# John Huss: his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years/Chapter 4

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CHAPTER IV
HUSS AS A NATIONAL LEADER
Super omnia vincit veritas: vincit, qui occiditur, quia ei nulla nocet adversitas, si nulla ei dominatur iniquitas.—Letter to Christian of Prachaticz, 1413.
Above all else, truth conquers. He conquers who is put to death 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 element 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 sincerity of purpose was evident, his devotion constant, his energy unflagging, his courage fearless, his daily life lifted above reproach. His moral earnestness and power of utterance at first attracted the confidence and then aroused the hostility 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 Athanasius, 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 ​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, imposed by them and the popes upon their times. He was consciously a reformer of church discipline and morals, unconsciously a reformer of its doctrinal position upon the basis of Scripture, as he understood it, and as the supreme constitution 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 ability 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 provincial 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 statutes, 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—and the rumor went that he was unable to read. He is said to have been the last of the Bohemian archbishops to wield the sword and go at the head of armies. In 1404, leading 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 adviser, 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​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 lives of the clergy of which he might become cognizant. Huss took his appointment seriously, and in a letter addressed to the archbishop in 1408 spoke of the responsibility 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 indifference 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 participated in the convivialities. Huss charged them not only with unchastity but with simony and avarice, making ecclesiastical 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 ordinances that if any one takes aught from a priest, even justly, or if a priest is seized in the commission of adultery or robbery, a stop is immediately put to the divine services, espe​cially 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, citations 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 innocent 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 reminds 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 rascally 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 wantonness, 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 ​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 condemned by Christ.”
In the first of his sermons before the synod, on John 15; 27, he cited as personal qualities of true bishops and priests, humility, 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 celebration 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.
​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 forefront of the spiritual battle, popes, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, 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 relics, 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 ​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 Berlin. 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 opponent, 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: “O priest, what a liar thou art! See my hand is still as much withered as it was before.”
The commission, which included, besides Huss, Stanislaus of Znaim and probably Palecz, reported that the relic ​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 effort at church reform in the city. It called forth from Huss’s pen a treatise entitled The Blood of Christ—de sanguine Christi.
Here the author states the claim made for the miraculous relic justified the archbishop who had acted “as a true shepherd” 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 glorified 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 suffer thy Holy One to see corruption,” Psalms 16: 10. In regard to the red spots shown on garments alleged to have been worn by the Virgin and on the cross and thorns from Christ’s crown, these were only an appearance; 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. Likewise 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 ​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 discovered 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 deceiving the unwary for more than a century. But the discussion, 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 university of Vienna, received special notice in the universities of Leipzig and Erfurt, and a synod held in Magdeburg, 1412, called upon the bishop of Havelberg, in whose diocese Wylsnack was located, to put an end to the deception. Huss declared 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. ​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 Grosseteste 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 Cæsar 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 multiplication 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 increasing the curiosity to know what Wyclif’s views were. In fact, clerical and scholarly opinion in Prague was in a fer​ment over the English Schoolmen. Zbynek was forced into the discussion by a summons from Innocent VII, 1405, calling upon him to extirpate the errors of Wyclif 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 Englishman’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 issued 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 philosophical, theological and practical, he disposed of by considerations drawn from Scripture and in a catholic 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.
​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 university, 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 contented itself with ordering that the articles should not be taught in a way to give a heretical or erroneous sense. Further, it was agreed that Wyclif’s statements should not be taken up at public disputations and that bachelors of theology 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 Matthias of Knin, were indicted before the tribunal of the inquisition in Prague, at the head of which stood the Franciscan, Jaroslov, titular bishop of Sarepta. This tribunal had been established in the city in 1315, 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 bidden 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. ​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 result 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 announcing 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 doctrines, 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 ibi fore ubi est anima Wycleff—and following Wyclif he held to the remanence of 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 ​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 Wyclifry.
In his Reply to these accusations, Huss affirmed that he had said that the priest has no right to demand fixed fees for spiritual ministries and that this position was in agreement with canon law. Whatever was given was to have the quality 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 ubi 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 foolish 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 Paradise.’ 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 ​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 sermons 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 humiliation 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 conditions forced him to become a Wyclifist himself and jeopar​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 evidently 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 people were predominantly with Huss, as were also many of the clergy. The queen had made him her confessor and, in company 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 contending 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 tenacious 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 pontifis professed to be ready to do almost anything to bring the division to an end—everything except resign, and thus open the way for another election, or submit their claims to an impartial umpire.
