John Huss: his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years/Chapter 5

by David Schley Schaff

CHAPTER V

 

IN OPEN REVOLT AGAINST THE ARCHBISHOP

 

Si hic pro hæretico habendus est, haud facile quisquam omnium quos unquam sol vidit, vere Christianus haberi poterit.—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 interest 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, cardinal-archbishop of Milan, to the papal dignity. He assumed 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 disappointed. Alexander wore the tiara less than a year, dying May, 1410.

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. Threatened by a mob. Zbynek put the city under interdict and retired 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.^[1] The announcement was celebrated in the capital city by the ringing of the great bells on the city hall, the celebration 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, proceeded 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.^[2] The charges were the old charges dressed up, in part, in new clothes. They accused 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 attachment to him. Among the signers of this document was 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 Wyclifite 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 distilled 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 archbishop 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, 1410. Zbynek immediately proceeded to carry out its instructions by appointing the council. In June the drastic decree went forth from the archbishop’s palace ordering Wyclif’s books gathered up and burned, and forbidding all preaching except in the cathedral, collegiate, parochial and conventual churches. The document repeatedly called Wyclif heresiarch and condemned as containing heretical statements seventeen of his writings, including the Trialogus. Dialogus, the de corpore 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 marketplace, at the fire or bath—cibo, potu, oratione, locutione, emptione, venditione, via, foro, igne, balneo. 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.^[3] 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 jurisdiction 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 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 Trialogus.^[4]

On June 22, which was the Sabbath. Huss preached to an immense throng. He referred to the decree calling for the burning of Wyclif'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 believe that the Bohemians held doctrines of Wyclif which were contrary to the faith, but he thanked God that he himself had not found a single Bohemian who was a heretic. At this the congregation exclaimed: “They lie, they lie!” “Behold,” Huss went on, “I have appealed against the archbishop’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 lie and had lied, but God cannot lie. He then called upon the congregation to be steadfast and not intimidated by the decree of excommunication.^[5]

A few days later. June 25, 1410, Huss, who called himself Rector and Preacher of the Chapel of the Innocents, supported by seven other teachers and students, made an elaborate and vigorous protest against the decree.^[6] The names of Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Palecz are missing among those who signed the protest. The action of Zbynek is condemned, 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 contained errors, it was important for the masters and bachelors 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 condemned.

In protesting against the closing of chapels to preaching. Huss entered into the history of Bethlehem chapel, founded by Count John Mühlheim, and the terms of the gift, including the stipulation, confirmed by the pope and Wenzel, that the preaching should be in the Bohemian language. The prohibition 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 commanded 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 inherent 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 disregard and disobey Zbynek’s bull—parere et obedire non intendimus.^[7] 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, 1411, and a statement made in Constance, 1414. Huss declared that there were many chapels 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.^[8]

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, a Te Deum was sung. Æneas 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 cremation was the rector of St. Ægidius, Peter of Peklo, who affirmed he had descended to hell and seen Wyclif 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.^[9]

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 Abélard’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 century later, in St Paul’s Churchyard, London, of all the copies 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 A B C 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 18, 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.^[10]

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 corporate 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 excommunication 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 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.”^[11]

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.^[12] Simon of Tissnow declared that the only excuse that could be given for the burning of Wyclif’s books was Zbynek’s ignorance. “Therefore,” he said, let him be spared and prayed for.” Defending 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 principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world which had risen up against them.” For his good life and conversation Wyclif, so Procopius assured his hearers, deserved to be regarded as “the evangelical 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 defiance of God and justice, but a damage to the whole kingdom of Bohemia by threatening the freedom of the university.

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 himself 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 recriminations, 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 commanded that his Gospel should be preached in the whole world. Even if Wyclif’s writings were found to contain heresies, 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 reading of heretical books in order that heresies might be answered and confidence in the Scriptures established. Chrysostom 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 religious tone it assumes as well as its matter. It shows a warm devotion to the English master and announces Huss’s readiness to sufier 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 better opinions. This attitude of mind he sets forth in a noble statement largely drawn from Wyclif and quoted in another part of this book. I’ve been there.

