ is the head and all true Christians make up the body. Nor are the pope and the cardinals the only successors of Peter and the Apostles. All bishops and priests are their successors. The "evangelical clergy" was right in pronouncing the condemnation of the XLV Ar- ticles unjust and pernicious. Obedience in all things is not 1 due to the pope. Pontiffs have been heretics, have often recalled their bulls, err, and are often mistaken. Yea, a pope may be among the reprobate. The papal decisions against Huss were no more to be obeyed by the Prague clergy on 148 JOHN HUSS the bare ground that they were issued and promulgated than the devil himself is to be obeyed because our parents, Adam and Eve, hearkened to him. The kind of reasoning applied in Huss's case would apply also to the action of Pilate, who condemned Christ because the priests and people at Jerusalem condemned him. The exact issue of the synod is not known. However, on receiving the memorials, the bishop of Leitomysl, who was not in attendance, in a document dated February lo, 1413, recommended that a vice-chancellor be appointed for the university to have close watch for heretics and er- roneous teaching, and that Huss should not only be strictly kept from preaching but also from issuing writings in the language of the people. He should be forced out of Bethlehem chapel as the ravening wolf should be forced out of the fold, lest he destroy the flock. God is the Lord of peace and not of dissension. What are prelates of the church for, if not to keep the sheep from attacks from wolves and foxes ! Zbynek's agreement, to which Huss appealed, had no validity. It had not been approved by the apostolic see. Huss's demand to be tried in Bohemia and not in Rome was against the example set by Paul, who appealed to Rome and purposed to die there rather than prosecute his case an)rwhere else. In his demand that the interdict be annulled and he be allowed to preach freely, Huss was concealing under his words the laughter of foxes and the howling of wolves, who pretend that their voices are evangelical and do lie. Huss was lying when he pretended that his voice of dissension and schism was the voice of the Gospel and of charity. The author of these severe sentiments, John Bucka, bishop of Leitomysl, was known as the Iron Bishop. Huss had no more inveterate enemy than this prelate. At the synod of Constance he was persistent in his demand for the apphcation of severe measures, and, after Huss's death, he was commissioned by the council to put down the Hussite HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 149 revolt in Bohemia. He belonged to that group of hard ec- clesiastical disciplinarians who insist upon the rigorous en- forcement of the letter of ecclesiastical rules and allow no room for individual dissent to tradition and custom. The state of Huss's mind for this period of his absence from Prague is revealed in seventeen letters which are pre- served from his pen.^ Here we are admitted to the inner realm of his feelings in regard to his leaving his work in the city and also in regard to the possible violent death which persistency in his views might bring upon him. His con- science, as has been said, was much exercised as to whether he had done right or wrong in leaving Prague. He was in a quandary as to which of the two classes of passages he ought to have followed, the one urging flight in time of danger, the other readiness to suffer death in the face of it. As be- tween these two, he did not know which to choose. He had meditated upon the words: "A good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but an hireling and he who is not the shep- herd, whose the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and fleeth and the wolf ravens them and destroys the sheep." On the other hand, he had meditated upon the words: "When they persecute you in one city flee to another." He quoted Augustine for the principle that if a person was sought out in his individual capacity — singulari- ter — he was justified in fleeing, as did Athanasius. Huss might also have recalled the case of Cyprian, who fled on one oc- casion from persecution and later surrendered his life. In being absent from Prague, Huss wrote, he might be guilty of withholding the Word of God from his people. If, indeed, it should be found that he had fled from the truth, then he prayed that the Lord would give him an opportunity to die in the profession of the same truth. The interdict, he wrote, had led to great unrest and commotion among the people, as baptism and burial of the dead were forbidden, * Doc, 34-66. Workman and Pope's Engl, transl., 83-138. I50 JOHN HUSS and, on that account, great disorder was to be feared, should he return. ''Whether I did right or wrong in withdrawing, I hardly know." Huss visited Prague a number of times, first at Christmas time, 141 2. As for the trials through which he was passing, he wrote to his friends of Bethlehem chapel that the devil had been going about roaring against him for several years, but had not hurt a hair of his head. On the contrary, his joy and gladness had increased. Again and again he quoted pas- sages describing the sufferings of Christ and Christ's ex- hortations to his disciples to expect tribulation and to bear up under it, trusting in him. If Christ suffered at the hands of priests and Pharisees, who said, "This man is not of God," why should we be surprised if the ministers of antichrist speak evil of his servants to-day, excommunicate them, and put them to death, for they are even more greedy and cruel than the Pharisees. Christ said: "I send you as sheep among wolves. Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And beware of men, lest they deliver you up to coun- cils." He heard that they were going about to destroy Beth- lehem chapel and to put an end to preaching in other churches, but he beUeved God. They would accomplish nothing. The Goose, a tame and domestic bird, would break through the nets spread for it, while other birds exceeding it in power of flight would be caught in the snares. Seeing the true God is with us, who is able to separate us from Him? The chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, Herod and Pilate and others of Jerusalem condemned truth and sentenced Christ to death. Yea, they branded him with heresy and excom- municated him, and outside the walls of the city crucified him as a malefactor. But he rose again, came forth as conqueror, and, in his place, he sent forth twelve other preach- ers. If the true God, our most mighty and righteous Pro- tector, be with us, who can prevail against us in spite of their wicked designs? HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 151 His friends in Prague he exhorted to remember that Christ came to separate man and man and it was predicted that many false prophets should arise and seduce men. But they should also remember the promise that not a hair of their heads shall perish and remain true to the Word of Christ. ''What, after all, do we lose if for his cause we suffer loss of goods, friends, the honors of this world, and our wretched life itself? Certainly, at last, we shall be delivered from the misery of this present world and, having received a hundred- fold more goods and friends and more perfect joy, death shall not deprive us of these things. For whoso dies for Christ, he conquers. He is delivered from all misery and attains that eternal joy unto which the Saviour deigns to bring us all." He begged his correspondents to offer up their prayers for those who were preaching the Word of God with grace, and for himself that he might be permitted yet more abundantly to preach and write against the malice of anti- christ. No excommunication but God's excommunication can do injury. May the most excellent Bishop give to us all the benediction, saying: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Although he was not yet shut up in prison, yet was he prepared, if called upon, so he wrote, to die for Christ's sake. Five of the letters written during the exile period were addressed to his friend Christian of Prachaticz, rector of the university, and abound in the consolations offered in the Scriptures to those who are oppressed for righteousness' sake. "I want," Huss wrote, "to live godly, and it behooves me to suffer in the name of Christ and thus to imitate Christ in his trials." He exhorts Prachaticz and his colleagues to be prepared for the great conflict which he expected to follow the preliminary skirmishes which were going on with anti- christ. With reference to the action of the theological faculty, he wrote: "So Christ our Lord help me, I would not heed its 1 152 JOHN HUSS proposition, even if I knew the fire was prepared for me and I was standing close to it. I hope that death may take to heaven or to hell either myself or the two who have turned from the truth before I give consent to their judgment." The two referred to were Stanislaus and Palecz, as he goes on to say, men who called Huss and his followers Wyclifists and infidels and wanderers from the sound faith of Christ. They had once followed the truth according to Christ's law, but, struck through with fear of punishment, had turned and were flattering the pope. He hoped that, with God's grace, if it should become necessary, he would be wilHng to stand up against them even to consuming fire. "It is better to die well than to live ill. One should not flinch before the sentence of death. To finish the present life in grace is to go away from pain and misery. He who fears death loses the joy of life. Above all else truth triumphs. He conquers who dies because no adversity can hurt the one over whom iniquity holds not sway." Here we think both of Wyclif and Melanch- thon — Wyclif, who in a solemn moment, after the council of London, 1381, had declared, ''I believe that in the end the truth will conquer," and Melanchthon, who, before dying, put in parallel columns the benefits of living and of dying, giving the advantage to dying. At another time he wrote to the rector that he could not accept the statement that the pope is the head of the Holy Roman Church and the cardinals the body, for thus he would be forced to accept all the deliverances of the Holy Roman Church. In such a statement "truly the snake lurks in the grass; for, if it were true, then the pope and cardinals would constitute the whole Roman Church, even as the body and the head together make up the whole man. If the statement were true, then all the decrees of popes and curia must be obeyed and, if Huss does not accept them all, then he is an incorrigible heretic fit only for the fire. Boniface had solemnly declared that Wenzel was not to be accepted as HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 153 king of the Romans or Sigismund king of the Hungarians: therefore neither of them is now king. Liberius was a heretic as well as were other popes. In the memorial of the theo- logical faculty Palecz and Stanislaus did not even make mention of Christ. If the pope lives according to the rule of Christ, then is he the head of as much of the Catholic Church as he rules over. If he lives contrary to Christ, then is he a thief and a robber, a ravening wolf, the chief antichrist." From Huss in exile, we turn our attention to scenes being enacted at Rome. There the authorities were proceeding against Wyclif's memory and books. By a decree of John XXIII, February 10, 1413, and the council sitting in the holy city, which John called a "general council," Wychf's books were branded as containing many heretical doctrines and many errors. The mad poison of their teachings — rabidum venenum — were pronounced Hke the pestiferous leaven of the Pharisees, corrupting the true Catholic erudition, like the abomination of desolation in the holy place, like leprosy in the human body which threatened to turn true Christians into scorpions and serpents. In accordance with the words, that every branch that abideth not in Christ should be cut off and burned, Wyclif's writings were condemned to be publicly committed to the flames wherever they were found. An example was set in Rome itself, where all copies upon which hands could be laid were burned in front of the doors of St. Peter's. Shortly after Easter, 1413, in order to restore tranquillity to his realm, the king appointed a commission consisting of Albik, Prachaticz, and two others, with instructions to arbi- trate between the two parties and to secure their agreement to some formula of peace. Representatives of both parties were summoned, including Stanislaus of Znaim, Stephen Palecz, John of Jesenicz, and Simon of Tissnow. They met the commission in the parish house of St. Michael's, the residence of Prachaticz. They mutually agreed to abide by 154 JOHN HUSS the decision of the commission and, upon default, to pay sixty thousands groschen and be exiled from the realm. In regard to the sacraments and some other matters, the representatives agreed to accept the definition of the Roman Church. On the definition of the church they divided, Palecz and his party insisting upon defining the church as the pope and the cardinals then living. The Hussites defined it as the body of which Christ is the head, the pope being the vicegerent. About this and other questions the com- mission decided to proceed on the assumption that the two parties were in substantial accord, and it proposed on the next day to bring forward matters of personal dispute between them, and at the same time a decision upon those matters. When the day came, Palecz and his friends offered uncon- ditional objection to the several clauses incorporating the commission's decision. One clause was that the Roman Church should be submitted to "as far as a good and faithful Christian ought to submit." A second clause stipulated that Palecz and his party should write to the curia that they knew of no heresy in Bohemia and that no heretic had been found. Their refusal to comply with this second clause was in part on the ground that such a recommendation would give the lie to their former statements and in part on the ground that a proper search for heretics had not been made.^ Hereupon the anti-Hussites, Peter of Znaim and Stanis- laus of Znaim, John Elias, and Palecz, were found contuma- cious and were consigned by royal edict to perpetual banish- ment. Their canonries as well as their offices at the university were transferred to their four opponents. The University Chronicle states that the banished theologians "did not visit Prague again until after the king's death, for that they had precipitated themselves into the penalty of exile." Stanis- ^ A vivid account of the conference and the differences between the two parties, written by Palecz himself, is given in Doc, 507-510. There is no pos- sible doubt of Palecz definition of the church. He said with precision, per Romanam ecdesiam intelligimus papam cum cardinalibus. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 155 laus, however, never returned, but died as he was about to set out for the council of Constance. The banishment of these four leaders by a decree, which was pronounced ir- revocable, was a severe blow to the anti-Hussite party. Another blow was the reduction of the German element in the city council of the old town. For a century or more this element had had the preponderance. By an order at this time, issued by the king, the representation was equally divided between the Bohemians and Germans, nine from each nationaUty. If these events seem to indicate a strong determination on the part of the city and court to stand by Huss, the feeling in the country was even more pronounced in his favor. To this feehng his words referred which he uttered at Constance: "Truly I have said it: of my own free will I came here, and so numerous and so powerful are the Bohemian nobles who love me that I should have been right able to find refuge and safety within the walls of their castles, and that, if I had not willed to come hither, neither that king — Wenzel — nor this king — Sigismund — would have been able to come and take me away by force." Huss continued at Kozi hradek until April, 1414, when, by the death of the lord, the guardianship of the castle passed into hands not favorable to him. Huss then found housing in the castle of Krakowec, belonging to Henry Lefl of Lazan, a high favorite at the court. By his own testimony he preached in the open fields, woods, highways, and pubhc squares, going from village to village and from castle to castle, everywhere followed by large concourses of people. He especially men- tions a linden-tree near the castle of Kozi hradek under which he was accustomed to preach. In one of his sermons he said: "Jesus went about on foot preaching, and not drawn in a splendid carriage as are the priests to-day. But I, alas, also am drawn about in a carriage, and I accuse myself of this indulgence of not going about on foot to preach even as my 156 JOHN HUSS Redeemer was accustomed to do, and I do not know whether in the future it will be a fitting excuse that I am not able quickly to reach distant localities on foot." During this period he found time to write much, including his chief work, the Treatise on the Church, and the tracts in answer to Stanislaus and Palecz, A tract entitled Six Errors to he Avoided^ contains in preliminary headings the words which were inscribed on the walls of the Bethlehem chapel, June 21, 1413. These headings are: (i) On Creation. It is not true that the priest, as the people are seduced to believe, creates at the mass the body of Christ, so that it is evident that he is the creator of his Creator. (2) On Faith. Faith can be truly exercised in God only and not in the blessed Virgin, the pope, or the saints. (3) On Remis- sion. Priests cannot remit sins and absolve from punishment and guilt — a poena et culpa. (4) On Obedience. Inferiors are not bound in all things to submit to superiors. (5) Ex- communication. If unjust, it does not separate from the communion of the faithful or deprive of the sacraments of the church. (6) Simony. Alas, it taints the larger part of the clergy and is to be crushed out. In his elaboration of these principles, Huss lays down the propositions that neither good nor bad angels, much less men, can create anything at all, and that we ought to obey God rather than men. All the principles of this tract are set forth in greater fulness in his Treatise on the Church. In the decision on matters concerning the church and its relation to the nations and society, the university of Paris was, next to Rome, the most important earthly tribunal, and to the attention of the Parisian theological faculty the Bo- hemian matter was officially carried by the cardinals of Pisa and Rheims and by other prelates and doctors. The allega- tion was that the writings of a certain John Huss should be examined and judgment pronounced upon them. Copies ^ De sex erroribus, Mon., i : 237-243. HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 157 of these writings had been brought to Paris by Peter of Prague. Gerson, the rector of the university and dean of its faculty of sacred theology, wrote two letters to Konrad, archbishop of Prague, under date of September, 1414, in regard to Huss.^ John Gerson, 1363-1429, among the illustrious men in the history of France, was one of the most influential leaders of the first half of the fourteenth century. He labored with great zeal to bring the papal schism to an end, and the prin- ciple for which he contended he saw recognized — that a general council is superior to the pope and may depose popes. He opposed some, of the superstitions of his day inherited from other times and emphasized the authority of the sacred text, but he stopped short of the principles of the Reformation and saw in the organization of the church a remedy for all its ills. He was a prominent actor at the council of Constance and voted against Huss. In the first of his letters he called Konrad's attention to the pernicious tares sown by Wyclif, which for many years had been infecting the field of the church. Heresies should be exterminated with the scythe or hoe of miracles and councils and, in desperate cases, they and their authors were to be cut down with the axe wielded by the secular arm and committed to the flames — excidens hczreses cum auctoribus suis et in ignem mittens. Other measures prov- ing of no avail, the rector exhorts the archbishop to resort to the secular arm, that the axe might be laid at the root of the unfruitful and corrupt tree; surely it should be invoked for the salvation of the sheep, lest the pastures, corrupted with the deadly seed of poisonous doctrine, breathe out death instead of Hfe. The second communication Gerson accompanied with a list of twenty errors extracted from Huss's works. The one which he pronounced the most radically pernicious was that a reprobate or one living in mortal sin — pope, lord, or prelate — had no right to exercise authority over Christian » Doc, 185-188, 523-529. 158 JOHN HUSS people, an error, he affirmed, which had often been condemned, as in the case of the Waldenses and Beghards. In his humble opinion — parvitati mem — it seemed that such a tenet should be destroyed by fire and the sword rather than the attempt made to overcome it by a process of subtle ratiocination. Power to govern on earth was not derived from the title of predestination, which is manifestly uncertain, but from ecclesiastical and civil laws. Among the other tenets con- demned by Gerson were: that those popes only are of the church who imitate in their lives Christ and the Apostles, an error, he affirmed, in faith and morals full to the brim of arrogance and temerity; that the pope should not be called most holy, nor are his feet blessed and to be kissed; that Christ alone, and not the pope, is the head of the church; that tithes and gifts to the church and to ecclesiastics are pure alms; that an excommunicate person is to be spared if he appeals to Christ; that ecclesiastics evil in their lives may and ought to be coerced by laymen by the withdrawal of tithes and other temporalities; and that all acts done without love are sinful. Some of these errors had been held by the Donatists in the fifth century and more recently, so Gerson declares, by Marsighus of Padua and John of Jandun and had been condemned. In regard to Huss's insistence upon the right to preach, Gerson insists that there is a zeal against the vices of the clergy which is without knowledge. Vices and errors cannot be uprooted by vices. In Beelzebub's kingdom demons were not cast out by demons. Not to set oneself against such errors as those cherished by Huss is to approve them. Princes and prelates are under obligation to proceed with diligence against such errors and to punish their as- serters with the severest penalties of the law. John XXIII also wrote to Konrad, calling upon him to do his duty. Simon, cardinal of Rheims, reminded the archbishop of the case of Arius and, resorting to the well- HUSS'S WITHDRAWAL FROM PRAGUE 159 tried terminology, urged him to act with boldness in hunting up the foxes that destroy the vine, in cutting out the putrid flesh, and casting away the diseased sheep that it may no longer infect the flock. "Let us," he went on, "place our- selves as a wall for the defense of the house of God, that we may stand in the battle in the day of the Lord." In a brief reply to Gerson, Konrad expressed readiness to be diligent in extirpating the errors of that pernicious arch-heretic John Wyclif, deceased. But his language does not betoken zeal in the matter of Huss's prosecution. Thus Huss had against him the pope, the curia, the uni- versity of Paris, and the great theological authority of Eu- rope, John Gerson. In the case of Luther, the universities of Paris, Cologne, and Louvain burned his books and Leo X and the curia were against him, but no theological leader of the fame of Gerson was represented among his enemies. The fame of Erasmus, who half-heartedly put himself on the opposite side, was of another sort. Only too well did Huss know what it meant to be a heretic. Writing to Prachaticz, April, 1413, he had said: "They pronounce me a heretic. For it follows that whatever decision is sent forth by the Holy Roman Church, that is, by the pope in conjunction with the cardinals, that decision is to be held as the faith. He with his household decides that indulgences emptying pocket and purse^ are catholic, therefore this decision must be held as of the faith. But thou, Huss, hast preached the opposite. Therefore renounce thy heresy or be burned." The end of the period of his retirement was near its close. Events were rapidly converging toward the council to be held in Constance. Later, behind the dungeon walls in that city, he must often have gone back with pleasure to the days of preaching in the free country of Bohemia and, at the same time, he must have asked himself the question whether per- ^ A pera et a bursa, a play on the words a pcena et culpa. Doc, 58. Mon., I : 398. i6o JOHN HUSS haps another course than the one he took in absenting him- self from Prague might not have proved the most prof- itable to the cause he was advocating and for which he was soon to die. CHAPTER VIII HUSS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE Quiim Detts maximus et justissimus judex sit, qui errare non potest, causam ei commendavi, non dico meant scd ejus ipsiiis. — Huss, Doc, 726. Since God is the supreme and most just judge and never errs, T have > committed the cause to Him; I do not say mine but His own. Huss's appeal to be heard before a council was never realized in the way he hoped. Nevertheless, his appearance before the general council, which met at Constance, 1414- 1418, must be regarded as one of the most notable trials in the history of church procedure. The two questions of supreme importance, which this convention was convoked to discuss, were the healing of the papal schism and the reform of the church in head and members. The case of Huss scarcely yielded to these subjects in the interest it excited and the time devoted to its discussion. It was tantamount to the maintenance of the purity of the church's doctrine. So also, just two centuries before, the famous fourth Lateran council of 12 15 — the twelfth oecumenical council — under the presidency of Innocent III, took measures to maintain the church's doctrinal purity by disciplinary decrees and by measures to exterminate the heresy which had arisen in Southern France. Of all ecclesiastical assemblies of the Middle Ages the synod of Constance is at once the most spectacular and the y most imposing.^ It was a veritable parliament of the nations of Western Europe, where the leading intellects of the age ^ Funk, K.-gesch., 6th ed., 496, pronounces it eine der grossarligsten Kirchen- ' versamndungen welcke die Geschichle kenni. 161 i62 JOHN HUSS engaged in discussion, some of whom felt the spirit of free inquiry which was then stirring in Latin Christendom. As in 1046, at the instance of Henry III, the synod of Sutri deposed three popes, all resident in Rome, and elected a fourth, so for the second time this council decided between the claims of three pontiffs and, setting all three aside, chose a fourth. This it did by virtue of the supreme authority it asserted for itself in the church on earth. Gregory XII of the Roman line was prevailed upon to resign. Benedict XIII of the Avignon line, and John XXIII of the Pisan succession were deposed. Martin V was then elected pope and all Western Christendom was reunited under a single earthly head with the exception of a small Spanish territory, where a few thousand adherents continued to cling to the obedience of Benedict until that vigorous ruler's death, 1424. Effective as the council's action was in doing away with the rival popes, its decision constituting itself the supreme tribunal in the church was doomed to be rudely set aside. The church had been reading, or was about to read, stirring tracts issued by Konrad of Gelnhausen, Henry of Langen- stein, Gerson, Dietrich of Nieheim, Peter d'Ailly, and Nicholas of Clemanges, in which were discussed the questions of the supreme earthly seat of authority and the undone condition of the church, the result in part of the papal schism. The decision of its fifth session, when it placed itself above the pope, was in accord with the theory of the ancient church but conflicted with the theory for which Gregory VII, In- nocent III, and Boniface VIII had stood. An oecumenical council, so Gerson asserted in a famous sermon preached at Constance, March 23, 141 5, has authority to punish popes and set them aside.^ A pontiff is set over the church as Joseph was set over his master's wife, not to debauch her but to guard her interests. A pontiff may be * Du Pin's ed. of Gerson's Works, 2 : 219. The terms church and general council he used as synonymous, p. 172. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 163 guilty of heresy, and by that fact is deposed of God. In the boldest and most powerful of these tracts, Nieheim declared that a pope might be worse than the devil — pejor quam diabolus — that he is not infallible and that, like Christ, he is subject to the earthly tribunal. The canons of a council are immutable except as they may be set aside by the decision of a succeeding council, and the pope has no authority to adjourn a council. But, as has been said, the proud procla- mation of the great council of Constance did not long hold good. In less than half of a century it was set aside with a single stroke of the pen by Pius II in his bull Execrabilis, 1459, which declared that an appeal from a papal decision deserved excommunication. For to Christ's vicar it had been given to feed Christ's flock and to loose and bind on earth and in heaven. All appeals to a council, which were compared to a pestiferous venom, were to be punished with ecclesiastical anathema. The council of Pisa, which had elected Alexander V, in adjourning, 1409, had appointed another council to meet in three years. It convened April 12, 141 2, in Rome, but was poorly attended, burned Wyclif's writings, and had no further significance. John XXIII was wholly disinclined to witness the assembling of another council, where dis- cussion might be unchecked and doctors of the church ar- rogate to themselves authority over the papacy. Envoys sent by the university of Paris sought to persuade him. His hand, however, was forced by Sigismund, heir to the empire. Sigismund's imperial claims and restless energy were soon to make him the most conspicuous civil personage in Christen- dom. His interest in the council was due less to a high relig- ious purpose to bring about reforms in the church than to an ambition to play a leading part in the eyes of his generation. He had some taste for books and spoke several languages, but was frivolous, unreliable, and sensual, ^neas Sylvius declared him to be witty in conversation, given to wine and i64 JOHN HUSS women, and mixed up, according to popular rumor, in thou- sands of love intrigues.^ He spent money lavishly, a weak- ness from which his brother Wenzel was free. Although to Sigismund, more than to John, the council was due, yet to the opinion of the scholarly guild of Europe it was due more than to both these dignitaries. Pressed by the Hussite disputes in Bohemia, the king saw in the council a feasible way for settHng them, but also a means of dis- playing his own authority at the expense of his elder brother Wenzel both as a champion of orthodoxy and the protector of the rights of Bohemia. His initiative in seeking the ap- pointment of the council, united with his imperial claims, called forth repeatedly from John XXIII the address "Advo- cate and Defender of the Church," a title Sigismund did not shrink from using himself. The sack of Rome by Ladis- laus forced John XXIII into the king's hands. A delegation of two of John's cardinals met Sigismund at Como, Octo- ber 13, 1413. One of them was Zabarella, former professor at Padua, and known there as the king of canon law, and now since his elevation, in 1410, popularly known as the cardinal of Florence. His commentaries on the Decretals and Clemen- tines were highly prized. The legates signified the pope's readiness to summon the council. The place led to much discussion. Bologna, Genoa, Nice, Rome, and cities north of the Alps were suggested. October 30, Sigismund an- nounced the coming synod. The king and John met at Lodi, and, after in vain at- tempting to efifect a change in the place of meeting, John assented to Constance and attached his seal to the summons of the council. Sigismund is said to have rebuked the pon- ' At festivities given Sigismund at Innsbruck by Duke Frederick of Austria, ruler of the Tyrol, the daughter of a notable citizen was violated and the crime charged now to one, now to the other of these princes, both of whom denied it. For an account of his gallantries in Strassburg, see Wylie, p. 24. Palacky, Gesch., 3 : 309 sqq., ascribes to the emperor some of the chivalric temper of his father, Charles IV. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 165 tiff's scandalous life, and the report went that for a payment of fifty thousand gold guldens he promised not to join in any attempt to unseat John.^ Thus the two great luminaries of this mundane sphere, as Sigismund wrote to Charles VI of France, were side by side, pope and emperor, appointed to rule — the one over the spiritual, the other over the material, affairs of the world. (Ecumenical councils had decided questions of heresy be- fore, beginning with the first council, 325, held at Nice, which punished the heresy of Arius. Early in the spring of 1414, while sojourning at Friuli, in Lombardy, Sigismund com- missioned Lord Wenzel of Duba, Henry Chlum of Lacembok, and Henry's nephew, John of Chlum on their return to Bohemia to propose to Huss that he refer his case to the council for adjudication without delay. At the same time, if we follow Peter of Mladenowicz's report, these noblemen brought assurances from the king that he would send Huss letters of safe-conduct both for the journey to Constance and the return journey to Bohemia. Huss's assent, which seems to have been given with alacrity, marked an epoch in his Hfe and introduces its last chapters — his imprisonment and trial and his death at the stake. There can be no doubt that, though at times he may have shared the misgivings of friends for his safety, he looked forward to the council with a cour- age born of the conviction that he was innocent and that he would receive fair treatment. Before starting on the journey, and with the help of his friends, he made every effort to secure clean papers certifying to his good standing in the church in his own country. A diocesan synod met in Prague, August 27. The day before, Huss, who was in the city, had posted up against the cathedral and the churches, and at the gateways of the palaces of the archbishop and the king, notices in Latin, German and Czech * Finke, Acta cone, const., p. 177. This author gives valuable documents bearing on the convention of the council. See also Mansi, 28 : 3 sqq. i66 JOHN HUSS that he was ready to defend himself and his orthodoxy before the synod. Copies are preserved.^ He was denied admittance to the sittings. Interpreting, however, the synod's silence as a confession of his innocence, he again posted up at the gateway of the royal palace in the old town a notice intended for the king and queen to the effect that in the archbishop's court "no one in the whole kingdom of Bohemia" had ap- peared against him. He was ready to appear before the pope and the council assured that, if accused of heresy, he would receive a verdict of not guilty. But, should he be pronounced a heretic, he would not shrink from suffering the punishment appointed for heretics. From the papal inquisitor Nicholas, bishop of Nazareth, he received a certificate of good standing, which bears a notary's seal, dated August 30, 1414. In an open audience in which Jesenicz and other friends of Huss were present, the inquisitor affirmed that he had often been present when Huss preached, talked with him over matters of Scripture and met him many times at the hospitable board, and that, far from finding him a heretic, he had always found him to be "a true and Catholic man, who had no taint of heresy about him." From this deposition the amiable prelate was afterward known as the bishop-sup-with-the-devil.^ At still another synod, held in October, and according to the sealed attestation of the supreme Burgrave of Prague and others. Archbishop Konrad, in answer to a question put by Huss's friends, affirmed that he knew of no heresy or error of which Huss could be justly accused. Writing to Sigismund, September i, 1414, Huss an- nounced his purpose of proceeding to Constance under the protection of the king's passport, providing safety on the journey — salvus conducius. He begged the king to secure for him a safe hearing in public and expressed his willingness ^ Mon., I : 2. Doc, p. 66. * Mon,, I : 3. Mladenowicz in Doc, 239, 243. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 167 to die, if necessary, for Christ and his most true law. In secret he had taught nothing. What he had spoken, he had spoken in public places where professors and university grad- uates, priests, nobles, and other men met. In the meantime Huss's enemies were not asleep. Sealed depositions were taken from John of Protiva, a former in- cumbent of Bethlehem chapel, and Andrew of Broda, Huss's bitter foe, to be used against him at the council. On the basis of sermons they had heard and of rumors they had picked up on the streets, these men testified, among other things, that Huss held to the remanence of the bread after the words of institution and to the incompetence of priests in mortal sin to absolve. These depositions were in Huss's hands at Krakowec before he set out for Constance. Copies with his interlineations and notes are still extant.^ On October 11, 1414, the journey to Constance began. Our account of its stages is derived in part from Huss's own letters and in part from Mladenowicz, one of his companions who remained with him until the end, even to standing by at the stake and watching his friend's dying agony. Huss had been placed by Sigismund and Wenzel under the protec- tion of three Bohemian nobles, John of Chlum, Henry of Chlum, his uncle, and Wenzel of Duba. John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba had fought with Sigismund in his Venetian campaign on account of Zara. Huss's expenses were met from contributions made by his friends. A charge with which he was frequently pHed at Constance was that he had been made rich by the gifts of his influential supporters. On the other hand, he was worried during the progress of his journey lest he should want for the necessities of life, and more worried during his imprisonment in Constance about the repayment of the moneys advanced. A handsome horse and a carriage were given him by Lord Pflug of Rabstein and another horse by another nobleman. In a parting letter, written to his ^ Palacky, Gesch., 3 : i, p. 314. i68 JOHN HUSS Bohemian friends, whom he calls brothers and sisters, he expressed some doubt whether he would see them again aHve. He called them to witness that he had publicly pre- sented the Word of God and presented it without heresy and without errors. He assured them he was no heretic. He spoke seriously of the great dangers which lay before him and the possibility of his being put to death, but, if by his death he might contribute to God's glory and their advantage, he interceded that it might please God to enable him to meet death without sinful fear and, if it should please God to bring him back, they would be all the more joyful at seeing each other and assuredly so if they should not meet until they met in heaven. Constance, whither he was going, held many and influential enemies, and he asked their prayers for the gift of wisdom and constancy by the Holy Spirit that he might be preserved in the midst of his enemies, well remem- bering that Christ had left an example of patient suffering under trial, imprisonment, and even death. ^ As a precautionary measure, Huss put a sealed will into the hands of his favorite pupil, marked with instructions that it should not be opened except in case of his death. He called upon Martin to be true to the vow of chastity, to guard himself against all temptations to incontinence, and to recall what he had been taught by Huss from his youth up — to act as a servant of Jesus Christ. He reminded Martin that he had hated the avarice and the incontinent lives of the clergy, and he warned him against giving away to the desire for fine clothes, high position, and against being seduced by the bad customs of the day. Huss also reminded him of his own manner of life before his ordination and begged Martin not to imitate him in any folly Martin might have seen in him. It is here Huss mentions his fondness for chess, to which reference has already been made, a game, he said, at which he had wasted much time and had provoked himself 1 Doc, ^l-n■ BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 169 as well as others to displays of anger. For his innumerable sins he asked the young man's pardon as he also asked his pra3^ers. He closed the document by bequeathing to Martin a gray cloak, if he chose to have it, and a white cloak to the parish priest. In case he did not care for the gray cloak, Huss asked him to give it to his faithful servant, George, or in its stead a guinea. Huss's party consisted of thirty persons, all mounted. In addition to the three delegates appointed by Sigismund, there were John, Cardinal of Reinstein, who had for a long time acted as Wenzel's diplomatic agent, and John of Chlum's amanuensis and clerk, Peter of Mladenowicz. As he was de- parting, among the many who expressed fears that he was starting on a journey from which he would not return was Jerome of Prague. The route led through Biernau, Neustadt, Sulzbach, Hersbruck and Lauf to Niirnberg, which the party reached October 19, and from thence by way of Biberach in Wiir- temberg and Ravensburg on the lake of Constance. From Ravensburg they took boat to the city toward which their faces were turned. Notes left us in Huss's own letters give a chatty account of the experiences by the way. Nowhere did he veil his identity. In spite of warnings that he had powers of sorcery, given by the bishop of Lebus, a canon of Prague, who preceded the party from place to place by a day's journey, he was everywhere kindly received. The papal interdict was nowhere enforced. Teutons as well as Latins, officials, and people of all classes everywhere turned out to see him as if, so he wrote, they were going to a fair.^ Priests and magistrates entertained him. At Biernau the parish priest received him into his house and set before him a large tankard of wine. At Niirnberg, where he had a notable reception, a few months before Sigis- mund had gone the rounds of the churches and worn the » Doc, 79, 83, 245 sq. r 170 JOHN HUSS skull of St. Cyprian. The priest of St. Sebaldus and other priests, and also the city officials had a conference with him lasting four hours. In the company was a Carthusian doctor who disputed with him at length, but, in spite of this, he felt that there was not an enemy among them all, and he was surprised to find among the Germans as much cordiality as was shown by his own people, the Bohemians. John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba were indefatigable in render- ing good service and, as Huss asserts, acted as heralds of the truth. Farther on in the journey, at Biberach, John argued so shrewdly with the priests and other men of culture on the papal prerogative that the rumor spread that he was a doctor of divinity. Using the incident, Huss playfully nicknamed him doctor of Piberach. At Niirnberg, Wenzel of Duba, turned aside and pro- ceeded northward, to Spires, to secure from the king the official passport — salvus condudus. Again and again Huss refers to the fact that the journey had been made without passport although he had received the promise of it from Sigismund. The party reached Constance on a Sabbath, November 3, and was met outside the city by a great throng. The people accompanied him until he came to the house of a widow, Fida, who lived near the Schnetzthor, where Huss lodged. The house still stands on the street now called the Hussgasse and bears a bronze tablet placed there by fellow Bohemians, 1878, containing the inscription in German and Czech — The Lodging of the Bohemian Reformer, Master J. Huss, 1414. The throng was attracted in part by curiosity to see the heretic and in part by a parade which it was an- nounced the pope, cardinals, and other dignitaries were to make on that day but which was frustrated by the pope's sudden illness.^ Barons John of Chlum and Lacembok went immediately to the bishop's palace, where the pope was stopping, and laid Huss's case before him. The pope gave ' Finke, Acta, p. 163. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 171 them the assurance that no violence would be employed, no, not even if Huss were charged with killing John's own brother. They pleaded Sigismund's solemn pledge. But his enemies were in readiness and the very day after Huss's arrival, Michael de Causis posted up a notice against the cathedral that he and his supporters had opened proceedings against John Huss, obstinate, excommunicate, and suspected of heresy.^ Constance, now a city of Baden, was for the moment the centre to which all eyes in Western Europe were turned. Even the emperor of Byzantium had been in correspondence with Sigismund about attendance upon the council. Nieheim and other writers of the day praised the beauty of its location and the salubriousness of the climate. The picture given of the city in Van der Hardt shows in the foreground the Dominican convent, situated on an island, in which Huss was to be imprisoned, behind it the city, walled and divided into two parts by a wide street, and to the north the river Rhine. It had been an important metropolis for the over- land trade from Venice and Lombardy. The old stock ex- change, the Kauffhaus, still standing, was built in 1387. It was made an imperial city by the family of the Hohen- staufen, and was visited by the distinguished members of that house, Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VI, and Frederick II, as well as by young Konradin on his unfortunate journey to Italy to receive his grandfather's crown and to meet with his pitiful death, 1268. The seat of a bishop, the see of Con- stance at one time included a large part of Wiirtemberg, Ba- den, Switzerland. With its incumbent, in the early part of the sixteenth century, Zwingli had to do. The see was abolished in 1826. A week before Huss's arrival, John XXIII had entered the city in great style, riding on a white palfrey covered with a red cloth and accompanied by nine cardinals and sixteen ' Doc, 77, 78. Palacky, Gesch., p. 320. 172 JOHN HUSS hundred mounted horsemen, the bridles of his horse being held by the count of Montferrat and an Orsini. The city magistrates furnished the bishop's palace, where the pope lodged, with four large casks of French wine, four of Elsass, and eight of native wines, and the citizens of Constance made him a gift of a large drinking-cup made of silver gilded with gold.^ The city attracted people of every rank bent on all sorts of business. Such a scene on so grand a scale had not been witnessed in the West before. It was a golden occasion for social and mercantile intercourse, for pride and display as well as a religious event concerning the well-being of Latin Christendom. In comparison with this assembly, the synod at Clermont, 1095, the fourth Lateran, 12 15, and the councils held in Lyons, 1245 and 1274, were provincial synods. Here all CathoUc nations were represented by delegations from Bohemia to Scotland. The chief scholarship of the age as well as the leading prelates were there. The normal population of the city, which was under six thousand, was enormously swollen by the flood of strangers, whose number is put at from fifty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand by Richental, a resident of the city who, twenty years after the council adjourned, wrote down a graphic account of what he had seen. He had the interest of a modern reporter, went everywhere, into alley and palace, from house to house, tak- ing down notes. His busy pen preserved the names of all the visiting dignitaries, civil and religious, together with their retainers. There were thirty thousand beds for strangers. Five hundred are said to have been drowned in the lake during the progress of the council. Bakers, grooms, gold- smiths, scribes, money-changers, merchantmen, and sutlers of every sort, even to traffickers from the Orient, flocked together to minister to the needs and tastes of princes and prelates. According to the tables of Richental there were in attendance 33 cardinals, 5 patriarchs, 47 archbishops, 145 * Richental, 25-28. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 173 bishops, 93 titular bishops, 217 doctors of theology, 361 doc- tors of both laws, and 171 doctors of medicine. Thirty-seven universities were represented. There were 83 envoys rep- resenting kings and princes, 38 dukes, 173 counts, 71 barons, more than 1,500 knights, and also 142 writers of bulls, 1,700 buglers, fiddlers, and other players on musical instruments. In addition, the chronicler informs us, there were 700 women of the street who openly practised their trade in rented rooms, while the number who practised it secretly was not recorded.