Gregory wrote to his rival on the Rhône that, like the woman who was ready to renounce her child rather than see it cut asunder, each of them should be willing to cede his ​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 unification, 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. “Hasten 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 acumenical synod, which convened at Pisa, 1409, for the purpose of healing 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 Avignon 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 assume a neutral attitude. The king called upon the university of Prague and the clergy to decide for neutrality. In ​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 advice 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 divergence of view constituted a new element in the controversy between Huss and the church authorities by drawing the 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 addressed 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 released 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 Wyclifite 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 pontiff’s reluctance to crown Wenzel emperor. He was hoping 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 ​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 hunting-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 princess, 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 Brandenburg, 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 Görlitz, 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 childlessness 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 ​of his nobles and resumed his throne. Later amicable relations were restored, and in 1411, 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 delegation, 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, transferred his allegiance to Alexander. The Pisan council, regarded as œcumenical 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. Hergenröther-Kirsch in a tone of irony calls it the “unblessed Pisan synod”—segenlose Pisaner Synode. And Pastor pronounces it the “essentially revolutionary convention”—wesentlich revolutionäre 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 cardinals, had urged the duty of loyalty to it. The archbishop inhibited him from exercising priestly functions and preaching. In his remonstrance, Huss expressed his pain that for the first time the archbishop should feel called upon to pronounce him disobedient, but at the same time he reaffirmed his allegiance to the Pisan council, and to the archbishop’s authority, 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 ​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, 1411, 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 Bohemian 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 hostility 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 aggregation 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; Bavaria, including Austrians, Swabians, Franconians, and dwellers on the Rhine; Poland, including Poles, Lithuanians, and Russians; and Saxony, including Saxons, Swedes, and Danes. The four faculties of theology, medicine, law and the liberal arts were at first under a single rector, with the archbishop of Prague as chancellor, the arch​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 German. The Germans had three votes, the Czechs only one, and the rivalry between these elements was popularly compared 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 carried 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 increased by the conflict over the German throne. Ruprecht’s troops had entered Bohemia and committed great depredations. 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 offices even as the French are in the French kingdom and the Germans in German lands.” Exalting the national spirit, he exclaimed: “The Czechs are more wretched than dogs or snakes, ​for a dog defends the couch on which he lies and, if another dog drives him away he fights, but we let the Germans oppress 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 benefices and scholarships. This dispute called forth interference from the king. Now that the feeling again ran high over the subject of Wyclifism and universals and also in the matter of papal allegiance, the racial suspicions were aroused to an unexampled 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, reproved 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 university a week later. It set aside the stipulation of the original charter and gave the Bohemian nation three votes and reduced 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 Bohemians. 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 ​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 together 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 publicly 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 university was established and “had risen above the foreigners in every science and faculty.” The original reason for the discrimination, 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 institution. The passage in regard to the tribute-money and the passage bearing on obedience to the king in the ​first 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 Æneas Sylvius, five thousand altogether. Many of them went to Leipzig, where that university took its start from this secession, 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 reduced to five hundred students, was eulogized by the council of Constance, 1416, 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 emigration of the Germans the institution has remained a Bohemian school, with a separate faculty for German students. With the secession, the city also lost its importance as a German 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 ​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 English 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, ​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 1417 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.
* ↑ Expositio Decalogi, ed. Flajshans, p. 27.
* ↑ Langsdorff, p. 57. For quotations from the parish registers, see Loserth, 295–301.
* ↑ Langsdorff, 2, 24.
* ↑ Monumenta, 2: 35 sqq.
* ↑ Palacky, Gesch., 34. Jenstein resigned in favor of his nephew, 1386.
* ↑ Monumenta, 2: 47 sqq.
* ↑ Documenta, 332.
* ↑ Monumenta, 1: 191–202. Flajshans ed., pp. xvi, 30, 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 references to Scripture or else find the Scripture texts inapposite.
* ↑ 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.
* ↑ Palacky, Gesch., 213. Note, quoting the Chron. Univ. Prag. Doc., 332–5, for the synodal acts.
* ↑ Monumenta, 2: 542.
* ↑ Doc., 154, 333, etc.
* ↑ For the numbers, see Palacky, Gesch., 221 sq.
* ↑ Wetzer-Welte, 10: 237.
* ↑ Doc., 184 sq.
* ↑ Mon., 1: 109–114.
* ↑ Doc., 153 sqq., 173–184.
* ↑ Documenta, 333.
* ↑ Doc., 348 sqq.
* ↑ See the letters, Doc., 345 sq., 363 sq.
* ↑ Æneas 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 Æneas says: “She was by far the superior of her husband.”
* ↑ Doc., 5 sq., 166 sq.
* ↑ Doc., 21. Mon., 1: 117. Ecce accusationis meæ ac gravaminis exordium principale.
* ↑ See Rashdall, 2: 212. Palacky, Gesch., 228 sqq., with his quotations from the Chron. Univ. Prag.
* ↑ 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 Höfler, 232.
* ↑ The papers are given, Doc., 347–363.
* ↑ Æneas Sylvius, chap. 35. Uno dic supra duo millia Pragam reliquere; nec diu post circiter tria millia secuti, apud Lipsicam Misnaæ civitatem . . . universale studium erexere. Procopius, a chronicler of the fifteenth century, follows the figures of Æneas. So Berger, p. 64, who includes in the number the dependents of the emigrant students, and Kügelgen, Gefangenschaftsbr., p. ix. Cochlæus, Hist. Huss, p. 114, speaks of 30,000 students at Prague. XXX millia studentum ante Huss. pestem. Two thousand, he says, emigrated to Leipzig and 3,000 to Erfurt. Höfler, 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.
* ↑ Höfler 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. Höfler, p. 250, quoting Scrpp. rer. Boh., says the university was a gold-mine for the city of Prague.
* ↑ 3 Doc., 724.