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 imprisoned. 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 published in the English Historical Review. Wyche’s communication 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 translate 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—benedicta 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 nothing but the Holy Scriptures, especially the Gospel and the Epistles, and wherever the Gospel was preached, in city, 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 England,” 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 religious awakening in which God in an unusual manner was revealing His truth to the people of Prague and enducing them with special power to endure under persecution. The party he represented was in some quarters called “the evangelical party.”^[13]

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 proceedings 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 question 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 already in opposition to the dogma of the supremacy of the church as against the supremacy of the Scriptures. Although 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 archbishop’s mandate, put Huss’s appeal into the hands of four cardinals, who had Wyclif’s books examined by theological 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.^[14]

In the meantime, in personal communications addressed to 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 preaching. 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 suspicion 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 impede the flow of salvation for the people and herself. She begged the pope for freedom of preaching—libertatio prædicationis evangelicæ. 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 Bethlehem 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—verbum Domini privari.

To these intercessions and others like them the magistrates 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 celebrated 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 renewed 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.^[15] They both referred to him as their beloved and devoted chaplain. 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 judgment 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 himself gave in his letters and in his Treatise on the Church, and also at Constance as a reason for not answering the curia’s citation in person. In a letter to the Bohemian council, December, 1411, 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 foolishly 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, 1412, he referred to these traps and he justified himself by referring to the imprisonment and spoliation 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.^[16]

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.^[17]

The next step was inevitable. For his contumacy, Cardinal Colonna in February, 1411, 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 complaint that he was excommunicated without a hearing and without being guilty of heresy.^[18]

For a reason unknown to us the case was taken out of Colonna’s hands and transferred again to a commission of 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 suffering 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.^[19] 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 treasures hid in its vaults and shrines and bade his civil servants remove them to Karlstein.

The position which the court and municipal authorities had 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 inclined to discern Wyclif’s influence.

A serious effort was now made by the contending parties to heal the dispute and took the form of a pact signed by the archbishop and the university, July 3, 1411, 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.^[20] The university had petitioned Zbynek to remove the decree of excommunication from Huss, and Palecz set forth considerations 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 document 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 Olmütz, and Duke Rudolph of Saxony, Lacek of Krawar, and other leading noblemen, 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 excommunication for all persons upon whom it had been laid by the curia. The archbishop was also to lift 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.

Huss, whose case was responsible for all the trouble in Prague, wrote, September 1, 1411, to John XXIII a sort of confession of faith and on the same day addressed the college 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 had advocated the remanence of the bread and wine after 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 university. 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 stipulations, the archbishop would be giving up rights which had been won by the church through long and severe conflicts. As Thomas à Becket soon forgot his promise of assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon and repented of his act on returning 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 investiture 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.^[21] 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 Romans and heir of the empire, to break down the opposition of his brother Wenzel.^[22]- We would be offered a puzzling 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 ambitious and ready to weaken his brother’s hold upon his subjects by every available means.

In turning to Sigismund, Zbynek neglected not the courtesy 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 possessions. 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, limits had been placed to the full and unhindered administration of his office. The civil authorities had even neglected to restrain mob violence, which prevented his execution of acts of discipline. 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, 1411, the archbishop was at Leitomysl, already well on his way to Hungary to meet Sigismund. Death struck him on the journey three weeks afterward, at Pressburg. It is probable that, had Zbynek continued to live, 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 receding from the promise he made in the pact of July 3, 1411, and which, on reflection, he must have been convinced he had entered into in haste. Moreover, that Huss and his followers 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 allegiance, 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.

 

1. Doc., 368–373, give Wenzel’s profession of loyalty to the Pisan council and Zbynek’s to Alexander V. See Palacky. Gesch., 246, note.
2. Doc., 164–169.
3. Alexander and Zbynek’s bulls. Doc., 374–386. Huss’s description of this beginning of processes against him. Doc., 188 sqq. Mon., 1: 109, 293.
4. Palacky. Gesch., 251.
5. Doc., 405.
6. Doc., 386–397. Mon., 1:111–116.
7. Doc., p. 391.
8. Doc., pp. 24, 189. The charge was made that Zbynek’s bull had been purchased at Rome at a great price.
9. 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.
10. Doc., 397–399.
11. Palacky. Gesch., 253. Doc., 415.
12. Loserth, Appendix, 308–336, gives the addresses of Simon of Tissnew 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. 1: 131–135.
13. Doc., 12–14, 394. Mon., 1: 306, 331.
14. Doc., 190, 406. Mon., 1: 109.
15. Doc., 422–426.
16. Doc., 24, 32, 190, 466. Mon., 1: 304, 324, etc.
17. Chron. Univ. Prag., as quoted by Palacky, Gesch., p. 264. Loserth, 170.
18. Doc., 191, 202.
19. Doc., 429 sqq.
20. Doc., 434–443.
21. Doc., 441 sq. Mon., 1: 111 sq.
22. 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, received 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. Palacky, Gesch., 260 sqq.