^ The arrival of different delegations caused great excite- ment. The English and Scotch, numbering a dozen and accompanied by seven or eight hundred mounted men, were headed by fifers and other musicians as they entered the city January 21, 141 5. The representatives of the university of Paris, who arrived in February, awakened equal interest. The entry of John of Nassau, archbishop of Mainz, attended by 700 mounted followers, created a sensa- tion. The archbishop was clad in full armor — ^helmet, coat of mail, and greaves. January 17, 141 5, King Sigismund went out to meet Duke Lewis of Bavaria, who was accom- panied by the bishops of Spires and Treves and a retinue of 400 horsemen. The streets presented the spectacle of a merry fair. There were tournaments, dances, acrobatic shows, processions, and musical displays. The poHce regulations were precise. Riding and shouting at night were forbidden. After dark, chains were stretched across some of the streets, and persons going out after curfew were to carry their own lights. Regulated prices for food and laundering were intended to check extortion. The most eminent personages in attendance, after Sigis- mund and the pope, were Cardinals d'Ailly, Zabarella and Fillastre, Hallum, bishop of Sahsbury, who died during the ' Van der Hardt, s : 50-53, gives the number of visitors as 18,000 prelates and priests, 80,000 laymen, including 1,500 loose women. f 174 JOHN HUSS sessions and was buried at Constance, and John Gerson of Paris. Fillastre left a valuable journal of the council's pro- ceedings. Now and then in Huss's letters we catch entertaining glimpses of the functions that were going on in the city and the gossip that passed from mouth to mouth on its streets. A rumor which he mentioned proved untrue, that Benedict XIII was on his way to Constance. The asses the cardinals rode on, he tells us, were scrubs. On his arrival he found many Bohemians already stranded, and he wrote requesting aid for them. He chats about the price of horses and how he had sent his own horse, Rabstein, back to Ravensburg. He had kept it that he might be ready, if necessary, to ride outside the city to meet the king, who, however, so the rumor went, was not to arrive until Christmas Day. John of Chlum, he says, was protecting him right manfully and like a true knight, and doing more preaching than he himself. To Huss's misfortune, even the liberty of his lodging in widow Fida's house was quickly to be taken from him, and from thenceforth only such rumors reached him as penetrated through prison walls. His hopes of a fair and open audience were doomed to bitter disappointment. The orderly procedure and solemn attention to business which he had looked forward to gave away before the actual impression of another sort. He complained of unfairness for himself and his Bohemian friends. Of the general conditions prevailing in the city he wrote that "this council is the scene of great foulness, for V I hear it said by the Swabians, as though it were a proverb, that a generation will not suffice to purge Constance from the sins which it has committed in the city."^ His numerous L- enemies were indefatigable in creating and encouraging an unfavorable sentiment against him, insisting that he be treated as a heretic. Michael de Causis, as has been said, was there. So also was Peter Palecz and the Iron Bishop, 1 Doc, p. 139. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 175 Leitomysl. The day after Huss's arrival, Michael posted up formal notice of the proceedings, in which he was to be a prosecutor. Palecz and Michael not only drew up charges from his Treatise on the Church, but actually went about among the cardinals, archbishops, and other prelates to stir up prejudice against him or confirm suspicion, associating with themselves in this business members of the Dominican order.^ Huss's hope was in Sigismund, not yet on the ground, and supremely in Christ, whom he called "his strong cham- pion"— 6e//a/or fortis. On November 9, the week after Huss's arrival, John XXIII, in answer to the request of Huss's friends, sent word that the interdict was suspended and that Huss was free to go to and fro in the city and in the churches, with the caution that he should not attend high masses and should avoid mixing with the people. This seemed to be a good omen. And, as we learn from a letter written by John of Reinstein, Huss was celebrating mass daily in his lodgings; but the same authority bears witness to the uneasiness in the city occasioned by Huss's presence. He speaks of a false rumor circulated, he knew not by friend or foe, to the effect that Huss was to preach in the cathedral on the Sabbath after he was writing, and that he had promised a ducat to every one who was present to listen to his strictures upon the clergy. This valuable letter closes with a reference to Huss's name, that the Goose is not yet cooked and not afraid of being cooked, for geese were not eaten on that St. Martinmas, which happened to fall on Saturday, a day when geese were not eaten. With all who came to his lodgings Huss spoke freely, but he was wise in not going beyond his lodgings, as John of Chlum distinctly stated. But Huss, after all, was a heretic and under the ban of the curia. His liberty was an offense to the rigorous party, continually reminded by the hostile Bohemians of the cer- ^ Mon., I : 318. Doc, p. 246. 176 JOHN HUSS tainty of Huss's heresy. Even if it had been canonical, it was not safe to allow him to be free. When he was arrested, the arrest was accomphshed under the garb of duplicity. On November 28, less than a month after Huss's entry into Constance, the mayor of the city, Hans of Baden, and the bishops of Trent and Augsburg appeared at the widow's lodgings near the Schnetzthor and announced that the pope and cardinals were ready to give Huss a hearing and that they were sent to conduct him to their presence. John of Chlum saw through the ruse, and, rising to his feet, appealed to the king's safe-conduct and his announcement that it was his will that nothing be done to Huss until his arrival. He charged the party with defying the king's honor. Addressing the mayor, Chlum said in German: ''If the devil came to have his case tried he ought to have a fair and honest hearing." When the bishop of Trent remarked that they were there in the interests of peace and to prevent disturbance, Huss rose from the table and declared that he had not come to present his case before the pope and the curia, but before the whole council sitting in session. Nevertheless, he was ready to go before the pope and the cardinals. In the mean- time the soldiery had surrounded the house. Giving himself up and, as he was descending the stairway, Huss met his hostess. She took leave of him with tears while he invoked upon her the divine blessing. Then, mounted upon a httle horse, he was led through a vast and curious crowd to the bishop's palace. The language used by the bishop of Trent points to the unrest in Constance over Huss's unrestricted freedom, and it would seem not unreasonable that mob vio- lence was feared. The arrest, as asserted by Mladenowicz, was at the direct instigation of Palecz and Michael de Causis. The charge is made by Richental that Huss had attempted to flee by concealing himself in a wagon loaded with hay. Richental, as has been said, wrote twenty years after this alleged event. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 177 and his story is in flat contradiction to Mladenowicz's ac- count. As told by him, the story ran that the wagon was discovered by Lacembok, who called upon the mayor of the city to have all the gates closed and Huss seized. Huss was at once delivered up to John XXIII and imprisoned by him. One feature of the tale, unlikely upon its face, is that Lacem- bok, a warm friend, was responsible for the detection and seizure. The date given, March 3, 141 5, is also impossible, being three months after Huss was put in close confinement.^ It is possible that a vague rumor was afloat that, in view of the strong sentiment against him, Huss had been attempting to make his escape, and it is also possible that Michael may have made use of these rumors in urging Huss's arrest. From this moment on, Huss had no chance. He was ~| treated as a criminal — his case was prejudged. He was in I the position of a guilty man. Much as d'Ailly, Zabarella, and others may have been in favor of dealing with him fairly, the views accredited to him were obnoxious to the age. One course and one only was open to Huss — retraction. His arrest confirmed him in the fear that he would be obHged to retract or suffer death. Mladenowicz reports him as having said to the bishop of Trent, when he was about to obey the summons to leave his lodgings: "I would choose death rather than J deny the truth as I have learned it from the Scriptures and otherwise." From now on his position was similar to Luther's position before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg. The cardinal called upon Luther to retract, refusing to allow him to argue. Introduced into the presence of the pope and the cardi- nals, Huss was told that reports had come from many quarters that he had sown many errors in Bohemia. To this Huss replied that he would rather die than hold errors. Of his free will, he had come to the council, and he was willing to ^ Doc, 247. Richental, 58. Palacky, Gesch., p. 322. Wylie, pp. 139 sqq. Helfert, a Roman Catholic writer, also rejects the tale. Palacky suggests that Richental may have confused Huss with Jerome, who made his escape from, Constance after his first arrest. 178 JOHN HUSS be corrected if he was found to hold errors. The cardinals pronouncing the words well spoken, retired for consultation. While Huss was waiting for their return a Franciscan, whose name was afterward learned to be Didacus, entered the room and drew Huss into a conversation. Mladenowicz says he was suborned to entrap Huss. Pretending to be an ignorant and unlearned man seeking instruction, he inquired whether Huss believed that after the words of institution the material bread remains. Huss denied it and, when the monk expressed surprise, repeated his denial a second and a third time. Here John of Chlum interfered and pronounced it an unheard of insult to call upon a man to repeat his solemn affirmation even to the third time. The monk then protested that the knight must not find fault with him for he was a simple and unlearned man, and he went on to ask Huss about the hypostatical union of the divinity with humanity in Christ's person. Throwing off a remark in Bohemian that his visitor was not after all a simple and unlearned man, Huss accused the monk of duplicity and tried to show it from the nature of his questions. The Franciscan then withdrew with an expression of thanks. Huss was informed later by the attendants of John XXHI that Didacus was reputed to be the most subtle theologian of Lombardy. On hearing this, he expressed his regret that he had not known it, for he would have plied him with the Scriptures and not have answered as he did.^ When the cardinals reappeared at 4 p. m., Palecz and Michael and also John of Reinstein, Mladenowicz, and others were present. Palecz and Michael gave their elation vent in acts and words and piqued John of Reinstein on Huss's being trapped at last and being in the way of getting his deserts. He would not get off until he had paid the utter- most farthing. In the evening, the pope's chamberlain * This incident is one of those portions cut out of Palacky's History oj Bohemia by the censor in the edition of 1845. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 179 informed Huss that he was to be kept under guard. In vain did John of Chlum hasten to the pontiff, who was still in audience with the cardinals, and complain that he had broken his pledged word to protect Huss against violence. He again appealed to the promise given by Sigismund. The cardinals present the pope called to witness that the arrest was none of his doings and, drawing John aside, whispered: "You know how I stand with the cardinals. They gave him over to me. I had to receive him as a captive." The Franciscan monk, so he stated, had not been sent by him and was a base fellow. That night Huss was taken to the house of a canon of Constance, where a cardinal was lodging. After a week's detention he was removed, December 6, 1414, to the Domini- can convent, where he remained in close confinement until the last of March, 141 5. Here he was thrown into a dungeon hard by the latrines. Carpenters and other mechanics had been engaged for several days in repairing the bolts and locks and in putting up six beds and a stove for the guards. The old Black Friars' convent was transformed, in 1875, into the Insul Hotel, one of the most picturesque stopping- places in all Europe. Founded in 1236, it was the retreat which Amandus Suso entered, and where he gave himself up to the most painful and exaggerated self-mortifications. Here Chrysoloras was formally received by the council, and here he died, 1415. Here the French and Italian na- tions sat during the sessions of the council. The convent withstood the siege of the Swedes in 1633, during the Thirty Years' War. In the period of the Reformation it had been used as a hospital. Taken over with the city of Constance by Austria in 1649, it was again occupied by the friars. In 1785 Joseph II turned it over to a colony from Geneva with their looms. More recently Count Zeppelin was born there. The chapel, with its vaulted roof, now serves as the hotel dining-room. Surrounded by an attractive garden and with i8o JOHN HUSS a court planted with flowers, its arches overgrown with vines, the structure looks out upon the beautiful lake of Constance. The walls of the inner court are painted with frescos illustrating historical scenes in the history of Constance and the convent itself from 600 to 1888 — the date when the Emperor WilHam II met with Adolph of Nassau and effected a reconciliation with the two houses they represented, sepa- rated in 1866. One of the smaller pictures represents Huss chained. The tower in which he was confined still remains. A few steps away is the Rhine resuming its course to the north. The present cheerful surroundings, bright flowers, shady walks, the groups of ducks and other fowl in the canals, the sounds of daily music in the park — these are in strong con- trast to Huss's grim imprisonment and the harsh methods of the inquisition enacted within its walls five hundred years ago. The unsanitary condition of the Dominican prison wrought, in conjunction with the prisoner's undone nervous state, to bring Huss to the very verge of death. Fever set in, and so desperate was his plight that the pope sent his own physician to administer clysters. At the pope's order, Huss, January 8, 141 5, was transferred to another and less un- wholesome apartment. By January 19, he was sufficiently recovered to be writing again to his friends. The purpose was to shut him out from the world, and by the rigor of prison discipHne to bring him to repentance. Among the books which he had with him was a copy of his Commentary on Peter the Lombard's Sentences. These and even his Vul- gate Bible were taken from him. He made moving appeals for books, and his case easily suggests John Tyndale in his prison at Vilvorde begging the king of England to send him a Hebrew grammar and Bible to while away the lonesome hours. In February, John of Chlum was able to get a Bible into the dungeon. Huss won the sympathy of his jailer, Robert, and the clerks of the papal household treated him with / BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE i8i kindness. Through Robert's mediation he was kept in com- munication with his friends in Constance. At his request and the instance of his other guards, Huss wrote short trea- tises on the Lord's Prayer, the ten commandments, marriage, and the Lord's Supper.^ A prisoner could hardly have had more true and faithful friends than Huss had in John of Chlum and Mladenowicz. To their sympathy they added the most strenuous efforts to secure for him release and a fair hearing. Chlum he called the dearest of friends, the noble and gracious lord and guard- ian of the faith; This nobleman posted an announcement on the cathedral door, December 15 and 24, written in German and Latin, appealing to the king's passport. ^ On hearing of the arrest, Sigismund is said to have broken out in a rage, swearing he would break down the doors of Huss's prison if he were not released before his arrival in Constance. His peremptory order for Huss's release was disregarded. Huss's letters written during his captivity of eight months are among the most affecting epistolary collections in existence and have a character of their own. Fifty in number, they were smuggled out of the prison through his jailer, Robert, and other guards. They begin with January 19, 141 5, and end with letters written to John of Chlum, Wenzel of Duba, and friends in Bohemia, June 29, 141 5, a week before his death. Workman, who has given an excellent translation of them, says: "They will appeal to every reader by their tenderness and true piety." ^ They give us an insight into the writer's innermost feelings, his affection for his friends, his deep in- terest in the progress of his case, and the events occurring at Constance. They are full of Httle details bearing upon his health, his needs, his dreams, the news from Jerome, the marriage of Wenzel of Duba. Now he asks John of Chlum ' Doc, 87, 99, 254. It seems certain that Huss had with him a copy of his own Com. on Peter the Lombard : Flajshans, Mistr Jan Hits, p. 360. - Mon., I : 95. Eng. transl. of the placard, Gillett, i : 395 sq. 2 Workman, Letters, p. 172. The Latin and Czech texts, Doc, 83-150. i82 JOHN HUSS to send him another shirt, now he announces that his writing material is getting low or has run out. One of his communica- tions to John of Chlum was written on a ragged three-cornered piece of paper. Huss spent whole nights scribbling down his thoughts in prose and rhyme and answering the charges of Palecz and his examiners. 1 He could not sleep, or at best his sleep was broken by dreams. One night in March he dreamed about Bethlehem chapel and imagined that all the pictures of Christ that hung on its walls were in danger of being de- stroyed. Then he fancied seeing in their places other and more beautiful pictures, painted by many painters, upon which he looked with delight. He heard the people cry out: "Let the bishops and priests come and destroy these pictures if they will." Then there was great rejoicing at Bethlehem. On waking, he found himself laughing. The interpretation that John of Chlum put upon the dream was that the Huss- ite preachers had painted the more beautiful pictures and that Huss, the Goose, who was even then laid on the altar, would rejoice in heaven as he looked down and saw the pictures painted by the old priests destroyed and replaced by others. But, above all, in his letters we are let into the realm of Huss's religious feelings. During his imprisonment, as he takes occasion to inform us, he came to appreciate for the first time the spiritual comforts hidden in the Psalms, that book which has been the chief Hturgy of devout souls in hours of penitence and praise, in the midst of cares and dis- appointments, in times of the felt need of aid and consolation. There, as he said, he walked with the Good Shepherd, who restoreth the soul and supplieth all the wants of his people. The official examination was conducted through commis- sioners appointed by the council, and, at the last, in the pres- ence of the council as a whole in the Franciscan refectory. Huss appeared once in the cathedral and once only, the morn- » Doc, 89, 91, 96, 255, BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 183 ing of July 6, 1415, when the sentence of death was pro- nounced. During the progress of the trial and even to the end, Palecz and Michael de Causis continued busy formulating the charges and acting as informants to the commissions. From the first, Huss protested that he had come to Constance with the implied, if not the express, assurance from the king that he would have opportunity to make a public statement of his case, unimpeded by his Bohemian or other foes. To the end, he claimed that faith was broken. The official testi- monies to his orthodoxy secured in Prague were in the first instance completely ignored and he was treated as a heretic; and, from the very first, fettered with charges made by his foes, he was put in a position where it was impossible, or at least most difl&cult, for him to get an impartial verdict. The first examination, which took place December 4, 1414,^ was conducted by a commission of three, appointed by John XXIII, the patriarch of Constantinople, the bishop of Lebus, and the bishop of Citta di Costella. The last examiner had met Jesenicz in Cracow, 1413, and succeeded in having him expelled from the city. Among the witnesses were John of Monsternberg and Peter Storch, originally connected with the university of Prague and then at Leipzig, Palecz, Michael de Causis, Peter, preacher at St. Clements, Prague, the abbot Peter of St. Ambrose's, Prague, and Dr. Nicholas Zeisel- meister of the same city. On one occasion, when one of the witnesses, a layman, was called, to the general disappoint- ment he deposed that he had nothing to say, and Michael de Causis exclaimed that as for himself he would be glad to testify against his own father if his father held anything contrary to the faith. In accordance with the custom in cases of heresy, no proctor or attorney was allowed Huss, though he had re- quested one.- The defendant was confronted by the com- ' Mladenowicz, Doc, 255 sqq. "Doc, 84, 88. See Lea, Inquis. I : chap. XI. i84 JOHN HUSS mission with the XLV Articles of Wyclif and forty-two articles taken from his own Treatise on the Church and other writings. To these he was given opportunity to make reply. On the one hand, he entered a protest that many of the charges were flat misrepresentations and that others containing extracts from his works also misrepresented his views by taking his words out of their connection. Some of the charges he pro- nounced to be pure inventions of Palecz and others. On the other hand, he reaffirmed others as right, as, for example, that no one stained with mortal sin belongs to the true church, that the predestinate have a radical grace from which it is not possible for them to fall, and that princes have authority to sequestrate church possessions and expel unworthy priests. In regard to the last tenet, he bade John of Chlum to tell Sigismund that if it were condemned as heresy the king himself would be open to condemnation as a heretic for having deprived bishops of their temporal goods, as his father, Charles IV, had done before him. The commission's recommendation that his case be set before a jury of twelve doctors, Huss rejected. Later on Jesenicz took the ground that Huss had committed a technical error in making any reply whatsoever as a prisoner. In addition to these charges, the formal articles sent by Gerson, of which mention has already been made, were brought in evidence against him. He promised to reply to them, if he lived. These divers accusations were renewed again and again during the progress of the trial with small modification. Many also were the insinuations with which Huss was vexed. For example, a bishop accused him of setting up a new law as well as having preached all the XLV and the forty-two articles. Writing to John of Chlum, he expressed the opinion that the commission had not much against him except that he had preached against the crusading bulls, administered the sacraments while under excommunication, BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 185 and had appealed from the pope.^ These three charges were made against him in committee, and extracts from his treatise against indulgences and his appeal from the pope's decision were read in his presence. His last letter written to his Bohemian friends before leaving Prague was also adduced in evidence against him. Especially damaging were the references he had made to many and great enemies which he affirmed were awaiting him at Constance, the declara- tion that the most relentless of his enemies were persons of his own household, and that it was not on account of any heresy he was going to Constance, for he held none. Ag- gravating also were the statements that he was ready to die if by his death he might glorify God, and that nothing but the help of God could protect him against such a sentence. In the meantime, an event of prime importance in the history of the council had occurred — the arrival of Sigis- mund. This prince had been crowned in Aachen, November 8, 1414, and started southward four days later. On Christ- mas Eve, or rather after midnight early Christmas morning, Sigismund made his entry into Constance, accompanied by the queen, Barbara, and her father the Count of Cilley. The cold was intense. After changing their garments and warming themselves for an hour, they proceeded through the wintry streets between avenues of torches and under tapestries of gold held by the burgesses to the cathedral for the matin services which began at cockcrowing. The pope in full pontificals received them. Clad as a deacon and with the crown on his head, the king intoned the service and read the Scriptures about the taxing of the world by Caesar Augus- tus and the birth in the manger. Mass followed mass, no less than nine, or some reports say eleven, hours being spent in the solemn services in the cold spaces of the great edifice. At their close, John conferred on the king a sword with an admonition to protect the church. ' Doc, 89, 92. i86 JOHN HUSS Both on the part of the council and of Huss and his friends much was expected from Sigismund, who was compared to Daniel who had rescued Susanna, and, as if he were another Charlemagne, to King David. But he also, chief prince though he was of Christendom, showed himself unable to resist the hierarchy as John had been unable to resist the cardinals at the time of Huss's arrest. Prior to the king's arrival, the councillors had spent much time over the question, whether the king's passport to a suspect of heresy was vaUd, exempting him from trial and arrest. Their conclusion was in the negative. A suspect was to be dealt with according to the laws of the church , just as if no such civil passport had been given. At first, Sigismund disputed this position and on several occasions withdrew from the meetings of the council in anger. He even threatened to abandon Constance altogether if the council insisted upon its interpretation. Finally, when he saw that the council was in danger of break- ing up, the king yielded. For such an issue as the council's dissolution Sigismund was not willing to be responsible. It was decided that the trial should at once proceed without further impediment on the part of the monarch.^ Without doubt, the principle was fully discussed which the council solemnly pronounced after Huss's death, namely, that word was not to be kept with a heretic. Though the trial was to proceed strictly according to the laws of the church, Sigismund continued to be looked to as in a greater or less degree responsible for Huss's protection. His word had been given and his passport seems to have been appealed to as if it meant that Huss was to be immune from all violence until he got back to Bohemia. In this sense was it understood by the nobles of Bohemia and Moravia who supported Huss. Early in 1415 Moravian barons addressed to the king a protest against Huss's arrest and ^De inquisitione Hussii per Casarem non amplius impedienda, Hardt, 4 : 32. Palacky, Gesch., p. 329. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 187 imprisonment. They reminded him of his promise of safe- conduct, which was known all through Moravia and Bohemia. Huss had started from Prague ready to answer the charges made against him, and he deserved an open and fair hearing, even as he himself had openly and without fear preached the divine law. On the other hand, foreign influences as well as the coun- cil's were brought to bear to urge upon the king the duty of giving Huss short shrift. In a communication addressed to him by Ferdinand, king of Aragon, Ferdinand expressed his great wonder that Sigismund had not put the prisoner to death straight off. He called upon the king to proceed without delay to mete out the punishment due to the iniquitous John Huss, of whom he had heard and whom God had con- demned. By so doing he would gain for himself an eternal reward. Would not the king without parley put to death even a wife, a mother, or a child who should attempt to per- suade him to worship false gods? Was it not written that a heretic, after he has been warned the second time, should be avoided? As for Huss himself, the hope which Sigismund's arrival had started must soon have given way to something like despair. He must have felt that he was hoping against hope. He had felt assured that he could accomplish much, if he saw the king face to face. He sent requests to him for a personal audience, but received no reply. If he might only "talk with the king about matters concerning the good of Christianity and his own good," he would be most glad. Deeper became his disappointment as he found "that the king had forgotten him," not communicating to him a single word: it was the bitterest of disappointments. Should he be sentenced before being allowed to speak a word with him? If that was to the king's honor, it was the king's lookout. As for the council, he pleaded that, were he granted a hearing, the king might at least be present and occupy a seat where i88 JOHN HUSS he would be able to hear and understand what Huss had to say. This was his last lingering hope and this was granted; but in the sovereign the prisoner found a poor protector. He also begged John of Chlum to intercede with the king that he might be released from prison and have opportunity freely to take counsel with his friends. He hoped on that he might be allowed to preach before the council. With this in view, he had prepared three sermons before leaving Prague; but day after day and week after week passed, and no citation came to appear before it. He had been told he could not get a hearing except by the payment of two thou- sand ducats.^ It was a common charge, as has been intimated, that Huss was provided with an abundance of money. In one of the examinations held in the Dominican convent, an archbishop remarked that he had seventy thousand florins, and Michael de Causis insolently put the question to him, how much the barons in Bohemia held in keeping for him? Huss's expenses were, according to his own statement, high. At least a part of the money with which he met his expenses were loans from poor as well as rich, money it was one of his dying concerns to have refunded.^ In March, Huss was again low, racked with the stone — a new experience — and with fever and vomiting. The lies circulated against him were many. He speaks of a bag of Hes let loose to hurt him and his cause. He was disturbed at the relentless hostihty of Palecz and Michael, and the constant watch had over him by spies employed by Michael. Palecz, whom Huss now called the ringleader among his enemies — omnium ductor — went to the extent of proposing that all Huss's Bohemian adherents be cited before the com- mission and forced to abjure his alleged errors.^ Conversa- tions passed between the old friends and colleagues behind the prison walls. 1 Doc, 88-91. The three sermons, Mon., 55-71. * Doc, 92, 99, loi, 121. ' Doc, 88, 90. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 189 After all, Huss was an unprotected heretic, and heresy was the crime of crimes, the offense above all others in this world to be abhorred. The only refuge left was God, and to him Huss turned with all the tender piety of which he was capable. As God had dehvered Jonah from the whale's belly and Daniel from the lions' den, and the three young men from the burning fiery furnace and Susanna from her false accusers, so, he wrote, He was able to deliver him pro- vided such deliverance would be for His glory. In His mercy, He could release the Goose though locked up in vilest prison.^ With litanies and prayers he helped to fill out sleepless nights and, in suffering he kept the passion of the Lord constantly before his eyes. He looked forward with regret that he would not have the privilege of taking the communion at Easter. He called upon his friends in Bohemia to partake of it worthily. Consolation was afforded him by a visit paid him by Pra- chaticz in March. In the presence of this true friend and special benefactor, as he called him, he broke down in tears. At the instance of Michael de Causis, Prachaticz was after- ward seized, but again released upon signing a profession of faith and by Sigismund's interference. In Huss's opinion it was not safe for a Bohemian to venture near the council, and he warned his friends, especially Jesenicz and Jerome of Prague, under no circumstances to venture to come to Constance. On the 4th of April, Jerome actually dared to enter the city, and affixed a notice on the city gates affirming Huss's orthodoxy. Again, in a few days, he re- turned and, in an announcement written in three languages, posted upon the doors of the cathedral and the Kauffhaus, he called upon the king to give him a letter of safe-conduct that he might appear before the council with safety and defend Huss. He then retired. On the 17th of April the council promised to protect him against violence, but, doubt- ing its word, Jerome attempted to flee to Bohemia. Recog- ' Doc, 96, 99. I90 JOHN HUSS nized and seized, he was sent to Constance. He did not see Huss. On hearing of his imprisonment, Huss expressed the opinion that Jerome would suffer death as well as himself. Jerome was at once taken to the Franciscan convent and, after an examination instituted by the council, was transferred to a dungeon in the cemetery of St. Paul's, chained hand and foot. A sickness followed from which he recovered. CHAPTER IX BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE Rediit Constantiam . . . tradilus vinctus monasterio Francisca- norum . . . donee die 6. Jiilii carcerem non constantiam, vitam non fidem linquerei. — Van der Hardt, 4 : 306. He returned to Constance, and was delivered chained to the con- vent of the Franciscans till, on July 6, he gave up his prison but not his constancy, his life but not his faith. One of the important major events of the council tem- porarily checked the proceedings against Huss and led to his transfer to the prison of Gottlieben. This was the trial and flight of John XXIII. The question of the disposition to be made of the Pisan pontiff had become a pressing matter soon after Sigismund's arrival in Constance. From the day the council opened, John occupied uncertain ground. When he left Florence to go to Constance, he was wanting to go to Rome, made free by Ladislaus's death, but was prevented by his cardinals. The charge was made that the death of his predecessor, Alexander V, was due to poison which he ad- ministered. He was an able but an unscrupulous man. Beginning his life as a corsair, he became addicted to every crime. With the popes of the pornocracy, 904-931, and Alexander VI, he takes the palm for combining with his papal functions the basest iniquity known to human nature. At his trial before the council seventy charges were listed against him, fourteen of which were suppressed at the public reading. He had sold the same sacred offices over and over again, sold them to children, disposed of the head of John the Baptist for fifty thousand ducats, made merchandise of spurious bulls, committed adultery with his brother's wife and 192 JOHN HUSS violated nuns and other virgins, and was guilty of sodomy. It was also charged that he had called the future life in ques- tion, r Gradually the opinion gained ground that, in order to bring I about the reunion of the church, it was not only necessary to set aside Gregory XII and Benedict, but also to get rid ) of John, whose signature had convened the council. A tract, ■^ written by an Itahan and freely circulated in Constance, teemed with charges, making John out a monster. Sigismund could not resist the storm and, to avoid a worse fate, John agreed to resign. The formal announcement of his decision was made on March 2, 1415, the condition being that both his pretended rivals of the Roman and Avignon lines be gotten out of the way. His proposal was made to give peace to the church.^ During the announcement, John remained in a kneehng posture at the altar, apparently in deep de- votion, and Sigismund, overjoyed at the rare spectacle of self-renunciation, removed his crown and bent low, kissing the pope's feet. Five days later, John confirmed his an- nouncement in a bull which ran: "I, John, Pope XXIII, for the peace of Christendom, profess, pronounce, agree, swear and vow to God and the church and to the sacred council, of my own will and freely to resign for the purpose of giving peace to Christ's church by the way of my unconditional cession . . . when and provided Peter de Luna, styled Bene- dict XIII, and Angelo Correr, styled Gregory XII, and their obediences, either in person or by their representatives, re- nounce the papal office to which they falsely lay claim." Twice before in the history of the church had popes ab- dicated, once at the synod of Sutri, 1046, and again in 1294, when Coelestin V, the hermit of Murrhone, after a reign of less than six months, laid down his office, giving as the reasons his ' See Schaff, Church Hist., with the authorities, vol. V, i : 154. Richental is particularly full in the details of the happenings in Constance at the time of John's flight. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 193 own bodily weakness and the wickedness of men. John's self- humiHation, though he had only made conditional announce- ment of his resignation, was in strong contrast to his stately entry into the city less than six months before. The city of Constance went wild in rejoicing over the papal announce- ment, and the great churchmen, d'Ailly and Gerson, as well as vigorous pamphleteers like Nieheim, were exultant over the approaching fruition of victory in the reunification of Christendom under a single pontiff. John, however, was a character whose bond was not to be relied upon for its face value. Rumors w-ent from mouth to mouth that he intended to break up the council and, if necessary, leave Constance in order to accomplish that result. He complained to Sigismund that the air of the city did not agree with him. The king asked him not to leave secretly, and John gave his promise not to leave until the council was dissolved. But Sigismund was not fully satisfied and, to be on the safe side, ordered the gates carefully guarded and the lake watched. So little trust was put in the pontiff's oath that Hallum of Sahsbury is said to have asserted that he deserved to be burned. Taking advantage of the festivities connected with a tour- nament, which drew the throng, the wily pope set at naught the police regulations and escaped in disguise to Schaffhausen, which belonged to Ferdinand, duke of Austria. John had taken the duke into his service by appointing him gonfalonier of the church with a salary at the rate of six thousand ducats a year while engaged in this service. Well out of Constance, John wrote back that his freedom of action had been restricted by the king and complained that the practice of voting by nations, which the council had decided upon, was unfair. As an example, he gave England, which, with a few prelates, had the same vote as Italy and France, with several hundred prelates. In the council of Nice and other early councils the voting was done by the bishops. The council of Constance took a radical departure when it de- 194 JOHN HUSS termined that the vote should be by nations. There were four nations, the EngHsh, German, Italian, and the French, to which the Spanish was later added. The representatives of these nations met in separate assemblies and discussed the questions before the council, and then recorded their vote for use in the cathedral. When the news of the pope's flight became known, a panic swept through Constance. Hucksters packed up their goods or bolted their booths. It was like the breaking up of a fair. Only the prompt action of Sigismund prevented the members of the council from hurriedly breaking away. The king rode through the streets, accompanied by Lewis of Bavaria, seeking to allay the excitement and with his own voice pledging security and order. The noise raised by John's flight, the prison walls of the Blackfriars could not deaden. Huss's letters refer to the tre- mendous excitement and the confusion in which the council was involved, the low stock of provisions in Constance, and to the withdrawal of the ten florins set apart by John for his own weekly support. "I have nothing to eat," he wrote, ''and I don't know what is going to happen to me in prison." All his guards, who were John's creatures, were fleeing. Huss was even afraid that the master of the papal household might carry him off by night. Their master fled, the jailers turned the prison keys over to the king. Following the advice of members of the council, he committed the prisoner to the charge of the bishop of Constance. To Mladenowicz it seemed that this was a fitting opportunity for Sigismund to have shown honorable respect to his safe-conduct and given Huss freedom. On the night of March 24, the bishop of Constance conveyed him, bound in chains and protected by a strong body-guard, by boat to his castle, Gottlieben on the Rhine, outside the walls of the city. This charmingly situated castle, now owned by Baron Fabrice, is less than two miles from the cathedral of Con- BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 195 stance and a mile from the place where Huss died. The grounds are beautified with flowers and the walls overgrown with vines. Huss's Tower, which was pointed out to me by the baron, is 25 feet square, its walls 5 feet thick, and the ascent within is made by 124 steps of stone or wood. The top story was Huss's place of confinement. A beautiful view is had through the narrow casement over the lake and to the moun- tains beyond. A tablet in Czech and German gives the date of Huss's confinement. Here in this high and airy tower — turri aerosa — as he called it, Huss had freedom to walk about during the day, his feet fettered; and at night his hands were chained with iron manacles fastened to the wall near his bed. So rigorous was the imprisonment at GottHeben, which lasted more than two months, March 24 to June 5, that not a single letter written by the prisoner's hand is preserved. There was no jailer like Robert to mediate between him and the outside world. His case was put, April 6, into the hands of a new commission, with d'Ailly at its head, with full power to examine into WycHf's teachings and his own.^ On the 17th a change was again made, d'Ailly withdrew, and four commissioners were appointed, one from each of the four nations. While the inquisition in committee was being conducted, the case was also brought before the council as a whole through protests against Huss's treatment emanating from Bohemians and Poles sojourning in Constance and nobles in the home country. The first of these, signed by a number of Bohemian and Polish noblemen at the time in Constance, was presented May 13 to the four nations assembled in the refectory of the Franciscan convent. The document reasserted that Huss had come to Constance, under promise of safe-conduct from the king, to give public statement of his tenets. He had been incarcerated without a hearing and become so ^ Hardt, 4 : 100. Mansi, 27 : 592. 196 JOHN HUSS reduced in prison that he was in danger of losing his reason. And this had occurred while other persons, accused of heresy at Pisa, were allowed their personal liberty. The kingdom of Bohemia was suffering under the unjust aspersion of heresy. The document petitioned that Huss be at once set at liberty. His health made delay dangerous. It then went on to deny the charge that the cup was being freely distributed in Bo- hemia, In the discussion which followed, the bishop of Leito- mysl made an address denying the accuracy of the state- ments. Very many towns and cities in Bohemia, he said, were infected with Wyclifism. The attempts to root it out had been in vain. Wyclifism was rank heresy. The Wy- clifists held that the use of the cup by the laity was essential to salvation. A woman of Prague of the Wyclifist sect,^ so he alleged, had ruthlessly taken the host from the hands of a priest and eaten it, and even Bohemian shoemakers were daring to distribute the bread and wine and to turn con- fessors. These sectarists pronounced priests guilty of sacrilege who refused to distribute the wine. As he had done before, so again the bishop begged the Fathers to put down the ex- cesses in Bohemia. Two days later. May i6, the bishop of Carcassonne made a reply to the petition of the nobles, the entire German nation, as well as delegates from the other three nations, and also a number of the signers of the petition being present. The bishop declared that the Bohemian and Polish nobles were in error when they said that Huss had come to Constance under the imperial protection. The salvus conductus had not been given until fifteen days after Huss's arrival. As for the second point, that Huss had been arrested and im- prisoned without a hearing, the fact was that he had been cited to Rome and had neglected to appear and that, in view of his prolonged excommunication, he was no longer a simple ^ Doc, 259. This woman seems to have preached in the church in 1416. Palacky, Gesch., note, p. 334. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 197 heretic but a heresiarch, the inventor and sower of new errors. Moreover, as for his having publicly preached in Constance, this was a fact, as his opponents declared, a fact which John of Chlum's pledged word had not proved untrue. In making their reply, the nobles declared the suggestion that the passport had not been promised before Huss's arrival in Constance gave the lie to the imperial chancery. On the day of his arrest, in answer to a question put by John XXIII, he had stated that, as they all knew, he had such a passport from the king, and on the succeeding days it was shown to many lords, bishops, and other persons in Constance. The nobles continued that Huss had been ready to go to Rome and had sent procurators to the holy city and that, as for the excommunication, he had appealed from it to Christ and the council, and had come to Constance for the very purpose of making a public showing of his faith. To this John of Chlum added that, as for the charge that Huss had publicly preached in Constance, not only had he not preached, but he had not even set his foot across the threshold of the house where he lodged from the time he entered it to the day he was arrested. In reference to the Wyclifite practices prevalent in Bohemia, as charged by the bishop of Leitomysl, the Bohemians and Poles flatly denied the charge. It was a question, they said, of observation and of veracity as between them and the Iron Bishop. In this meeting the deposition of the bishop of Nazareth — Bishop-sup- with- the-devil — attesting Huss's or- thodoxy was read. A petition signed at Briinn by nine high Moravian noble- men and other noblemen, dated May 8, 1415, was read May 31 in the council. It was addressed to Sigismund and in- terceded that Huss might not be left in a corner but have an open hearing, called Huss a good man and a faithful and honest preacher and minister of the Holy Scriptures. The nobles reminded the king of his written public promise which he had given to Huss, "although there was no need of a igS JOHN HUSS passport for a good and pious man." In defiance of the law, right and this public promise, Huss had been thrown into a close prison. Now, they heard, he had been taken into custody by the bishop of Constance and subjected to even more rigorous imprisonment, and that the bishop had cruelly and wrongfully put him in chains. In begging for his release, they pledged their word, "a word they would not break for anything in the world," that Huss would remain in Constance until he had a public hearing. To this second appeal the patriarch of Antioch in the name of the council gave reply that, if the assertion of Huss's in- nocence were found to be well made and the excerpts from his book extracted by doctors misrepresented him, these things would appear in a pubHc hearing, which he thereupon set for June 5. As for the word of the nobles, he declared that not the word of a thousand men should be taken as a surety for a man who was in nowise to be believed. Certainly such a flagrant heretic was not to be placed in the hands of any persons giving a guarantee, whoever they might be.^ The most weighty of these appeals, dated May 12, was signed by two hundred and fifty Bohemian and Moravian nobles and read in the council, June 12. It was likewise addressed to Sigismund. The signers called the king's atten- tion to the promise which John had given the year before, that all, even heretics, going to Constance should have safety there and back. Huss they pronounced the most honest of men and a faithful preacher of the divine Word. He had gone to Constance to rid Bohemia of the ill fame of heresy. Witnesses, more in number than his enemies and more trust- worthy than they, had borne testimony that he had never preached anything unsound or heretical, but, on the contrary, only the truth and the divine law as set forth in the sacred Scriptures and explained by the holy Fathers. In spite of law and the king's public promise, Huss had been cast into * Mladenowicz, Doc, 271. The Briinn appeal, Doc, 547 sq. