Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that, though Hus ultimately rejoiced in the change produced by the German secession, he had yet taken but a secondary and hesitating part in producing the change itself. On returning from Kuttenberg (Kutna Hora), after Wenceslaus’s first rejection of this proposal, Hus, disappointed and anxious, was seized with illness; and, while worn with suffering, he asked a friend whether, after all, the change was a just one. This appeal has been quoted by a modern writer as a proof of the duplicity of Hus; and the same antagonist has scornfully contrasted this anxious hesitation with the exulting approval of the change which Hus proclaimed at a later time.

To those who try to weigh both sides of a question, it may not seem so difficult to understand that Hus may have heartily desired, and exulted in, the victory of the reforming party and the freedom of the Bohemians from German domination, and yet may have hesitated in his own mind, especially in sickness, about the justice of the particular step which brought things to a crisis. The point which rather seems to distinguish him from other men in the matter was the candour with which he confessed those previous doubts at a place and in a time when such a confession was certain to be used against him.

But if the charge of duplicity against Hus is founded mainly on ignorance of human nature, the accusation of violence which was brought against the Bohemian reformers may have been partially due to a confusion between two contests which were taking place at the same time, and in which the same parties were to some extent involved. For, while the Germans and Bohemians were struggling for supremacy in the University of Prague, Wenceslaus was devoting his energies to the punishment of the Archbishop and clergy for their championship of Gregory XII. In this, as in every other case, Wenceslaus soon damaged his cause by his utter want of self-restraint. Mobs were let loose upon the clergy, many acts of violence were committed, and a general sense of insecurity prevailed. Zbynĕk, who had plenty of that bull-dog courage which one might expect from an ex-soldier, replied to the king’s violence by putting Prague under an interdict. How the king might have met this defiance one may guess from his previous conduct; but the Archbishop and his clergy were saved from the fate of Nepomuc by a sudden change of circumstances.

The Council of Pisa had agreed to depose the two existing claimants of the Papacy; and, after some discussion, they chose a new Pope, under the name of Alexander V. At first, of course, this Pope was not very favourably inclined to an Archbishop who had steadily opposed his election; but, when Zbynĕk accepted his authority, and showed his appreciation of him by sending him rich gifts, Alexander became alarmed at the spread of heresy in Bohemia, and granted a commission for inquiry into the writings of Wyclif, and a permission to Zbynĕk to remove those writings from the eyes of the faithful.

This commission gave a new opportunity to the enemies of Hus; and they presented a petition against him to the Archbishop, in which they charged him with sixteen acts of heresy and disorder. Some of these charges had already been put forward on former occasions, others alleged against him heresies which he repudiated; but there are four accusations at least that are specially worth noting, both for their own character, and on account of the answers made to them by Hus. The fourth charge was that in a conversation, which took place at the time of the drowning of John Nepomuc and the arrest of the Dean of Prague, Hus had spoken lightly of these acts, and had condemned the proposal to put Prague under an Interdict on account of them. Hus replied to this charge by quoting his actual words. “If,” said he, “he himself, or any other, had been killed or imprisoned, that was no reason why men should cease to give praise to God throughout the kingdom of Bohemia.” The fifth clause he answered by one of those distinctions which seemed to his enemies so dishonest. Hus was accused of saying that anti-Christ had fixed a foot in the Roman Church, which it was difficult to move. To this charge Hus answered that he had never said this of the Roman Church, because he considered that that Church consisted of all those who held the faith preached by St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome; but that he did maintain that anti-Christ had set his foot very firmly in the Roman Court (Curia). Thirdly, he objected to two of the charges against him on the ground that they implied his use of words which had no equivalent in the Bohemian language, and which, therefore, he could not have used in the Bethlehem Chapel. Lastly, in answer to the charge of having stirred up ill-will between Bohemian and German, he denied that he had done this, unless either German or Bohemian had taken unjust occasion from his words; and he reiterated his statement that he loved a good German better than a bad Bohemian.

It was evident that these articles were intended to identify still more closely the struggle of the Archbishop and clergy against secular intrusion and heretical doctrine with the struggles of the Germans for supremacy in Bohemia. But if, by so doing, Zbynĕk secured a stronger following in the outside world, and bound to his cause those Germans who had remained in Bohemia, he irritated against him still more strongly the feeling of the Bohemian nobles and of a large number of the citizens of Prague; and he even alienated from him many of the inferior clergy.

Another powerful influence, which was specially exerted at this time in favour of Hus, was that of the Queen Sophia. She had been greatly impressed by the preacher, and had taken him as her chief adviser, some say her confessor; and, though it may be true of Wenceslaus that he hated Zbynĕk more than he loved Hus, the reverse is true of his wife. Yet in spite of all this force of opposition, Zbynĕk showed very little sign of yielding. He consented, indeed, to postpone any final act until the Margrave of Moravia could be consulted. But, whether Jodok delayed beyond the time proposed, or whether the Archbishop simply grew tired of waiting, he resolved, on June 10, 1410, publicly to burn two hundred of Wyclif’s books; and accordingly they were burnt in great state, in the court of the archiepiscopal palace, the bells of the churches being tolled during the performance.

As if to mark the man against whom this proceeding was specially aimed, the Archbishop followed it up by commanding the closing of all private chapels, a command understood by everybody to be intended especially against the chapel in which Hus preached. Hus and his friends indignantly appealed to the Pope against these proceedings; and they did not fail to point out that many of the works which were burnt were not theological at all, but simply dealt with abstract philosophy. Indeed, the traditions of learning and culture, which the German scholars had hoped to secure to their side, in their first struggle against the Bohemian language, were now appealed to by the opposite party with much more force. Zbynĕk was ridiculed in satirical songs for having burnt books which he had never read; and the University of Bologna, when consulted by the Pope, denounced the burning of the books as an insult to the University of Oxford. Zbynĕk, indeed, would have fought to the last; but Pope Alexander was shaken by the opposition which these proceedings had called forth, and he checked the inquiry into Wyclif’s books, and continued to delay matters, till the decision was taken out of his hands by death.

Both parties made haste to approach the new Pope, John XXIII.; and he demanded that Hus should come to Rome. The danger of the way made a good excuse for refusal; and John, having received rich presents from Zbynĕk, consented to excommunicate Hus for contumacy. This, however, did not affect Wenceslaus’s attitude; for, irritated by Zbynĕk’s opposition, and impressed by the queen’s partiality for Hus, the king had become a zealous champion of the Reformers. He demanded that Zbynĕk should compensate those whose books he had burnt; and, on his refusal, he confiscated his property for the benefit of the owners of the books. At the same time the king and his friends wrote to the Pope to assure him that he had been ill-informed about the circumstances of the case. The Pope being thus politely set on one side, and riot and disorder continuing, there seemed an opportunity for some outsider to step in.

This opportunity was eagerly seized by Sigismund. He had never formally resigned that administrative power which Wenceslaus had granted to him in his time of emergency; and, though he had nominally supported Wenceslaus against Rupert in his claim to the Imperial crown, he was now intriguing to succeed the latter and to set aside his brother. Wenceslaus, on his part, was willing enough to listen to proposals for peace when they did not come from a clerical source; and Zbynĕk consented to accept the arbitration proposed. But, when the arbitrators demanded that the archbishop should write to the Pope to ask him to repeal the excommunication of Hus, Zbynĕk refused to submit to this decision; and he went to Presburg to appeal personally to Sigismund. There, however, he fell ill and died; and, in a few months, the controversy had assumed quite another form.