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

by C. Edmund Maurice

The other two Utraquist delegates at the Council of Basel were entirely representative of the Taborite party. One was Nicholaus of Pilgram (Pelhr̆imov), the “Bishop,” as he was called, of the Taborites; and the other was Procop the Great, the successor of Z̆iz̆ka on the battlefield. Procop, though less cruel than Z̆iz̆ka, had a more exclusive faith in physical force; and he was less interested in questions of statesmanship, or details of doctrine; but, as the most successful general in the religious wars, he could not be passed over in the election of representatives.

On January 4, 1433, the Bohemian delegates entered Basel, accompanied by a troop of three hundred horsemen. A great crowd came out to meet them; and the windows were full of people of all ages and both sexes, who gazed with astonishment on the strange dresses of their visitors; while those who were determined to assist their eyes by their imagination, discovered that these terrible heretics had repulsive faces and cruel eyes. To most of the spectators the chief object of interest was the famous general, Procop; and all strained their eyes to get a glimpse of the man whose very name had become so great a terror to the armies of the Empire.

Foremost among those who hastened to welcome the strangers was Cardinal Julian Cesarini; and it must be owned that few men ever had a more difficult part to play, or played it with more consummate tact and success. It required some courage to claim the position of impartial arbitrator, where one of the parties to the cause was a body of men against whom he had recently proclaimed a destructive crusade; nor could it be altogether gratifying to him to face in discussion men who had won their right to a hearing by putting him to an ignominious flight. Added to these considerations, was the further difficulty that, while he heartily desired the success of the Council, he took part in its proceedings as the representative of a Pope who had denounced it, and who wished to dissolve it. But the Cardinal was unusually well supplied with that graceful tact and ready wit which so distinguishes his countrymen. He resigned the formal presidency of the Council in deference to the Pope’s opposition; yet he not only remained in the city, but even managed by timely interventions to gain as much control over the proceedings of the Council as if he were still its official chief. With regard to the Bohemian delegates, he evidently set before himself, from the first, two objects, both of which he, in some measure, accomplished. He was determined that the Council should pass off peaceably, and that the Bohemians should have no cause to complain that they had failed to obtain a fair hearing; but he was equally resolved that, if concessions should be made to the heretics, those concessions should be, indirectly, a means of weakening the Utraquist cause. With the keen eye of a diplomatist, he at once noted the points of division between his opponents, and the best means of making use of them. Friendly as was his bearing towards all the representatives of the Bohemians, the one whom he singled out for peculiar attention and flattery was Procop; and the determination which he showed to bring him and his friends to the front betrays a purpose which it is not difficult to understand.

On January 10, 1433, the Council gathered in the Dominican cloister at Basel, to receive their new guests. To most of the orthodox Councillors it must have seemed a most humiliating moment when those, whom they had hoped to exterminate as heretics, were admitted to argue on equal terms, in defence of the orthodoxy of their doctrines. But Cesarini was equal to the occasion; he welcomed the Bohemians as at last returning to the bosom of their mother Church; and, while promising them a fair hearing, managed to emphasise the principle that the authority of Councils and of Fathers of the Church must be accepted as guides in the settlement of points of faith.

Rokycana answered by admitting that the Councils and Fathers would have their due weight with his friends; but he maintained, at the same time, that the Council of Constance had condemned their doctrines without a hearing. On their part, they were prepared to confirm all their doctrines by reference to the Gospels and the other sacred writings; they came to prove their innocence in the presence of the whole Church; and they asked that they should have a fair hearing before laymen as well as clergymen. The Utraquists were then asked what points they wished to discuss in which they differed from the practice of the Romish Church. They answered by enumerating the Four Prague Articles.

Cesarini now saw his opportunity, and he at once asked the Utraquist representatives if there were not other doctrines which had been specially put forth by them; for instance, he had heard it said that they believed the Mendicant Orders to have been founded by the devil. Procop immediately sprang up, and exclaimed that that was perfectly true; for, since these Orders were not founded by Moses, the Patriarchs, or the Prophets, nor yet by Christ, they must have been founded by the devil. This extraordinary argument was naturally received with laughter in the Council; but Cesarini insisted on treating it as serious, and met it by an elaborate refutation.

On the 16th of January, Rokycana opened his speech in defence of the granting of the Cup to the laity. While grounding his argument largely on the custom of the primitive Church, he yet fortified it by reference to decisions of Councils; and he asked whether any Council, before that of Constance, had ever condemned the practice as heretical.

His speech produced a deep impression, even on his opponents; but the effect was somewhat weakened when, a few days later, Nicholaus, the Bishop of Pilgram (Pelhr̆imov), opened the discussion on the second Prague Article, namely, the punishment by the Church of offences against morality. He quickly passed into attacks on the priesthood for the neglect of their duties, and became so fierce that he caused a disturbance in the Assembly; so that Rokycana afterwards rebuked his colleague for his intemperate language.

A less prominent delegate, Oldr̆ich of Znojem, was entrusted with the defence of the doctrine of the free preaching of the Word; and the Fourth Article, on the civil dominion of the clergy, was treated by Peter Payne. Payne had always impressed his opponents with the subtlety of his arguments; but he must somewhat have embarrassed his colleagues by a defence of the doctrines of Wyclif; and, particularly by that claim of the English Reformer that the temporal lords might, in some circumstances, take away the property of the clergy. It was, however, among his own countrymen that Payne’s appearance excited the most irritation; and several of them sprang up to attack him, not only as a condemned heretic, but as a traitor to King Henry VI. The hubbub at last became so great that he was forced to end his argument by handing in a written paper. Then followed the champions of orthodoxy; and very bitter was the feeling provoked by the attacks of John of Ragusa upon the Bohemian nation, as a whole. Cesarini exerted himself to restore order; but he again insisted that the Bohemians should express their opinions, not only on the Four Articles of Prague, but on the Twenty-four Articles of the Taborites, which involved a modified denial of Transubstantiation, and the rejection of many doctrines and rites accepted by the main body of the Utraquists.

The division of opinion, called out by this demand of the Cardinal, tended to weaken the order and decorum of the proceedings, and yet further increased the disturbance; and the orthodox critics of the debates began to demand how it was that the Council had failed as yet to convert the heretics, and to suggest that it would be better to resort to the former method of the sword. The delegates themselves gradually grew tired of the discussion, and desired to return to Bohemia. Even those Councillors who were most anxious for the success of the Council felt that the bitterness, which had arisen, prevented the hope of any useful conclusion in Basel; so, by way of compromise, it was at last decided that Rokycana and his colleagues should return to Prague; but that delegates from the Council should be sent to continue the conference in that city. Thus ended the first stage of the discussion; and, while Rokycana returned to influence affairs in the capital, Procop hastened back to renew the often-attempted siege of Pilsen.