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 199 prison. All Bohemia was burdened with the disgrace and shame of having an innocent man treated like a criminal. Sigismund, they alleged, was able easily to secure obedience to his will and have Huss released so that he might return *'to us in Bohemia" with the same safety with which he had gone to Constance. The king's honor as well as Bohemia's peace and honor were bound up in securing this result. In another document, signed by other Bohemian nobles and dated May 12, 1415,^ an urgent call was made to the Bohemian and Moravian nobles at Constance to be insistent in interceding with the king not to permit the iniquity being perpetrated upon Huss to continue. As they heard, so they said, Huss "had been seized by royal authority and in the king's city" in spite of his having been given pubHc promise of security, they called upon the king to release him and to accord him the same full liberty to return to Bohemia he had exercised in going to Constance. In these appeals, which the signers affirmed represented the views of the people at large, the high personal character of Huss is vouched for, as also his fidelity in preaching the Gospel. The arrest and imprisonment are treated as criminal injustice and in violation of solemn pledges. The ignominy put upon Huss is regarded as an insult to Bohemia. With unanimity, they put the same interpretation upon the mean- ing and intent of Sigismund's passport — salvus conductiis. It would have been quite according to the inhumane usages of that age — usages also in vogue in later centuries — ■ if, in spite of the high character of many of the churchmen met at Constance, Huss had been kept in prison, completely shut off from the world, until his death. Others, whose views were called in question though their piety was not denied, and some of whose names we know, suft'ered this awful fate; as, for example, Carranza, archbishop of Toledo, and Michael de Molinos, author of The Spiritual Guide, both in Rome. 1 Doc, 554. 200 JOHN HUSS P This fate Huss feared for himself, and it is quite possible that he owed his deliverance to these appeals by Bohemia and Moravia. The protest of the signers, so many in number I and of such high standing, it would have been audacity ■ indeed in the council to have ignored. The distribution of the cup to the laity in the city of Prague, to which reference is made in one of these appeals, was rendering, if possible, Huss's case more difficult of satis- factory explanation. This practice introduced a new element of division. Huss had received news of it in prison. To us, extraordinary as it may seem, the withholding of the cup from laymen had become a general custom in the West. The original reason for it may have been either an effort to emphasize the distinction of the priesthood and the laity or to prevent profanation of the sacred blood by its being spilled or eructated by the receiver. The custom was justified by the shrewdest sophistry of which the mediaeval theologians were capable, from Alexander of Hales, d. 1245, down. Once fixed by ecclesiastical considerations, the attempt was made to justify it by Scriptural authority. The best that could be done from this standpoint was done by Thomas Aquinas, who recalled that Christ distributed bread to the five thousand but not drink. However, if the reference were to be taken too seriously, it might have been argued that fish would have been a proper, if not a necessary, substitute for the wine. But the practice was based upon other grounds. Anselm, a century or two before Aquinas, had insisted that the whole Christ was in the transmuted wine and the whole Christ in the transubstantiated bread; but Anselm did not resort to speculation to justify the withdrawal of the cup. Other- wise Alexander Hales, who insisted that it should be withheld for the purpose of teaching the laity the doctrine that the whole Christ is in each of the elements, that laymen might know that in partaking of the bread alone they are partaking of Christ's full body. It remained for the council of Constance BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 201 to threaten with excommunication all who distributed the wine to the laity. The enhghtened churchman, Gerson, who voted for this enactment, referred to Acts 2 : 42, 46, as showing that the breaking of bread was alone practised soon after the inception of the church, and urged the danger of profanation to the wine by spilling it or by its coming in contact with the beards of laymen. There was likewise, he argued, the danger of its being frozen or turning to vinegar, and also the danger, if both elements were administered, of seeming to show that at the communion priest and layman are on an equality. Moreover, Christ had commanded only the Apostles to partake of both elements. The last con- sideration was based upon the words: "Drink ye all of it." However, we may well reply, the words of institution in the case of the bread might with equal plausibility be appHed to the Apostles alone and their successors, the priests, and in this way the layman be deprived of both of the elements in the Lord's Supper.^ Jacobellus of Mies, the most prominent theological master left in Prague, began to practise the double communion soon after the migration of the doctors to the council and seems to have had the support of many of Huss's followers. The Scriptures being taken as authority, many church rites and customs consecrated by the usage of years are found to be of human authority and vanish away in its plain light as of no necessary obhgation. This was the case with the innovators in Prague as also with Huss and Wyclif. In several of the Prague churches both elements were distributed. The arch- bishop's excommunication pronounced upon Jacobellus seems to have made little impression. When the news of the innovation first came to Huss's ears he was incHned to resent the change, but he speedily * Schwab, J . Gerson, pp. 604 sqq. For strange customs in connection with the distribution of the cup, see Schaff, Ch. Hist., vol. V, i : 726 sq.; V, 2 : 211 sq. 202 JOHN HUSS assumed a different attitude and wrote a tract in its favor. His object in so doing was to unite his followers and his at- titude had the desired result. He leaned upon the plain teaching of Scripture, making the use of the cup as essential as the use of the bread. ^Eneas Sylvius joined in spreading the charge against Jacobellus that he made the partaking of the wine necessary to salvation. The use of the cup by the laity became the battle-ground between Hussitism and the Catholic authorities after Huss's death. The Roman practice forbidding it called forth the protests of Luther and the other Reformers. If there were any members of the council who had doubt about Huss's heresy, the innovation confirmed them in the conviction that he was a dangerous character, a corrupt branch to be cut off lest it infect the vine of the church. The council's decree formally condemning Wyclif and his teachings also definitely placed that tribunal in closer array against the prisoner. On May 4, two hundred and sixty errors, ascribed to the English divine, were proscribed, and his bones ordered exhumed from their resting-place, provided they could be distinguished from the bones of the faithful sleepers, and ordered cast at a distance from the place of ecclesiastical sepulture. The decree was not carried out until 1429, when Martin V issued a special brief enjoining its execution. "The holy synod," so ran the decree, "declares the said John Wyclif to have been a notorious heretic, excommunicates him, and condemns his memory as of one who died an obstinate heretic." While Huss was still at Gottlieben, John XXHI was checked in his flight, arrested and brought back to Constance and placed as a prisoner in the same castle. Whether, dur- ing his two days' confinement in Gottlieben, the two men saw one another across the courtyard is not known. As strangely disparate were the ends of this pope and Huss as were their careers. The one guilty, as the council charged, BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 203 of all turpitude and deposed was, after a period of confine- ment at Heidelberg, released and made cardinal bishop of Tusculum, in the possession of which dignity he died six months later, 1419. A splendid tomb, the work of Donatello and Michelozzo, was erected to his memory by the Florentines in the baptistry of their city. Huss, against whose private character and devotion to duty, as he saw it, no charges were made, was harried and burned at the stake, his ashes scattered on the Rhine and his memory declared pestilential. A rude bowlder marks the place of his death. But while John's name is only a memory and his career a warning, Huss lives in the hearts of many as a wholesome and uplifting force., In order to be within close reach of the Franciscan friary, at which the hearing was announced for June 5, Huss, as it would seem, was removed on the morning of that very day to a tower adjoining it. Our knowledge of his affairs, so scant during the period of his imprisonment at Gottlieben, suddenly becomes full and satisfactory with his removal to his new prison, which lacked some of the rigors of his previous confinement. His correspondence begins again the very day of his arrival at the Franciscan convent. In his first letter he speaks of his food as once more plentiful and wholesome. The public hearing, now to be held, was an unusual con- cession made to Sigismund. The inquisitional trials were wont to be held in utter secrecy. In this case all the prelates and other members of the council were present at the hearing. ^ As was the custom with the inquisition on such occasions, the fiftieth psalm was read, one verse of which runs: "Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my stat- utes, and that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?" The thirty articles which the commission of eight, headed by d'Ailly, had presented to Huss, May 19, as being proven against him were then read, together with his last letter written to his Bohemian friends as he was about to start on ' Mladenowicz, Doc, p. 274. 204 JOHN HUSS the journey to Constance, in which he spoke of going to meet inveterate foes and the possibiHty of his death. It was evi- dent that the council's purpose was to sentence Huss forth- with, without giving him a chance to defend himself. One who was Hstening and had seen the text of the sentence in- formed Peter Mladenowicz of this purpose.^ Running to John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba, Mladenowicz apprised them of what was about to be done. They in turn hastened to the king to inform him and handed him autographic copies of Huss's Treatise on the Church and his tracts against Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim. Without delay the king despatched Lewis, count palatine, and Frederick, burgrave of Niirnberg, to inform the council that it was the royal will that no condemnation be pro- nounced until the king first had notice of it, and that Huss should be given a patient hearing. The messengers then handed the Treatise on the Church and those against Palecz and Znaim to the council, with the understanding that they should be returned without erasures or the introduction of new material. Being asked whether the three writings were his, Huss declared they were and that if anything was taught in them which was erroneous or evil he was ready humbly to recall it. As the thirty articles and the depositions of the witnesses were being read and Huss attempted to reply, members of the council strove to drown his voice by vociferous cries, exclaiming: "Be done with your sophistry and say yes or no." Others laughed at him, and, when he attempted to adduce authorities, they joined in asserting that they were not to the point. Finding his efforts unavailing, Huss then kept silent, so that members cried out: "See, thou art silent. It is plain thou givest assent to the errors." Huss was not disappointed in finding that the synod was not in- 1 For important details we are dependent upon Mladenowicz, Huss's friend, alone, and it is not impossible that he gave a partisan coloring to some of his statements. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 205 clined to prove from the Fathers and the Scriptures that the charges made against him were well taken and that its mind was made up and the verdict virtually decided upon. Writing of the experiences of the day, he recalled the clamor of the Jews against Jesus before the crucifixion. Among all the clergy he had failed to discover a single friend except "the father" and a Polish doctor. Further, he felt that the councillors had not come to the main point, which he regarded as embodied in the teachings in his small treatises, all of which they would insist upon his retracting. As he feared might be the case, the council was not ready to Hsten to Augustine's definition of the church, based upon the decree of predestination. He wrote to John of Chlum that he was expecting death, and he would rather have his body consumed in the flames than be hidden away in the concealment and darkness of a dungeon forever. In the former case, Christen- dom would at least know what his position really was. In adjourning, the assembly left with Huss the responsi- bility of confessing all the articles taken from his books as erroneous. As he was being conducted by the bishop of Riga from the refectory to his prison, he noticed his friends, and, giving them his hand, said: "Have no fear for me." When they replied they had no fear, he said again: "I know it well, I know it well." Ascending the stairway, he turned and blessed the people who stood by, smiled and seemed to be in good spirits.^ The second hearing, on June 7, was delayed until ten o'clock by an almost total eclipse of the sun. A grim aspect was given to the occasion by the guard of city soldiers which surrounded the convent building. At this meeting the king was present, and Huss saw him for the first time in Constance. The proceedings were conducted with some decorum, as the order had gone forth that persons shouting were to be ejected. The vivid description given by Mladenowicz is corroborated ' Doc, loi, 105, 276. 2o6 JOHN HUSS and supplemented by Huss's letters written at the close of the day. Two articles had been stricken out from the list of the charges of June 5, — a gain of less importance than Huss fan- cied it to be. Witnesses — doctors, prelates, parish priests and others — were called upon to bear witness to the accusa- tion that since 1410 Huss had been preaching the doctrines of Wyclif and other erroneous doctrines of his own invention. The XLV Wyclifite Articles were brought in evidence, as also Huss's attitude to the burning of Wyclif's books, and the trouble at the university with the Germans. A charge on which great stress was laid was the remanence of the material bread. This charge Huss denied, caUing God and his con- science to witness; but in explanation of his use of the term panis, bread, he said that he had used it against the arch- bishop's prohibition but in conformity with John 6, where the Lord spoke of himself again and again as bread and the bread of angels. However, he did not use the expression material bread. Here a question was interjected concerning Universals and their bearing on the substance of consecrated bread. This was intended to be a trap, the object being to show that if Huss were a Realist he could not believe in the transubstantiation of the elements. In being a Realist, Huss followed Wyclif and deposed that he accepted Universals in the sense used by St. Anselm and others.^ By the order of the French king. Realism had been pronounced erroneous, and all other views except Nominahsm expatriated from France. The introduction of a question, philosophical and scholastic in its import, did not appeal to all the members. D'Ailly, who was a Nominalist, and seemed to be in hot temper, had said that if Huss followed Anselm, then after the consecra- tion of the elements the material bread remained. Three ^Tschackert, Peter d'Ailll, p. 226 sq. Mladenowicz, Doc, p. 277. See Schwab, Gerson, p. 586 sq. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 207 Englishmen entered into the discussion. One started up and sought to lay bare how, on the Realistic theory, the primal substance must remain in the elements after consecration. To this Huss rephed that such puerile argument befitted schoolboys. A second Englishman standing close to Huss started to prove that on that theory after the consecration the substantial form of the material bread remained and also the substance of the original bread was not annihilated. Huss replied, that it was true it was not annihilated, but by an exceptional law — singular iter — it ceased to be and was transubstantiated- into the body of Christ. An Englishman then rephed that Huss, following Wychf, was now answering with reservation, but that, nevertheless, he held that the real bread remained. To this Huss retorted that, before God, he was speaking sincerely and from the heart, and that he believed the consecrated bread was the real body which was born of Mary, suffered, died and rose again and sitteth at the right hand of God. This was substantially the word- ing of the definition of the fourth Lateran council, which defined the dogma of transubstantiation. One of the Enghsh- men then went on to say that there was no reason for intro- ducing into the hearing an irrelevant question which meant nothing for an act which was an act of faith; Huss was right. At this point a familiar figure appeared, the Englishman Stokes, whom we have met at Prague, and who deposed that he had seen in the Bohemian capital a book, ascribed to Huss, teaching remanence. To this Huss rephed that it was not true. On others adding their testimonies that Huss had preached this doctrine, the Florentine cardinal Zabarella ap- pealed to the law, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses a thing is established. To this Huss made answer that God and his conscience knew what he had preached and had in his heart, and all the testimonies of his adversaries would do him no injury. Another doctor who attempted to explain transubstantiation got confused and sat down, saying of 2o8 JOHN HUSS Huss: "It is all heresy." According to one of Huss's letters, one of the English doctors in a private hearing told him that WycUf was bent upon destroying all learning. Going over the examination in his prison, Huss expressed the opinion that he had silenced d'Ailly. When he referred to his con- science there was such a clamor that Huss exclaimed: ''I thought that there would be more reverence, religion and order in this council." So great was the disorder that the king called for silence. At this point d'Ailly and Zabarella interjected that the council could not base its verdict upon what was in Huss's conscience but only upon the express statements of witnesses and Huss's own admissions — nos non possumus secundum tuam conscientiam judicare. Huss, they said, had expressed himself against Palecz's testi- mony, who had drawn his charges from Huss's books, and also the testimony of the chancellor of Paris, Gerson; but Gerson, d'Ailly went on to say, ''was certainly a great authority, a great doctor, if any could be found in Christendom."^ Huss had written to his friends that he wished God would give him time to write of the lies invented by the rector of the Paris university, who had so unfairly charged him with heresy. Among other statements ascribed to Huss were these: That tithes are to be regarded as pure alms and that the rich on pain of eternal damnation are imder obligations to do the six works of mercy, Matt. 25 : 44. With reference to these charges, the bishop of Salisbury observed that "if all are obliged to do the six works of mercy, then it follows that the poor who can give nothing will be damned." But Huss rephed that he had limited his statement to a particular class. Another charge was that he had called upon his adherents to resist his adversaries by resort to the material sword, ap- pealing for this counsel to Moses' example. To this he replied ^ Mladenowicz, Doc, p. 278. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 209 that the words had been falsely ascribed to him. In preaching about the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, he had exhorted that all should gird themselves with the sword and defend the truth of the Gospel, but, in order that his enemies might not have wherewith to entrap him, he had been careful to add that he spoke not of the material sword, but of the sword which is the Word of God. At this the members of the council cried out, twitting him with the strange inconsistency of his reference to Moses' sword, if the explanation he was then making was genuine. As for the charge of having broken up the university of Prague, he replied that the question of giving three votes to the Bohemians was one of justice and conforming to the charters of Paris and Bologna. , /JP The main objection, underlying all the accusations, was Huss's admiration of Wyclif and his alleged advocacy of Wyclif's teachings, not only in the university but also in the pulpit. To this charge Huss rephed that he had not defended any erroneous doctrines, which in this quarter or that might be ascribed to Wyclif, and that he did not know of any Bo- hemian who had defended any such erroneous doctrine. He knew of no Bohemian who had been a heretic or was a heretic at that time. WycUf was not his father. And, as regards the XLV Articles, he persisted in his refusal to assent to their condemnation on the ground that the doctors themselves had not decided to which category they severally belonged — catholic, heretical, erroneous or scandalous. As for his protest against Zbynek's burning of Wyclif's books, Zbynek was not justified in his action and had no business to burn them without first reading them and finding out what were their contents. He had said, so it was further witnessed, that when the monks and clergy failed in St. Paul's Cathedral to convict Wyclif, the very heavens had come to WycUf's help with thunder and lightning, and the earth had belched forth its 2IO JOHN HUSS protest, so that the clergy with difficulty escaped the rage of the populace. And then, to confirm his sympathy with Wyclif, he had exclaimed: "Oh, that my soul were there where John Wyclif s soul is!" — utinam anima mea esset ibi, ubi est anima Joannes Wyclif! To this testimony Huss replied that what he really said was, that he knew not where the soul of Wyclif was. He hoped that WycHf was saved and that his own soul might be there where he hoped Wyclif's soul was. At this point, the members broke out in loud murmurs of de- rision, also manifesting their feelings by shaking their heads. When the objection was read that Huss had appealed from the decisions of the two popes, Alexander V and John XXIH, he answered: "Is it not permissible to appeal to Christ? I hereby pubUcly avow that there is no safer or more efficacious appeal than the appeal to Jesus Christ." Here again the council was greatly excited and abandoned itself to derisive outcries. Huss went on: "The law allows appeal from a lower to a higher judge, and who is a more mighty and just judge and who able more effectually to help the burdened and oppressed than Christ, Christ who neither errs nor is able to err?" D'Ailly interposed that Huss had spoken in a much milder tone in his tower prison at Gottheben — where Huss, ac- cording to his own statement, had had many hearings — than he was employing before the council and assured him that his change of manner was not helping his case. At this, Huss justified liimself by declaring that in the tower the inquisitors had spoken to him kindly, but the members of the council seemed almost unanimously to be vociferating against him, so that he had come to the conclusion that they were all his enemies.^ When d'Ailly reminded the prisoner that in the audience before the pope and the cardinals, at the palace, he insisted that he had come to Constance of his own free will, and that 1 Mladenowicz, Doc, 282. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 211 no one, not even the king of Bohemia or the king of the Romans, could have forced him to come against his will, Huss repHed: "Yes, and there was no one there to shout me down, but here every one is cr3dng me down." Then, speaking to the main point, Huss went on to make the famous statement already- quoted, that, indeed, not only had he come of his own free will, but if he had not wished to come, there were lords in Bohemia of such power, who loved him, that he could have found safe refuge in their castles; for that neither that king — referring to Wenzel— nor this one — referring to Sigismund — could have compelled hihi to come. Shaking his head and changing to an indignant expression of face, the cardinal exclaimed: "What temerity !" To those near him, John of Chlum then remarked that what Huss said was true and that he himself, though a poor knight, would have held Huss for a whole year against all enemies and that there were many and great lords, who loved him and had the strongest castles, who would hold him, if they wished, safe in the face of both those kings. Finally d'Ailly reminded Huss that in the tower he had expressed himself ready to submit to the council's decision and he recommended him at that time to rely on its mercy and not attempt to explain away errors. As for the instruction which he sought, the cardinal told him that the declaration of the doctors was final. At this juncture Sigismund, taking an active part in the proceedings, addressed himself to Huss, remarking that he had given him the passport — salvus condudus — before Huss left Prague, and that he had commissioned Duba and John of Chlum to accompany him in order that he might have a pubHc hearing in Constance and be able to answer for his faith. Now, he had had a fair and public hearing, and he was grateful to Duba and Chlum, no matter if there were some who condemned him for giving a salvus condudus to a heretic, or at least to one suspected of heresy. ''Therefore," he continued, "as the cardinal has just counselled you so I 212 JOHN HUSS counsel you, not to hold on obstinately to anything, but in the things proved against you and to which you have con- fessed place yourself wholly at the mercy of the holy council, that for our sakes and for the sake of our brother and for the sake of the kingdom of Bohemia the council may accord to you some grace, and that you may receive penance for the things proved. I have told them that I have no idea of shielding a heretic. Nay, if any one should be found to persist obstinately in his heresy I would wish to be the first to start the fire and burn him." To this address Huss replied that he was thankful to the king for the passport and that, in coming to Constance, he had no purpose of obstinately defending errors, but, on the con- trary, his purpose was to correct errors, if any were proved against him. Before leaving, Sigismund promised Huss, at the next hearing, a written statement of the accusations with which he was charged. Huss was then conducted to his prison by the bishop of Riga, to whose care both he and Jerome of Prague had been committed. In writing of the incidents of this hearing of June 7, Huss said that two EngHshmen tried to set forth the doctrine of the eucharistic presence but broke down, one of them when he came to discuss the multiplication of Christ's body. The other pronounced Huss another Berengar. This monk Be- rengar was condemned at a Roman synod, 1059, for his denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation and, falHng upon his face, retracted. Although he afterward returned to his former views, he was protected by his friend, Gregory VII. He re- gretted that he had been led to recant by fear of excommuni- cation from the church and the worst of deaths at the hands of the people.^ Huss refers also to the hootings and hissings which greeted some of his statements. At times he was overwhelmed by • Schaff, 4 : 558 sqq. Huss refers to Berengar at length in his de cor pore Christi, Mon. 1 : 203. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 213 the uproar, so that, on one occasion, Sigismund had to call for a calm hearing for the accused. Huss represents that the demand was that he should accept the council's decision without sufficient reasons being given for his doing so and without being shown his errors. / On the 8th of June, the last formal hearing was held. Sigismund was again present in the Grayfriars refectory and d'Ailly was the prominent judicial character. Thirty-nine articles were put in evidence, twenty-six of them taken from Huss's Treatise on the Church, seven from his tracts against Palecz and six from his tract against Stanislaus.^ As the arti- cles were being read aloud, an English ecclesiastic read the pertinent text from the original of Huss's works that no occa- sion might be left for controversy over his exact meaning. As this was going on, d'Ailly again and again turned to the king and others, remarking that the excerpts were worse and more dangerous than the formulated articles of accusation made Huss's meaning out to be. The first eight articles bore on predestination as the distin- guishing mark of those who were of the church and ran sub- stantially as follows : The universal church is the totality of the predestinate. Paul never belonged to the devil's household, al- though he performed certain acts worthy of the body of the damned. So it was with Peter who, by the Lord's permission, was guilty of perjury. No part of the church can finally fall away for the reason that predestinating love never fails. j No place of honor or human election or any other visible and tangible mark constitutes membership in the Catholic church. Judas had the marks but never was a true disciple \y of Christ. At the loth article declaring that only followers of Christ in this life can be called Christ's vicars, and that if the supposed ^ Doc, 286-315. Eng. transl., Gillett i : 582-600. Hefele gives an ab- breviated statement, 159-164. Compare the anti-Wyclif and Huss articles as condemned by Martin V, Mirbt, 171 sq. 214 JOHN HUSS vicar walks in other ways he is the messenger of antichrist, the leaders of the council — prcBsidenles— -shook their heads and, looking at one another, smiled. The 12th article stated that the papal dignity had been derived from the Ceesars. After the pertinent section from the Treatise on the Church was read, Huss deposed that so far as the outward symbols of power and temporal goods were concerned, the papal dignity had its origin with Constantine, but so far as the spiritual function of ruHng the church went, it proceeded directly from Christ. Here d'Ailly interjected that out of respect for the emperor, the Nicene council gave him the place of honor, although that place really belonged to the pope. Why did Huss, therefore, not say that the pope's supremacy emanated from the council rather than from Caesar? Huss replied: "On account of the dotation, as I have said, which Caesar made." Four important articles, concerning the pope and the cardinals, afi&rmed that the Roman pontiff is not the head of a particular church unless he be predestinated by God, and his authority is null and void unless his life and conduct be conformed to Christ's law; nor are they truly cardinals who refuse to follow in the steps of Christ and the Apostles. Here d'Ailly asserted that Huss had preached and written out of all moderation against the cardinals, and that such preaching was not necessary for the people but ought to be practised, if practised at all, in the presence of the cardinals themselves. To this Huss made the reply that among his auditors had been priests and other learned men, and he had spoken as he did so that they and future priests might be on their guard. The cardinal added: "You do very ill to attempt by such preaching to discredit and cast down the church." Article XVIII set forth that "no heretic should be handed over by the ecclesiastical power to the civil power to be punished by physical death." When the corresponding section had been read from the Treatise on the Church, Huss BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 215 added that a heretic ought to be instructed kindly, tenderly and faithfully from the sacred Scriptures and by reasons based on them — sacris scripturis et rationihus ex illis — as was Augustine's custom in dealing with heretics. He had not said that, after having been thus labored with and refusing to abandon his errors, a heretic should not be punished even with corporal punishment. At this there was a buzz. Then Huss went on to speak of the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, who delivered Christ to Pilate, saying: "It is not lawful for us to put any one to death." These were more flagrant murderers, he continued, than Pilate, for Christ said: "He who hath delivered me up hath the greater sin." Then the buzz turned to a tumult and the council cried out: "Who is like unto those scribes and Pharisees? Do you pretend to mean those who deliver a heretic over to the secular arm?" Huss repHed: "Those, I mean, who deliver the innocent over to the secular arm for death, as did the chief priests and Pharisees, who delivered Christ up to Pilate." Then they shouted: "No, no, here you are speaking of the doctors." To this the cardinal of Cambray added: "These things as stated in the Treatise are much more serious than the formal articles indicate." The 19 th article asserted that civil princes should compel priests to observe Christ's law. So far as the report goes there was here no criticism. Article XX set forth that ecclesiastical obedience is an invention of the priests of the church and outside the express authority of Scripture. In explaining this statement, Huss said that there are three kinds of obedience — spiritual, due to God; civil, due to the state, and ecclesiastical, due to the church; the last enactments being derived from the priest- hood. Article XXI set forth that if a person excommunicated by the pope appealed to Christ, the punishment due excom- munication is suspended. Here Huss added that it was 2i6 JOHN HUSS true that he had made a final appeal to Christ, but not until two years and more after his procurators had failed to secure a hearing. To this d'Ailly replied: "So you wish to set your- self above Paul who, under an accusation at Jerusalem, ap- pealed not to Christ but to Caesar." Huss answered: "Very well, and if he had done this in the first instance he would have been esteemed a heretic. But Paul did not appeal to Cassar of his own suggestion but by the revelation of Christ, who had appeared to him, saying: 'Be faithful, for thou must go to Rome!'" Here the members of the council fiilled the chamber with derisive laughter, and when they raised the objection that Huss had officiated at the mass while under the sentence of excommunication, Huss explained that he had ministered, it was true, in divine things, but under the protection of his appeal to Christ. Asked, if he had been absolved by the pope, he replied in the negative. At this point the cardinal of Florence nodded to the notary to take down Huss's statement. In Article XXII the principle is laid down that what- soever is done by a sinful man is sinful, and by a virtuous man is virtuous. D'Ailly followed up the reading by saying that according to the Scriptures we have all sinned, and if we say we have not sinned we deceive ourselves; so that it would seem that we always act sinfully. Huss replied that here the reference was to venial sins, which may exist in conjunction with a virtuous habit of mind. Here an English- man, called WilHam, interjected: "But these things do not comport with acts morally good." Quoting Augustine, Huss replied: "If thou fillest thyself with wine thy Hfe blas- phemes, no matter what praises thy tongue may recite." Clamor prevented the defendant from proceeding, as they shouted that the quotation had no application to the prop- osition. This William seems to have been, as Wylie suggests, WilHam Gorach, or Grach, principal of Hart Hall, Oxford, and later vice-chancellor of the university in 1439. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 217 Articles XXIII and XXIV demand for the true priest the right to preach in spite of a sentence of excommunication. Here, Huss explained that he had reference to an unjust sentence at variance with the written law and the Word of God. A priest conforming his Ufe to God's precepts has no business to cease from preaching nor should he stand in fear of an unjust prohibition as though it were a ground of condem- nation. The Florentine cardinal Zabarella, remarked that there were laws demanding that even an unjust censure was to be dreaded. Huss answered that, as he remembered, there were eight, reasons for dreading excommunication. ''No more than that?" retorted the cardinal, to which Huss replied: "There may be more." ' Article XXV stated that ecclesiastical censures are of antichrist invented by the clergy for the subjection of the people and its own exaltation. These the laity are under no obligation to obey. Article XXVI: The interdict should not be laid upon the people, seeing that Christ did not fulminate this censure either in view of his own injuries or the treatment given to John the Baptist. Here d'Ailly again interposed that there were even worse things on this subject in the Treatise on the Church than this formula. Huss denied the form of the article. The articles extracted from Huss's work, written against Palecz, aroused most demonstration and clamor. The first asserted that if the pope, a bishop or prelate are in mortal sin they are not pope, bishop or prelate. After the reading of the original text, Huss said that the statement was true not only of prelates but also of kings. If a king was in mortal sin he was not a king in the sight of God. He quoted I Sam. 15 : 26, where the Lord said through Samuel to Saul, who should have put the Amalekite to death but did not: "In that thou hast rejected my word I will also reject thee that thou mayest be king." Although Saul in the sight of men 2i8 JOHN HUSS might have been considered king after this act of disobedience, yet in reahty he was not. At that moment Sigismund, who happened to be standing at the window of the refectory, was remarking to the count palatine and the burgrave of Niirnberg, who stood outside, that in all Christendom there was no such heretic as John Huss. The members of the council followed Huss's statement by crying out: "Call in the king." As the king did not hear, those on the platform cried out over the heads of those stand- ing near the king: "Bring him, that he may hear, for what is being said concerns him." Upon request, Huss repeated what he had said, and when he had concluded, Sigismund remarked: "John Huss, there is no man who doesn't sin — ne^no sine crimine vivit^ And, as reported by Mladenowicz, d'Ailly, wishing to excite the secular princes still more against the accused, asked whether it was not enough for him to have attempted in his writings to revile and humble the spiritual estate. Did he now wish to cast down the royal office also? Palecz then went on to explain that king and pope were names of offices, and the name Christian was intended to express merit, so that a pope could be a real pope, or a king a legitimate king, even if they were not true Christians. Hesitating a Httle, Huss retorted that, if that exposition was well made, it might be applied to Balthasar Cossa, John XXIII, who had been deposed. If he was a true pope, why had he been deposed? To this Sigismund made the remark that until recently mem- bers of the council had held to Balthasar on the ground that he was the true pope, and he was deposed from the papacy because of his notorious wickednesses, which had scandalized the church of God, and because he had plundered the church's goods. The 2d, 3d and 4th articles concerned predestination, and stated that a reprobate pope was not a member of the militant church and consequently not head of the church militant, and that such a pope or prelate was no BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 219 shepherd, but a thief and a robber. Here Huss seems to have Hmited the meaning, which the article has on its face, by declaring that what was said was true from the standpoint of merit — quoad meritum. In the sight of God such persons were not pontiffs and prelates, although in the sight of men and in view of their election they might be treated as such. Rising behind Huss, a black-hooded monk of Fuerstat warned the synod not to be deceived by Huss's explanations, even though they might be found in his books, for he had himself tested Huss and satisfied himself that they were originally not in the books, and the explanations Huss was making he had gotten from him. Turning upon the objector, Huss replied that his views, as explained by him that day, were stated in his books, and he reiterated that the case of John XXIII, now called Balthasar, illustrated his position exactly. If he was not true pope, then he was a thief and robber. At this, the members of the council looked at one another and laughed in derision, exclaiming: "Indeed, he was true pope!" Article V declared that the pope is not and should not be called most blessed. To this Huss added that it is said of Christ: "Thou alone art holy. Thou alone art the Lord." Article VI, stating that a pope living contrary to the example of Christ, though he were canonically elected, ascends to the papacy not through Christ, Huss explained by saying that the matter was not put in these words in his book; but he affirmed that, if a pope or other prelate live contrary to Christ, in pride and other vices, he does not ascend to his office through Christ, the humble door, even though elected in a human way, but climbs up some other way. Judas, though chosen to the apostolate by Christ, nevertheless did not ascend through Christ into the sheepfold of the church, for he was a thief and the son of perdition. Palecz tried to parry the force of Huss's words, but Huss went on to main- tain his position by quoting from Scripture. 220 JOHN HUSS Article VII charged Huss with representing the con- demnation of the XLV WycUfite Articles as irrational and iniquitous, and that no one of them was heretical, erroneous or scandalous. When d'Ailly said, "Master, and did you not say that you are not minded to defend any of Wyclif's errors, and yet from your books it appears that you did defend these articles publicly," Huss rephed that he had no idea of defending any errors of WycHf, or the errors of any one else, but that it was against his conscience to assent with- out explanation to the condemnation of Wyclif's articles when there was nothing to allege from Scripture against them; and the general condemnation of the articles as a whole would not hold. Some of them were not open to condemnation. Thereupon the six articles drawn from Huss's book against Stanislaus were taken up. Among them were the statements that Christ might rule his church much better through his disciples scattered through the earth and apart from ''such wicked heads" as the prelates sometimes were, and that neither the popes were the universal pastors of Christ's sheep nor was Peter. In favor of the first proposition he adduced the cases of John XXIII, who had been deposed, and Gregory XII, who had resigned. And he went on to say that, though there was at that time no papal head, never- theless Christ had not ceased from governing his own church. The statement called forth the derision of the assembly. Article VI, read that "The Apostles and the Lord's faith- ful priests in things necessary to salvation governed the church before the papal office was introduced." At this, the members exclaimed: "See, he turns prophet!" Huss reaffirmed the statement made in the charge and again in- sisted that at that time there was no pope; and that things might go on that way for two years or, for aught any one knew, for an indefinite time. Palecz interjected: "Ah, and that is highly possible, is it?" Huss answered that it was quite possible. At this point Stokes, the Englishman, again BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 221 stepped in and twitted Huss upon asserting these tenets as if they were his own, when, in fact, they were not really his but Wyclif 's. The path he was following was the path trodden before him by Wyclif. At the conclusion of the reading of the thirty-nine articles, d'Ailly, addressing Huss, pointed out that there were two ways open to him — one, of putting himself completely at the council's mercy, in which case, out of respect for Sigismund and the king of Bohemia and for Huss's own good, the coun- cil would be moved to deal with him graciously and in a humane manner — pie et humaniter. The other was of asking for another audience that he might defend himself once more, but in this case he should bear in mind that he had already been heard by many distinguished men and doctors who had given reasons against the thirty-nine errors and there was danger of his being still further involved if another audience were accorded. In a friendly spirit, as he remarked, he counselled Huss to take the former course. Others joined in advising him to throw himself on the council's mercy. To this advice Huss replied with bowed head, repeating what he had said often before, that it was of his own free will he had come to Constance and with no purpose of obstinately defending his views, but in the hope of being informed of his errors, if he held any and, in that case, of submitting to the council. He, therefore, asked that an audience be granted him that he might have opportunity to expound his meaning concerning the articles adduced against him, at the same time assuring the council that, if his reasons and writings were considered to be against the truth, he would humbly submit to the better information offered by the council. Great commotion followed these remarks, many crying out that he seemed willing to yield to the council's information but not to its correction and definition. Huss replied that he was ready to yield in all three ways. D'Ailly then demanded: i. That he abjure the heretical articles 22 2 JOHN HUSS approved by sixty doctors.^ 2. Swear never to preach or teach them again. 3. Make public renunciation. 4. Promise to uphold and preach the opposite. With reference to the advice given by d'Ailly, drawn from the weighty sixty names, Huss wrote, under date of June 26: "What a wonderful piece of information! By this reasoning the virgin St. Catherine ought to have receded from the truth and the faith of Jesus Christ because fifty doctors opposed her! Truly this beloved virgin persisted unto death and won over the doctors, a thing which as a sinner I am not able to do." Huss was referring to Catherine of Alexandria who, according to tradition, received the highest place in the liberal arts. Maximin promised the highest rewards to the philosopher who would win her back to paganism. But she overcame them all and was broken on the St. Catherine's wheel. Her body was transported to Mt. Sinai, where the famous convent commemorates her memory. In reply to d'Ailly, Huss affirmed that he was ready to yield to the council and be informed, but he asked, for God's sake, that the snare of damnation should not be thrown about him and that he be not called upon to abjure articles that he had never held and renounce things which had never been in his heart, especially that, after the consecration, only the material bread remains. It was against his conscience to abjure articles he had never held and thus to tell a lie. When he called his conscience to witness, many cried out: "And did your conscience never intimate to you that you had erred?" At this point, the king called upon Huss to yield to the cardinal's counsel and put aside his unwillingness to abjure all the erroneous articles. As for himself, he did not wish to hold a single error and would abjure all errors, even if he had not held a single one. To this Huss replied that the word abjure did not properly apply in such a case. Zaba- ' Mladenowicz, Doc, 308, is followed by Hefele, 7 : 167. Huss in two letters speaks of fifty doctors, Doc, 107, 140. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 223 rella then interrupted by promising Huss that a carefully guarded formula of abjuration would be placed in his hands. At this most solemn moment, the king again counselled Huss to abjure his errors and throw himself upon the council's clemency in the hope that the council might show him mercy, and he asked him, in view of the laws under which the doctors acted, what fate he might expect if he persisted in the op- posite course. To this Huss made answer once more that all he asked was a public hearing, in which he might set forth his plain meaning, and that he was willing to submit, but only in so far as he did not thereby offend God and his conscience — solum quod Deum el conscieniiam non offendam. He asserted that the main charges concerned his utterances about the popes and other prelates. Yet once more Sigismund called upon the prisoner to choose the path of abjuration. The charges had been at- tested by two or more witnesses and by men of distinction — magni viri. In case he refused, the council would proceed according to its prescribed rules. At this point a certain old, bald-headed bishop, so Mladenowicz writes, ventured to inter- pose that these rules were contained in the section on heretics in the Clemenlines and the liber Sexlus. These were two books of the canon law. When Huss again started to address the king and to ex- plain the reasons for his coming to Constance, he was in- terrupted by an outcry that he was obstinate, had held his errors many years and had no intention of retracting. A fat priest, sitting at the window and clad in a splendid garment, called out that the accused, in case he did abjure, would abjure not with the heart, but only with the tongue and would not hold to his word. He was not to be believed. Huss again protested that, as a faithful Christian, he wished humbly to submit to the decision of holy mother church. When an article was shown him directed against the pope with a gloss attached, Huss declared the gloss had already 2 24 JOHN HUSS been shown him in the Dominican prison, but that he was not its author. He thought it had been written by Jesenicz. Pressed, Huss declared he did not accept its teachings. At this point in his report, Mladenowicz seems to apologize for Huss's answer on the ground of the sleepless night he had passed, racked by toothache and other ills. He apparently was retreating from his true views. ^ His connection with the services attending the burial of the three Prague martyrs, Martin, Stafcon and John, was then adduced. Enghshmen produced a copy of a letter from the university of Oxford which, as they said, Huss had read in a sermon — at the same time showing the seal — with the purpose of commending Wyclif. Huss declared he had read it because it bore the Oxford seal and was brought to Prague by two students. On giving the name of Nicholas Faulfisch as one of the students and pointing to Palecz as a witness, Palecz replied that Faulfisch was no Englishman, but a Bohemian, and had brought with him to Prague a piece of stone from Wyclif's tomb which afterward, as Huss well knew, was revered in Prague as a relic. The Enghshmen then produced another writing, certified to by the chancellor of Oxford, which contained two hundred and sixty errors taken from Wyclif's writings, which were sent to Constance for condemnation. Before the breaking up of the assembly, personal ex- planations were made by Palecz and Michael de Causis, assuring the council that, in pleading against Huss, they had been actuated by pure motives. They called God to witness that they had been moved by no personal bitterness, but solely by regard for the oath they had taken when they became doctors of theology. In reply to these attestations Huss exclaimed: "I stand at God's tribunal, who will judge me and you justly, according to our merits." D'Ailly then commended Palecz and the other doctors who had presented ' Doc, 312. BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 225 the accusations based upon Huss's writings and once more pronounced the text of his writings as more worthy of con- demnation than the formulated articles. In reading over the proceedings, it does not occur to us to accuse Palecz of unworthy motives or to doubt that there were perhaps a number of men in the council who were anxious to give Huss a certain amount of protection and to grant him a fair opportunity of extricating himself from the posi- tion in which he was placed. Among these were d'Ailly and Zabarella, men who had no doubt of his serious departure from Catholic doctrine. The majority of the councillors, as is often the case in ecclesiastical assemblies sitting in judgment upon erroneous doctrines, real or alleged, seem not to have been ready to listen to a reasonable discussion. They had prejudged the case. Explanations were useless. Retraction was their de- mand. Huss was a dangerous heretic. A heretic had no standing. He was the embodiment of all conceivable wicked- ness, fit only for the flames and perdition. Sigismund, as we may believe, with an eye to his promise of safe-conduct and his standing with the Bohemian and Moravian nobles, sought to save Huss from the worst fate.^ Of the obligations under which he was placed by the passport, we shall speak further on. Huss was an innovator whose statements struck at the root of church authority. The rule of belief and action he placed in the Scriptures as interpreted by the individual. From our standpoint, the principle he was contending for was the right of the individual conscience in the presence of the open Bible. D'Ailly and the council took the opposite ground. The eminent French cardinal knew nothing but the supreme authority of the church. As represented in the council at Constance, it had deposed a pope, John XXIII. It had the right to settle doctrine and what it said was law. No in- * See Palacky, Gesch., Ill, 7 : 348-354. Tschackert, 233 sq. 226 JOHN HUSS dividual had any rights against that tribunal — no right to teach in the church, no right to life itself. Tschackert says: **The Bohemian had defined the church as the body of the predestinate; d'Ailly had a different conception. To recognize Huss, d'Ailly would have had to lay down the purple." From the standpoint of our own age, Huss's appeal for an opportunity to present his views in a detailed and con- nected form was proper, but the canons of that age were otherwise. Huss's writings were in the hands of the com- missions. They had been examined and passed upon as containing much that was either erroneous or heretical. If allowed standing, the structure of the canon law would fall. 1 The council does not deserve unmixed blame. It was the crea- ; ture of its age and its predecessors, and the same palliation ^ can be made of its action as is made for John Calvin in Geneva. I Its misfortune was that it represented the system which had exalted an organization at the expense of the authority of the Scriptures and individual rights of conscience. The ground Huss occupied, without knowing it, was radically out of accord with this system and was substantially the ground that Luther and the Protestant Reformers afterward took, though in details the Protestant Reformers went much further than he did. Let the Scriptures be taken as the final and sufi&cient rule of human opinion and conduct, then individual dissent from the accredited doctrines of the church ceases to be in itself an iniquity, a crime. Had Huss been allowed to make a formal and orderly defense, there can be little doubt that the issue would have been the very same. Measured by the standard of his times, judged by the canon law and by the practice of several centuries, he was far and away a heretic and deserving the penalty which the Middle Ages accorded to heretics — perpet- ual imprisonment or death. To shift the ground of ac- — countability to the conscience was, as d'Ailly and others stated, a principle unknown to ecclesiastical procedure. The BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 227 fabric built up by councils and Schoolmen, and not a lonely priest's opinion, was determinative and final. What disappoints the student of the council of Constance is that no testimony was offered by any of the councillors in favor of Huss. And after its adjournment not a single voice, so far as we know, was raised by an authoritative teacher of Europe to indicate that he felt that the council of which he was a member had made any mistake. Gerson's statement that if Huss had had an attorney he would have been saved, was a remark he made in pique, in view of the council's refusal to condemn tyrannicide. Huss's clerical friends in Bohemia had no theological weight. His lay friends were numerous and powerful, but laymen were no judges in matters of doctrine. The em- peror and the council were unanimously against him. CHAPTER X CONDEMNED AND BURNED AT THE STAKE Melius est bene niori quain male vivere; propter mortis supplicium non est pcccandimi; prcesentem vitam finire in gratia est exire dc miseria. — Huss's letter to Christian of Prachaticz, Ap., 1413. Better is it to die well than to live ill. To avoid death we must not sin. To end the present life in grace is to pass out of misery. The council's session being over, and while Huss was on the way to his prison for the last time, John of Chlum pressed through the crowd and took his hand. The recognition was like a cup of water from a far country. What a joy it was, Huss wrote, to have John of Chlum stretch forth his hand, not ashamed to hold it out to him, an abject heretic bound in chains and hooted at by all.^ While the bolts of the prison were being fastened upon him, a confidential address was being made by the king to the council before it scattered. It betrays how completely he had put himself on its side and how ready he was to pro- ceed to the ultimate verdict demanded for obstinate heretics, and which the inquisition was accustomed to pronounce. Although the address was intended only for the prelates, who still Hngered in the refectory but had risen to retire, some of the Bohemians — John of Chlum, Wenzel of Duba and Peter Mladenowicz — after taking leave of Huss, had returned with- out the king's knowledge and overheard what he was about to say. Of the many charges brought against the prisoner, so spoke the king, any one of them was sufficient for his con- demnation. In case he did not abjure, he was to be burned or otherwise treated as the ecclesiastical laws called for. ^ Doc, no. 228 BURNED AT THE STAKE 229 But, even if Huss abjured, he was not to be trusted, for, if allowed to go back to Bohemia, he and his sympathizers would disseminate the same errors and also new errors, and the new errors would be worse than the old. He should be forbidden altogether to preach or to go to his sympathizers. In Poland, the errors had a large following as well as in Bo- hemia, and the council should direct his brother, the king of Bohemia, and the princes and prelates to destroy them branch and root, wherever they might be found. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, as it is written, is a thing established. The council should make a clean sweep of all his disciples and especially of the one detained at Constance. ''Who do you call him?" The king's defective memory being supplied by members of the council, the king went on to say: "Yes, Jerome — he is the pupil and Huss is the master." If you have done with that one — Huss — in a single day, you will have little trouble in dealing with the other. "I was a young man," he concluded, "when this sect arose and started in Bohemia, and see how it has grown and multiphed." As Palacky says, these words of Sigismund spoken in a corner of the Franciscan refectory soon resounded throughout all Bohemia and cost the speaker little less than the crown of a kingdom.^ Sigismund was soon to take leave of the council and what was done he wanted done quickly. He referred to his approaching journey to Spain, whose purpose was to induce Benedict XIII to resign. According to Mladenowicz, the members left the refectory in high spirits over the king's words. During the remaining four weeks of his life spent in the Grayfriars prison, Huss wrote a number of letters to his friends in Constance and Bohemia, now in Czech, now in Latin. All the while he was suffering from physical weakness and pain. The wonder is that the prisoner had any spirit left. On June 8, the last day of public hearing, he looked » Gesck, III : 357. 230 JOHN HUSS exceedingly pale — valde pallidus. He was worn out not only with the anxiety of prolonged imprisonment, but with ag- gravated ailments — hemorrhages and vomiting, the stone, headache and toothache — so that, as he himself wrote, his nights were spent without sleep.^ What snatches of sleep he caught were disturbed by dreams. Among many others was the vision of hosts of serpents with heads at their tails, but not one able to harm him. The comfort of receiving communications from his friends was not entirely withdrawn. Letters found their way to him, and he asked that they be not written on large sheets lest they arouse suspicion and fail to reach his cell. Toward the end of the period, perhaps with reference to Paul's letters written from his captivity in Rome, he closed letter after letter with the words, *' written in prison in chains," or "bound in prison in chains, expecting death," or "written in chains in expectation of the flames. "^ The respite before his auto-da-fe was evidently prolonged in order that no effort might be spared to induce Huss to abjure. He was interviewed by many persons, sent to per- suade him to that act. Baskets, as he called them, were held out to him, by which, if he chose to put himself in them, he might escape. Threats and persuasions were employed, let us hope, more from the sentiment of mercy than from the ambition to break up a heretic's obduracy. Among those who visited him were Zabarella, d'Ailly and Palecz. One doctor, who urged him to submit, declared that if the council should tell him he had but one eye, he was bound to agree that it was so. To this suggestion Huss replied that if the whole world told him he had but one eye, yet he could not, so long as he had reason, say so without doing violence to his conscience. After some further remarks the doctor left, saying that Huss was right and that the illustration was not a good one. ^ Doc, io8, 312. ^ Doc, 127, 129, 140, etc. BURNED AT THE STAKE 231 For one of the visitors, whom Huss called "the father," Huss had cordial words of regard. He was one of the leaders of the council and it has been conjectured that he was Zabarella or the cardinal archbishop of Ostia, but his identity is not known. ^ It seems evident that his sympathy for the prisoner was unfeigned. He left with Huss the following form of ab- juration, which, while it committed Huss to submission to the council and to penance, yet distinctly states that much charged against him had never entered his mind. The paper runs as follows: Over and above the declarations made by me, which I desire to be understood as repeating, I declare anew that although much is laid to my charge which never entered my mind, nevertheless, in the matter of all the charges brought forward I hereby submit myself humbly to the merciful appointment, decision, and cor- rection of the most holy general council, to abjure, to revoke, to recant, to undergo merciful penance, and to do all things and in several that the said most holy council in its mercy and grace shall deem fit to ordain for my salvation, commending myself to the same with the utmost devotion.^ Two letters written by Huss to "the father" are extant. After expressing his debt for the good man's loving and pa- ternal grace, Huss announced he could not submit to the council on the terms proposed. Many things it accounted scandalous he regarded as truth. In abjuring he would be perjuring himself and, more, would be doing injury to the cause of religion among God's people to whom he had preached. He had appealed to Christ, the most mighty and just Judge, and it was better that he should die than secure a temporary escape and finally fall into hell-fire. In reply "the father" reminded Huss that there were many eminent men in the council and bade him listen to his mother, leaning not on his own understanding. It was he ' Palacky, Gesch., p. 361; Workman, p. 237. * Doc, 121. The translation is from Workman, p. 238. 232 JOHN HUSS who likened Huss's proposed abjuration to the basket in which Paul was let down from Damascus and escaped. He attempted to set Huss's scruples aside as invalid and declared that, in submitting to the council, he would not necessarily be condemning views he held, but be doing nothing more than acknowledging the authority of the tribunal which condemned him. The responsibility would rest upon the council. And as for perjury, the opprobrium, if any, would fall not upon Huss, but upon that body and its learned men who pro- nounced the sentence. Augustine, Origen and Peter the Lombard had yielded to authority, as he himself on one occa- sion also had done when he was accused of being in error and accepted admonition. The final Judge had appointed the Apostles and their successors in council as the court of de- cision. In his second letter Huss repeated the reasons he had given in the first for declining to abjure, for abjuration would necessitate his giving up many truths and incurring final punishment, unless, perchance, he should repent of his ab- juration before death. He closed by expressing the assurance that Christ would give him strength to hold out to the end. r These attempts to move Huss were continued almost to ' the last moment of his imprisonment, but the many exhorters j — multipUces exhortatores — using "many words," failed to ' change his mind.^ He was not willing to act on the principle ; that it was a merit to confess guilt even where the party was I innocent and the tribunal confessed to was august and, as i supposed, divinely appointed. One of his exhorters told him of the following case: A book was placed at the side of a saint's bed. He was accused of having stolen it and keeping it hid away. On denying the charge, they showed him the book hid away in his bed. The saint at once admitted his guilt. Another exhorter told of a certain nun who lived in a cloister in man's clothes and was accused of bearing a son. » Doc, 135. BURNED AT THE STAKE 233 The nun confessed to the charge and kept the child, but later she was proved to be innocent. An Enghshman, come on a like errand, reminded Huss that in England many WycHfites had signed papers of abjuration prepared by the archbishops. He went on to say that if he were in Huss's place he would abjure for his conscience' sake. The underlying idea in these efforts to bring Huss to an abjuration while he continued to hold to the things abjured was that there is merit in obedience. At Huss's request Palecz came to see him yet once again,^ in his very last hours, and, for the very reason that he had been a most determined enemy, Huss asked, though in vain, that Palecz might be appointed as his confessor. Palecz proved to be like one of Job's friends. "Every one," he had said, "that heard you preach was infected with the heresy of the re- manence of the bread in the sacrament of the altar." He now rejoined that he had not said every one, but many who heard him preach. Huss reaffirmed his statement, and went on: Oh, master, how dreadful is your greeting and how dread- fully you are sinning ! You know I shall die here, or perhaps, if I rise from my bed, I shall be burned. What reward will then be given you in Bohemia !" At this last interview, the aforetime friends shed tears together and Huss begged Palecz's pardon for any opprobrious word he had uttered and especially for the epithet "fiction-monger" which he had used in his tract addressed against him.- Huss also reminded Palecz of what he had said about him to the commissioners, that since Christ's birth no heretic had written more dangerous things against the church, with the exception of Wyclif, than he himself. Michael de Causis also was several times at Huss's prison and said to the jailers aside that by God's grace Huss who was a heretic should burn. In reporting these few words, Huss wrote that he had no feelings of bitterness and was praying for Michael.^ ^ Doc, 136 sq. ^ Responsio ad Palecz, Mon., i : 318. ^ Doc, 129. 234 JOHN HUSS Had the prisoner still a flickering hope that Sigismund might exercise a veto power, it was quickly snufifed out. He recalled that at the session, June 8, the king had given him assurance of an opportunity to reply in writing, an assurance confirmed by d'Ailly, and also a promise of a final hearing.^ He appealed to the nobles of Bohemia to join in petitioning Sigismund to keep his promise. Great would be the king's confusion, he thought, if he failed to keep it. He almost allowed himself to think that Sigismund from the beginning had no intention of treating him fairly. Against warnings, he had left Bohemia. Jerome of Prague, the good cobbler, Andrew the Pole, and others had told him before he left Pra- gue that he would not return.^ Huss went so far as to write that Sigismund had condemned him before his enemies did. The king might, at least, have imitated Pilate and declared, "I find no fault in this man" or, in view of the safe-conduct, sent him back to Bohemia to be judged there by the king and clergy. He had communicated to him through Lord Henry Lefl that, in case the king did not approve of the council's judgment, he would be sent back in safety. At a later date, June 21, apparently lest he should sin in not returning good for evil, he wrote that he thanked Sigismund for all the kind- ness he had shown, but, in spite of himself, a week later he expressed the opinion that Sigismund had acted deceitfully throughout the whole proceeding.^ His thoughts were much upon Jerome, "his beloved associate." He had no word from him except that, like himself, he was also languishing in a foul prison, expecting death on account of the faith to which he had borne such noble witness to the Bohemians. As for the council, he drew, in his letters, from his own experiences as well as upon what he heard. He contrasted the spiritual leaders gathered at Constance, who called them- ' The king's exact words, according to Huss, were infutura audientia scribere- tur tibi breviter et tu respondebis ad illud. Doc, loi, io8, 114. ^ Doc, III. ^ Doc, 144. BURNED AT THE STAKE 235 selves Christ's vicars, with the Apostles. They announced themselves to be "the holy church and the most holy council, which cannot err." By its own decree the council had declared itself the highest authority on earth. Nevertheless, Huss continues, it did err by falling at the knees of John and kissing his feet — the recent pope, who, according to the council's own declaration, was a base murderer and sodomite, simoniac and heretic. In regard to himself, the council had erred at least in three ways — by making up false articles from his books, by putting false interpretations upon some of them and by its curtailed quotations, which misrepresented him. He, therefore, had good reason for believing that the council was not infalHble, and happy were those who rejected the pomp, avarice and hypocrisy of antichrist and held to Christ as the head of the church. As for the pope, how mistaken the opinion was which Stanislaus and Palecz had set forth, that he is the head of the church, its sufficient ruler, its vivifying heart, its never- failing fountain of authority and the all-sufficient refuge to which Christians should flee — seeing that at the time he was writing there was no pope at all ; but the church abides with- out a pope, having Christ for its all-sufficient head, its life- giving fountain, its unfailing refuge. Again he returned to the fallibihty of the council and of the pope, whom the council had sentenced for "the crime of heresy."^ Let the preachers take note that the head is cut ofif, he whom once the council- lors pronounced God on earth, incapable of doing sin or prac- tising simony — even the pope who is the heart of the church, its spiritual Ufe-giver, the fountain from whom proceed all goodness and power, the sun of the holy church, the un- failing refuge to whom Christians should run. He, the head, is cut off. God on earth is bound. His sins are openly de- clared, the fountain dried up, the sun obscured, the heart torn out, the refuge fled from Constance. The very men who » Doc, 134, Mon., I : 341, 351. 236 JOHN HUSS voted to condemn him for heresy because he sold indulgences, bishoprics and benefices — they themselves bought these things from him and did a good business in selling them over again. John of Leitomysl sought twice to purchase the see of Prague for money. Why did the cardinals elect him pope when they knew well that he was a homicide and killed the most holy father? Here Huss was referring to Alexander V, whom it was charged John had murdered. Why did prelates on bended knee adore him, kiss his feet and call him holy father — sanctissimus pater— when they knew he was a heretic and a sodomite? Why did they sufifer him to practise simony at the very moment he was exercising the functions of supreme pontiff? Seldom has there been a more terrific characterization of the papacy as committed to bad hands. Though nowadays John XXIII is seldom, if ever, given a place by Roman CathoHc historians in the Hst of legitimate popes; never- theless, he was elected by cardinals, an oecumenical council was convened by his call and he was accepted by the council of Constance as pope and deposed by it as a true pope. Other popes had been as bad, some of whom Huss points out in his writings on the church. John XII, 954-964, an illegitimate son, made pope at sixteen, was charged by a Roman synod with every crime of which depraved human nature was capa- ble — murder, fornication, perjury. He was killed in the very act of committing adultery and was said to have drunk the health of the devil. Of some of the popes of the tenth cen- tury even a Catholic historian, Mohler, has said that they were horrible popes, whose crimes alone secured for them the papal dignity. Benedict IX, 1033-1046, elected as a mere boy, is pronounced by Gregorovius more boyish than Caligula and more criminal than Heliogabalus. It seems, he says, as if a demon from hell, in the guise of a priest, were occupying St. Peter's chair.^ Alexander VI, 1492-1503, was yet to * Hisi. of the City of Rome, 4 : 42, 47 sq. BURNED AT THE STAKE 237 come, a pontiff, during whose reign tragedy after tragedy occurred in the papal household, his children married in the Vatican, courtesans openly flaunted, himself a voluptuary, a man of untamed sensuality, leading, as Pastor says, a vicious life to the very end.^ In his last characterization of the council, June 26, 1410, Huss called it proud, avaricious and iniquitous with every crime. It had done more harm than good. The councillors, he wrote, will be scattered abroad like butterflies, and their decrees last as long as spiders' webs. The words were biting, but there was some truth in them, notably in the matter of the decision by which the oecumenical council was pronounced the supreme tribunal in the church. Huss felt that the council had striven to frighten or coerce him to submission, and that the resistance he was able to offer was a direct gift from above. In these prison hours, his thoughts went out often to his "fatherland," Bohemia, and he bewailed the contumely which had been heaped upon it on his account. As the end of his life drew nearer, his references to his faithful Bohemian friends became more and more tender. As a result of the council's dealing with him and the opinions he represented, he looked forward to times of dire persecution in Bohemia, in which the lords temporal should make their influence felt, for they were more enHghtened, he wrote, in the things of the Gospel than the lords spiritual. He urged them to avoid all unworthy priests and to love good priests, according to their works, and to prevent other lords from oppressing good priests. Of the fidelity of his friends in Constance, John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba, he could not say too much. He expressed his warmest obligations to the Bohemian and Moravian noblemen and also the Polish nobles whose appeals to Sigismund had interceded for the fair treatment the royal safe-conduct implied. He requested them to give heed to the reports that Chlum and others would carry back with ' Gesch. der Pdpsle, 3 : vi, 501 sq. 238 JOHN HUSS them to Bohemia. It must have been with the deepest pang of homesickness that he expressed the hope that John of Chlum and other friends, so true to him in Constance, might arrive safe in their native land; and he called upon them, when they got back to Bohemia, to follow the king who never dies, a man of sorrows, and the king of glory, who giveth life eternal.^ He sent messages of affection and greeting to the wives and children of Bohemian nobles. In urging Wenzel of Duba, "that noble lord," to put away the vanities of the world and live in holy matrimony, he represented him as a man who had been a soldier in many countries to the hurt of body and soul. Just before his death he heard of Duba's purpose to marry, and he wrote him a letter of congratulation.^ His references to Wenzel and his queen, Sophia, show his warm attachment to those sovereigns and his obligations for their constant kindness and for their zeal in seeking to secure his release. He called for prayers that the Lord might keep them in his grace and at last give them eternal joy. In conveying a greeting, a week before his death, he expressed the hope that the queen might be loyal to the truth and not take offense at him as though he had been a heretic, and in his very last letter he mentions the name of "his gracious mistress, the queen," and begs again to express to her his thanks for all the favors which she had shown to him.^ His recollection of this lady, who had attended the services at the Bethlehem chapel, is as honorable to him as it was to her. It is a tender note when he expressed the fear that she, to whom he was so much indebted, might be led by false reports to change her mind toward him and regard him as a heretic. Nor did he forget his other friends, not so lofty in position. To Jesenicz he sent a message urging him to marry. Writing to Master Martin, he sent greetings to people of humble ^ Doc, 127. ^ Doc, 125, 146. ^ Doc, 119, 127, 14s, 148. BURNED AT THE STAKE 239 station, mentioning some of them by name, women and men, shoemakers and tailors— "all his beloved brethren in Christ." No wonder that a man of such warm sympathies should have drawn the people of Bohemia strongly to him. Martin, with whom Huss had left his will before leaving Prague, he now urged to live according to Christ's law and preach the Gospel, to cast out the love for rich garments which, alas, he himself had loved and worn. He bade him take delight in reading the Scriptures, especially the New Testament and, when he did not understand what he read, to refer at once to the commentators he had at hand. He bade him hold fast whatever he had heard of good from him and to cast aside anything he had seen which was unseemly, praying to God for him that God might deign to spare him. Lament, Huss wrote, the past, amend the present, be on your guard for the future. He was referring to sins. Do not be afraid to die for Christ, if thou wouldst live with Christ. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul, and, if they should attack him for his adhesion to himself, reply: "I hope the master was a good Christian. As for the things which he wrote and taught in the schools and which were attacked, I do not understand them all nor have I read them through."^ Nor, in these solemn hours, did he forget the university to which he owed his education and which, through him in large part, had become the scene of contention — the place where he had made warm friendships, some of which were, alas, broken. To its teachers and students, "dearly beloved in Christ Jesus," one of his very last letters was addressed. He expressed regret that his course had been the occasion of division when he hoped it would make for union. He had not abjured his books or their teachings, which he regarded as truly Scriptural. He sent them a solemn profession in these words : ' Doc, 119 sq. 240 JOHN HUSS I, Master John Huss, in chains and in prison, now standing on the shore of this present life and expecting on the morrow a dreadful death— which will, I hope, purge away my sin — find no heresy in myself and accept with all my heart any truth what- soever that is worthy to be believed.^ The last words of this letter express a wish that the uni- versity men might love Bethlehem chapel, and commended to their consideration ''his most faithful and constant sup- porter and comforter," Peter Mladenowicz. Huss's affection for Bethlehem chapel was expressed in tender messages. In a letter addressed to ''all the Bohemian people," he begged the Praguers to support the chapel — sacellum — so far as God might permit his Word to be preached there. On account of it, he said, the devil burned with great rage and he had excited the priests against it when he saw that his kingdom was in danger of being overthrown by the activity in that place. He expressed the hope that it might please God to preserve that chapel and that it might become more useful through the ministry of others than it had been through his own. The prayer was not destined to have a permanent answer. Bethlehem chapel was destroyed by the Jesuits in 1786, so that it is doubtful if a single vestige of it remains. The death, whose approach Huss had constantly before him in the Franciscan prison, he often referred to as "the dreadful death." He was left in complete uncertainty as to its date, but he was expecting the summons at any moment; he expected it to be by fire.^ By this death, he hoped to be cleansed and purified, like the old martyrs, from his sins and made meet for admission to the presence of the holy Saviour. His sufferings in prison and the delay of his death had given him time, as he wrote, to think of the shame endured by Christ and to meditate on his cruel crucifixion. It had given him time to consider the many pangs endured by the saints, and that the way to heaven out of this world to the world ^Doc, 143. ^Doc, 117, 119, 129, 143, 144. BURNED AT THE STAKE 241 to come is by sorrow and tears. So the martyrs had to learn. They were cut in pieces, buried and flayed alive, boiled in caldrons, quartered, burned and otherwise tortured until death gave relief. He comforted himself also by the example of John the Baptist, by the Maccabees, who were ready to be cut to pieces rather than to eat flesh — II Mace. 6 : 18 — and by Eliezer, who refused to deny having eaten flesh as a means of escaping martyrdom. He trusted in Christ for patient endurance in the present and glory hereafter. He prayed he might not be allowed to recede from the divine truth nor to swear away the errors falsely charged against him. And, from time to time, he praised God for the help he had given to him in his many trials. Thinking of Jerome, he felt sure - — that that strong man would be of a braver spirit in suffering the ordeal of death than he would be, "a weak sinner." But especially did he comfort himself by the examples of Paul and Peter, to whom, despised and put to death by men, Christ gave the crown of glory, receiving them into the heavenly fatherland.^ Nor had Huss entirely broken loose from depending upon the merits of the saints. Several times, in his letters, he referred to their intercession and, in one of his very last, written to John of Chlum, June 29, he expressed the hope that the blessed Peter and Paul would intercede for him and render him strong by their help, to become a partaker of their glory. At one time he expressed the hope that God would give him deliverance ''through the merits of the saints."^ It was, however, not without a great struggle that he sub- mitted. It was an easy thing to quote and expound words of Scripture, but it was most difficult, as James counselled, to count it all joy to be in the midst of divers trials. Christ knew, Huss wrote, that he would rise on the third day, and "H"- on the eve of his death he said: "Let not your heart be troubled." And yet he also said in the garden: "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." ^Doc.y 117, 141, 143, 144. 'Doc, loi, 131, 145. 242 JOHN HUSS In one of his letters to friends in Constance he offered up the petition: Oh, loving Christ, draw us, weaklings, after thyself, for if thou drawest us not we cannot follow thee. Vouchsafe a brave spirit , that it may be ready. If the flesh is weak, let thy grace go before, ^ proceed in the middle, and follow. For without thee we can do nothing, but indeed for thy sake we can go to a cruel death. Vouch- safe a ready spirit, a fearless heart, a right faith, a firm hope and a perfect love, that for thy sake we may lay down our life with all patience and joy. Amen.^ Christ's mercy and safe-conduct could be relied on im- plicitly. To John of Chlum and Duba he wrote: "What God promises His servants He performs. What He pledges Himself to give, He fulfils. He deceives no one by a safe- conduct. No servant who is faithful to Him does He send away. ^ The Scriptures were like springs of living water at which he drank deep drafts to satisfy his spiritual weariness. Again and again he stops at such passages as these: "Fear not 4- them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do." "If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." "Where I am there shall my servant be also." If the jail of Bedford was turned into a gate of heaven, the place where the guide-book to the heavenly country, The Pilgrirn's Progress, was written, so also in the prisons in the friaries of Constance a ladder was set up between heaven and earth up which the outgoings of the Bohemian prisoner's soul ascended and down which descended messages of hope and strength. While Huss was daily waiting in expectation of death, the council held on its way, making ready for that event. The protest of the two hundred and fifty Bohemian and Moravian nobles was read before it, June 12. Three days later the council was proceeding with the work of legislating against heresy and solemnly forbade the giving of the cup to the ^ Doc, 131. -Doc, 143. BURNED AT THE STAKE 243 laity. This notorious edict set forth that the cup as well as the bread had been given by Christ to the disciples on the night of his betrayal and that it was the practice of the early church to dispense both elements to all believers. Never- theless, in the course of time, the church had adopted the custom of withholding the cup from the laity on the ground that, as the Schoolmen had alleged, the whole Christ is in each of the elements. The refusal to follow the custom of the church and to withhold the cup from the laity was pro- nounced heresy. All bishops and inquisitors were commanded to proceed against those who held this view and distributed the cup and, in case they remained impenitent, they were to be turned over to the secular arm. The edict was ordered sent to Bohemia, where it called forth the nickname for the councillors at Constance, Doctors of Custom. According to Gerson, the church was to depend for the enforcement of the edict more upon the worldly arm than upon moral per- suasion. The edict placed the church above the plain letter of Scripture.^ The occasion of this legislation was the practice which had sprung up in Bohemia. There is no evidence that Huss had distributed the wine to laymen. After his departure for Constance, Jacob of Mies, called on account of his stature Jacobellus, made the matter the subject of dissertation at the university, where he had been a master since 1397. At least in three churches of Prague, St. Martin's, St. Adelbert's and St. Michael's, the cup was distributed. The apostolic vicar sought to check the practice, but the sentence of ex- communication pronounced upon those using the cup was not heeded. When the news of the innovation reached Huss in the Dominican prison, he wrote to his friends in Constance,^ * Hardt, 4 : 334; Schwab, 604 sqq.; Hefele, 7 : 173, takes the position that this decree was one of the measures intended by the council to make an im- pression on Huss. ^ Doc, gi. 244 JOHN HUSS reminding them of a tract he had sent forth on the subject — whether in Constance or not we cannot be certain — and stating he had nothing further to say in addition to what he had there said concerning the teacliings of the gospels and Paul. He urged his friends to make an effort to secure from the council permission for the Bohemians to use the cup. The council's action, at its thirteenth session, June 15, was treated by Huss as a renunciation of the Gospel. "What madness," he wrote, "to condemn as an error the Gospel of Christ and Paul's epistles, wherein Paul said he had received the words of institution not from man but from Christ; ay, to condemn as an error Christ's very act and example when he ordained the cup for all adult Christians! The council actually calls it an error that believing laymen should be allowed to drink of the cup of the Lord, and priests persisting in giving them to drink are heretics. Oh, St. Paul, thou sayest to all the faithful, 'As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come, ' that is, till the day of judgment, and now it is said that the custom of the Roman Church is against it!"^ Later, June 21, he wrote to Hawlik of the Bethlehem chapel not to refuse the cup of the Lord which the Apostles dispensed, for there is no Scripture against it, but only custom. Custom is not to be followed, but Christ's example. The council, alleging custom, has denied the communion of the cup to laymen, and the priest who dispenses it is a heretic. What madness to damn Christ's ordinance as an error ! Huss urged Hawlik not to oppose Jacobellus longer, lest a schism be made among the faithful— an occurrence which would greatly delight the devil. Again, in a letter which is of doubtful authenticity, he urged the priest to whom it was written to distribute both elements at the Supper. The tract in which Huss had embodied his views was written apparently before he left Prague, for its numerous quotations^ from the Fathers seem to render it impossible ^ Doc, 126. ^ Doc, gi, 128. The tract is found in Mon., i : 52-55. BURNED AT THE STAKE 245 for him to have written it in Constance. It is entitled The Reception by Laymen of Chrisfs Blood under the Form oj Wine. Nine-tenths of the tract is taken up with quota- tions from the accredited church authorities, from Cyprian, Jerome and Augustine down to Albertus Magnus and Lyra, Huss cited Gelasius, who declared that the use of one element cannot be separated from the other without great sacrilege. He cited Ambrose, who was followed by Thomas Aquinas,^ to show that Christ's flesh is eaten for the welfare of the body and his blood for the well-being of the soul. He also cited the commentator, Lyra, as saying that in the primitive church both elements had been distributed in the sacrament. Huss concludes the tract by dwelling upon the accounts in Matthew and I Corinthians. He asserts that the consecrated layman should partake of both elements as much as the priest, for Paul said: "As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show forth the Lord's death." The next action taken by the council bearing on Huss's case and of which he heard in prison ^ was the decree ordering his books burned — even his books written in Czech, which the councillors had not even seen, much less read — French- men, Italians, Britons, Spaniards, Germans and persons of other countries. Lest his friends should be intimidated by the action, he reminded them that Jeremiah's prophecies had been burned and yet, at God's command and while the prophet was in prison, he had dictated them over again to Baruch, adding at the same time prophecies. He gave his authority as Jere- miah 35 or 45. Mladenowicz at this point added a note to the effect that Huss did not have the book of Jeremiah at hand and that the exact reference was chapter 36 [27].' In the days of the Maccabees books were burned; and in the times of the New Testament they burned holy men who had books of the divine law in their possession. Cardinals had burned ^ Corpus jur. can., de Consec, 2 : 12. Friedberg's ed., i : 1318. 2 Doc, 134, 139. ' Doc, 132. 246 JOHN HUSS all the copies of Gregorys Morals they could lay their hands* on, and Chrysostom was condemned for heresy by two coun- cils and yet he was afterward exonerated. The same treatment, burning in the flames, continued long after Huss's death to be prescribed by the authorities for unwelcome publications. The custom held on well. Even in New England, by the order of the Massachusetts legisla- ture, one of the very first theological books produced on our soil, William Pynchon's The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, was burned, 1650. To the charges brought against him by the council, Huss replied on July i in a formal confession written with his own hand, repeating that it was his purpose not to recant. It runs thus: 2 I, John Huss, in hope a priest of Jesus Christ, fearing to offend God and fearing to fall into perjury, do hereby profess my un- willingness to abjure all or any of the articles produced against me by false witnesses. For God is my witness that I did not preach, afifirm or defend them, though they say that I did. Moreover, con- cerning the articles extracted from my books, I say that I detest any false interpretation which any of them bears, but inasmuch as I fear to offend against the truth or to gainsay the opinion of the doctors of the church, I cannot abjure any one of them. And, if it were possible that my voice could now reach the whole world — as at the day of judgment every lie and every sin that I have committed will be made manifest — then would I gladly abjure before all the world every falsehood and error which I had either thought of saying or actually said. I write this of my own free will and choice. Writing to his friends, he had reiterated again and again that he had not recalled or recanted a single one of the ar- ticles. He pronounced them shameless and trumped up against him by false witnesses. Although some of them were ^ Platina, Life of Savianns. Gregorovius, 2 : 94, rejects the story in the form in which it is told by John the Deacon, Migne, vol. XXV. John the Deacon speaks of the people and not the cardinals having burned the books. 2 The text is in Hardt, 4 : 389. Engl, transl. by Workman, 275. Palacky, Doc, does not give it, but his Gesch., Ill, i : 363, speaks of it as genuine. BURNED AT THE STAKE 247 called scandalous, yet were they in agreement with the Scrip- tures and the doctors of the church. If he were shown good reasons for so doing, he would correct them. But, as he wrote to the university of Prague, he refused to do so simply upon the bare authority of the council. They must be shown to be plainly out of accord with the Scriptures — nolui nisi scriptura ostenderet falsitatem. The council, as he wrote at another time, had not attempted to refute him by a single text taken from Scripture or by any other arguments. On the contrary, in its attempts to silence him, it had used threats and deception.^ He stuck to the ground that he could not abjure errors he had never held. This was a matter of conscience, and he refused to accept the view presented by those sent to persuade him to abjure on the basis of the council's supremacy. For him to abjure would have meant a renunciation of false doc- trine, whether the charges against him were well taken or not. He denied that there was any merit in submitting to the church.2 A final deputation visited Huss, July 5, including Cardinals d'Ailly and Zabarella, the patriarch of Antioch, the archbishop of Milan, the bishop of Riga, and the English bishops of SaHs- bury and Bath. This influential deputation came by Sigis- mund's direction, and was accompanied by the two faithful Hussite nobles, Duba and John of Chlum. Huss was led out of prison to meet the deputies who sought to secure from him a recantation, but in vain. Addressing him, John of Chlum said:^ "Master, we are laymen and cannot advise you, but if you feel that you have written anything hurtful, do not shrink from being instructed in regard to the charges brought against you. If, however, you do not feel yourself guilty, follow your conscience and do not do anything against it. Do not lie in God's sight, but stand firm till death in the truth ^ Doc, 117, 137, 140, 142. ^ Doc, 134. ^Hardt, 4 : 386. Mladenowicz's account of the interview, Doc, 316-324. 248 JOHN HUSS as you have known it." At these honest words Huss wept and said: "Doctor John, know well that if I felt that I had written or preached anything contrary to the law and to holy mother church which is erroneous, I would recall it, God being my witness. But I have always desired and still desire that they show me out of the Scriptures things better and more close to the truth than the things I have written and taught. And, if they are shown me, I am most ready to recall them." At this point one of the bishops exclaimed: "So you want to be wiser than the whole council!" To this Huss replied that he did not want to be wiser than the whole council, but he asked that they give him even the least member sitting in the council to instruct him by Scriptures more weighty and cogent than those he had used, and he was ready forth- with to recant. This statement was met by the bishops with the exclamation: "See, how obstinate he is in his heresy!" The last scenes were to occur on the following day, the 6th of July. After more than eight months of dismal im- prisonment, Huss was taken and led to the cathedral, where the council held its fifteenth session. Sigismund was there, wearing his crown, and at his side Ludwig, count palatine, Frederick of Niirnberg, Henry, duke of Bavaria, and a mag- nate of Hungary, whose function it was to carry the insignia of empire — the imperial apple, the crown, the sceptre, and the sword. ^ There was a full attendance. The cardinal-arch- bishop of Ostia presided. Huss, who was conducted to the cathedral by the bishop of Riga, remained outside the door while the mass was being sung. He was then taken inside, and, reaching a small platform in the middle of the church raised Uke a table,^ he knelt and prayed for some time. On 1 Mladenowicz's account, Doc, 316-324. The account of John Barbatus, Doc, 556-558. Richental, 78 sqq.; Hardt, 4 : 407-500. ^ Sedes ad modiim menscz — Mlad., Doc, 217. Posilus in medio scamno alio. Hardt, 4 : 389. See also Mansi, 27 : 747. Ubi erat levatus in alltim scamnum pro eo. BURNED AT THE STAKE 249 the platform were placed the priestly robes used at the cele- bration of the mass. The proceedings were opened with an address by the bishop of Lodi on Romans 6:6: ''that the body of sin might be done away." The prelate represented that the extermina- tion of heretics was a work most pleasing to God. He dwelt upon the familiar illustrations for heresy — a rotten piece of flesh, the little spark, which unless checked turns to a great flame and burns up the house, the creeping cancer, the scabby member of the flock. The more virulent the poison the swifter should be the application of the cauterizing iron. Not less bad was the prisoner than Arius, who was a spark, a glim.m.er— scintilla — in Alexandria, but because the spark was not immediately put out it depopulated almost the whole world with its flame. And much worse was he than Sabellius. With lurid strokes he pictured the evils that had grown out of the Prague heresies, even to the murder of priests, the daily contempt to which Christ's bride, the mother of the faithful, was given over, and the mocking disregard of the keys of the church. The abomination of desolation was worse in that day than in the old days of the cruel persecution of the Christian martyrs. Then the body was oppressed; in church schisms the souls of men are destroyed. In the former case human blood was spilled; in schism the orthodox faith is put to shame. That persecution of the pagan world was to many as salt; this schism to many as death. Under fierce pagan tyrants the faith grew; in schism the faith perishes. Tyrants sinned in ignorance ; in schism many sin in knowledge and in obstinacy. By schism ecclesiastical liberty suffers injury and the unity enjoined is set aside. All the laws of religion and sanctity are relaxed. Heretics should be coerced and damned, that the body of sin may be destroyed. In the style of Bossuet, more than two centuries later, when he preached before Louis XIV and appealed to him to proceed against church dissenters and eulogized him as another t 250 JOHN HUSS Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian, the bishop of Lodi, pressed upon the king the obligation to bind up the lacerated wounds of the church, to heal the gaping schism and to ex- tirpate heresy. For that work the king was elected of God, deputed from heaven before he was chosen on earth. By executing it he would secure unending fame and unfading glory — perpetua Jama et Celebris gloria. The sermon over, the council's proctor, Henry of Piro, announced that the council would continue the prosecution of John Huss, and an admonition was made forbidding all demonstrations with hand or foot, all applause or words of disapproval or other interruption of any sort. The articles drawn from WycUf's writings and condemned by the uni- versity of Oxford were read. A bishop then read from the pulpit the thirty articles taken from Huss's writings and the proceedings connected with his hearing. At the reading of the very first article, defining the church as the totality of the elect, Huss attempted to speak, but was interrupted by d'Ailly, who bade him keep silence and wait till the whole list had been read, when he might make a reply. To this method Huss objected on the ground that he would not be able to remember all the charges. Cardinal Zabarella ex- claimed, "be silent. We have already heard you enough," and bade the beadles keep Huss quiet. Then, with folded hands and in a loud voice, Huss cried out: "In the sight of God, I demand that you hear me lest I be beheved to have held errors. Afterward do with me what you please." When it was evident that the council was in no mood to listen, he bent on his knees and, lifting his eyes to heaven, prayed fervently. When the charges were read that the accused held to the remanence of the bread and the invalidity of acts done by a priest in mortal sin, Huss again attempted to reply; and again Zabarella commanded him to be silent. But Huss persisted, saying that he had never held, taught or preached that the BURNED AT THE STAKE 251 bread remains in the sacrament after the words of consecra- tion. A new charge was introduced, that he had taught there were in the Godhead more persons than three, he himself being the fourth. This charge Huss emphatically denied, demanding the name of the witness; but he was answered by the announcement that it was not necessary to name him. Huss solemnly protested that such a blasphemy had not entered into his mind and that he had always asserted that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were one God, one in essence and three in personality. It seems that on this point two priests had borne witness, the one having heard Huss in Prague and the other having gotten it by common rumor. Similarly Peter the Lombard had been charged at the fourth Lateran council with teaching a quaternity in the Deity, but he was not charged with regarding himself as a member of the Godhead, as was Huss. The appeal Huss had made to God was also condemned. At this point, the prisoner exclaimed with a loud voice: ''Oh, Lord God, see how this council condemns thy acts and thy law. I persist in saying that there is no appeal more sacred than the appeal to Jesus Christ, who is not moved by the low motive of reward or deceived by false testimony, but gives to every man what he deserves." When the charge was read that, while he was under the ban of excommunication, Huss had been guilty of contumacy, continuing to preach and to say mass, he again denied having been contumacious on the ground that he was under the protection of his appeal to the Higher Powers. He had sought a hearing, but his procurators had been imprisoned or other- wise treated ill. He repeated his formal protest that he had come to the council of his own free will and to give reasons for his faith. During the proceedings, when Huss referred to his having come to Constance under a royal passport — the salvus conduc- tus — he is reported to have fixed his eyes on Sigismund, whose # T/ 252 JOHN HUSS face was flushed with shame — ille statim vehementer erubuit. This incident is not given by Mladenowicz in his longer ac- count, but it is found in his smaller account in the Bohemian language.^ A hundred years later Charles V, urged to seize Luther at Worms, is reported to have replied: ''I will not blush like my predecessor, Sigismund." Two sentences were then pronounced by an Italian prelate, the bishop of Concordia, the one ordering his books burned and the other pronouncing Huss a heretic. The sub- stance of the former is as follows: "The holy general council of Constance called of God ... As a bad tree is known by its bad fruits, so John Wyclif of damned memory is known by his deadly teachings and the sons of perdition whom he hath begotten, against whom the holy council is bound to rise up, bastard and illegitimate as the offspring is, and to pull out the errors from the Lord's field as noxious vipers and to provide proper culture that the cancer do not wind its way on to the destruction of others. In spite of the holy council's recent condemnation of the evil teachings of John .Wyclif, a man of damned memory, to the fire, John Huss, a (disciple not of Christ but of John Wyclif, the heresiarch, ihas spread heresies through his books and by his preachings land has in the presence of a multitude of the people and the (clergy pronounced John WycHf a Catholic man and an ievangelical doctor — vir catholicus et doctor evangelicus. And whereas these matters have been fully proved before the cardinals, patriarchs, the archbishops, the bishops, the other prelates, and doctors of the Scriptures and laws — this most holy council of Constance declares and decrees the thirty articles scandalous, erroneous, rash and seditious, and some notoriously heretical, and doth order the book entitled de Ecclesia and his other books written in Latin and Czech to be pubHcly burned and, wheresoever found, the ecclesiastical authorities shall publicly commit them to the flames, and 1 Mon., 2 : 518. BURNED AT THE STAKE 253 all who disregard the decree shall be proceeded against by the inquisitors of heretical depravity."^ The sentence against Huss himself was in substance as follows: It declared that after full reports from the com- mission appointed by the council and from masters of theology and doctors of the law based upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, the council found that John Huss had for many years taught many things evil, scandalous, seditious and dangerously heretical. Having God only before its eyes, the most holy council of Constance pronounced, decreed and declared John Huss a true and manifest heretic, having taught errors and heresies, since long time condemned in the church of God, and preached them. He had stubbornly treated with contempt the keys and ecclesiastical censures and had interposed an appeal to the Lord Jesus Christ as Supreme Judge, in which he laid down positions scandalous to the apostolic see itself and belitthng ecclesiastical censures and the keys. The council condemned him as a misleader of the people, who had seduced them from the faith in Bohemia by his teachings and writings. Inasmuch as he was incor- rigible and unwilHng to return to the bosom of holy mother church and abjure his heresies, it ordered him to be degraded from the priesthood. And, having in mind that the church of God had no other course open to it, the coimcil relinquished him to the secular authority and decreed that he was to be turned over to it.^ Not. a dissenting voice was raised against the sentence. At the conclusion of the reading of this verdict, Huss ex- claimed in a loud voice that he had never been obstinate nor was he then, but that he had always desired more weighty information from the Scripture, and especially did he desire it that day. After the reading of the previous sentence ^ Mon., I : 335 sq.; Hardt, 4 : 436 sq., Eng. transl.; Gillett, 2 : 58-60. ' Attento quod ecdesia Dei non habcat ultra qiiod agere valeat jiidicio seculari relinquitel ipstim curice seculari relinquendum fore decernit. Hardt, 4 : 437. 254 JOHN HUSS against his books, he exclaimed that the council had not pointed out a single error in them, and begged that alleged errors might be pointed out and, as for his books in the vulgar Bohemian, he asked how the council could condemn what it had never looked upon with its own eyes. Huss fell upon his knees and prayed that out of his great mercy Christ might pardon his enemies — those who had falsely accused him and suborned false witnesses. The prayer was received by the council with indignation or ridicule. The process of Huss's degradation from the priesthood, as ordered in the sentence, followed at the hands of seven prelates, including the archbishop of Milan and the suffragan bishop of Constance.^ The white robe of the altar was placed on him. At this he said: ''When my Lord Jesus Christ was led from Herod to Pilate, he was clad in a white robe." Being asked to recant, he turned to the assembled throng and, with tears in his eyes, refused, saying: "I fear to do this thing lest I be found a liar in the eyes of the Lord and also lest I sin against my conscience and God's truth — ne conscientiam et Dei veritatem ofendam. I have not held the articles falsely ascribed to me, but rather have I taught and preached the opposite. I also refuse to abjure lest I give offense to the multitude to whom I have faithfully preached God's Word." At this, a priest sitting near him, cried out: "See, how hardened he is in his wickedness and obstinate in his heresy!" Huss then stepped down from the platform and the bishops divested him of the priestly robe and took from him the chalice they had placed in his hands, accompanying the act with the objurgation: "0 cursed Judas, who hast spurned the counsels of peace and hast taken counsel with the Jews, we take from thee this cup of redemption." To this Huss replied: ''My trust is in the Lord God Almighty, for whose name I ' Richental, p. 80; Mon., i : 36; Hardt, 4 : 433, 437. The accounts differ in regard to the number of the prelates taking part in this ceremony. BURNED AT THE STAKE 255 patiently suffer this blasphemy, for He will not take away from me the cup of His redemption and I firmly hope that to-day I shall drink it in His kingdom." When all the priestly garments had been removed, the bishops proceeded to cut the prisoner's hair so as to disfigure the tonsure. Here discussion arose whether it should be cut off with razor or with scissors. The latter counsel prevailed and, looking at the king, Huss exclaimed: "See, how these bishops are not able to agree in their blasphemy!" After this ceremony they said in sub- stance: the church had gone as far as it could; it had de- prived him of his priestly authority; there was nothing left but to deUver him over to the secular arm. A paper cap was put upon his head about eighteen inches in height — a cubit — with three devils pictured on it plucking at a soul, and on it written : Heresiarch. The bishops then pronounced the formula committing his soul to the devil — committimus animam tuam diabolo. To this Huss, raising his hands to heaven, repHed: "And I commit it to my most gracious Lord, Jesus Christ." And referring to the cap, he said: "The crown my Saviour wore on his most sacred head was heavy and irksome. The one I wear is easy and Ught. He wore a crown of thorns even to the most awful death, and I will wear this much lighter one humbly for the sake of his name and the truth."! The ecclesiastical ceremony of degradation being over and the church's responsibility for the heretic at an end, the prisoner thenceforth was under the sole jurisdiction of the civil power, to which the council's sentence had committed him. Sigismund turned Huss over to Ludwig, the count palatine, with the words: "Go, take him" — vade accipe eum — "burn him as a heretic. "^ Putting him under the guard of the city soldiery, they led him to the place of his death. While the council continued its sitting, the procession passed along on its dismal way. As Huss noticed the flames which were consum- ^ Doc, 321, 557. " Verhrenn ihn ah ein Kdtzer, Richental, p. 80. 256 JOHN HUSS ing his books in the churchyard, he said smiling to the bystand- ers, not to believe that he was about to die for errors, for they were falsely imputed to him. Almost all of the city was on the streets — women, as Richental is careful to say, as well as men — but the larger part of the throng was kept back from fear that the bridge at the Geltinger Gate might break down under the weight of so great a crowd. The place fixed for the execution was outside the city walls, in a meadow, as you go toward the castle of Gottlieben, and where a cardinal's ass had recently been buried. Perhaps Huss looked on to the castle itself, where he had endured lonely imprisonment for two months. Arrived at the spot appointed, Huss kneeled and sang psalms: Have mercy upon me, God, and In Thee, Lord, do I put my trust. Some of his friends remained with him to the end and heard his prayers. Some proposed that he have a confessor, but a friar on horseback dressed in a green mantle held by a red silken band replied that he was a heretic and deserved no confessor. Another account, that of Richental, states that he himself asked Huss whether he wanted a con- fessor and called the priest Ulrich Schorand. Ulrich asked Huss whether he would renounce his errors. To this he replied that "it is not necessary, I am no mortal sinner." Huss had confessed in prison and been absolved by a ''doctor monk," who listened to him, as Huss himself writes, in a kindly and right beautiful spirit, absolved him and gave him advice, but did not enjoin him to do what the commissioners had advised him to do.^ He was about to speak to the bystanders in German, but the count palatine would not allow it. While he was engaged in prayer, his paper cap fell off. Huss smiled, and the by- standers, picking it up, placed it again on his head with the wrong side, however, fore, remarking that its wearer should be burned up with his masters, the devils, whom he had served. ^ Doc, 136; Mlad., Doc, 322. BURNED AT THE STAKE 257 Rising from prayer and so as to be heard by his friends near by, he said: ''Lord Jesus Christ, I wish to bear most patiently and humbly for thy Gospel's sake and the preaching of thy Word, this dire, ignominious and cruel death." Once again he urged all not to credit the articles charged against him. His outer garments being removed, his hands were tied with ropes behind his back and bound to a stake. When they noticed that his face was toward the east, a position which did not beJ&t him because he was a heretic, they turned his body so that it should face the west. His neck was then bound to the stake by a rusty chain.' Two bundles of fagots were placed under his feet and, mixed with straw the pile was heaped up around his body to his chin. Addressing his executioners, he said: "The Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, was bound with a harder chain, and I, a miserable sinner, am not afraid to bear this one, bound as I am for his name's sake." Once more an opportunity was given him to recant, this time by the marshal of the empire, Happo of Poppenheim, and the count palatine. ''God is my witness," Huss replied, "that the things charged against me I never preached." And then he repeated: "In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die to-day." At this the two nobles struck their hands to- gether and left. The combustibles were then lighted, and while the flames were Hcking up around the helpless body, Huss sang: "Christe fill Dei vivi miserere meV^ — Christ, thou Son of the living God, have mercy upon me. And as he reached the line, ^^ qui natus es ex Maria Virgine" — who art born of the Virgin Mary — the flames were blown by the wind into his face. Almost stifled, he still was able to articulate, "Lord, into thy hands I com- * Ufrecht brell — upright board — as Richental puts it. He also speaks of pitch which had been thrown upon the straw and of the terrible odor given forth by the carcass of the burned ass after the fire was well begun. 258 JOHN HUSS mend my spirit"; and, moving his head as if bidding farewell and in prayer, he died, as the faithful Mladenowicz writes, in the Lord — exspiravit in Domino. The tradition cannot be verified that to an old woman car- rying wood to the stake Huss exclaimed: "Oh, simple piety !" Luther quotes the words in his Preface to some of Huss's \ writings, 1537. The other tradition, that Huss said, "To- ' day you are burning a Goose, but out of my ashes will be / born a swan, whom you will not burn,"^ was not a prophecy spoken by him, but the invention of a later time. It occurs several times in Luther's works and may have been made up in part from Huss's own words and in part from those uttered by Jerome, "He hoped," so he wrote in one of his letters, "that after his death God would raise up braver men to make bare the malice of antichrist and lose their lives for the truth of the Lord Jesus." Jerome's words were — referring to him- self — that the council had condemned him falsely and un- justly, having found no evil in him, and that after his death he would return to trouble the consciences of its members with remorse. He cited them all to appear after one hundred years had passed, and in the presence of the most high God, the final Judge, to make reply to him.^ When the executioners pushed down what remained of the body held by the chain, another load of wood was brought. The skull was broken with sticks, and the heart, which had been thrust through, was burned to ashes. At the palatine's command the garments,^ held by executioners, were also ^ Hodie anserem uritis sed ex meis cineribus nascetur cygnus quern non as- sare poteritis. ^ Et ego post mortem meam rclinquayn in conscicnlia vestra remorsum et cito vos omnes ut respondeatis mihi coram altissimo et justissimo judice, infra centum annos. See Gieseler, 2 : 3, pp. 4175^.; Hefele 7 : 213; Doc, 135, also 39; Man., 2 : 526. ' Richental states that they consisted of two good coats of black cloth, a girdle with a silver-gilt clasp, two knives in the sheath, and a leather scrip, in which "there was probably some money." The principal accounts of the scenes at the stake are by this author, by Mladenowicz and Barbatus. Doc, 3^3 sq., 557 sq. BURNED AT THE STAKE 259 thrown into the smouldering flames and burned, compensation being promised for them. The ashes were then gathered up and carried in a wheelbarrow to the Rhine and thrown into the river. In accordance with the count palatine's instructions, not a particle was left of the body or garments that could be pre- served and taken back to Bohemia to be used as a relic. But they made a mistake. What was infinitely more precious, the martyr's memory and example, all the fires of Constance could not burn up. Huss was in conflict with the church, says Flajshans in. closing his Life of Huss, but did not know his differences. He was an apostle of Christ, who preached a pure Hfe. His personality teaches us that in matters of con- science it is not only best to be obedient to God, but, what is still better, he hved according to his teachings, even to dy- ing at the stake. CHAPTER XI HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY Perlulerimt ambo constanti aninto necem, el quasi ad epiilas invitati ad incendium properarunt. . . . Ubi ardere cxperunl hymnum cecinere qtiem vixflamma etfragor ignis intercipere potuil. Nemo philosophorum tarn forti animo mortem pertulisse traditur tit isli incendium. — ^neas Sylvius: Hisl. Boh., chap. XXXVI. With a steadfast mind both bore death and, as if invited to a feast, so they hastened to the stake. When they began to burn, they sang a hymn which the flame and noise of the fire were scarcely able to interrupt. No philosopher was ever reported to have borne death with so brave a spirit as these two did the flames. John Huss was burned but not vanquished. He belongs to the history of his own people as a patriot identified with one of the most active periods of its annals and, to quote the Bohemian savant Flajshans, as "our greatest and most famous theologian of the fifteenth century."^ He has a place in the wider history of his age for the conspicuous part he played at the council of Constance, so that, as long as that assembly's proceedings continue to have an interest, his name will excite interest and his career be studied. And he has a place in the still wider history of modern progress as a pre- cursor of the Reformation and a witness in favor of the sacred rights of conscience. I As an actor among his own people, Huss stands forth also A as its most notable preacher and a leader without equal in '^ the intellectual Uf e of i^ university. \ He was the best-known and the best-beloved priest of his times in Bohemia. We have ' Super IV libb. Sent., p. iv, unscres grossten und beriihmiesten Theologen, etc. 260 HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 261 no record of any one who was at once more honored at the court and more beloved by the common people. He was a prolific pamphleteer, and the two large folio volumes of twelve hundred pages with double columns do not exhaust his Latin works, not to speak of his works written in the Bohemian. His writings, so far as the Western reader knows, are the most stimulating and rich that the Bohemian literature has pro- duced. His pen was adapted not merely to attract the popular hearing in a time of controversy; it also dropped messages of learning in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, recently discovered, as well as in other writings. In his espousal of the cause of the Czechs as against the Ger- mans, which brought upon him much opposition and justified him, as he thought, in fearing death at the hands of Ger- mans, he was in the right. Prague was the capital of the Czech kingdom, and it was fitting that its university, no matter what the old charter was, should be controlled by those who were of the Czech nationality. Though he con- demned intermarriages between Czechs and Germans, or at least demanded that the children of such marriages speak Czech, we must not on that account charge him with bigotry. Did he not also say that he preferred a good German to a bad Bohemian ? For these reasons Huss lives on in the hearts of a large body of followers and also Catholic admirers in X' Bohemia. ^ c:&>*S' - '"- For centuries his name was treated with obloquy by the Y\ population of his native land. EjBforts were made by the Jesuits to entirely blot out his memory, or, at least, to cover it with such contumely as to make it synonymous with ir- religion and the subversion of the true interests of his people. When Palacky published his History of Bohemia, that work was subjected to rigid investigation by the censor, and, on account of references supposed to condemn the religious authorities with whom Huss had to do, parts of it were cut out. The modern visitor to Prague always associates the -U'.. 262 JOHN HUSS city with the name of John Nepomuk^ as its patron saint. The figure of this saint has been used to cast Huss into the shadow, and Nepomuk's history, whether wholly matter of legend or of partial truth, has been employed to give to the saint a supreme place in the affections of the Bohemians as an earthly example of the heavenly virtues. The saint's real name was John Welfin of Pomuk, a city sixty-five miles southwest of Prague. As far as we can make out, a man of this name was, in 1373, connected with the chancery of the archbishop of Prague; after his ordination, 1378 or 1380, was made parish priest of St. Gallus, and from 1390 to 1393 was active as vicar-general of the diocese. He is said to have been rich and to have made loans. In 1393, according to the later legend, he was drowned in the Moldau into which he had been thrown by order of King Wenzel for his devotion to John of Jenzenstein, archbishop of Prague, with whom Wen- zel had a quarrel. Nearly a century later, he was reported as having been the confessor of Joanna, Wenzel's first consort, and it was for his refusal to reveal the secrets of the confes- sional that the king punished him with death after having attempted to persuade him by bribes. John's body was reported to have floated on the surface of the river, which was illuminated by lights. In 1670, Dlauhowesky made a romance out of his career, which he pronounced to be based on old manuscripts, but the manuscripts have not been forth- coming. According to this completed legend, all Prague turned out to see the lights and the next morning the body was found on the river bank, the face lit up with a heavenly lustre. Against the king's protest, the saint was buried in the cathedral, but the propriety of the entombment was proved not only by a treasure of gold which the diggers struck, but by a heavenly odor that proceeded from the ^ For Nepomuk, see A. H. Wratislaw: Life, Legend and Canonization of St. John Nepomiicen, 1873. Palacky, Gesch., 361 sq.; Loesche in Herzog, 9 : 306- 309; Schmude: Wetzer-Welte, 7 : 1726-1742. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 263 corpse and the cures effected upon the sick who touched it. In 1729, John was canonized by Benedict XIII, and his name is celebrated in the Breviary, May 16. One of the difficulties in the legend is that there were two Johns of Pomuk, the one the queen's confessor, who died 1383, and the other the vicar- general, who died 1393. The Jesuits of the counter-Reformation period, exerting themselves to blot out the fame of Huss, magnified the cult of Nepomuk. A monument on the old bridge over the Moldau, which has been regarded as a statue of the saint and at which people still worship, is now looked upon as a monument erected to John Huss. Over the sanctity of John Nepomuk, we have no controversy, but we are interested in the truth and the committal of Huss to his proper place in the history of his people. Nepomuk's story seems to be largely an in- vention. However that may be, it is true that in these later years a new interest has been shown among the Catholic population of Bohemia in Huss as a Czech patriot. He certainly deserves the friendly consideration of his people on the ground of his patriotism and his services for the Czech language.^ The prominent place which Huss occupies in the con- temporary history of the fourteenth century cannot be gain- said, no matter what the opinion may be which is passed upon his career and his fame. To say the least, he has claimed as frequent treatment from biographers as have the names of contemporary popes and accredited church leaders of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Na}', he has claimed far more attention. Neither the names of Gerson nor d'Ailly, eminent though these churchmen were, nor the name of Vincent Ferrer, the e\angelist, are so widely known and pro- ' At my last visit in St. Vite's, 1913, after being shown by the verger the tombs of St. Wenceslaus and other shrines, I said: "Well, why haven't you a shrine to John Huss? He was a famous patriot." "So he was," replied our guide most good-naturedly, "but there was nothing left for a shrine. His ashes were all thrown into the lake of Constance." 264 JOHN HUSS voke so real an interest. The Catholic historian and reader cannot pass Huss by any more than the Protestant. To the Protestant world his sufferings and death stand for an evan- gelical preacher and scholar who, for the sake of conscience, was willing to suffer and to die a violent death. It is a striking fact that no charges were brought against Huss touching his moral character during his life in the city of Prague, or at Constance during his trial nor yet after his death. In this regard his memory is in marked contrast to the memories of three of the greater Reformers. Charges were brought during his life against Calvin by his enemies, touching the course of his youth, which are false. Against John Knox, after his death, false charges were also brought, which Catholic historians now pronounce inventions. But against Luther's purity of life the bitterest attacks are still being made by Catholic controversialists like Denifle and Grisar, In the absence of any trustworthy testimonies by contemporaries, these writers draw incriminating conclusions from Luther's words, not allowing for the fact that his lan- guage was often exaggerated and that those who knew him best testified to the purity of his life. It was otherwise with Huss. No charge against his moral conduct was ever made by his enemies, and those who knew him from day to day bore strong testimony to his exemplary character, y The charges against Huss were that he had disobeyed the V discipline of the church and rejected sundry of its doctrinal 'j tenets. He himself died assured of his orthodoxy. "Be confident," to quote again what he wrote to the university of Prague the week before his death, ''I have not revoked nor abjured a single article. I refuse to renounce unless what the council charged against me shall be proved false from Scripture." In the same communication he stated that with his whole heart he professed every article required to be believed. For two years he had looked forward to the pos- sibiHty of a judicial death, and from the earliest period of HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 265 his imprisonment in the Dominican friary he made the prayer that he might never recede from the truth, as he knew it, and begged his friends to intercede with God to give him con- stancy.^ We have no heart to compare Huss's conduct, per- sisted in during a long imprisonment, with Savonarola's, who, under torture, made recantations he afterward recalled. No man ever prayed more earnestly or studied the Scriptures more intensely, in order that he might be kept from yielding to the wrong, than did Huss, even though the deliverance from a horrible death was in sight. ,) Are these two things compatible — Huss's ignorance that he was out of accord with the canon law and the dogmatic belief of his age and, on the other hand, the solemn sentence pronounced by the great council with unanimity declaring that he was a recreant to both? Some of its members, as the cardinal of Ostia and Zabarella, were eminent canonists. Gerson and d'Ailly, were leading theologians of the century. Against the sentence not a single voice of dissent was raised. D'Ailly, like all the prelates of his time, fully justified Huss's condenmation and said that by its immense abundance of proof Huss's Treatise on the Church combated the pope's authority and plenary power no less than the Koran combats the Catholic faith. Gerson said that he worked as hard as any of the other members of the council to secure the con- viction of Wychf and Huss.^ To both these distinguished churchmen, Wyclif and Huss were pernicious heretics. Huss's books, were full of statements that jostled against the doc- trinal system in vogue at that day. The council was of the same mind as Walter Map had been, who, in speaking in the third Lateran council, 1179, of the condemnation of the Waldenses, said: ''If we admit them, then we ourselves ought to be turned out." According to the laws and usages 1 Doc, 56, 91, 142. ^ For d'Ailly, Gerson's Works, 2 : 901. Hardt, 6:16, quoted by Tschackert, p. 234. For Gerson, Dial. ApoL, DuPin's ed., 2 : 387. Schwab, 600, note 3. 266 JOHN HUSS of the church, Huss was justly a heretic. In the eyes of his theological contemporaries there was no doubt on the question. How was it that he did not perceive this? The explanation is that his mind was so wrought upon by a certain class of texts of Scripture that he forgot that, in order to be a heretic, it was only necessary to combat the current system held by the church, Scripture or no Scripture. Nay, Huss in- sisted that his views were in accord with Augustine and other Fathers and also in accord with the canon law, which he often quoted. The trouble is that he did not quote everything. His mind failed to take in the class of texts and quotations with which his views were, or seemed to be, at variance. Huss believed he was no heretic, but he soon discovered he was out of accord with the council, and he seems to have been of the opinion that some of his smaller treatises contained matter more obnoxious to the council than what they found in the Treatise on the Church. He wrote to this effect to John of Chlum and was glad that his treatise against the Hidden Adversary had not been brought to its knowledge.^ Even if Augustine's principle had been followed at Con- stance, namely, that it is difficult to define heresy and that the spirit in which an error is held, rather than the error itself, constitutes heresy — yet the sentence would not have been otherwise. Erasmus, as quoted by Luther, must be taken with allowance when he said that John Huss was burned but he was not convicted — exustum quidem sed non convidum esse} The principle pursued was that "by our laws he should die," and the council understood what the law of the church and of church procedure in its day was. Nor is the position well taken that Huss was condemned for disobedience to the discipHne of the church alone. Lechler, for example, declares that from the standpoint of the coun- cil of Trent, he was not convicted of any heresy; but the sentiment of his own age, and not the symbol of the six- ' Doc, io8. ' Luther's letter, Mon., i : Preface. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 267 teenth century, was the standard of judgment. Huss prac- tically ignored the church authorities. He refused to obey the citation to Rome. He went on preaching in spite of excommunication and interdict. He welcomed a general coun- cil, and yet refused to obey the mandate of the council to recant when it met. The priestly vow made him subject to the discipline of the higher court. That was the theory of the mediaeval church, and the higher church authority sat upon his case and sentenced him. But it sentenced him not alone for contumacy to authority but for doctrinal aberration. Some of the charges were erroneous, as the charge that he held to the remanence of the bread after the words of insti- tution; the charge that he had made himself a member of the Godhead grotesque. But other charges certainly were grossly heretical in the judgment of the council and the churchmen of that day. The death sentence was inevitable and Huss started out for Constance prepared to have such a sentence pronounced. The fault was not with the judges but with the system and the sentiment of the age. Bishop Creighton has well said: "No doubt Huss's Bohemian foes did their best to ruin him, but his opinions were judged by the council to be subversive of the ecclesiastical system, and when he refused to submit to that decision, he was necessarily regarded as an obstinate heretic." ^ The question whether the judgment upon Huss might not be oflScially reversed, as has been the judgment upon Joan of Arc, was opened in 1869 by Doctor Kalousek, a professor in the university of Prague, in a communication ad- dressed to the Prague press. Doctor Anton Lenz replied that Huss was a heretic, and the sentence could not be changed. ^ A difference in the two cases is that Joan was condemned by a commission of bishops; Huss by a general council. It may ' Lea, Inquis., 2 : 493, and Hefele, 7 : 214 sq., have remarks of a high order on the council's decision. 2 See Loserth, 282; Liitzow, 288. 268 JOHN HUSS be said, however, that there is dispute as to how far the decrees of the council of Constance are to be regarded as binding, and it would seem that, according to Martin V's words in adjourning it, the Roman pontiff has the right of determining the value of each of these decrees by itself. Joan of Arc, in 1437, was also declared a heretic and a decayed mem- ber, who was to be cut ofif lest she infect the other members of the church. At any rate, we wish that the spirit of the court of Massachusetts might be followed when it expressed regret for its judgment upon the alleged witches of Salem and for its decree banishing Roger WilHams, and the spirit of the French Protestants who, in 1903, placed the expiatory tablet on the stone marking the place of Servetus's death, a tablet whose inscription does not blame Calvin, but disavows the animus of persecution in this age for Calvin's followers. Papal infallibility or no infallibility, it would make greatly ^ for the promotion of truth and good-will if the Roman pontiff a^ would openly disavow the spirit of our spiritual forefathers \/ that condemned Huss to death, "Aii V Huss's views were the right views, the views of Scripture, ' the views that must be held by those who take the position I that first and last the church is a spiritual institution, that • ^.| its doctrines and usages must be in accordance with the law of Christ and that it has no direct or indirect authority over i a man's earthly existence, to shorten it or to cut if off. But ; this was not the view of the fifteenth century.; The ecclesias- tical government, which had been perfected in the mediaeval age, left no place for individual opinion or the discussion as to what was right and to be believed between a council and an individual accused of heresy. It is not surprising that the council acted unanimously, but, in the view of the spirit of free inquiry which had begun to show itself in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and in the light of subsequent history, it is to be regretted that not a single voice was raised to show , sympathy with the condemned man's fundamental position/ \ /v 4? HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 269 There are moments during his trial when the feeling arises that Huss was inclined to recede from the plain meaning of what he had written and perhaps resort to technicalities of language in the attempt to parry accusations. This feel- ing, however, must give way as unjust in view of Huss's con- stancy in the face of a horrible death, maintained through a protracted period, and the evidences of sincere piety which are evident on every page of his letters. With his writings in our hands, we do not have the impression that his meaning was misunderstood. On the contrary, the cardinal of Cambray was justified in saying that the formulated accusations were less incriminating than the orginal text of the writings. In- deed, if the methods of the inquisition for heresy in vogue at that time are held in mind, the council dealt leniently with Huss. After Huss's death, the claim of leniency in his treatment was made by the council itself. It applied no torture in the prison cell — perhaps for the very good reason that torture was not necessary. Huss's views were plainly set forth and sufficient to convict, and the council greatly prolonged the time of respite, giving him opportunity for abjuration. How far it was influenced to pursue this course by regard for Sigismund, we do not know, or whether it was influenced at all by consideration for the king. The remark made by Gerson, after the council had ad- journed, deserves to be repeated for the implication it con- tains that, after all, Huss's execution was a legal mistake. The Paris rector said that if Huss, whom the synod con- demned and pronounced a heretic, had had an attorney, he would certainly not have been convicted. But this remark is not to be taken seriously. Gerson, as has been stated, was in a huff over the council's refusal to condemn the proposi- tion that a vassal who agitates against his king may be law- fully murdered. This proposition, carried to the council by Petit, was intended to justify the duke of Burgundy, who had murdered his cousin and rival, the duke of Orleans, who ex- A 270 JOHN HUSS ercised undue influence over his brother, Charles VI, king of France.^ r Huss's primal mistake was that the council would be in i / a frame to accept from his lips the statement of truth which i ! he found vouched for in the Scriptures. It was the sharp L criticism of yEneas Sylvius that Huss and Jerome went to Constance more anxious to teach than to be taught — docendi quippe quam discendi cupidiores — and the charge is made that they were obstinate in not hearkening to the council. All men expose themselves to this charge who have a new message and insist upon their message in the face 01 constituted au- thority. However, the council cannot be condemned for not having given Huss an opportunity to freely expound his views in pubUc. In the first place, it was not customary to pur- sue that course with suspected heretics and, in the second, Huss's written statements were sufficient evidence against him. Unequivocal recantation it demanded, but only after prolonged investigation based upon preferred charges. If we compare Luther's course, down to the diet of Worms, with the course of Huss, we shall find much that is interesting in the way of likeness and contrast. The views which Luther set forth in the XCV Theses in regard to penance and the treasury of merit, he had no thought of as being out of accord with the church's teachings. So it was with Huss. In his first statements differing from the traditional system of belief, Luther drew only from the fund of his religious experience and the Scriptures. Huss, on the other hand, drew from a predecessor, Wyclif . Luther, though threatened with excom- munication and declared an outlaw by the emperor, not only did not modify his views, but knowingly departed further r and further away from the traditional system. On the other \ hand, Huss seems to have been a heretic, as has been said, L, without knowing it. So far as the intellectual denial of the doctrine of papal infallibility goes and the authority ^ Schwab, Gerson, 609 sqq. For d'Ailly's attitude, Tschackert, 235 sq. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 271 of oecumenical councils, Huss and Luther were in agreement. However, in the matter of certain practices and teachings, Huss was far behind Luther and Wyclif. He held on to the doctrine of transubstantiation, though he plainly condemned the withdrawal of the cup from the laity. He opposed the sale of indulgences announced by John XXIII and rested his case wholly with Christ, and yet, as has been shown, he did not abandon the doctrine of the intercession of saints or, so far as we know, deny the value of genuine relics. But in the former case, he seems at one time in his career to have plainly leaned toward a modification or even a denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Otherwise, it is dif- ficult to explain the persistence of the charges. For example, in an interview in the Dominican friary Palecz insisted that all who listened to Huss's teaching held to the doctrine of the remanence of the bread. It is possible that, if Huss had not been checked in his course, he would have proceeded under Wyclif 's influence to a definite repudiation of transubstantia- tion. With great emphasis he combated the current opinion which found expression in such words as these: the priest is the father of God, the creator of the divine body, the creator of God, — expressions derived from the efficiency of the priestly act in consecrating the bread and wine.^ In his Commentary on the Sentences of the Lombard, Huss quotes the famous words which represent Christ as partaking of his own body on the night of the Lord's Supper: Rex sedet in coena lurha ductus duodena; Se tenet in manibus, se cibat ipse cibus. The king sits in the midst of the twelve; Himself he holds in his hand. He, the food, partakes of himself. * Letters, Doc, 29, 90, Huss insists upon the same denial in his Com. on the Lombard's Sentences, pp. 572 sq., ntillus creaius est creator sui creatoris: melius sacerdos creat corpus Christi. 272 JOHN HUSS But he declines to pronounce a judgment, saying some accept and some deny and that, so far as a final judgment was con- cerned, he committed the matter to Christ who chose to leave it uncertain for him. As for the wine, he took the ground in the Commentary that it was not to be distributed to laymen, inasmuch as Christ was wholly in each element.^ It has been said that Huss died for his attachment to Wyclif and in defense of his memory. This is true, but it is only a part of the truth. The two men were closely associated together by the council of Constance as being partakers of heretical opinions, as master and pupil. When in 1413 Palecz called him a Wyclifist, he meant that he "was straying from the entire faith of Christendom." ^ Huss had protested against the burning of WycHf's books. He was identified at the university and in the city of Prague as the Oxford professor's defender. To his last dying breath no word escaped his mouth in the least discrediting Wyclif. He did not deny that he wanted to be where Wyclif's soul was and that he thought it to be among the saved. Invectives flying about in Constance joined their names together. The missal of the Wychfists, as it was called, ran: "I believe in Wyclif, the lord of hell and patron of Bohemia, and in Huss, his only begotten son, our nothing, who was conceived by the spirit of Lucifer, born of his mother, and made incarnate and equal to Wyclif . . . ruling at the time of the desolation of the university of Prague, at the time when Bohemia apostatized from the faith, who for us heretics descended into hell and will not rise again from the dead or have life eternal. "^ The heretical, scandalous and seditious teachings, for which the council of Constance sent Huss to his death, did ^ Super IV. Sent., 557, 575. ^ Doc, 56; Buddensieg: WicliJ Patriot and Reformer, p. 11, says that "the whole Hussite movement is mere Wyclifism." Loserth, p. xvi: "It was Wy- clif's doctrine principally for which Huss yielded up his life." ^ Loserth, pp. 348 sqq. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 273 not include all the practices and dogmas which Wyclif re- nounced. However, they were sufficient, if entertained, to shake to its foundation the ecclesiastical and doctrinal system accepted in his day. In all fundamental positions he was in agreement with the English teacher. These positions concern the nature and functions of the church, the extent of the pope's authority and his infallibility, the immediate responsibility of the individual to the Scriptures, and the power of the priesthood in the sacrament of penance. These are most fully developed in Huss's Treatise on the Church. They are restated in his two writings against Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim, who had attacked the views set forth in that treatise. To a greater or less degree they are also touched upon in his treatises against the eight doctors and on indulgences, and some of them are stated with great posi- tiveness in his letters, especially those addressed to Prachaticz in the year 1413. The Treatise on the Church, written during his period of semi-voluntary exile from Prague, was prepared for the very purpose of being an Apologia — a self-defense — and was considered by the council of Constance as giving the most calm and deHberate statement of his views. This treatise and the two defenses against Palecz and Znaim occupy one hundred and twenty- three pages of his works, two columns to a page.'^ The following statement will set forth these views in brief : "Jv— The-ehurch. — The council did not go astray in making Huss's definition of the church the main accusation. That definition struck at the very root of the theory of the mediasval church which the council had inherited and accepted. The treatments of the Schoolmen, based upon Augustine, followed the theory that the church is a visible and tangible organiza- tion, as visible and tangible as was the republic of Venice or the kingdom of France. It is the kingdom of the faithful * Moil., I : 243-365. For references to the Treatise on the Church, see my trsl. in the companion volume. The few references given here are for the most part from the defenses addressed to Palecz and Stanislaus. 274 JOHN HUSS who have the mark of baptism and is ruled over by the pope and the hierarchy. This ruUng body is a self-perpetuating aristocracy, deriving its power directly from God, as in the case of the pope, or by consecration and election, as in the case of the bishops. Pope and prelates are not the representa- tives of the Christian commonwealth, but tjie vicegerents of God. This was the well-developed and|^ccepted theory, though it did not have formal statement until the council of Trent, 1560, and it found in Cardinal Bellarmin its chief defender in his great work on the controversies between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. This was the theory underlying Boniface VIII's famous bull of 1302 — Unam sane- tarn. By the definition, all who are baptized are members of the church and heirs of divine grace. The pope is an essential factor of the church, so that where he is not recognized and obeyed the church is not. On the other hand, Huss defined the church to be the totality of the elect — universitas predestinatorum — whether on earth, in heaven or sleeping in purgatory; or, to give his fullest definition, "the church is the number of all the elect and the mystical body of Christ, whose head Christ is; and the bride of Christ, whom of his great love he redeemed with his own blood. "^ Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there he is in the midst of them. That is the church. It is one thing to be of the church and another to be in the church — aliud est de ecdesia aliud in ecclesia. The antichrists who left the church were never of the church, I John 2 : 19. Judas was in the church and not of it. The prcesciti, or reprobate — that is, those of whom God knows beforehand that they will not continue in a state of grace, or never be in that state— may be in the church, but are certainly not of it. This is taught in the parable of the field, with its wheat and tares, and the parable of the net 1 Mon., de Ecdesia, i : 245. Ad Palecz, i : 340. In his super IV. Sent., 616, Huss, in passing, quotes Augustine: "the church is the body of the elect and justified faithful." HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 275 which contained different sorts of fishes. The church is one, but its unity is one of predestination unto life. She is one by virtue of faith, hope and love.^ Her unity does not depend upon the pope. At his trial at Constance, Huss insisted, as he had done before, that it was only by accommodation to the popular method of speech that the church is called the Lord's thrashing-floor, a mixed body of the elect and repro- bate. The real church is the body of the elect. In his Reply to Palecz, he elaborates the idea and declares that the true Christians in India or Spain or Greece are integral parts of the church, though they may form particular churches, and they are united and one in Christ, even though there should , be three or four popes.^ W v ^ The church is the house of God, and it is to be honored ,^^ as his dwelling-place, but not as God is honored. I Cor. A II : 12 sq. The universal church has but one head, and has / / always had but one head, Christ. He has always been with the church and he will never fail to be with the church. To the passages in Paul's epistles which speak of Christ as the head, Huss turned again and again. There is no other head of the church but Christ. This definition of the church definitely set aside several conceptions which were currently accepted and which were regarded as fundamental in that age. (i) It set aside the theory, widely affirmed, that the pope and the cardinals constitute the church. This was the defini- tion given by Palecz and Stanislaus. It was a popular view, as Wyclif shows again and again as well as Huss, not only in his Treatise on the Church, but also in his letters.^ In a letter addressed to Prachaticz, he speaks of the people as saying that the pope is the head of the Holy Roman Church and the car- dinals its body. On the contrary, he declared pope and car- dinals are a part of the church and no more. They cannot ^ Mon., 321, 326. ^ Doc, 288; Mon., i : 325 sq. 'Doc, ST, Mon., i : 323, 335. 276 JOHN HUSS be the body of the elect. For three hundred years or more after Christ there were no cardinals, and if the church could exist and get along well without them then, it could get along without them always, and Christ could well re-establish the purity of the primitive church without cardinals and pope. If the pope is the head of the Roman Church and the cardinals the body, then they in themselves form the entire Roman Church, as the human body together with the head con- stitutes the whole man. (2) It sets aside the idea that pope, prelates and priests are true pope, prelates and priests by virtue of their office and ordination in the absence of purity and humility of life. Judas had the office and the ordination of an apostle, but was not a true apostle. They might not be of the elect and, in that case, they are not of the church. Exactly who is of the elect, and so of the church, cannot be certainly known ex- cept by revelation. The standard by which we must judge pope, prelates and priests is their conduct and works. "By their fruits ye shall know them." To this text Huss went back again and again. (3) Huss's definition set aside the idea that church govern- ment is necessarily bound up with prelates and popes. On the contrary, spiritual authority is vested in the church — the body of the elect. The Apostle Peter received the keys as a representative of the church, or, to use Huss's own words: "The church received the keys in the person of St. Peter." All the Apostles were commissioned equally to feed and govern the church. Thomas went to India — not by Peter's appointment. John was sent equally with Peter to Samaria. James presided at the synod of Jerusalem. The thirteen Apostles were thirteen prelates or princes — principes — in- vested with equal authority in all the earth. So are their successors, but only so far as they truly follow in the Apos- tles' steps in their teachings and conduct. To the church, that is, the body of the elect, against which the gates of hell will HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 277 not prevail — to it discipline was committed, Matt. 16 : 18, 18 : 15. Christ enjoined that offenses should be told to it. The church even has the right to depose popes. In his Reply to Stanislaus, Huss emphasized over again that the power of the keys was intrusted to the church, that is, the body of the elect. ^ (4) Huss nowhere uses the terms visible and invisible in making a distinction in the church, as the Reformers did after him.^ Nevertheless, he sets forth the same idea in other language. The church is like a field, containing elect and reprobate, good and bad; and while the elect alone belong to the true church, yet, inasmuch as we cannot tell in all cases with certainty who the reprobate are, we must obey the church so long as its leaders do not act contrary to the law of Christ, but only then. The church itself, as a visible organization, may be a harlot.^ In principle Huss also sinned mortally against the current idea of the church and its functions when he permitted lay- men to intrude upon the province of the church in sequestrat- ing the revenues of unworthy priests and made null the interdict and other church censures as they interrupted divine rites and stopped preaching. Not only did he call upon the king of Bohemia to put a stop to simony and other clerical offenses by the use of the civil arm; he also gave the same advice to the king of Poland. This principle that lay- men have the right to interfere to correct evil church practices, was made the subject of one of Gerson's articles against Huss, pronouncing it "an error most pernicious and scandalous, in- * Man., I : 352. "It is hard to understand Wratislaw's meaning, page 210, when he says: " Huss's definition of the church was of an utterly unpractical nature, es- pecially as he did not draw any clear distinction between the visible and the invisible church, to the latter of which alone his definition is applicable." The Reformers could not make a clear distinction in details of practice. Schwane, Dogmen-gesch. der mittler. Zeit., page 510., says rightly: "Huss rejected the def- inition that the church is a visible community of believers." ^ Doc, 55. 278 JOHN HUSS ducing laymen — seculares — to perpetrate sacrilege, and sub- versive of the liberty of the church." ^ II. The pope. — In regard to jurisdiction, the Roman pontiff has authority over the particular Roman church, which is the company of the faithful in that particular com- munion, as the Antiochan church is the company of the faith- ful under the bishop of Antioch. The church is both universal and particular and the bull of Boniface — Unam sanctam — was wrong in representing that all the sheep were committed to Peter's care. The other Apostles were equally intrusted with the care of Christ's flock. The pope is not the rock on which Christ said he would build his church. Matt. i6 : i8. As Augustine in his Re- tractations had said, Christ is the Rock. He is the founda- tion. ''Petra — the Rock— said to Petro Peter: I say unto thee that thou art Peter — -that is, the confessor of the true Rock, which is Christ — and on this Petra — Rock — whom thou hast confessed — that is, upon me, I will through strong faith and perfecting grace build my church." ^ The founda- tion with which the church is built on the Rock is faith, faith rooted in love. That Christ is the Rock is plain from Scripture. Paul and Peter call him the foundation, the rock, the corner-stone. Likewise, Christ presented himself as the foundation which, in time of storm, will not be moved. Our love and faith are placed in Christ, not in Peter. To Christ, and not to Peter, did the prophets look forward. Peter did not dare to assert that he was the head of the holy Catholic church. Christ alone is the head of the body, imparting life and sensation to its members. To the two passages, Matt. i6 : i8 and John 21 : 15, which, it will be remem- bered, are emblazoned on the base of the dome of St. Peter's, Huss devotes elaborate exposition. The pope is fallible and may be a reprobate and heretic — papa falli et fallere possunt. This is proved from Scripture * Doc, 31, S2» 187. ^ Mon., de Ecclesia, i : 92. Ad Palecz, i : 321. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 279 and also from history. Popes of human appointment were not always popes by Christ's election. A pope may be a successor of Judas and the cardinals in the line of Gehazi. Popes may be mistaken through ignorance and avarice, and make mistakes by deception, disciplinary decrees and pre- cepts. Pontiffs and cardinals at variance in purpose or moral life with Christ and the Apostles are thieves and robbers. In his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, he said distinctly that the vicar of Christ may err in matters of faith and disciphne.^ Constantine II, Liberius the Arian, Boniface VIII and Cle- ment V, who had dared to order the angels to release souls from purgatory, were heretical or wicked popes. But the case above all cases to which Huss refers is the case of the female pope, Joanna, whose natural name was Agnes. In his day, the tradition was still beheved that she had ruled as pope two years and five months under the name of John VIII. Her sex was revealed by her suddenly giving birth to a child on the street. Gerson also fully believed this story and used it also to illustrate that the pope may err, and Agnes's statue was placed, in the thirteenth century, in the cathedral of Siena, among the statues of the other popes. The story is now universally discredited, and is usually explained to have been a parody on the rule of loose popes under the influence of dissolute women in the tenth century.^ On account of their fallibility and in view of the fa,ci that popes have been heretics, Huss denied that they are always to be obeyed or their censures heeded. Writing to Prachaticz, he said: "What can they say who declare that the Holy Roman Church, that is, the pope and the cardinals, must be obeyed in view of the fact that Boniface — Boniface IX — together with his cardinals, solemnly declared that Wenzel is ^ Mon., I : 324, 340, 350. Omnis vicarius Christi errare potest in iis qua concernnnl fidem d claves ecclesicE. Super IV. Sent., p. 607. - This is fully set forth by Dollinger, Fables of the Popes in the M. A. See Mirbt, p. 97; MoH., i : 323 sq. 339, etc.; Letters in Doc., 58, 59, etc. ^ 28o JOHN HUSS not king of the Romans and that Sigismund is not king of Hungary? This with them is an article of faith and yet they do not obey Boniface's decree." Huss also uses this argument against Palecz. The Roman pontiff is to be obeyed only so far as his decrees are in accord with Christ's law.^ As for the citation to Rome, he had disobeyed it because his own diocese was the proper place for his case to be in- vestigated, if at all. By his long absence in Rome the Word of God would have been kept from the people in Prague, and the way of citation was not the way prescribed by Christ, as is shown in Matt. i8 : 15. "I also," he said, "resisted the bull on indulgences sent out by John XXIII, for to rebel against an erring pope is to obey Christ." As for the interdict, it, like excommunication, is used to terrorize and enslave the people. The pope has no right to order divine services stopped in any locality simply because one man may be disobedient. Even though Judas was present, Christ went on distributing the Last Supper. "I was excommunicated," Huss deposes, "because I preached Christ and was seeking to turn the clergy to a life conformed to God's law." Then came the citation and the interdict. Boniface VIII and Clement V blasphe- mously make every rational creature, man or angel, subject to the Roman pontiff. People went to heaven when there were no popes. They went to heaven during the rule of Agnes, and they have continued to go to heaven in the interims following a pope's death and before the election of his suc- cessor. But in all times Christ, and he alone, is head of the church. The church is never dead or without a head — mortua vel decapitata, — for Christ lives forevermore. If launched at all, excommunication should be launched for mortal sin, not for matters neither bad nor good in themselves. In fact, the pope was not necessary to the church's being, or even its well-being, and if popes and cardinals both were destroyed, even as Sodom, yet the holy church would remain.^ ^ Doc, 58, 60; Mow., ad Palecz, i : 329. ^ Doc, 59. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 281 Again, all such titles as most holy should be given up and the adoration of the pope and the pomp with which he surrounds himself be abandoned. Worldly power was given to the pope by Constantine and the poison of Constantine's donation continued to spend itself. A reprobate pope should not be addressed as most holy father, or Judas would be justly called most holy bishop.^ In his letters, Huss approached Luther in stigmatizing unworthy popes and declared the Roman hierarchy the great harlot, the blaspheming congregation, of which we read in the Apocalypse. The pope is antichrist, who, under the garb of sanctity, conceals the abomination of the beast. He sits in the place of honor and offers himself for worship to all comers as though he were God — quasi sit Deus. And the council condemned a pope as a simoniac, heretic, sodomite and murderer! 2 To be sure, these words had reference to John XXIII, but the council regarded him as true pope. As for councils and their authority, it must not be for- gotten that Huss looked forward with hope to a council, though he appealed to Christ. During his stay in Constance he developed a definite view most unfavorable to the council convened in that city. As has been quoted before, he de- clared that though it professed to be a most holy synod, speak- ing by the Holy Spirit and incapable of error, yet was it full of the wickedness of antichrist, whose foulness deserved to be a proverb and whose fallibility, shown in other ways, was also shown in accepting John XXIII as pope, kissing his feet and addressing him as most holy father. III. The priesthood. — Priests in mortal sin do not per- form the sacraments efi&ciently. Here, Huss invalidates the whole theory of sacerdotal power received through ordination. Thomas Aquinas's theory is that the validity of the sacrament does not depend upon the priest's character, and Leo the Great, 450, declared that even in an unworthy successor the dignity ^ Mon., ad Palecz, i : 322. ^ Doc, 55, 135, 144, r 282 JOHN HUSS of Peter is not wanting. Leo's statement Pastor quotes in vindication of his treatment of Alexander VI, who, in spite of his flagrant crimes, yet was true pope. Following Wyclif, Huss also stated that a king in mortal sin has no right to exercise authority. It is true that, at his trial, Huss seems to have modified his statement by declaring that, according to the law of merit — quoad meritum — such kings or priests in mortal sin were not to excercise royal or priestly authority, but according to their official dignity — quoad officium — they might. But the council laughed him down. In his writings his meaning is plain. The absolution of sins, therefore, depends upon the charac- ter of the priest. Although Huss nowhere declares that the priestly act in absolving from sin is only declaratory, yet, in effect, he makes it such. A priest can absolve no one whom God has not before absolved, and all absolutions pronounced for gifts of money are of no avail. "Under Agnes, where were the keys?" he exclaims. The priest has no arbitrary right to exercise the keys. He is nothing more than a servant or living instrument. He must exercise the right properly and have a good motive or the exercise is useless.^ And as for censures, Christ did not call down fire from heaven. He came to heal, not to destroy. The apostoHc see is not a final tribunal. How can it be, in view of such a case as John XII who was put to death while in the very act of adultery. Christ is the final tribunal, God is to be obeyed rather than man. IV. The Scriptures.— Here Huss is, on all occasions, emphatic. He followed Wyclif in demanding that the Scrip- tures should be in the hands of the people and that the priest's first duty is to expound their teachings to all men alike. They are to be in the vernacular, and in the hands of all. The Scriptures, or the law of Christ, as he liked to call them, are the supreme rule of opinion and conduct. The priest and people are obhgated to follow them above all mandates of ^ Mon., I : 352; super IV. Sent., 606, 616. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 283 prelates and popes; customs instituted by the church, if at variance with them, are of no value. All commands are to be disobeyed which are outside the express authority of Scripture — premier expressam autoritatem Scriptura. Yea, mandates of popes and cardinals which subvert the precepts of Christ, must be openly resisted, lest, by assent, one become partaker of crime. In matters civil, we owe obedience to the king, in matters spiritual to God, in matters ecclesiastical, which involve things indifferent, we owe obedience only as the commands are in accord with the almighty will of God. The priest must continue preaching in spite of a papal man- date to the contrary. The duty is laid upon him in ordination, and a mandate to stop preaching he is no more obligated to obey than he would be to obey a command forbidding him to give alms. Huss's works are full of quotations from the Scriptures, as are also his letters. At his trial he confidently protested that he stood by the Scriptures and that he must be informed out of them before he would retract. To the charge that he followed Wyclif, he repHed that he accepted WycUf's state- ments not because they were made by Wyclif, but because they were drawn from the Scriptures. In his Reply to Palecz he declared that he hoped at the bar of Christ to be found not to have denied a single iota of them.^ Augustine's view was that we must believe the Scriptures because the church tells us to. Huss's position was that we must believe the church in proportion as it follows the Scriptures. Huss, without formulating it into a definite proposition, was insisting upon the individual's right to interpret the Scriptures for himself. On that principle he stood, a single individual against the council which represented Christendom. ''I cannot," he protested, "offend against God or my con- science by abjuring." The Bible was his guide, the Bible as interpreted according to its plain meaning. This idea of ^Mon., I : 325, 330. 284 JOHN HUSS subjectivity, as Hefele says, the council could not tolerate, as it did not the principle of the sole authority of the Bible; and Hefele continues that ''in these respects Huss was a true precursor of the Reformation."^ All the members of the council recognized the wall of partition between him and themselves on this subject. Prierias, the Dominican master of the palace, in his tract answering Luther's Theses, stated the principle anew that the Scriptures derive their authority from the church and the pope, and said, "whoso does not rest upon the doctrine of the Roman Church and the Roman pope as an infallible rule of faith, from which even the Holy Scriptures derive their authority, he is a heretic." With Huss, a hundred years before, both pope and council were hable to err. The Scrip- tures alone are infallible, the supreme authority for human opinion and conduct. Huss carried the Bible with him to Constance and to the Dominican prison. Among the most solemn legacies to his disciple. Master Martin, was that that Martin might be dili- gent to read the Bible, especially the New Testament, and he urged his Bohemian friends to listen only to such priests as were its reverent students. Perhaps his last written words were the words addressed to the chaplain of Queen Sophia and other priests, to be diligent students of God's Word and to preach the Word of God — verhuni Dei} If Tyndale was strangled at Vilvorde for having translated the Bible into English, then it is also true that Huss, a hundred years earlier, was burned at Constance for his devotion to that sacred book. It was his dissent from these four vital doctrines, the church, the pope, the power of the keys and the Scriptures, which brought Huss to his death. To state it in another way, * Rucksichtlich dieser beiden principiellen Punkte ist Huss wahrer Vorlaufer d. Protestantismus, 7 : 217. Comp. Schwab, Gerson, 600 sq. ^ Doc, 117, 119, 148. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 285 it was the clash on the subject of authority in matters of religion, whether the final seat of authority is the visible organization called the church, with the pope at its head, or the Scriptures as interpreted by the individual invoking the guidance of Christ. In our dealing with Huss's case, the most interesting^^ question arises whether — justified as was the council accord- ing to the canons of the age in putting Huss to death — whether, after all, Huss was not dealt with unfairly by Sigismund, in view of the promise of safe-conduct — salvus condudus — that king gave him. Bid not that promise afford him positive as- surance of safety on his return journey to Prague? And did not the king break his word when he executed the council's sentence and gave Huss over to the flames? Here we must be guided by the letter of the safe-conduct and by the in- terpretation which Huss, the king and others put upon it. Sigismund's salvus condudus, which was promised to Huss before he left Prague, ran as follows: ^ Sigismund, by God's grace, Augustus, King of the Romans and King of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, etc., to all and every prince, both ecclesiastical and secular — dukes, marquises, counts, barons ... to all magistrates and officials of cities and villages and to all the rest of our people, subjects of the Holy Empire, peace and all good. The honorable master, John Huss, bachelor of sacred theology and master of arts, the bearer of these presents, journeying from the realm of Bohemia to the general council about to convene in Constance, whom we have received under our pro- tection and the protection of the Holy Empire — we, with full affection, recommend to you all, desiring that you receive him kindly and treat him with favor and that you will help him in all matters to speedily prosecute his journey, giving him security by the way, whether by land or sea, and also safety to his servants, horses and baggage and that all tributes and other restrictions whatsoever may be removed from his free passage over all roads, ' For the text, Doc, 237; Hardt, 4 : 522; Hefele, 218. The discussions are many, among the best being, Hefele, 227 sqq., Wylie, 178-187, and Berger: Konig Sig. und der Concil. 286 JOHN HUSS through all gates and cities, and that ye permit him freely, as he chooses, to pass along, to stop, to abide and to return — transire, stare, morari, redire — and so provide for him and his safe and secure passage. This document was dated at Spires, October i8, 1414, and reached Constance, November 5. Huss reached Con- stance after it was signed by the king. Its language is specific and provides for his return. Did it obligate Sigismund under all circumstances to see to it that Huss was unimpeded in returning to Prague? As we have seen, the promise of safe-conduct was sent to Huss from Italy, and Chlum and Duba were commissioned by the king to escort him to Constance. Repeatedly in his letters, written on his way to Constance and after his arrival, did Huss state that he made the journey and entered into the city without the safe-conduct.^ By this he meant without the official paper which Wenzel of Duba, leaving the party at Niirnberg, had gone to obtain from the king. In making this statement, Huss was expressing his joy at being treated so well and getting along without inconvenience, though charged with being a heretic and though he had not yet received the promised official document. Certainly his arrest and im- prisonment the last of November were a plain violation of this pledge. So Chlum and Huss's other friends in Constance regarded it, and so, apparently, did John XXIII. So the Bohemian and Moravian nobles interpreted it in their appeals demanding his release. So Sigismund himself felt, who, when he was apprised of Huss's arrest, sent word to Constance that he should be released, threatening that if Huss was not released he would on his arrival in the city break down the doors of Huss's prison and let the prisoner out. Writing after Huss's death to the Moravians and Bohemians, March 21, 1416, Sigismund declared that, if Huss had journeyed in his company to Constance, his case would most probably ' Doc, 76, 77, 79. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 287 have turned out differently. Exactly what Sigismund meant by this statement must be in a measure uncertain. It was either a base attempt to defend himself for yielding to the council or an announcement of his helplessness before its sentence. Base it was because Huss made the journey in the way laid out by the king, in company with the deputy guards the king had commissioned; unless it be that Huss made a technical mistake in not going with Wenzel of Duba to meet the king at Spires, an interpretation which one of his statements seems to be capable of. But did the royal salvus condudus give Huss the right to expect that Sigismund would shield him from death and protect him against the council's sentence, at least until after he had returned to Bohemia? The witnesses of the case are as follows: (i) On leaving Prague for Constance, Huss seems to have put his case unreservedly in the hands of the council. In case he did not establish his orthodoxy, he expressed him- self ready to suffer the penalty meted out to heretics. Friends, taking leave of him, expressed the fear that he would not return alive. Huss himself left his will which, of course, was a proper precaution under any circumstances. But in a letter written to his friends just before starting out on his journey, he spoke of the possibility of his violent death at Constance, and that he was wilhng to die, if by his death he might glorify God. From all this it would seem that Huss did not claim safe return except in the case of his acquittal at Constance. (2) Huss's Bohemian and Moravian friends complained that his arrest at Constance and his violent treatment were against the law and the king's solemn promise pubHcly given. The protest of the two hundred and fifty nobles demanded that he be allowed to return freely to Bohemia and asserted clearly that the pledge included the promise of safe return. (3) Mladenowicz, in his account, states that Sigismund's 288 JOHN HUSS promise was a pledge to protect Huss on the way to Constance and back — libere ut Constantiam veniens e converso redire ad Bohcemiam. (4) Henry Lefl and others, so Huss asserts, assured him that the king had pledged himself for Huss's safe return to Prague. (5) During the period of his imprisonment, Huss declared that Sigismund had acted treacherously and broken his word, that he ought not to put the sentence of Constance into exe- cution and ought at least to have sent him back to Bohemia. Christ deceived no man. His safe-conduct could be relied on.^ (6) There were some at Constance— how many we do not know — ^who believed that Sigismund had broken his promise. This is evident from the action taken in the council, September 23, 1415, to justify Sigismund's conduct. (7) This was the view taken by Huss's followers after his death, and in 1432 the Bohemian delegates to the council of Basel, having an eye to Huss's fate and the alleged de- ception passed on him, demanded a distinct insertion of a clause pledging them safe return. One hundred and six years after Huss's death, Luther declared faith had been broken with Huss, and he, being of the same mind, also demanded an express stipulation from the emperor, Charles V, for his safe return from Worms. He said that even a promise of safe-conduct given to the devil must be kept, much more, then, a promise to a heretic.^ (8) As for Sigismund's own understanding of his promise of safe-conduct, we have no statement written by him before the execution of the death sentence or after it on which we can base a definite opinion except the letter of the safe-con- duct, which is his one distinct statement. All that we know besides is that Sigismund indignantly resisted Huss's arrest ^ Doc, 114, 143, 237, 535, 554. * Kostlin, Leben Lidhers, i : 352. Address to the Germ. Nobility, 5 : 24. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 289 and imprisonment, when he first heard of them, as a violation of his promise, and that after Huss's death, he wrote to Bohemia that Huss might have been saved if he had waited to go v/ith the king to Constance. The last mjist be deemed an attempt on Sigismund's part to excuse himself. From these considerations it would seem that Sigismund broke his pledge and Huss was foully treated. On the other hand, it is argued, and with plausibility, that Sigismund gave his pledge for Huss's safe return on condition that Huss would be cleared. It is hardly to be imagined that Sigismund was unaware of the custom of the age — that on the question of heresy the ecclesiastical sentence was final, that heretics had no rights before man or God, and that it was the duty of the civil arm to punish them with death. Ferdinand, king of Aragon, as we have seen, urged Sigismund to kill Huss forthwith. The council in its decree of September 23, scarcely two months after Huss's death, took the ground that no salvus conductus given by emperor or other prince to a heretic, or one suspected of heresy, had any validity whatsoever, seeing it was to the prejudice of the jurisdiction exercised by the church; nor could such a pledge put any hinderance in the way of the church in the exercise of its authority. Moreover, the person who gave such pledge of safe-conduct was under no obhgation to keep the pledge. The principle was also stated in distinct words by the council that a con- firmed heretic by his heresy placed himself outside the pro- tection of all safe-conducts, and that no promise or faith is to be kept with him according to any law, natural, divine or human, which shall be to the prejudice of the Catholic faith.i This means that faith is not to be kept with a heretic. * Nee aliqua sibi fides aid promissio de jure nalurali, divino vel humano, in prcEJudiciiim catholiccB fidei observanda. Mirbl, p. 170. There are two forms or two parts given of the council's decree. The first, by Mansi, 7 : 779, the second by Van der Hardt, 4 : 521; the latter taken from a single manuscript in Vienna, but of exceptional weight, being written by the hand of one who had 290 JOHN HUSS That Sigismund, as a king and as emperor, could have asserted his royal word in resisting the council, there can be no doubt. So John of Gaunt, in the absence of any official promise of protection, protected Wyclif in the face of the Earthquake council. That, from the moment of his arrival in Constance, Sigismund became more and more subservient to the council has been shown. Little did he protect Huss after he reached the city, on Christmas Eve. John XXIII was a better friend to him than the king. John at least provided Huss with decent food and humane guards. Sigismund, it is true, affirmed on June 8 that he had fulfilled his pledge to see to it that Huss had a fair pubHc hearing. He, no doubt, suppressed any scruples he may have felt on the ground that the council's will, after all, was supreme and that it was no perjury to disregard a promise to a heretic when he was following the church's behest. This was the very plea to which Huss steadfastly refused to give way when he was i called upon to recant. Huss was governed by conscience, 1 Sigismund by rules of prudence. ' It is probable the council would have broken with the 'king, if he had kept the letter of his pledge. His imperial good faith probably was no more at stake than the council's I very existence. As it was, in yielding to the council Sigismund lost with the Bohemian people. They felt deeply that it was . a national disgrace that he had yielded to the council's sen- tence. When Sigismund wanted to drive away the envoy from Milan, who had come to Constance with a safe-conduct, the council put itself in the way, declaring that all having a safe-conduct had the right to stay and go; but the envoy was not a heretic. At the very least, Sigismund should have been at the council. Hefele, 7 : 227, 237, disputes the second and explains it as being a note of some member of the council which he intended to propose for its action, but did not. It contains express references to Sigismund's own case as having broken his pledge to Huss. This personal reference seems to be in favor of the genuineness of the second part of the official decree, which is represented above in the clause beginning with the words "the principle." HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 291 sent Huss back to Bohemia.^ It was, as a Protestant his- torian, Karl Muller, has said, simply a question of power between Sigismund and the council as to whether Sigismund was to keep his promise or not.^ The king put aside the promises which he had made to induce Huss to go to Con- stance. Atrocious as the principle is that faith is not to be kept with a heretic, it was the principle upon which Sigismund and the council acted and the council defined. The Spanish king, Ferdinand, knew well the methods of the papal inquisition when he stated that it is not breaking faith to break faith with a man who breaks his faith with God — non est Jrangere fidem ei qui Deo fidem frangit. Considering the centuries which have elapsed since 141 5, we may distinctly trace Huss's influence in the history of the Protestant Reformation. The great statue at Worms, de- signed to commemorate the Reformation, rightly gives places to Wyclif, Huss and Savonarola as forerunners of that relig- ious movement. By WycHf, Luther was not directly in- fluenced. The Reformer made no reference to Wyclif's writings. Savonarola influenced him to some extent and Luther edited the MedUations on the XXXII and LI Psalms which Savonarola prepared in prison. He knew, he said, that ' According to Doctor Lenz, quoted by Liitzow, p. 290, Sigismund broke his word by not delivering Huss over to Wenzel. - Kirchengesch., 2 : 80. Berger holds that Sigismund had no right to give a safe-conduct to one suspected of heresy and could not have intended to give him such a clear paper, pp. 109 sqq., 173 sq. However, he had "without doubt the power and the right to at least postpone the execution of the sen- tence by the civil arm." Palacky, Gesch.,$ : i, p. 357, also holds that Sigis- mund had no right to give to such a person an unconditional safe-conduct, which was void by the law of the age. Lea, Inquisition, 2 : 462 sqq., contro- verts Berger's position. Sigismund was too well versed in the principles of canon law in regard to heretics not to have understood what he was doing when he gave a salvus conduclus promising Huss safe return. Berger, pp. 178 sqq., gives thirty-nine letters of safe-conduct, including Charles V's letter to Luther, 1521. Karl Muller, Hist. Vierteljahrsschr., 1898, pp. 41 sqq., and F. Bartos of Prague in Ztschr. d. Kirchengesch., August, 1913, 34 : 414 sq., bring new material to show that a promise to return was deemed sacred. 292 JOHN HUSS the Dominican preacher had much of the clay of human theology clinging to him, but in these Meditations a true Christian was speaking and he deserved \o be canonized in spite of antichrist, who sought to blot out his memory. To Huss's direct influence, Luther bears generous and repeated witness, not only in his three prefaces to the three editions of some of Huss's epistles and other works issued at Wittenberg, 1536 and 1537,' but also in other places. Nean- der, Lechler, Ullmann and others make Huss a precursor of Luther. Harnack takes another view when he says: "The Wyclifite and Hussite movement must be taken as the ripest fruitage of the reform movement of the Middle Ages, and al- though it loosened the ground and prepared the way, yet it brought to expression no reformatory ideas." ^ We take the former ground, not only because Huss actually furnishes a good deal of the essence of the Reformation in his statements on the church, the pope and the Scriptures, but because of the debt Luther distinctly acknowledged to him. As a student at Erfurt, Luther had in his hands Huss's sermons. He tells us that he was influenced by curiosity to discover what sort of teachings the heretic had sown. To his amazement, he was moved with admiration and, at the same time, was filled with surprise that a man who preached so evangeHcally and was so apt and so serious in expounding the Scriptures should have been burned as a heretic. "So abominated," he says, speaking of the sixteenth century, "was Huss's very name that the sun itself, it was thought, would have been obscured if it had been mentioned with honor." The apparent contradiction between these sermons and Huss's heresy he could only explain on the assumption that the sermons were preached before Huss became a heretic. Soon after Luther's Reformatory activity began, he was ' Printed on the first pages of the large ed. of Huss's works. ^ Dogmengesch., 3 : 413. Gottschick: Huss's Lehre von der Kirche, Ztsch.f. Kirchengesch., 8 : 364, says that Huss had no other view of salvation than the one current in his age. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 293 accused by Eck at the Leipzig disputation, 15 19, with being a Hussite. Eck had mentioned articles of Wychf and Huss condemned at Constance, such as that faith in the pope was not necessary to salvation and that the church on earth does not require a single head. This skilled disputant then went on to allege a rumor that Luther was quite favorable to the Bohemians. Pressed to the wall, Luther replied that among the Bohemian articles there were many which were both Christian and Scriptural. It was a matter of indifference to him that Wychf and Huss advocated the articles, they should no longer be condemned. Of Christians, no article should be required which was not Scriptural. Quick to take advantage of these admissions, Eck declared that it was after the manner of the Bohemians to presume to know the Scriptures better than the pope, councils, doctors and universities. The con- demned Bohemians would thereafter look upon Luther as their advocate. In this way, Luther was forced to take pubHcly a position in advance of his previous position and solemnly declare that general councils, as well as popes, were not infalHble.^ It was soon after this disputation that Luther received letters from Hussites of the Utraquist wing, John Poduschka and Wenzel Rosdolowsky, who expressed their best wishes and accompanied their letter with a gift of knives and a copy of Huss's Treatise on the Church. The former said that what Huss had been in Bohemia, that Luther was in Saxony. Luther acknowledged these communications and sent his cor- respondents a copy of his smaller writings. The good, or- thodox opinion of Huss in Germany was expressed by a con- temporary, Cochlasus, who pronounced Huss worse than a Jew — a Tartar, a Turk and a Sodomite. But the influence of the Bohemian had gone so far with Luther in 1520, that, with reference to those who yoked their names together, he asserted that, without surmising it, he had been advocating all ' Kustlin, I : 265 sq. 294 JOHN HUSS Huss's teachings and he and his associates were all Hussites without knowing it. He was amazed that evangelical truth had been publicly consigned to the flames a hundred years before, and yet, alas, no one dared openly to acknowledge that this was the case. In 1520 a Latin edition of Huss's Treatise on the Church appeared in Wittenberg. In his address to the German nobility, written the same year, Luther called upon the Roman Church to confess that it had done wrong in burning Huss. He was burned unjustly and in violation of God's commandments; that innocent man's blood, he asserted, was still crying from the ground. A year later he revoked his statement that some of Huss's articles condemned at Con- stance were true. He now affirmed that they were all true, and that the pope and papists, in condemning Huss at Con- stance, had also condemned the Gospel, and in its place put the doctrines of the dragon of hell.^ From that time on, Luther was an uncompromising champion of Huss as a man of God. In his prefaces to Huss's letters and writings, already referred to, he fully expressed this opinion. In one of these, characteristically calHng the Roman bishop that "basilisk of the church and plague of all the earth," he accuses the pope of being the creator of new gods by canon- izing the saints, while at the same time he damned that good and most pious man, John Huss, and ordered the whole world to execrate him as a devil to be abhorred through eternity. In effect, he set himself up as the judge of the Uving and the dead by damning the one and ordering new saints to be invoked and worshipped. In the second preface, he speaks of Huss as the church's holy martyr and pronounced the council of Constance as hav- ing exposed itself to derision and ridicule for raving against that pious man, and he prayed that the next council to be ' To the Germ. Nobility, 5 : 23. Grund und Ursach alter Arlikel. Kostlin, I : 408. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 295 held might, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, seek the glory of God and that alone. In the third, Luther says that every one of a sane mind will confess that John Huss was adorned with great and excellent gifts from the Holy Spirit. He was as a sheep among lions and wolves and, if Huss is to be re- garded as a heretic, then scarcely one of all those upon whom the sun has ever looked down can truly be held to have been a Christian. For John Huss committed no greater crime than to assert that a Roman pope of impious hfe is not the head of the Catholic church. "If he, who, in the agony of death, invoked Jesus, the Son of God, who suffered on our behalf, and gave himself up to the flames with such faith and constancy for Christ's cause — if he did not show himself a brave and worthy martyr of Christ — then may scarcely any one be saved." Luther and the other Reformers gave permanency to a body of opinions which Huss held, but went much further than their predecessor. The Bohemian reformer was out of accord with the church of his time, though he did not know it. So was Luther when he nailed up the XCV Theses, and as he himself says, in speaking of Huss. More than a century was to elapse after Huss's death before the hour for the Protestant movement struck. In the meantime, the way had been further prepared for it by the invention of printing, the spread of Humanism in Germany, and the pubHcation of the Greek New Testament. In Huss's views we have only a ghmmer of what was to come, however a bright ghmmer. Luther would no doubt have been, if Huss had not hved, but it is no derogation of Luther's better equipment, his originality and his great services to accord to Huss the merit of having spoken so bravely and clearly on the papacy, the Scripture and other matters. The relation in which, on the one hand, Huss stood to WycHf, and on the other to the Reformation is well illus- trated in a Hussite cantionale, dated 1572, in the possession \j" 296 JOHN HUSS of the university of Prague. It is written on parchment and contains the coats of arms of many Bohemian nobles. Three medalUons, with which one of its pages is illuminated, represent Wyclif striking fire with two flints, Huss starting a flame and Luther holding aloft the burning torch. A pic- ture at the foot of the page represents Huss in the midst of the flames at Constance. Over against this old Hussite song-book is to be set one of the bronze pieces of statuary, erected in front of the uni- versity in 1848 to commemorate the five-hundredth anniver- sary of Charles IV and representing the faculty of theology. Huss has no place there— the most notable figure, so far as the outside world knows, ever connected with the university. The group represents a woman with her right hand on a book labelled the Bible and on her left knee a volume labelled Thomas Aquinas. The Bible is closed, the work of the School- man is wide open. The controversy in Bohemia still goes on between Huss, who advocated the open Bible, and the ecclesi- astical tradition which keeps the Bible closed, and follows the scholastic theology. Taking a wider survey and going beyond the distinctively rehgious realm, we must also give Huss a place in the history of the struggle for the rights of conscience. Here, according to Lechler, Hes his chief merit. In spite of his self-distrust and gentle nature,^ Huss was not intimidated by the council to consent to a form of recantation which he believed to be a falsehood. In a sense similar to that intended by Renan, when of the Christian martyr of Lyons, the slave Blandina, he says that by her death she did more to aboHsh slavery than all the writings of the ancient philosophers, so it is true that Huss's moral heroism in the presence of a terrible death has promoted the cause of liberty of opinion. If Luther asserted at Worms that it was not safe to do anything against one's conscience, the same attitude was also taken by Huss. ' See Helfert, p. 206. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 297 Above all friendships he placed loyalty to the truth. Sub- mission to authority at the expense of convictions he refused to regard as meritorious. He could not recant because, as he said again and again, he was not ready to ofifend against God and his conscience. In his Commentary on the Sentences of the Lombard, he stated that to act contrary to conscience is sin, but he did not there take up the question whether resistance to the church is sin. He closed his treatment by saying that in addition to what he had written there were many more things which might be said about conscience.^ The problem of this relation of the individual conscience to church authority may have been among the things un- treated. Gerson himself insisted that the individual is bound to submit to the church, putting his conscience aside so far as he holds views disapproved by the organization. It is no excuse, he argues, for disobedience before God or man that his conscience justifies him. Heretics have a conscience, but an unenlightened conscience. They have dehberately set themselves against God and arrogate to themselves a knowl- edge of Gud which is fals« . Conscience is no excuse for error and heresy.^ Huss laid down a principle of far-reaching significance when he predicated a tribunal higher than the church, the tribunal of Christ. He spoke better than he perhaps knew. He could scarcely have foreseen the full application given to that principle in the twentieth century. It was a principle which the great teachers of his age did not understand, a principle whose very statement they abhorred. The tribunal of God is set up in the Scriptures, the Scriptures — so Huss ^ Super IV. Sent., p. 3SI-3S4- ^ Eine Beriifung auf das Gewissen erkennt Gerson nicht an. Schwab, 599. Hefele, p. 217, expresses respect for Huss's heroism shown in the face of death. It was for the author's relatively favorable treatment of Huss, and his failure to justify the council in passing this sentence against him except by the standard of the age in which the council was held, which no doubt led to the suppression of the seventh volume of his History of the Councils. J 298 JOHN HUSS contended — not as interpreted by the church, but as inter- preted by the conscience. In places in his writings he distinctly plead^ffor reason as a guide in matters of religious conduct, such as prayers and fasting. With its aid ecclesiastical mandates, distinct from the precepts of the Gospel, are to be judged. On one oc- casion, he spoke of the Scriptures, special divine revelation, the reason and experience^ as the guides which are to be de- pended upon in determining what we are to believe and the commands we are to obey. It is not to be supposed that Huss meant to make the reason co-ordinate with the Scriptures which contain the truth. His purpose was to assert the rights of reason over against the hierarchy or the church as a guide to the truth. He nowhere worked out into a careful system the relation the Scriptures, the reason, the church and Christian experience bear one to the other. It is evident, however, that he predicated for the individual reason, a place such as his age and the Schoolmen denied it as a guide of conduct in matters of religion. It is, therefore, in accordance with his other teachings that Huss did not shrink back from the word heretic with the same abhorrence his contemporaries felt for it. As a sermon already quoted shows, he even had a good word to say for the uses of heresy. Heretics are dangerous, but their mistakes may be very useful. Many are led away by heresy, but by it the faithful are tempted and are made strong.^ This is a very different conception from that handed down from the Middle Ages. Heresy was a thing not to be allowed to live, and, if necessary, it was to be crushed by the death of the heretic. This idea, first carried into practice in the burning of the PriscilHanist errorists, 385, was advocated by Pope Leo I in 450, and a century later by the emperor Justinian, who laid ^Mon., I : 156, mensura librata ratione; ratio judical de Eccles., Mon., I : 301, 305 sq. ^ Ad octo doctores. Mon., i : 381, 383. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 299 down the principle that heretics, if incorrigible, are to be put to death. Augustine's words appHed to the Donatist here- tics, "Compel them to come in," were intended to justify measures of physical violence in the treatment of heretics. These words were used all through the Middle Ages as au- thority for the application of the death sentence for religious error. Innocent III embodied the idea in the estabhshment of the papal inquisition, and it further found expression in the Spanish inquisition sanctioned by Sixtus IV, 1478. The victims of the inquisition were without number. What Inno- cent III decreed at the fourth Lateran council, 141 5, he carried out in his crusades against the religious dissenters in Southern France, and later popes against the Waldenses, the Hussites and other errorists. The papal legate, Henry of Citeaux, at the head of one of the crusading armies in Southern France, exclaimed: "Fell all to the ground. The Lord knows who are his own." Heresy was to be treated as a piece of putrid flesh, to be burned like scorpions with the sting of damnation in their tails, to be cut out like a cancer, to be broken like the chalice of Babylon filled with poison. The legislation of Frederick II and Louis IX, which punished heretics turned over to the magistrate by the church with death in the flames, was at last followed by the English parliament, which in 1 40 1, placed on the statute book the law for the burning of heretics — de comburendo heretico — intended to wipe out Lollardy and Wychfism. The council of Constance was distinctly in sympathy with this view and solemnly declared that "heretics should be punished even unto fire." To this theory, consecrated by the practice of centuries, Huss opposed his voice. In his Treatise on the Church he categorically denied the church's right to punish heresy with the death penalty. The pope has no authority to impose corporal death. Christ refused to pronounce civil sentence; he did not wish to condemn any one to bodily death — nee voluit civiliter judicare nee morte 300 JOHN HUSS corporis condemnare voluit. The furthest limit to which Christ went was to bid the church treat obstinate offenders as heathen and pubHcans and withdraw from them.^ Huss speaks of the principle advocated by the doctors, that religious offenders be turned over to the magistrate for punishment, as the san- guinary corollary. It is true that in the presence of d'Ailly, Huss modified his statement, declaring that the suspected heretic should be labored with and instructed and only then, if necessary, punished corporally. But the statement of the Treatise on the Church, even as thus modified, caused a great tumult among the judges. One of the charges made against Huss by Gerson was that he had denied the right of the church to issue the interdict, but, so far as we know, Huss did not go that far. Gerson went on to say that prelates and princes were under obligation, not only to condemn heretics but, un- der threat of severe penalties, to fight them out of existence.^ In general, it may be said that Huss's treatise leads to the assertion of the principle of the rights of the individual conscience, just as do the words of the Westminster Confes- sion, "God alone is Lord of the conscience," though the West- minster divines were unconscious of the full application of their noble expression. Along the line of Huss's appeal from all human tribunals and commandments of men to the law of Christ and to Christ himself, is his far-reaching statement, a statement which deserves to be quoted, to the effect that not the pope, but the Holy Spirit is the teacher of the church and its safest refuge — rejugium securissimum ecclesice sanctce.^ In the discussion of the power of the church over the lives of heretics, Huss clearly elaborated a consideration in his Reply to the Eight Doctors, a consideration he had barely touched upon before in his Treatise on the Church and in his attack against the papal bulls of indulgence. He made a dis- ^ De ecdesia. Mon., i : 285. - Doc, 185 sq. ^ In Reply to Stanislaus, Mon., 354. It must not be forgotten that the ad- vocates of the death penalty also appealed to the Holy Ghost as did Gerson. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 301 tinction between the Old and the New Testaments and his position was that the death penalties of the Old Testament were inflicted in obedience to immediate divine commands in each case. By the New Testament measures less severe are inculcated.^ The example and the words of Christ make for toleration and peace — ad pacem ducit Christus verbo et exemplo — and the death of ecclesiastical offenders is never justifiable, whether in war or by individual sentence, except by the au- thorization of a special divine revelation. Here, Huss was far in advance of his times and had his teachings been followed instead of the spirit and letter of the mediaeval theology and legislation, the cause of religious toleration would have re- ceived more consistent recognition from Protestant Christen- dom than was the case at one time. Protestantism inaugurated the new era in regard to the treatment of religious dissenters. Luther wrote to Leo X, that the burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit, declared that the soul is not to be compelled by physi- cal force but by moral suasion, and that every one should be allowed to believe as he may choose, and if he does not believe he has already punishment enough.^ It is to be lamented that this good principle was set aside in so many cases by the Reformers. Calvin's part in the execution of Servetus is greatly to be condemned. In justification of Servetus's execution, he wrote a pamphlet which, upon the basis of passages in the Old and New Testament, justified the death penalty for offenses against the first table of the Sinaitic law. Beza, his successor, also wrote a treatise along this line. The Second Helvetic confession stated the principle, but in spite of this attitude of intolerance the trend of Protestant sentiment and Protestant teaching has been in favor of liberty of thought, and it is in Protestant countries that the * Mon., I : 393-396. See de eccles. chap. XIX. ^ Here he was speaking of the Anabaptists. See Volker, Toleranz und In- toleranz im Zeitalter der Reformation, 191 2, pp. 82, 89, etc. 302 JOHN HUSS benefits of religious liberty are enjoyed. In Bohemia a measure of toleration was granted by Joseph II in 1781, and a larger liberty in 1848.^ It is little to say that Huss was a champion of the rights of conscience if we have in mind statements only. For con- science he was willing to give up his life. By his death he accomplished more than he could have accomplished by a treatise. His mind was set on progress and, following Wyclif and at the moment defending Wyclif, he laid down the true principle of intellectual advancement, in the words: '^If any man in the church can instruct me from sacred Scripture or by sound reasoning, I am most willing to yield. For, from the outset of my studies, I have laid this down as my rule that, whenever in any matter I perceive a sounder reason than the one I was moved by, I would gladly and humbly recede from my former opinion, knowing well that the things we know are much less numerous than the things of which we are igno- rant."2 By his hfe, Huss accomplished much in winning the hearts of men; by his teachings, he accomplished more; by his death, he accomplished most. A calm study of his sufferings in prison and at the stake reveals, as Luther found out, and also Galileo's condemnation proved, that the highest church tribu- nals err and it teaches that wide scope should be given in the toleration of differences in matters of religion and conscience. It does not occasion surprise that even a temperate Roman Catholic writer like Helfert, writing more than half a century ago, 1853, should have expressed the view that Huss's career * Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, chap. IV, says: "Toleration is essentially a normal result of Protestantism, for it is the direct, logical, and inevitable con- sequence of the due exercise of private judgment." For the opposite opinion Paulus, Protesiantismus und Toleranz im i6ten Jahrh., 1911, who adduces the cases of Protestant intolerance, including Massachusetts' treatment of the Quakers and Roger Williams. - Si aliqua persona ecdesice me scriptura sacra vel ratione valida docuerit, paratissime consentire, etc., de Trinitate. Mon., 1 : 131. Wyclif had used almost the same words in his de Universalibus. See Loserth, p. 353. HUSS'S PLACE IN HISTORY 303 inaugurated the movement of schismatic and heretical revolt from the absolute authority of the pope and the Roman Catholic church. He quoted the words of Louis Blanc as of a man competent to pronounce a judgment when in his Origines et causes de la revolution franqaise he declared Huss, ''the humble priest," to be the head-source of the revolution- ary spirit culminating in the French Revolution, yea the be- getting genius of our modern revolutions — le naissant genie des revolutions modernes} A hundred years after Huss's death that bitter enemy of the Protestant Reformation, Cochla^us — Dobneck, his Ger- man name— in his History of the Hussites wrote that there was no worse fornication than the fornication Huss com- mitted with the Catholic faith.^ When he spoke of fornication Cochlasus meant heresy. To such a judgment Huss's purity of life and constancy in death are a solemn protest. His principle is the better one: "By their fruits ye shall know them. "3 'Helfert: Hiis. u. Hleronymus, p. 260. Schaching, pp. 252 sqq., 271 sqq., calls Huss the " revolutionary," and makes him responsible for the English Revolution of 1649 and the French Revolution. Long before Cavour, Maz- zini and Garibaldi, he began the work of breaking up the papal state. ^ Nulla major fornicatio, etc. Hist. Hits. 138. ^The view taken in this chapter of the influence of Huss upon Luther is expressed by P. Smith, Life and Letters of M. Luther, p. 71, when he says: " An- other powerful influence towards the formation of the new system of theology in Luther's mind was found in the writings of John Huss." See also Kohler: Luther und d. K.-gesch Erlang., 1900. CHAPTER XII HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES Ego inipiidens omnia Johannis Hus et docui el lenui, hreviter sumus omnes Husitce ignorantes. — Luther. Letter to Spalatin, Feb. 1520. Shamelessly (unawares) I both taught and held all the teachings of Huss: in short, we were all Hussites without knowing it. No human soul ever bore itself with loftier fortitude or sweeter or humbler charity than John Huss. — Lea, Inquisition, 2 : 487. John Huss and many others have waged harder battles than we do. If our cause is great, its author and champion is great also. — Luther. Letter to Melanchthon, June 27, 1530. The three men during the Middle Ages who received the sentence of death as a direct consequence of the action of the church and who have a distinct place in history are Arnold of Brescia, Huss and Savonarola. Arnold of Brescia left no writings and his followers in Northern Italy are dim shadows in the past of whom, at best, we know but very little. Savo- narola, of whom Alexander VI said he should be put to death even though he were another John the Baptist, left admirers but no followers, and his limited writings, such as they are, have only a personal interest. John Huss left both a large body of writings and also a devoted body of followers, whose fortunes have contributed a noteworthy chapter to the his- tory of the church. His writings, chiefly in Latin, covering four or five departments, include his sermons, his letters, his exegetical works, his polemical writings, intended to set forth his opinion on points of controversy, and his theological Commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard. His Czech writings, which are much smaller in extent, are praised for their style by Bohemian writers competent to speak. ^ 1 Palacky, Gesch., 299 sq. Wratislaw, 349-375. Liitzow, 200 sqq. Two of Huss's letters written from Constance were printed 1459 and four i495- 304 HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 305 Of his sermons specimens have already been given. His letters, frequently quoted in this volume, have an undying value for the purposes of edification, and are a chief authority for his opinions and experiences in the last years of his life. His commentaries on the Psalms and his explanations of the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer attest his devotional spirit, but have no place of importance in the history of Biblical exposition. His Commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, pubhshed for the first time 1905, has a distinct value and enables us to appreciate more than we did before the extent of Huss's independent learning.^ The volume contains nearly eight hundred pages. Peter the Lombard, who died, 11 64, fur- nished in his four books of Sentences the theological text-book of the Middle Ages. It was used by all the Schoolmen after his day in their lectures, including Thomas Aquinas. Huss's Commentary was delivered, as a series of lectures between 1407 and 1409, before his troubles had fairly begun. He follows the original closely. However, in cases not a few he indicates that he does not consider himself to have exhausted the specific subject under treatment, asserting that he had left many questions undiscussed. Huss himself quoted from his Commentary and carried it with him to Constance. He used recent theologians, such as Durandus, Bradwardine and Wyclif. Of Huss's many polemical works, including his Treatise on Indulgences, WycHf's Tract on the Trinity and The Answer to the Eight Doctors, the chief is the Treatise on the Church — de Ecclesia} It was the one from which the charges were drawn that brought its author to the stake. The treatise was called forth by the document of the eight members of the theo- logical faculty of the university of Prague written in defense * Magister J. Hus: Super IV. Sentenliarum. The genuineness is not doubted. Flajshans gives the arguments, p. viii sqq. ^Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 182, says: "Friends and foes alike have al- ways regarded it with respect." 3o6 JOHN HUSS of John XXIII' s bulls of indulgence and in protest against the XLV Articles of Wyclif.' Prepared during the period of his semi-voluntary exile from Prague, 1413, and intended to be a justification of his disregard of the ecclesiastical censures issued against him and the citation calling him to Rome, the work has properly a place among the notable writings on the subject of ecclesiology. For nearly a thousand years that subject had had no elaborate treatment. Augustine, in the fifth century, without giving a definition of the church, fur- nished materials of the greatest importance in themselves and for history in his controversial works against the Donatist dis- senters. Before him, Cyprian, who died a martyr 258, pre- sented the first definite work in the department of ecclesiology in his Unity of the Church. Wychf's great work reopened the discussion and he was followed by Huss. During the Middle Ages the definition and nature of the church were taken for granted and not discussed as a distinct topic. The Roman Church was as clearly defined as was the Roman empire, with its sovereign, its courts and its ceremonies. The Schoolman who came nearest to entering into a discussion was Hugo de St. Victor, who calls the holy CathoHc church the body of Christ vivified by one spirit, united by one faith and sanctified. " What is the church," he asks, "but the totaHty of the faithful — the totahty of Chris- tians ? " 2 Peter the Lombard nowhere takes up the definition, and Thomas Aquinas, with whom begins the special treatment of the papacy in systems of theology, also practically ignored the subject except in passages where he was considering the pope's absolute supremacy. According to the mediaeval idea drawn from Augustine, the church is the visible Christian institution, the corporation out of which there is no salvation. The definition was narrowed to the Hmits of the Roman Church as we have it definitely stated in the profession de- * Doc. 475-480. The document was dated Feb. 6, i4i3' ' De Sacramenlis, 1:2. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 307 manded of the Waldenses, namely: "We believe with the heart and confess that the one church is not of the heretics, but is the Holy Roman Catholic Church, outside of which no one can be saved." ^ Huss, who set himself against this definition, expressly op- posed Boniface's bull Unam sanctam. Wyclif had pronounced its declaration to be detested which made subjection to the Roman pontiff necessary to salvation. In the disputes which followed Boniface's death, Ockam declared that the church is the body of the faithful, including clerics and laymen, thus setting aside the narrower definition — not confined to the ignorant — that the church is the pope and the cardinals. Konrad of Gelnhausen and others followed Ockam's defini- tion, including, however, Bernard's additional statement: " in the unity of the sacraments." Both claimed that outside the Roman communion, which is a particular church, there may be salvation. Wyclif's Treatise on the Church — de Ecclesia — went much further and not only defined the church as the body of the elect, but seems almost to advocate the evangelical theory recognizing the universal priesthood of believers.^ Beyond this work, which was written only about thirty years before his own, Huss does not go. Huss's views are Wyclif's views; his Scriptural proofs, as the case necessarily demands, largely Wyclif's proofs. His indebtedness to his English forerurmer is evident not only in the movement of his ideas, but in large sections which are copied almost verbally from Wyclif's works. Huss's treatise does not occupy a place of importance in the history of ecclesiology by the originality of its teachings. It has, however, its place from the facts that its positions were taken up at the great assembly at Constance, that its author, on account of them, suffered the death penalty, and ^ Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, p. 504. ' Loserth's ed. London, 1886, p. 595. 3o8 JOHN HUSS that, whereas Wyclif's treatise was not pubhshed until 1886, Huss's work was printed in 1520, at Wittenberg, and its teach- ings known to Luther. Through Huss's memory the question of the church was kept prominent before Europe. At the close of the fifteenth century Wessel, the Holland Reformer, exclaimed: "The church cannot err; but what is the church? It is the communion of the saints, to which all true believers belong, who are bound together by one faith, one love, one hope." The nature and prerogatives of the church constituted a fundamental question which was awaiting settlement. To Boniface's proud assertion, which Ockam, Marsiglius of Padua, Wyclif and Huss, in the light of Scripture and his- tory, declared to be without foundation, it remained for the Reformation to give the heaviest blow. Seldom, if ever, has one author been under so deep a debt of obligation to a teacher as Huss was to Wyclif. Not only did Huss adopt many of the ideas of Wyclif, he appropriated whole paragraphs of his writing and transferred them to his own pages.^ While this cannot be gainsaid, yet in explana- tion it must be said that Huss was no servile imitator nor did he seek to play a part in the garments of another. His soul burned with passion for the truths which he defended. More- over, his treatises have a character of their own. They are more direct and practical than Wychf's and better adapted to reach the ear of the average man, and move him. Wyclif goes off into all sorts of side discussions which are not essen- tial to his main point and shows more of the scholastic ten- dency to enter upon nice philosophic discriminations. Both are Scriptural, but Huss the more Scriptural, arguing from the standpoint of an experimental knowledge of the Scrip- tures as well as from their letter. Wyclif has the sharpness of the polemic, Huss the persuasion of the advocate. Huss does not employ the strong epithets with which Wyclif ac- centuates his statements. He nowhere calls the pope "the * This is shown clearly by Loserth, pp. 181-290. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 309 vicar of the fiend" or a ''terrible devil," the epithet Wyclif employs of Gregory XL It must also be remembered that Huss issued his polemical writings within the narrow limits of two or three years, be- ginning with his Treatise on Indulgences. In each case the cause was urgent, the feeling intense in Prague and in the writer's own heart. What he wrote, he was obliged to write quickly. The Commentary ott the Sentences shows that Huss had a much larger gift for original thought and writing than it has been recently the custom to credit him with. This work has the marks of independent theological discussion and it also evinces Huss's acquaintance with the wide field of theolog- ical knowledge. He quotes Wyclif, though not at length. He refers to him once by name, and then to bear witness to his deep regard for his master and give expression to his own merciful view of the judgments of God. Referring to those who with great assurance pronounced Wyclif eternally damned in hell, he declared that he ventured to dissent from that judgment and hoped that Wyclif was of the number of the saved. And he observed that, in case Wyclif was in heaven, there would be additional ground for praising the Lord, who has received him there or, in case Wychf was in purgatory, he hoped the Lord would in his mercy liberate him quickly.^ Huss had been speaking in the Une of hopeful reliance upon God's mercy. First and last, he says: "I lean more toward hope, trusting the mercy of God, than to despair, looking in the direction of eternal damnation, from which the omnipo- tent God in mercy deliver us, and we praise God for His most gracious mercy, because even in the hour of death He is so merciful to forgive." * P. 621. Loserth after the publication of Huss's Commentary modified his sweeping judgment in regard to Huss's dependence upon Wyclif and said: "We can assume it as certain that our previous judgment in regard to Huss's literary work must be altered in several points, and that it will be apprised at a considerably higher value than heretofore." — Mittheil. des Inst. f. osterr. Geschichtsjorschung. No. 26. 3IO JOHN HUSS Huss's Commentary is a clear, straightforward and judi- cious theological treatise, with a strong practical tendency. It is to be regarded as a moderate statement of the theology of the age in which its author lived. He does not depart from the official tenets, yet he modifies them. Certain pruri- ent questions he declines altogether to answer. Such ques- tions he pronounces of little profit, and, as in the case of the condition of the lost, he relegates the solution of many of the problems to the light of the day of judgment. The author places above all scientific knowledge of religion, the law of Christ and the duty of love to one's neighbor which he turns aside again and again to emphasize, as he does also the words, that by their fruits shall men be known. ^ Huss has also the honor of having had a part in Bohemian hymnody. He sent to certain nuns a song to be chanted at vespers, a chant which he bade them sing with the heart as well as with the melody of the lips. As in the movement led by Savonarola there was a revival of hymn singing, so it was in Prague under Huss's leadership. Huss revived ancient Bohemian hymns and, after his death, the singing of sacred songs characterized his followers. Three hymns are ascribed to him in the hymn-book of the Bohemian Brethren, 1576. Among all the 1516 hymns of the Moravian hymn-book, pub- lished at Bethlehem, 1891, only one is ascribed to him: To avert from men God's wrath Jesus suffered in our stead; By an ignominious death He a full atonement made. A Latin hymn ascribed to Huss of old has these as its first two verses: Jesus Christus nostra salus, Quod reclamat omnis malus, Nobis in sui memoriam, Dedit hanc panis hostiam. ^ Flajshans ed., p. xl. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 311 quam sanctus panis iste, Tu solus es Jesu Christe, Caro, cibus, sacr amentum, Quo non majus est inventum. Our true salvation Jesus Christ, From evil all recalling, To us the sacred bread has given, In memory of himself. 0, how sacred is this bread Thou alone, O Jesus Christ Art flesh, food and sacrament Than which naught greater can be found. ^ Huss's influence was perpetuated in a large body of devoted followers in Bohemia and Moravia. Seldom, if ever, has a nation shown such personal love for a national and religious leader. His spirit had won the hearts of his people, his teach- ings had attracted their intellectual approval. His death had deepened into a strong stream their devotion to him and his cause. For him and his teachings the nation showed itself willing to undergo the bitterest of persecutions until a large part of it had suffered the martyrdom of banishment or death. When the news of Huss's death reached Bohemia, a large part of the nation broke out in revolt. The bishop of Lei- tomysl, the chief Bohemian ecclesiastic at Constance, Sigis- mund, and the council itself, all three sought to check the rebellion, now by explanations and now by threats. Only a rapid survey can here be given of the devotion shown to Huss's memory, the development of the parties which honored his name, the desolating crusades which were preached against the Hussites by the pope, the lamentable strife between the two wings of his followers and the extermination of Hussitism. ^ Mon., 2 : 520. Doctor Philip SchafiE quotes two of the verses in his Christ in Song, 464. 312 JOHN HUSS So profound was the impression Huss's death made upon his people that in Prague and in the villages, in church and on street, every man was distinctly for him or against him. A contemporary chronicler says: "Every household in Bohemia is divided, the wife against the husband, the father against the child, and the host against his guests." The houses of the anti-Hussites were plundered or even destroyed. Priests of the old way suffered personal injury or were driven from their parishes. The doubtful report ran on the streets of Constance that priests were even drowned in the Moldau and killed with the sword. ^ Especially was the Iron Bishop, John of Leitomysl, the object of popular indignation. He was looked upon as the unfeeling leader against Huss at Constance. Nobles seques- trated part of his domains and on his return he had to be pro- tected from violence. On the other hand, great nobles identi- fied themselves with the Hussite movement, Cenek of Wartem- berg, Lacek of Krawar and others, men who occupied the highest positions in the state. Wenzel, if he did not espouse the cause of the religious revolution, at least showed himself indifferent in seeing that the peace was kept. The queen was an open sympathizer and was surrounded by women of like mind. John of Jesenicz continued to be a favorite at the court. Had Wenzel been a man of strength, he would prob- ably have abandoned his cautious attitude and openly sup- ported the great body of his nobles in defending Huss's mem- ory and promoting the principles for which he died. Not until five days had elapsed after Huss's death did Leitomysl venture to apprise the king of what had occurred. Instead of proceeding at once to communicate the news, he apologized for having been silent so long and he approached his statement gradually with remarks about Gregory XII's resignation and Benedict's probable refusal to resign. He ^ Palacky, Gesch., 378. Nieheim in Hardi, 2 : 410. Palacky, Gesch., 371, doubts the rumor. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 313 then announced that Huss had been burned alive, that his teachings and the teachings of WycUf had been condemned and that Jerome's case was being considered. He expressed the general regret that no messenger had reached the council from the king, and that it was rumored, though he beheved falsely, that the king had looked with favor upon Huss. He heard that many things had been reported to Wenzel about himself which seemed to indicate that he was acting in op- position to the king and the kingdom of Bohemia, but he called upon the king not to give them credence. On his re- turn from Constance, he would explain his course, and, as he thought, to the king's satisfaction. In very different tone and language did the bishop on the same day write to Konrad, archbishop of Prague. He de- clared he had worked with might to assert the fair fame of Bohemia and to dehver it from the pestiferous and most dangerous heresy and schism with which it was threatened because of those most dangerous heresiarchs, John Wyclif and John Huss. All rigor had been employed by the council in its procedure. As for himself, he had not tried to palliate in the least the events which had been occurring in Bohemia, and he hoped that the archbishop would now see to it that the king sent legates to Constance and promised obedience for his kingdom.^ A strong plea for the unity of the Bohemian church was made by the council itself in demanding that its decrees be obeyed. In a communication dated July 26, addressed to the nobles and other chief citizens of Bohemia, the holy synod of Constance, representing the universal church of God," declared that it had Bohemia upon its heart day and night. It spoke of the hideousness of the terrible schism and the most pernicious wickedness of the heresy which had arisen in that time. The synod had taken measures to restore to the church the sweetness of peace and to free it from noxious ^ Doc, 564 sqq. 314 JOHN HUSS briars. By his foul and detestable doctrine, John Wyclif had sought to turn the church away from fundamental teachings. No one had ever before assailed the faith under the veil of the Christian religion as he had done and no one had been so perverse and contumacious in defying holy church. His books had been ordered burned and his bones exhumed. His poisonous doctrine had infected the minds of John Huss and Jerome. From such men of perdition the synod had at- tempted to free the kingdom of Bohemia. Huss had been given every opportunity at Constance and had been heard repeatedly by commissions in private and in public. The emperor, Sigismund, had been present. The synod had at- tempted to persuade Huss of his errors and proceeded in a spirit of forbearance, wishing the hfe and not the death of the sinner. At the devil's instigation, he persisted and became more perverse. He was sentenced and went forth to death through the act of the civil power. The synod adjured the magnates of Bohemia to prevent pestiferous men from sowing the seeds of Wyclifite and Hussite heresy and to see to it that the stain might be completely wiped out from Bohemia.^ The council was ready to back up its sentence with all the authority at its command. In sending the bishop of Leitomysl back to Bohemia, with the commission to uproot heresy, restore order and strike a death blow at the moral cancer, the council commended him as a "son of obedience and a brave and discreet soldier of Christ." It instructed him to excommunicate rebellious prelates, depriving them of their Kvings, and also all obstinate laymen of every degree, from the nobles down, who were suspects of heresy, and to deprive them and their children forever of all rights and lands given them by the church. And, if necessary, he should call in the aid of the secular arm — auxilium hrachii secularis. The feeling in Bohemia was not to be allayed with let- ters nor was order to be established by the presence of the * Doc, 568 sqq. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 315 powerful bishop with the authority of the council behind him. Early in September the revolt took the form of a pact by which the nobles agreed to defend Huss's memory against aspersion and to perpetuate the principles of his teaching. It was signed at a diet held in Prague and pledged the nobles' support for a period of six years. Four hundred and fifty- two Bohemian and Moravian magnates attached their signa- tures.^ This notable agreement started out with quotations from the Scriptures: ''All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" and "love is the fulfilling of the law." In view of this rule, the signers ex- pressed themselves as confounded at the condemnation of Huss to the flames, a man honored as a teacher and as an evangehcal preacher, and at the same time their most beloved brother. He was a good, righteous and CathoHc man, known and respected for many years in Bohemia for his good life, a man who had taught and preached the law of the Gospel, detesting heresies and admonishing all to detest them and to love the things which make for peace and charity. How such a man could be condemned, living most piously in Christ and urging all to the limit of his power to obey the Gospel, they could not comprehend. What they said of Huss, they might also say of Jerome, a man of eloquence and learning, incar- cerated and already, as was probable, given over to most cruel death as a heretic. Their injuries they would leave to God, their complaints they would lay before the next pope whom they promised to obey. Further, they pledged themselves to defend the law of the Lord Jesus Christ and his faithful teachers, even unto the shedding of their blood. They promised obedience to all right- eous authority exercised by their bishops, but would refuse to submit to unjust acts. They would respect only such just ex- communications as the bishops of Bohemia and Moravia might » Doc, 580-595- 3i6 JOHN HUSS publicly post up. In disputed matters they would appeal for counsel to the university of Prague. Whatever the apostolic see commanded they would submit to, provided it was not contrary to God and His law. A committee was appointed by the diet to pass judgment upon episcopal censures and to see that the pact was observed, consisting of Cenek of War- temberg, Lacek of Krawar and Bocek of Podiebrad. Here we have unimpeachable testimony to the personal purity of Huss and the profound influence he had exerted in his native land. What he had preached, Bohemian nobles regarded as in accord with the Scriptures, upon which they firmly planted themselves as determining the rule of faith and daily conduct. The document promised full liberty of preaching, and the signers pledged themselves to support it three times on the Lord's Day on their territories and in all churches and monasteries without allowing any hinderance. Any priest coming and asking for the privilege of preaching the Word of God should have the privilege granted The council also had sympathizers, who met October i, at Bohmisch Brod under the protection of archbishop Konrad. Fourteen of them signed a paper, which is not extant but which, it is known, pledged the signers to the support of the council. King Wenzel, it is said, promised by word of mouth his adhesion to this second document. Not until nearly a year had elapsed since Huss's death did Bohemia hear directly from the emperor, Sigismund. After that event he had journeyed to Spain to induce Benedict to resign and go from there to England. In the first of three letters, written from Paris, March, 1416, the emperor com- mended the nobles who remained true to the council. To the signers of the pact he wrote that the troubles in which Huss became involved were due most probably to his having gone alone to Constance. Several times Sigismund himself had left the council in indignation, but, if he had objected to the continuation of the trial, that body would have adjourned. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 317 If the nobles of Bohemia persisted in defending Huss's cause, they would be resisting the whole body of Christendom. He hoped they would give aid to his brother and assume a posi- tion which would be profitable to themselves and Bohemia. In the third letter, addressed to the members of both par- ties, Sigismund expressed sorrow for the situation in which his dearest brother was placed and wrote, they were all Christians and for that reason it was becoming to observe order and discipHne. Their fathers had handed down to them the true religion and he begged them to follow the path of peace and avoid strife.^ The bishop of Leitomysl, who found himself unsafe in his own diocese, had a strong support in the vicar-general of Prague and the cathedral chapter. With the exception of the cathedral, the stronger parishes of the city were in the hands of Hussite priests. On September 5, the very day the nobles were signing the pact, the cathedral chapter, following past decisions of the synod of Prague and the decree of the council at Constance, ordered priests to abandon giving the cup to the laity upon pain of excommunication and, two weeks later, it ordered the execution of the ban upon all itinerant preachers. On November i, it placed the capital under the interdict, one of the grounds set forth being the presence of John of Jesenicz at the palace, upon whom had been laid the ban of excommunication. In spite of Jesenicz's withdrawal from the city a few weeks later and in spite of the king's protest, the interdict was maintained. It was urged that others, such as Cenko of Wartemberg, who were under the ban, remained in the city and that the Hussite priests, who had been in- stalled in place of the old incumbents, were celebrating in sacred things, and that some of the old priests had been seized and were led to prison by the Prague magistrates. The king was called upon to see that the nobles under excom- * Doc, 619-621. 3i8 JOHN HUSS munication left the city and that the other complaints were recognized. In February, 141 6, the council of Constance summoned to its bar the four hundred and fifty- two nobles.^ A com- missioner from each of the nations was appointed to act on a court of trial. On hearing of the citation, Sigismund de- manded that further proceedings be postponed until his return to Constance. That such measures were insufficient to meet the situation, appears distinctly from a letter addressed by the council to the nobility of Bohemia a month later.^ It lamented again the leaven of wickedness which originated with the old enemy of mankind, the serpent, who is never at rest and had manifested his power in John Wychf , of accursed memory, John Huss and others, and inebriated them with the chalice of Babylon. These, in turn, had handed that cup of damnable error and wickedness to others. Some, who according to the flesh were prominent among the nobility, had damnably conspired against Christ to defend their errors. As for Huss, he had been convicted many times of the most manifest and dangerous heresies both judicially and by scholastic arguments. In spite of the law, divine and human, that he should not be released from prison and chains, he was accorded public hearings and an opportunity for repentance. The attempt was also made to bring him back to the lap of the church and to the truth of the Christian religion by exhortations of sweetest love and superabundant instruction about the Catholic faith. These admonitions fell on dull, viperous ears, for Huss loved iniquity and at last, going to his own place, he received the reward due him and his follow- ers for their crimes — he the most miserable of all miserable men. The council adjured the nobles to protect the church and assist its legate, the bishop of Leitomysl, in the whole- * The bull was posted up at Passau, May 3, 1416, May 5, at Constance, May 10, in Vienna, etc. ^ Doc, 615-619. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 319 some work of purif3ang the kingdom of heretical infection. Rumors of the worst kind were abundant in Constance, to the effect that monasteries and their occupants, as well as the secular clergy and their churches, had been robbed and all sorts of injuries and indignities heaped upon the old clergy, even unto murder. Archbishop Konrad himself was cited to appear before the council and answer for his indifference. Nor did the king and his consort, Sophia, escape. On the contrary, charges were preferred against them. The council accused the king of tolerating John of Jesenicz at the court, defending those who preached heresies, favoring the communion in both kinds, winking at the expulsion of some of the Catholic clergy and the substitution of Hussites in their places. Sophia was accused of having often heard Huss preach after the censures of the church had been launched against him, of supporting his heretical views and practices, of receiving the cup and of casting out priests hostile to the new views and introducing others who distributed the cup to the laity. The council ordered the magistrates of Prague and the Wyssehrad to deliver Jesenicz up to the diocesan for im- prisonment and called upon the emperor to take up the case of his brother and bring him to a right state of mind and practice. It announced to the emperor that in Bohemia the hot flames were spreading throughout the entire country, threatening all CathoHcs who were pious behevers. The veri- table sons of BeUal, the followers of WycHf, Huss and Jerome, went even so far as to enter into sacrilegious marriages and in their sermons treat Huss and Jerome as saints, worshipping them as citizens of heaven and singing masses to them as martyrs, men whom the holy church had dehvered over to Satan as heretics and blasphemers. The deplorable state of things, it alleged, was made worse by the attitude taken by the university which many scholars, anxious for knowledge, had attended in a previous period, but was then shunned by 320 JOHN HUSS every conscientious man who hated the errors which thrived there, especially by every foreigner. The council reminded Sigismund that one reason for its having been convened was that it might take measures for the extermination of heresy and the reforming of a world infected with error. This task it had in part fulfilled by consigning two heretics to the secular arm. It belonged to him as the defender and advocate of the church to put forth his might to abash perfidy and eliminate all heresy. Delay was danger- ous. He should be quick to act for the salvation of those who were wandering about as lost. He should act while there was yet hope. This was an open call to the emperor to put down by the sword, if necessary, the religious revolt of Bohemia. The appeal did not wait long to be complied with and the respon- sibility for the blood with which Bohemia was drenched in the anti-Hussite crusade rests upon the council. To the council's address, which was passed by the five nations, Sigismund replied that, if his brother had not suffi- cient authority to proceed, he would go to his aid. If it were necessary to resort to force and the sword, he prayed that the execution of the task might be committed to another rather than himself, lest he be exposed to the suspicion of being moved, not with zeal against the Wychfites but by a desire to humble his brother and make spoil of his kingdom. In a further communication to the barons, dated September 4, 141 7, Sigismund called their attention to the wide-spread rebellion in Bohemia, and, if possible, outdid the council in the appalling narrative he gave of the injuries heaped upon the priests of the old regime. He referred to the Neronic persecution which was going on with the purpose of forcing the priests to abjure the Catholic faith. In fact, so dire was the persecution that such a use of force in religion had not been known, even in the times of Pharaoh or the pagan per- secutors of the church. The council had brought charges HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 321 against Wenzel, but he had interfered to protect his best beloved brother, in the hope that he would put aside his in- difference and put a stop to the enormities which were being perpetrated. In case the council found its ecclesiastical censures unavailing and felt itself obhged to insist on secular aid, he hoped the barons would exonerate him from all guilt in the case. While these communications were being interchanged be- tween Constance and Prague, Huss's friend, Jerome, was being tried: and he was burned, May 30, 141 6. Jerome dif- fered from Huss in the circumstances of his birth, being of a noble family, and in his personal presence, being a large and strong man. He was restless, as his career shows. Educated in Prague, where he was promoted to the B. A. degree, 1398, he travelled abroad and after various experiences went to Oxford, where he copied with his own hand Wyclif's Dialogus and Trialogus, which he took back with him to Bohemia. In 1403, he visited Palestine and two years later was at Paris, and afterward at Cologne and Heidelberg, taking the M. A. degree from each university. From the first, Jerome was on intimate terms with Huss and, in 14 10, defended Wyclif's writings at the Prague uni- versity, though he denied accepting everything that Wyclif stood for. At Vienna he was cast into prison on the charge of being a WycUfite. He escaped, but was followed with the ban of excommunication by the archbishop of Vienna. He stood by Huss in the strife over the rights of the Bohemian nation at the university and in attacking the crusading letters of John XXIII. When Huss started out for his journey to Constance, Jerome warned him that he would not get back alive. Against Huss's advice he appeared in Constance in the spring of 141 5, and posted up a notice asking for safe- conduct from the council and Sigismund. While returning to Prague, he was seized at Hirschau and taken back to Constance, May 23, with chains on his 32 2 JOHN HUSS hands. He was remanded to prison and, at his trial in the Franciscan refectory, was recognized by Gerson and teachers of Heidelberg and Cologne as one of their former students and inclined to heretical looseness. The proceedings against him were delayed by Huss's execution. On June 6, in a letter written to John of Chlum, Huss referred to Jerome as his beloved brother, to whom he hoped dying constancy would be given, as also to himself. He had heard from commis- sioners of the council that Jerome would suffer death. Writing to his friends in Bohemia on June 27, Huss said, to quote the letter again, that God only knew why his own death and the death of his dear brother Jerome were being delayed. He hoped that Jerome would die without incurring guilt and show a firmer spirit in the hour of the ordeal than he himself, a weak sinner, possessed.^ Huss's case being disposed of, the council exerted itself to turn Jerome from his errors and its^ attempt was crowned with success. Converted from his perfidy, the prisoner made his recantation in the presence of the four nations and later, September 23, before the council in its nineteenth session. Being at the time, as he declared, under no compulsion he re- pudiated the articles of WycHf and of Huss, approved the condemnation of the two men and promised to communicate to the Bohemian people a statement of his act and the reasons leading him to it. The rigor of his imprisonment was relaxed, but a difference of opinion prevailed as to the wisdom of his release. D'Ailly, Zabarella and other influential councillors favored it, while Gerson took the other side. The moderate party yielded. Jerome continued to languish in prison for nearly six months, when a new trial was inaugurated, apparently at the ^Doc, 141. For Jerome's life, see Mon., 2 : 522-534. In 1878, Jaroslav Goll published at Prague a MS. which he had found in Freiburg giving an ac- count of Jerome's arrest and death. 2 For a full account of the trial, Hardt, 4: 629-691, 6: 191 sqq.; Mansi, 27 : 794 sqq., 842-864. For Jerome's recantation, also Mon., 2 : 525 5^. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 323 instance of certain Carmelites who had recently reached Con- stance. It is possible they were moved by the recollection of Jerome's sacrilege in overthrowing the reliquary in the Carmelite church of Maria Schnee in Prague and his abuse of the monks at that time. Jerome had written no tracts from which charges could be drawn. One hundred and seven charges based on the testimony of witnesses recited how, as a young man, he had sucked in the poison of Wyclifism at Oxford and had carried Wyclif's writings to Bohemia, where he had circulated them. He had placed on the walls of his room a portrait of the Englishman with his head surrounded with the aureole, the mark of sainthood. He was a close friend of Huss. As a chief actor, he had taken part in the Hussite tumults in Prague and at the university. He had also expressly declared that the Greeks and Ruthenians were good Christians. May 23, 1416, had been appointed as the day when Jerome should do final penance at a public session of the council. In the meantime, as was to be the case with archbishop Cranmer, one hundred and forty years later, the prisoner's courage revived, and, instead of doing penance, he laid down a testimony to his highest regard for Wyclif and Huss and to the injury which had been done in condemning them. Huss was a pure man and a righteous preacher of the Gospel. He was ready to assert until death all the articles against the offenses and pomp of the prelates which Wyclif and Huss had stated. In his previous profession against them he had been guilty of falsehood. The council, meeting in the cathedral, May 30, for its twenty-first session, pronounced sentence upon the heretic. The sermon was again preached by the bishop of Lodi. The text, Mark 16 : 14, ran: ''The Lord upbraided them with their unbeUef and hardness of heart." Unless heretics re- canted, he said, they were to be rooted up. Jerome, after he had abjured, had returned like a dog to his vomit. Ascend- 324 JOHN HUSS ing a bench, Jerome made an eloquent defense, a most graphic report of which we have from an eye-witness, Poggio Brac- ciolini, the ItaHan humanist and historian of Florence. He denied that he held heretical articles and in his closing words cited his judges to appear in his presence at the bar of the most high and righteous Judge, at the same time predicting that in the meantime his memory would plague their con- sciences. The holy synod then pronounced him a follower of WycHf and Huss, a rotten and withered branch — palmitem putridum et aridum — to be cut off from the church and de- livered to the secular arm to receive the vengeance due the crime of heresy. A cap was placed on his head painted with red devils. The ceremony of presenting him a chalice was not repeated, for he was a laic. The condemned man went forth from the church with cheerful countenance, singing the creed and the litany on the way to the place of execution. The stake was reared on the spot where Huss had suffered. He kissed it, and when his garments were removed, the wood and straw were heaped up to his chin which was covered with a heavy beard. The flames were slow in putting an end to his misery when compared with Huss. Jerome addressed the people, professing his faith in the Apostles' Creed and saying that he died for refusing to profess to the council that Huss had been justly condemned. On the contrary, he knew Huss was a true preacher of the Gos- pel. As he was dying, he chanted the Easter hymn. Hail, Holy Day — Salve festa dies. After saying, "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit," he exclaimed in Bohemian: ''Almighty Lord God, have mercy upon me and forgive my sins, for thou knowest that I love thee sincerely." His clothes were cast into the flames and the remains of his body carted off to the lake. According to Richental, many learned people wept that Jerome had to die, for they thought he was almost more learned than Huss.^ * Richental, p. 83, says that Jerome cried out terribly — grdulich — while he was being burned, for "he was a large, strong man." HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 325 A great bowlder now marks the place where Jerome and Huss died, bearing their names with the simple date of their death. Burned on the same site, and companions in life, they were commemorated in Bohemia as witnesses together for the Gospel and as glorious martyrs. They were painted as saints on the walls of churches and a Hussite liturgy of 1491 put them side by side with Stephen and St. Lawrence.^ To quote again that elegant writer, ^neas Sylvius, Huss and Jerome were regarded among the Bohemians as deserving the honors paid to martyrs and were held in no less honor in Prague than Paul and Peter among the Romans. Poggio's account of Jerome's last address contained in his letter addressed to Leonardo Aretino is a piece of elegant literature often quoted.^ Poggio opens his letter by saying that he was moved to give a description of Jerome's trial and death on account of the solemnity of the occasion and chiefly on account of the man's eloquence and doctrinal teaching. The following statement gives the substance of this remarkable document: He confessed — so Poggio wrote — that he had never seen any one who, in a public trial, especially for a capital offense, approached more closely to the standard of the eloquence of the ancients which he and Aretino so much admired. It was wonderful to see with what words, what fluency of eloquence, what arguments, what countenance and power of voice, with what confidence he replied to his adversaries. He, Poggio, was not concerned to pass judg- ment upon a case of the kind. He acquiesced in the decision of men who were held to be wiser than himself. . . . Jerome reminded his hearers that they were men not gods, mortal not immortal, liable to mistake, error, deception and misinformation. He him- ' Schwab, Gerson, 609. Enemies charged that Huss was " placed among the holy gods," Hardt, 6 : 181. ^ See Shepherd's Life of Poggio. The letter is also contained in Man., 2 : 532-534; Doc, 624-629; Hardt, 3 : 64-71; Hefele, 7 : 280-283; German trsl., Palacky, Gesch., 386 sq.; Engl, trsl., Whitcomb, Lit. Source-Book of the ltd. Renaissance, 40-47. ^neas Sylvius, chap. XXXVI, refers to this letter as the letter of "that noble writer," etc. 326 JOHN HUSS self was but an imperfect man under trial for his life. He advanced nothing unworthy of a good man as though he felt confident, as he also publicly asserted, that no just reason could be found for his death. . . . Many persons he moved with humor, many with satire, many very often he caused to laugh in spite of the sad affair, jesting at their reproaches. He said that there had been many excellent men who had suffered for their virtues and been oppressed by false witnesses and condemned by wicked judges. ... He took them back to Socrates, unjustly condemned by his fellow citizens, who did not shun death or pain when he might have avoided both. He mentioned the captivity of Plato, the flight of Anaxagoras, the torture of Zeno, and the unjust condemnation of many other pagans. . . . Thence he passed to the Hebrew examples, first call- ing up Moses, the liberator of his people, Joseph, sold by his breth- ren, Isaiah, Daniel, Susanna. . . . Coming down to John the Baptist and then to the Sa\'iour, he showed how, in each case, they were condemned by false witnesses and false judges. . . . Then he took up Stephen, killed by the body of the priests, and all the Apostles, condemned to death as popular agitators and despisers of the gods. ... He dwelt at length upon the principle that such treatment was most iniquitous when it came from the hand of a council of priests. . . . Then, proceeding to praise John Huss, who had been condemned to be burned, he called him a good man, just and holy, unworthy of such a death, saying that he himself was prepared to go to any punishment whatsoever. Huss had never held opinions hostile to the church of God, but only against the abuses of the clergy and the pride, the arrogance and the pomp of prelates, who spent their patrimony, not on the poor but on mistresses, boon companions, horses, kennels of dogs and other things imworthy of the religion of Christ. . . . He displayed the greatest cleverness, for when his address was often interrupted with various disturbances, he left no one unscathed, but turned trenchantly upon his accusers and forced them to blush or to keep silent. . . . For three hundred and forty days he had lain in the bottom of a foul, dark tower. He did not complain of the harshness of this treatment but expressed his wonder that such inhumanity could be shown. In the dungeon, he said, he had not only no facilities for reading, but none for see- ing. . . . He stood there fearless and unterrified, not alone de- spising death, but seeking it, so that you would have said he was an- HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 327 other Cato. Oh, man, worthy of the everlasting memory of men ! I praise not that which he advanced, if anything contrary to the institutions of the church, but I admire his learning, his eloquence, his persuasiveness of speech, his adroitness in reply. . . . Persevering in his errors, he went to his fate with joyful and willing countenance for he feared not the fire nor any kind of torture. Never did any Stoic suffer death with so constant and so brave a mind as he seems to have sought it. When he came to the place of death he removed his clothes. Then, falling down on bended knee, he greeted the stake. When the flames were started he began to sing a hymn, which the smoke and the fire interrupted. When the executioner wished to start the fire behind his back that he might not see it, he said: " Come here and light it in front of me, under my eye, for if I had feared the fire I would never have come to this place, for I had the opportunity to flee." In this way this man, excellent except in respect of the faith, was burned. I have seen his death and examined into his several acts. Not Mutius himself suffered his arm to burn with so high a courage as this man his whole body. Not did Socrates so willingly drink the poison as this man received the fire. One of the tasks the council had set for itself was ac- complished. The best it knew to do against heresy, it had done. Wyclif's writings were condemned and his bones ordered dug up from their quiet resting-place in the parish churchyard of Lutterworth lest the earth be longer defiled by them: and the Bohemian teachers, Huss and Jerome, who followed him of England, were silenced in death. Strange that such acts could have been thought of, much more had unanimous approval in a Christian council and that there are any — if indeed there be any — who would give them their approval to-day. The feeling expressed by the text "Thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," which the editor put on the title-page of the large edition of Huss's writings, if it is still shared, is not a feeling of vengeance for what the council of Constance did, but a feeling that due re- spect should be accorded to the memories of these men who were honest in their convictions, pure in their lives, and A 328 JOHN HUSS depended with their whole heart upon Christ, whom they sought to honor. As it was Huss's solemn hope that at the tribunal of God he might be found not to have repudiated a single tittle of Christ's law, so, following St. Jerome, he expressed the wish that, as an old man, he might hold the faith he had been taught as a boy; and in that same precious faith he wished to die, even as every child of predestination wishes to die.^ That best of masters — optimus magister — the ad- dress Huss often applied to Christ — himself had suffered false accusation and bitter death. The disciple is not above his Lord. After November 11, 141 7, the church of the West was again under one head by the election of Otto Colonna — Martin V, to whom the case of Huss was fully known. It had been committed to him by John XXIII, and he had pronounced the first excommunication against the dead heretic. One of Martin's first acts,^ February 22, 1418, after the council's dissolution was the reiterated condemnation of the articles brought against Wyclif and Huss and the excommunication of all of both sexes who persisted in the pestilential doctrines of those heresiarchs and Jerome of Prague. Martin also called upon all men to seize the heretics, put them in chains and proceed against them with civil penalties. In Bohemia, serious dissensions broke out in the ranks of Huss's followers, which resulted in the development of two wings, the Taborites, who settled at Tabor with John Ziska as leader, and the Calixtines or Utraquists, so called from the fact that they distributed the calix or chalice to the laity at the Lord's Supper. The city of Tabor was built near the site of Austi, the castle where Huss spent most of his semi-volun- tary exile from Prague. The location, sixty-eight miles south of the capital city, was well adapted to be a stronghold, and 'Mon., I : 325, 330. '^ Mirbt, 170-172. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 329 the streets were so laid out that an army penetrating through the walls could not see from one end of them to the other. Founded in 141 9, the city still exists and has a museum con- taining many objects of interest dating from the Hussite wars and fronted by a bronze statue of Ziska, the sturdy, one-eyed Taborite soldier. The city has a small Protestant church, recently built, which reminds the visitor that the whole region round about, now Catholic, once resounded to the Hussite hymns and witnessed the simple ceremonies of their Puritan faith. The Taborites were the rigorous party, going even to a fanatical extreme. The CaHxtines, more conserva- tive and finally contenting themselves with the use of the cup and the free use of the Scriptures, were largely confined to the city of Prague.^ Early in 141 7, the university, taking note of this dis- sension, and led by Jacobellus of Mies, Christian of Prachaticz and John of Reinstein, all friends of Huss, condemned the party of the Hussites who were denying purgatory, prayers for the dead, who banished images from the church, abandoned the use of candles, incense, the ringing of bells and consecrated baptismal water, who refused judicial oaths, demanded the mass in the vulgar tongue, and that only such ceremonies be practised as were distinctly set forth in the New Testa- ment. These errors and others were set forth in twenty-three articles issued by a council of the masters and clergy of Prague a year and a half later. The term Taborites is not used, al- though that party was meant.^ The theological faculty further formulated the Hussite doctrine in four articles which demanded free preaching of the Gospel, the administration of both elements in the Lord's Supper, the deprivation of clergymen possessed of riches and * ^neas Sylvius, who gives a vivid description of Tabor, which he visited, says the inhabitants called themselves "Brethren of Tabor, just as if with the three disciples they had seen Christ the Saviour on the Mount of Trans- figuration." — Hist. Boh., chap. XL. 2 Z?oc., 654-656, 667-681. 330 JOHN HUSS the removal of priests with mortal sins. Between these two parties the nobles were divided, but, following the university, Cenek of Wartemberg, Lacek of Krawar and other nobles, ordered all clergymen on their domains to distribute the cup on pain of losing their places and induced the suffragan-bishop of Prague to give ordination to a number of Hussites. The council of Constance was not slow in meeting this new rebellion by declaring the ordination invalid, and Gerson opposed to it his tract against the distribution of the cup, in which he called upon the church to depend less upon moral methods and more upon the secular authority in enforcing the council's act.^ Affairs entered into a new stage at the sudden death of that unfortunate monarch, Wenzel, August i6, 1419. A year before, he had resisted Martin V by forbidding heretics to appear in the court of the cardinal-inquisitor whom Martin had sent to Bohemia. The council had passed twenty-four articles calling upon the king to protect the church in all its regulations and to reinstate clergymen who had been de- prived of their livings, to burn all Hussite writings and for- bid all singing of Hussite songs, to deliver over to the council such leaders of heresy as Jacobellus, John of Reinstein, Jese- nicz. Christian of Prachaticz, Simon of Tissnow and Simon of Rokyzan, and to treat all laymen taking the cup as heretics. Moved by these demands and the advice of Sigismund, Wenzel proceeded with some energy, banished John of Jesenicz from the city and ordered the old priests reinstated, but set apart three churches for the Utraquists. He lived long enough to see the interdict lifted from the city.^ Wenzel's death followed upon an armed disturbance in the streets of Prague. Many of his councillors had left the court rather than yield to the measures of repression. One of these, John of Ziska, led a procession to the old town hall • Schwab, 604 sq. ^ Doc, 682 sqq. Palacky, Gesch., 410 sqq. The twenty-four articles also in Hefele, 344 sq. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 331 and threw out of the windows the magistrates, some of whom died from the fall, the rest being despatched by the mob. Prague was the scene of rioting, and all the old priests were expelled by the inflamed Hussite party. The Taborites, with Ziska and Nicholas of Pistna at their head, marched against the city and, in common with the Utraquists, resisted the queen, who had been appointed regent, and her army, made up in part of mercenaries. Great destruction of property followed. Peace was arranged by Cenek of Wartemberg, and the Taborites retired. Sigismund, the heir to the Bohemian throne, was rejected by the nation at large, and civil war fol- lowed his attempt to make good his claim to the crown. Hussite preachers stigmatized him as the dragon of the Apocalypse. He was destined not to enter Prague until six months before his death. The country of Huss was now destined to be attacked by five crusades proclaimed one after the other by Martin V, beginning with 1420. They were summoned against the WycUfists, Hussites and other heretics. The atrocities per- petrated were great, and a misfortune of no less proportions than the crusades was that the Taborite and CaUxtine parties were often at war with one another. Ziska fell 1424. The last of the crusades, 1431, was preached by Cardinal Julian Caesarini in Germany, and one hundred and thirty thousand troops responded; but the crusading army, under the lead of Frederick of Brandenburg, quailed before the songs and shrank before the impetus of the Hussite troops in the disastrous defeat at Tauss. A third stage in the history of Hussitism was opened with the negotiations entered into with the council of Basel by the Calixtine and Taborite parties, represented respectively by John Rokyzan and Procopius the Great as leaders. These delegates insisted upon the respectful use of the names of WycHf and Huss on the floor of the synod and employed the Bohemian tongue in the religious services held in their 332 JOHN HUSS own lodgings. The deliberations resulted in the so-called Compactata, four articles, whose chief stipulation was the right of the Bohemians to distribute the cup to the laity. These compacts were afterward set aside by Pius II, 1462, the same pontiff who set aside the decree of Constance de- claring the authority of general councils final. Archbishop Konrad, who had identified himself with the Calixtines, died in 143 1. He was followed by Rokyzan, who administered the archdiocese of Prague until his death, 147 1, although he was never recognized by Rome. Sigismund, who died 1437, was followed by his son-in-law, Albert of Austria. In 1458 the crown went to George Podie- brad, a Bohemian nobleman who had acted for several years as regent under Ladislaus Postumus. Podiebrad was the leader of the Calixtine party, and under him and Rokyzan that party retained its strength in the city. The king had to contend against Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, to whom the apostolic see had transferred the Bohemian crown. In the meantime the Calixtines had defeated the Taborites at Lipan, 1434, when Procopius and 13,000 of his followers fell. Tabor was taken by Podiebrad, 1452. The king died in his wars with Matthias, 147 1. The throne then passed to the house of Hapsburg. By various agreements the Calix- tines were confirmed in their rights. Not only Bohemia and Moravia but also adjoining lands were largely under the influence of the law of religious liberty. A third party grew up in Bohemia from the Hussite stock, known as the Bohemian Brethren. Its exact origin is a matter of dispute. It appears distinctly 1457 and seems to have had some connection with the Austrian Waldenses. One of the earliest of the Waldensian leaders was Peter Chelcicky, a marked religious personage, of whom we would like to know a great deal more than we do. By 1500 these dis- senters had increased to 200,000, grouped in three hundred or more congregations. They had their own confession, HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 333 catechism and hymnology. They rejected war and oaths. Brethren, including Michael Weiss, the hymn-writer, visited Luther, who at an early date had in his hand a copy of their catechism. Under Maximilian II, 1 564-1 576, there was a fair pros- pect of all Bohemia and the German provinces of Austria becoming Protestant. DolHnger says that in some of the provinces nine-tenths of the population was Protestant. But later, under Ferdinand II, d. 1637, who had been brought up under strict Jesuit influences, the Hussites endured the bitterest of persecutions. The downfall of Bohemian and Moravian Protestantism followed. The Jesuits, who had established themselves in Austria, were indefatigable in their efforts to bring about this result. They acted, we may sup- pose, upon the judgment which Cochlaeus set forth, that there had never been a mortal man who was more dangerous and pestilential to Bohemia than Huss.^ By moral persuasion and legislation, by confiscation of lands, by the expulsion of the Protestant population and by its extermination with the sword, their work was accomplished. The Protestant nobles were forbidden by law to have preaching even in their castles. The Thirty Years' War, which began with the revolt of Bohemia against Ferdinand II, 1618, and the election of Frederick of the Palatinate as its king, not only left Bohemia bleeding but Bohemian Protestantism to all appearances done to death. In the battle at the White Mountain, near Prague, 1620, Frederick was completely defeated, and with his defeat the fate of Bohemian Hussitism was sealed. Twenty- seven distinguished Protestants were executed on the pub- lic square, near the spot where the proposed monument to Huss is to be erected in 191 5 by the subscription of Bohemians who have revived the memory of their great countryman • Nullum unquam fuisse mortalem regno Bohemia nocentiorem aid pestilen- tiorem quam Hus, p. 114. 334 JOHN HUSS burned to death at Constance, whose cause the ancestors of so many of them defended even to the loss of their lives. All Protestant teachers and preachers were given, in 1624, a week to leave the country on pain of death. Bohemian and German Bibles and all Bohemian works published after 1414 were placed under the suspicion of heresy and burned in great numbers in the market-places and under the gallows. One Jesuit, Anton Koniasch, boasted he had burned 60,000 such books. Thus the Czech literature was threatened with utter destruction. Protestants had been forbidden all rights — marriage, worship, merchandise or making a will. Ferdi- nand's vow to exterminate heretics, if in doing so he had to rule over a desert, was realized. More than 30,000 famihes, including 400 nobles, emigrated, and the Bohemian people, which at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War numbered between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000, was reduced at its close to 700,000 or 800,000. The last of the bishops of the Bohemian Brethren, Comenius, died in exile in Holland, 1670. Hussites, if there were any who remained in Bohemia and retained their ancient faith, kept it a secret. The Hussite spirit was crushed but not extinguished. Sparks burned again and turned to a flame in the Moravian church. In 1722 two Moravian families, led by Christian David, settled at Herrnhut, near Dresden, on lands set apart by Count Zinzendorf . From that spot as a centre this humble body of sincere Christians has illuminated the world by its missionary devotion, carrying the spirit and the teachings of Huss to regions of whose existence that good man never dreamed, even to the remotest ends of the earth and the most destitute populations — the islands of the West Indies, the Mosquito Coast, Greenland and Labrador, "the natives of Australia, the lepers of Jerusalem, the table-land of Thibet. The sparks of the old Hussite flame also began to show signs of life in Bohemia itself after the edicts of religious tolera- tion issued in 1781 and 1848. At present, the pastors of the — i. HUSS'S WRITINGS AND THE HUSSITES 335 Evangelical church of that land, given larger freedom by the law of 1861, are most faithful and active and find themselves unable for lack of ministerial force and financial equipment to take advantage of the opportunities being offered of again proclaiming the evangeHcal faith for which Huss died. Among the Czech people, his memory is again coming to honor. His spirit still moves to and fro across the old bridge of the Moldau, and his voice may yet be heard again preaching in all the villages of his native land, Bohemia. APPENDIX I CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EVENTS IN HUSS'S LIFE OR BEARING UPON IT 12 1 5. Establishment of the Inquisition by Innocent III, p. 8. 1274. Death of Thomas Aquinas, the prince of the Schoolmen, p. 7. 1302. Boniface VIII's bull, Unam sanctam, p. 4. 1305-1378. The Avignon exile of the papacy, p. 16. 132 1. Dante died. He repudiated Constan tine's donation, p. 10. 1378-1417. The papal schism, p. 17. 1382. Anne of Bohemia married to Richard II, p. 46. The Earthquake synod in London condemns 24 articles of Wyclif. 1384. John Wyclif dies, pp. 48 sqq. 1346-1378. Charles IV, king of Bohemia, p. 24. 1369. Konrad of Waldhausen dies; Milicz of Kremsier, d. 1374; Mathias of Janow, d. 1394, pp. 28-33. 1373. Huss born, p. 19. 1389. Huss enters the university of Prague; B. A., 1393; B. D., 1394; M. A., 1396, p. 20. J401. Huss ordained priest, p. 20. 1402. Huss preacher at Bethlehem chapel, p. 27; rector of the university, p. 21. 1403. The XLV Articles of Wyclif forbidden by the university to be taught, p. 54. Zbynek, archbishop of Prague, p. 59. 1405. Huss appointed to investigate the holy blood of Wylsnack, pp. 64 sq. Innocent, addressed by the Prague clergy, calls upon Zby- nek to proceed against Wyclifite errors, p. 68. 1408? Huss writes Com. on the Sentences of the Lombard, p. 305. Welemowicz and Knin tried for Wyclif. heresy, p. 69. 1409. Charter of the university of Prague changed, pp. 78 sqq. Huss rector of the university, p. 83. The Reformatory council of Pisa meets and elects Alex- ander V, pp. 85 sq. J 337 > 338 APPENDIX Alexander V instructs Zbynek to proceed against Wyclif- ism, p. 87. 1410. Wyclif' s books publicly burned, p. 91. Huss publicly defends Wyclif, Is excommunicated, p. 92. Huss appeals to John XXIII, p. 97. i ^. Huss cited to Rome by Cardinal Colonna, p. 99. l^'^^- 1' 141 1. Huss excommunicated by the Roman curia, p. 100. I .Huss has controversy with John Stokes, p. 108. Pact of peace between Zbynek and the university, July 3, p. 102, Zbynek dies. Albik of Unizow, archbishop of Prague, 105 sqq. 141 2. John XXIII's bulls of indulgences announced in Prague, pp. Ill sqq. Wok of Waldstein's procession, 123 sq. Execution of Stafcon, Martin, and John, p, 124. Interdict against Prague, 136 sq. Huss's withdrawal from Prague, pp. 133 sqq. Last bull against Huss, p. 140. Huss appeals to Christ, p. 138. 1413. Huss writes the Treatise on the Church, p. 305. Palecz, Stanislaus, etc., banished from Prague, p. 154. 1414. Huss starts for Constance. Arrives there November 3, pp. 165 sqq. Huss imprisoned by the cardinals, November 28, p. 176. Huss in the Dominican prison, December 6, p. 179. Sigismund arrives in Constance, December 25, p. 185. 1415. Huss in prison at Gottlieben, March 24, p. 195. John XXIII deposed, pp. 192 sqq. Huss transferred to the prison of the Franciscans, June 5, p. 203. Huss's public hearings in the Franciscan friary, June 5, 7, 8, p. 204. Huss writes to the university of Prague, June 27, p. 247. Huss condemned as a heretic and burned, July 6, p. 253, 256. 1.415. Four hundred and fifty-two Bohemian and Moravian nobles agree to protect free preaching, September 5, p. 315. Jerome recants in the cathedral of Constance, September 23, P- 323- ^ 1416. Jerome dies at the stake. May 30, p. 325. 1417. The university of Prague decides for the cup, p. 329. APPENDIX 339 1418. Council of Constance adjourns, p. 328. 1419. Wenzel, king of Bohemia, dies August 16, p. 330. 1420-1431. Five Crusades against the Hussites defeated, p. 331. 1424. John of Ziska falls in battle, p. 331. 1433. The Compactata granted by the council of Basel, p. 332. 1437. Sigismund dies, p. 332. 15 19. Luther openly acknowledges Huss as a good man at Leipzig, p. 292. Luther receives a copy of Huss's Treatise on the Church, p. 293. 1520. Huss's Treatise on the Church printed at Wittenberg, p. 294. ) 1536- 1537. Three editions of some of Huss's works prefaced by 1 Luther, p. 294. 1620. The battle of the White Mountain, p. 333. 1722. Moravians settle at Herrnhut on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, p. 334. 1732. The Moravians begin their mission^ at St. Thomas. 1770. Martin Mack ordained Moravian bishop at Bethlehem, Pa., the first bishop ordained within the limits of the United States. 1779. The English Parliament recognizes the Moravians as "an ancient episcopal church." 1781, 1848, 1861. By the edicts of toleration, Hussitism becomes active again in Bohemia, p. 334. Popes during the Papal Schism, 1378-1417 THE ROMAN LINE Urban VI, 1378-1389. Boniface IX, 1389-1404. Innocent VII, 1404-1406. Gregory XII (Angelo Correr), elected 1406; deposed at Pisa, 1409; resigned at Constance, 1415; d. 1417. AVIGNON LINE Clement VII, 1378-1394. Benedict XIII (Peter de Luna), elected 1394; deposed at Pisa, 1409; deposed at Constance, 1417; d. 1424. THE riSAN LINE Alexander V, 1409, 14 10. John XXIII, 1410; deposed at Constance, 1415; d. 1419. Martin V, 1417-1431; elected at Constance and recognized by all Western Christendom. APPENDIX II A SPURIOUS ACCOUNT OF HUSS'S JOURNEY TO CONSTANCE AND TRIAL Under the title, The Infallibility of the Pope at the Council of Constance and Huss's Trial, Sentence, and Death at the Stake, written by a member of the council, PoGius, Prior of St. Nik- LASEN,^ an interesting but spurious description is given of incidents in Huss's journey and his trial on July 6 in the cathedral of Con- stance, which differs materially from the accredited authorities. So far as it can be traced, the booklet appeared first at Reutlingen, Wiirtemberg, 1846. A reprint was issued in St. Louis, Mo., 1875, five years after the proclamation of the dogma of papal infalli- bility. The Reutlingen edition purported to be a reprint of an original edition said to have appeared at Constance, and contains on its title-page the statement, erstmals gedruckt 1523 zu Costnitz — originally printed at Constance, 1523. The volume contains two letters written in a most graphic style by Pogius, who represents himself as haying accompanied Huss from Prague to Constance and as having undergone a change from an enemy of the heretic to a warm partisan. The route he represents Huss as having taken differs from the route as laid down in Huss's letters and by Mlade- nowicz. The description Pogius gives of the sitting of the council in the cathedral of Constance, July 6, when Huss was condemned, contains the startling statement that the verdict of heresy was not unanimous. On the contrary, according to Pogius, it was re- sisted by a number of bishops, whose addresses of dissent he pro- fesses to give. The most of these dissenting prelates were Ger- * Die Unfeklbarkeit des Papstes auf d. Condi zu Constanz und J. Huss's Ver- hor, Venirtheiliing und Feuerlod (5. mid 6. Juli, 1415) geschr. von dent Concils- Mitgliede, Pogius, Prior zu Niklasen. St. Louis, Mo., 1875. For an elaborate notice of the booklet and its contents, with letters from Loserth and Prof. Miiller of Tubingen, see my article in Amer. Journal of Theology, Ap., 1915. 341 342 APPENDIX mans, but Vincent Ferrer, the Spaniard, also voted with the minority. The volume is evidently a forgery, and contradicts Huss's letters, Mladenowicz's account, the documents in Van der Hardt, and the statements of Gerson, d'Ailly, and other accredited sources. There is no evidence of the booklet's having been in existence be- fore the ReutHngen edition appeared. The term Costnitz, which is Slavic, was not used for Constance by the Germans. The name Pogius, the author, was evidently meant to conceal the forgery by its resemblance to "Poggius," the Italian humanist, who wrote the brilliant account of Jerome's trial and death at the stake. Poggius's public career and personal habits are out of accord with what Pogius tells about himself. The motive of the forgery is a matter of conjecture, whether it was by a Catholic to remove the odium from the church arising from the unanimous verdict against Huss, or by a Protestant to serve as a burlesque on the alleged sacredness of the council which voted down teachings of Scripture in condemning Huss and, at the same time, liberty of thought in religious matters. The difficulty of burying a book after it has once been put into print is afforded by this booklet, which has recently been reprinted in Berlin to further the interest in the Huss anniversary of 1915, even as the story of Luther's violent death is every now and then republished, lie though it is. INDEX Aachen, relics of, 67 Absolution a poena et culpa, 117, 156 Adalbert of Prague, 23, 35 Adalbert Ranconis, 29 Address to the German Nobility, 66, 133, 288, 294 /Eneas Sylvius : On Huss and Jerome, 21, 27, 270,329; History of Bohemia, 25; Wenzel, 76; Prague university, 82; Sigismund, 163; the cup, 202; Tabor, 329. Also, 47, 56, 91, iii, 163,325- Against the Hidden Adversary, 134 Agnes, papissa, 279 Albik, 107, 113, 143, 153 Alexander V, 77, 85, 97, iii, 130, 210 Alexander VI, 191 Alexander of Hales, 114, 200 Alexander Triumphus, 11 Alvarus Pelayo, 11 Ananias, 129, 131 Anathema, 128, 136, 137, 141, 151 Andrew of Broda, 43, 125, 167 Andrew of Prague, 138 Andrew the Pole, 234 Angelo Correr. See Gregory XII. Anne of Luxemburg, 46, no Anselm, 206 Antichrist, 86, 115 Apostolic mandates, 114, 127, 283 Appeal to Christ, 138, 210, 215, 231, 251 Arius, 91, 158 Amest of Pardubicz, 59 sq. Arnold of Brescia, 304 Athanasius, 58, 149 Augustine, 39, 94, 117, 131, 149, 216 Avignon exile, 16, 50, 73 Barbara, St., 29 Barbatus, 258 Benedict XIII, 73, 162, 174, 193, 229 Berengar, 211 Berger, 54, 82, 85, 285, 291 Bernard, St., 117, 130 Bethlehem chapel founded, 22 sq., 26, 40, 44, 70, 73, 89, 90, 98, 114, 124, 125, 140, 148, 150, 156; Huss's love for, 238-240 Biberach, 170 Bible, Huss and, 3955., 98, 118, 144, 178, 180, 197, 214, 220, 247, 268, 282-284, 301- Also, 32, 40, 46, 51, 52, 57, 59, 95, 127, 132, 140, 201, 226, 284 Bishop-sup-with-the-devil, 166, 197 Black Friars, 179 Blood, holy, 64, 67 Boccaccio, 14 Bohemia, culture of, i ; and the papal schism, 17; religious history, 23; and Wyclif, 69 sq.; orthodox, 70, 143 sq., 154,199; Huss's " fatherland," 237; divided on Huss, 140, 312-315 Bohemian Brethren, 332 Bohemian nobles, petitions and pacts of, 238, 242, 286, 315 Bologna, 44, 45 Boniface VIII, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 162, 280 Boniface IX, 128, 152, 236, 279 Books burned, 91 sqq., 159, 24553., 252 Borivoj, 23 Bossuet, 77, 249 Brancas, Cardinal, loi Briinn, 197, 198 Bryce, 24 Buddensieg, 272 Baltenhagen, 75 Balthasar Cossa. See John XXIII. Caesar Heisterbach, 5, 67 Cain's curse, 136 343 344 INDEX Cajetan, 177 Calixtines, 328 sq. Calvin, 11, 22, 44, 226, 264, 268 Carranza, 199 Catherine of Siena, 17 Catherine, St., 222 Ceneii of Wartemberg, 312, 316, 317, 331 Chapels dosed, 90, 130 Charles IV, i, 24, 28, 30, 31, 44, 75, 102, 134, 184 Charles V, 252 Charles VI, 165 Charles of Durazzo, iii Chelcicky, 332 Chlum, John of, 165, 167, 170, 174 sq., jjg sqq., 184, 188, 197, 20455'., 228, 237, 241 sq., 247 Chotek, 140 Christ's example, 118; kingdom, 119; sufferings, 150, 240, 242; Huss's ap- peal to, 138, 158; best of masters, 328 Christmas sermon, 40 Chrysostom, 69, 94, 138, 293 Church and empire, 4, 5 Church defined, 7, 15, 36, 52, 117, 144, 152, 154, 273, 275-277, 307 Church, Treatise on the, 27, 36, 96, 99, 116, 124, 132, 138, 14s, 156, 175, 184, 204, 213, 214, 252, 265, 293 sq., 299, 306 sq. Clement VII, 17, 74, 113, 137 Clerical morak, 60, 63, 70, 71, 134 Cochlaeus, 51, 82, 293, 303 Coelestin V, 192 Colonna, Cardinal, 97, 99, 100, 135 Comenius, 334 Compactata, 332 Conradin, 112 Conscience, 116, 208, 222 sq., 226, 254, 296-302 Constance, 14, 18, 56, 122; Huss's going to, 167 sqq. Constance, council of, 161 sqq., 172; tries Huss, 183 sqq., 226; condemns Huss 253, 318 5^.; condemns Wyclif, 202; acts in accordance with the principles of the age, 269 sq. Constantino's donation, 10, 55, 214 Councils, 162-165; Huss on, 2^4 sq., 237 Courtenay, 49, 50 Cracow, 79 Creighton, Bishop, 267 Cruciata, 113 Crusades, 2, 112, 121, 130, 331 Cup, the, 200, 243 sq., 332 Cyprian, ^ , 306 Cyrillus, 23 Czech language, 23, 34, 304 D'Ailly, 14, 85, 162, 173, 193, 195, 204, 206, 208, 210, 214, 216, 221, 222, 225, 230, 234, 247, 263, 265, 269, 322 Dante, 10, 14, 52 Denifle, 264 De sanguine Christi, 65 Deutschbrod. See Michael de Causis Didacus, 178 Bollinger, 7, 9, 279 Duns Scotus, 8 Diirer, 142 Earthquake council, 54, 209, 290 Eckart, 12 Eight doctors, the, 107, 12655., ^3°> 133, 3°o, 305 Erasmus, 14, 159, 266 " Evangehcal clergy," 147 Execrabilis, bull, 163 Faith, 129, 131, 156 Father, the, 205, 231 Faulfisch, 47, 68, 224 Ferdinand of Aragon, 187 Ferdinand of Austria, 193 Fida, 170, 174, 176 Fillastre, 173 Finke, 165 Flajshans, 2, 19, 20, 28, 34, 45, 57, 59, 65, 181; on Huss, 259, 260, 305 Fourth Lateran, 8, 161, 251 Franciscan convent, 195, 203, 213 Frederick Barbarossa, 6 Frederick II, 6, 9, 112, 141 Frederick the Wise, 141 Friedberg, 245 Funk, II, 161 INDEX 345 Gee and Hardy, 49, 54, 156 Gelnhausen, Konrad of, 162 Germans at Prague, 77, 7g sq., 80, 82 sq., 103, 140, 155, 206, 212, 261 Gerson, 14, 19, 57, 77, 107, 157, 162, 174, 184, 193, 201, 208, 227, 243, 263, 265, 269, 297, 300, 322 Giczin, 91, 125 Gieseler, 258 Gillett, 19, 181, 213, 252 Glux, Hertonk von, 108 Golden Bull, 24 Goll, 322 Goose, 19, 150, 182, 189, 258 Gottlieben, 194 sq., 202, 210, 256 Gottschick, 292 Gregorovius, 236 Gregory VII, 4, 6, 146, 162 Gregory XI, 17, 31, 49, 51 Gregory XII, 26, 70, 73 sqq., 77, 86, 97, III sq., 162, 192, 220 Grisar, 264 Grosseteste, 67, 139 Hallum, Bishop, 173, 193, 218 Hapsburg, house of, 24, 26 Harasser, 56 Harnack, 292 Hawlik, 292 Hefele, 22, 243, 258, 285, 290, 297, 330 Helfert, 177, 303 Henry III, 162 Henry IV, 5, 23 Heresiarch, 88, 252, 255 Heresy and heretics, no right to live, 8, 9, 87, 148, 249, 299; name, 133, 13s; Husson, 63, 86, 107, no, 129- 132, 214, 298; Huss a heretic, 145, 159, 198, 202 sq., 208, 226, 233, 265, 268, 289 Hergenrother, Cardinal, 6, 11, 77, Hergenrother, P., 136 Hofler, 79, 82, 83 Hradschin, 24, 26 Humanists, 13 sq., 140 Huss, student, priest, preacher, 18, 22, 27, 38-42; leader, $Ssqq., 134; pu- rity of hfe, 264, 316; physical quali- ties, 58; opinion of himself, 239, 241; and money, 188; charges against, 70, go sqq., 205 sqq., 250 sqq.; cited to Rome, 99; excom- municated, 92, 100, 135, 266 sqq.; a heretic, 140, 152, 189, 225, 233, 248, 252, 255, 257, 298, 318; son of iniquity, 123; Wyclifist, 135, 272; and indulgences, 111 sq., 114, 116- 122; exile, 142 sqq.; and the eight doctors, 145 sqq.; appeals to Christ, 138 sqq.; 210, 215, 231, 242, 251; looks forward to death, 140, 246, 151 sq.; called upon to abjure, 228 sq., 230, 232, 247, 248; con- demned and burned, 228, 252-256; delivered up to the devil, 255; let- ters, 149, 182, 229; and the cup, 200, 243 sq.; and conscience, 223, 254, 296-302; and the Bible, 39, 241, 247, 254, 266; on the council of Constance, 268, 289; and Wychf, IS, 33, 43 sqq., 56, 71, 94, 126, 2og sq., 272, 308 sq.; and the Prot- estant Reformation, 15 sq., 273 sqq., 291 sqq.; place in history, 2, 260 sqq. See Church, Luther, Pope, Preach- ing, Sigismund, Palecz, etc. Hussite cantionale, 295 Hussites, 48, 83, 154, 163, 202,304 sqq.; crusades against, 331 Hymns by Huss, 310 Indulgences, 20, iiosq., 119, 120 sq., 124, 129 sq., 271, 309 Innocent III, 4, 5, 8, 44, 87, 112, 144, 161, 162, 299 Innocent IV, 6 Innocent VII, 68, in Inquisition, 8, 147, etc. Insul hotel, 179 Interdict, i3gsqq., 217 Isidorian decretals, 10 Jacobellus, 33, 69, 93, 143, 147, 201 sq., 243, 246 Janow, Matthias of, 28, 31 sqq. Jaroslav, 69 Jerome of Prague, i, 47, 123, 189, 229, 234, 241, 258, 270, 3^4 sq., 321 sq., 324 Jerome, St., 115, 117 346 INDEX Jesenicz, 98, 135, 14053., 143, i53. 166, 183 sq., 189, 238, 312, 317, 319 Jesuits, 240, 263, S33, 334 Joan of Arc, 268 Joanna, wife of Wenzel, 76, 262 John XII, 236, 282 John XXII, 11,12 John XXIII, 75, 86, 90, 96, 97, 103, 107, 123, 127, 132, 13s, 139, 153, 158, 162 sqq., 171, 17s, 191 sqq., 197, 202, 218 sq., 236, 281 John of Austi, 142 John of England, 6, 49 John of Gorlitz, 76 John of Jandun, 11, 50, 158 John of Jenzenstein, 59, 62, 262 John of Luxemburg, i, 23 John of Nassau, 173 John of Nepornfuk, 26, 262 John of Paris, 10 John of Staupitz, 134 Jost of Moravia, 88, 104 Judas, 61, 63 KaufEhaus, 171 Kbel, 70 Keys, power of, 126, 276, 282 Kingdom of God, 39 Knin, 69 Knox, John, 22, 44, 264 Kohler, 303 Kolin, Stephen of, 27, 34 Konrad of Vechta, 107, 143, 157, 166, 313-319 Kugelgen, 82 Labkowicz, Nicolas of, 80 Lacek of Krawar, 98, 102, 312, 316 Lacembok, Henry of, 165, 177 Ladislaus of Naples, iii sq., 121, 128, 130, 132, 164, 191 Langsdorff, 61, 62 Latimer, 34 Lea, 183, 267, 304 Lechler, 266, 296 Lecky, 302 Lefl of Lazan, 155 Leipzig university, 82 Leitomysl, bishop of, 140, 143, 148, 174, 197, 236,312,314,317 Lenz, 108 Leo IV, 132 Lewis the Bavarian, 137, 194 Lodi, bishop of, 249, 323 Loesche, 262 Lollards, 47, 95 Loofs, 13 Lord's Supper and transubstantiation, 50> 53) 156, 201, 212, 271. 5e^Rem- anence. Loserth, 19, 28, 47 sq., 91, 93, 116, 121, 146, 267, 272, 307, 309 Louis IX, 9 Louvain, 159 Ludmilla, 23, 35 Lupac, 124 Luther, 11, 15, 35, 44, 48, no, 133, 138, 141, 159, 177, 226, 252, 270, 296, 301; on Huss, 85, 288, 292,304 Liitzow, 2, 267, 304 LjTa, Nic. of, 24s Mansi, 166, 195, 289, 322 Map, Walter, 265 Marcus of Konigsgratz, 116 Marsiglius of Padua, 11, 48, 50, 158 Martin V, 97, 162, 202, 213, 268, 328 Martin of Prague, Huss's letters to, 168, 238 sq., 284 Matthew Paris, 67 Medicis, 14 Melanchthon, 152 Michael de Causis, 87, 123, 135, 139, 171, 174, 175, 183, 188, 189, 224, 233 Michael de MoHnos, 199 Middle Ages, i, 4 Milicz of Kremsier, 28, 30 sq., 40 Mirbt, 137, 144, 213, 279, 289 Mladenowicz, 165 sq, 168, 176 sq., 181, 194, 198, 204 sqq., 208, 210, 218, 222 sqq., 22S sq., 240, 245, 248, 251 Mohler, 236 Moldau, 24, 25 Moravians, 334 Mortal sin destroys kingly and priestly power, 54, 55, 216, 218 Miihlheim, John of, 26, 90 Miiller, Karl, 291 Mystics, German, 12 sq. INDEX 347 Neander, 131 Nicholas, bishop of Nazareth, 166, 197 Nieheim, 162, 163, 193, 312 Nominalism, 206 sq. Nurnberg, 169 Obeying God, 57, 90 Ockam, 11, 14 Ostia, cardinal of, 248, 265 Oxford, 45, 46, 68 Palacky, 19, 20, 28, 30 sqq., 42, 46; on Huss as a preacher, 48, 54, 62, 68, 78, 86, 89, 93, 104, 124, 125, 164, 167, 177, 186, 196, 225; on Sigis- mund, 229, 231; on Huss's confes- sion, 246; his history censored, 261; on the safe-conduct, 291, 304 Palecz, Huss's friend, 54, 56, 60, 64, 69; goes to the cardinals, 75, 89, 100, 102; opposes Huss, 116, 122, 125; attacks Huss, 139, 140; church's declarations final, 143, 145, i$2 sq.; banished, 154; charges at Constance, 174 sq., 176, 178, 183; hostility to Huss, 188, 213, 217 sq., 220; explains his activity against Huss, 224 sq., 230; last visit to Huss, 233, 273, 275 Papal schism, 16, 50, 73 sqq. Paris, university of, 80, 156, 159, 163, 209 Pascal H, 104 Pastor, II, 17, 74, 237 Paulus, 302 Peklo, Peter, 91 Penance, 114. See Absolution Per Venerabilem, 5, 144 Peter Chelcicky, 332 Peter de Luna. See Benedict XIII Peter of Cachy, 64 Peter, the Apostle, 118, 131, 278 Peter the Lombard, 118, 131, 232 Peter Znaim, 54, 154 Petrarch, 14, 25, 76, 79 Philip IV, 10 sq., 16 Pisa council, 18, 74, 77, 85, 163 Pius II, 21, 25, 83. See ^Eneas Platina, 246 Poggio, 325 sq. Pope, claims of, 7, 11; heretic, 39, 55, 117 5g., 147, 219; VVyclif on, 52; Huss on, 235, 278-281; and indul- gences, 119; fallibility, 119, 128, 278; mandates not to be obeyed, 127, 143 sq., 147, 158, 280; deposed, 162 Prachaticz, 58, loi, 140, 151, 153, 159, 189, 228, 275 Prague, city of, i, 22, 2?, sq., 58, 78 sqq., 12^ sq.; university of, 17, 20, 44 sq., 54, 55 sq., 102, 140, 145, 209, 239, 329 Preaching, 27 sq., 34 sqq., 41, 51, 55, 57, 61, 90, g4sq., 127, 146, 149, 217 Predestination, 36, 184, 273 Prierias, 284 Priesthood, 54, 61, 72, 129-134, 158, 281 sq. Procopius of Pilsen, 93 Procopius the Great, 331 Protiva, J., 26, 167 Psalms, 182 Purgatory, 120 Rashdall, 45 sq., 78 Realism, 206 sq. Reason, 298 Reformatory councils, 14 Reinstein, John, 100, 102, 168, 174 sq., 178 Remanence of bread, 22, 53, 71, 103, 250 Renaissance, 13 Retractations, 36 Richental, 172, 176, sq., 192, 248, 254- 258, 324 Robert of Geneva, 17 Robert the gaoler, 181 Robertson, J. H., 25 Rock, the, 278 Rokyzan, 19, 33, 331 Rome, 112, 128, 132 Ruprecht, 75, 76, 85, 104 Sacramentalism, 7 Saints, 241 Salmts condudiis, 166, 170, 176, 181, 186, 194, 196, 199, 211, 225, 251, 285-290 348 INDEX Saracens, 130, 132 Savonarola, 15, 22, 263, 304 Schaching, 303 Schaff, Ch. Hist., 6 sq., 11, 48, 57, 137, 192 Schmude, 262 Schoolmen, 8, 5855., 131, 226, 243 Schwab, 201, 206, 243, 270, 297, 325, 330 Schwane, 277, 307 Sentences oj the Lombard, 115, 123, 180, 261, 271, 279, 297, 30455., 309 Serm. de Sanctis, 27 sq., 34, 37 Shepherd, 325 Sigismund, 24, 47, 76, IC4 sq., 108, 141; and Huss, 155, 211, 218, 223, 252, 255; and the salmis conductus, 166, 234, 2$o sq., 285-291; and John XXIII, 164, ig2 sq., 194; and the Bohemian nobles, 314-316, 320. Also 163 sq., 175, 185, 203, 211, 223, 225, 229, 234, 248, 25059. Simon of Tissnow, 93, 102, 153 Simony, 16, 63, 71, 11855., i47> ^S^ Six Errors, 156 Smith, Preserved, 303 Sophia, Queen, 58, 73, 76, 96, 140, 238, 319 Stafcon, 124, 224 Stanislaus of Znaim, 54, 56, 64, 69, etc. See Palecz Stefaneschi, Cardinal, 135 Stiekna, John of, 27, 34 Stitny, Thomas of, 47 Stokes, 46, 50, 52, 56, 108 sq., 207, 220 Storch, 183 Stupna, Peter of, 34 Sutri, 162, 192 Sylvester, 10 Tabor, 320 Tauler, 13 Tevn church, 25, 2855., 113 Thes. meritorum, 122 Thirty articles, 250 sqq. Thirty Years' War, 333 Thomas a Becket, 5, 104 Thomas Aquinas, 7 sqq., 114, 131, 200, 24s, 305 •y?- Thomas of Udine, 99 Three martyrs, 125 Tithes, pure alms, 55 Transubstantiation, 53. See Rema- nence Trialogiis, 47, 69, 88 55., 97 Truth, 58 Tschackert, 206, 225 sq., 266, 270 Tyndale, 180, 284 Unam sanctam, 4, 6, 7, 274, 307 Urban V, 31 Urban VI, 17, 51, iii Utraquists, 293, 328 sq. VanderHardt, 171, 173, 186, 191, 195, 243, 247, 248, 253, 289 Vite's, St., 30, 32, 263 Volker, 301 Walden, 50 Waldenses, 56, 57, 69, 158, 265, 299 Waldhauser, 28 sq., 42 Waldo, Peter, 57 Walsingham, 51 Wars, religious, 117, 130, 132 Welemowicz, 69 Wenceslaus, St., 23, 26, 35 Wenzel, king, 58; recognizes the Pisan popes, 73 sqq., 96; intercedes for Huss, 99, loi; his opportunity, 106, 141, 164, 211, 262; death, 330 Wenzel of Duba, 165, 167, 170, 181, 228, 238, 247 Wenzel of Tiem, 114 Whitcomb, 325 White Mountain, ^33 Wittenberg university, 45 Wok of Waldstein, 123 Workman and Pope, 149, 181, 231, 246 Worms, monument of, 15 Wratislaw, 23, 262, 277, 304 Wyche, 95 Wyclif, 8, 15; on preaching, 27; Huss's debt to, 43 sqq., 308; on Lord's Sup- per, 47, 207; characterized, 48 sq.; 19 articles condemned, 51; defines the church, 52, 275; Huss on, 209, 210, INDEX 349 309; condemned by council of Con- stance, 252; son of Belial, 319 Wyclif, XLV Articles of, 69, 125, 126, 135, 144 sq., 147, 184, 209, 220 Wyclif's writings, 46, 47, 55 sq.; burned, 85 sq., 88, 91, 108, 153, 195, 307, 323 Wyclifites, 48, 69, 72, 107, 152, 196, 272 Wylie, 108, 164, 216, 285 Wylsnack, 64 Wyssehrad, 20, 25, loi, 143 Zabarella, 164, 173, 177, 2oy sq., 217, 222, 225, 230, 247, 250, 265,322 Zbynek, Archbishop, 59; takes up Huss's case, 68, 72, 75 sqq.; and the university, 81, 85; puts Prague under interdict, 86; bull against Wyclif, 88, 92, 99; death, 105, 146, 209 Zdislav, 93 Zebrak, 124, 127 Ziska, John of, 328, 330 Zul, Nicholas, 59 I Date Due ♦ <.*>.