A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II

by Henry Charles Lea

Cardinal Giuliano went on his double mission and preached the fifth crusade against the Hussites. The Bohemian forays had stimulated Germany to an earnest effort to crush the troublesome rebels, and he found himself at the head of an army variously estimated at from eighty thousand to one hundred and thirty thousand men. The Bohemians applied to the Emperor Sigismund for a safe-conduct to Basle, offering to submit the questions at issue to debate on the basis of Scripture. This was refused, and they were told that they must agree to stand to the decisions of the council without limitation. They preferred the arbitrament of arms, and issued a protest to the Christian world in which, with coarse good sense, they defined their position, attacked the temporal power of the papacy, and ridiculed the indulgences issued for their subjugation. This document was received by the council on August 10, very nearly on the day on which, at Taas, the crusaders fled without striking a blow, on hearing the battle-hymn of the dreaded Hussite troops. As a military leader Cardinal Giuliano was evidently a failure, and it only remained for him to try peaceful measures. The German princes, alarmed and exhausted, showed evident signs of determination to come to terms with their unconquerable neighbors. It was a hard necessity, but there was no alternative, and on October 15 the council resolved to invite the Bohemians to a conference and to give them a safe-conduct, although the letters were not forwarded until November 26.[574]

Meanwhile the inevitable quarrels between pope and council had broken out with bitterness. But three weeks after the invitation to the Bohemians had been despatched, on December 18, Eugenius took the extreme step of dissolving the council and calling another to be held in eighteen months at Bologna, where he would preside in person. At this action Germany was aghast. Sigismund remonstrated energetically, and the council, assured of his support, refused to obey. Cardinal Giuliano was won over and made himself its mouthpiece. He had had an opportunity of observing the condition of men’s minds north of the Alps, and he knew to what a storm the bark of St. Peter would be exposed. It may safely be said that since the papacy became dominant over the Church few popes have received from a subordinate so vigorous a reproof as that in which Giuliano gave his reasons for disobedience, and it contains so vivid a picture of the times that a brief abstract of it cannot well be spared. Clerical wickedness, he says, in Germany is such that the laity are irritated to the last degree against the Church, wherefore it is greatly to be feared that if there is no reformation they will execute their public threats of rising, like the Hussites, against the clergy. This turpitude has given great audacity to the Bohemians and lends color to their heresy, and if the clergy cannot be reformed the suppression of this heresy would lead only to the breaking-out of another. The Bohemians have been invited to the council; they have replied and are expected to come. If the council is dissolved, what will the heretics say? Will not the Church confess herself defeated when she dares not await those whom she has invited? Will not the hand of God be seen in it? A host of warriors has fled before them, and now the Church universal flies! Behold, they cannot be overcome either by arms or arguments! Alas for the wretched clergy wherever they be! Will they not be deemed incorrigible and determined to live in their filth? So many councils have been held in our days from which no reformation has come! From this one the nations have expected some fruit. If it be thus dissolved, we shall be said to laugh at God and man, and when there is no hope of our correction the laity will justly assail us, like the Hussites. Already there are reports of it, already they begin to spit forth the venom which is to destroy us. They will think to offer a welcome sacrifice to God when they slay or despoil us, who will then be odious both to God and man, and whereas now there is little respect for us, there will then be none. The council was some restraint upon them, but when they lose all hope they will persecute us publicly, and the whole blame will be thrown upon the Roman curia, which breaks up the assembly convened to effect reform. Latterly the city of Magdeburg has expelled her archbishop and clergy; the citizens march with wagons like the Bohemians, and are said to have sent for a Hussite captain, and they have, moreover, a league with many other communities of those parts. The people of Passau have driven out their bishop and are besieging one of his castles. Both cities are near to Bohemia, and if, as is to be feared, they unite they will have a following of many other towns. At Bamberg there is fierce discord between the citizens on the one side and the bishop and chapter on the other, which is especially dangerous by reason of the neighborhood of the heretics. If the council is dissolved these quarrels will increase, and many other communities will be drawn in.[575]

Making due allowance for inevitable rhetorical exaggeration this picture is a true one. Hussite ideas were rapidly spreading through Germany, and finding a congenial soil in the aversion born of incurable clerical corruption. About this time Felix Hemmerlin complains of the countless souls seduced to heresy by the emissaries who, every year, come from Bohemia to Berne and Soleure. Numerous executions of heretics are recorded at this period in Flanders, where persecution had been for centuries almost unknown, and we may be sure that Hussite missionaries were busily carrying on an equally successful propaganda elsewhere. If the hopes which were built on the council were destroyed, the Church might well expect a general revolt. Sustained by the united support of Cismontane Christendom, the council resolutely went its way. Sigismund urged it to stand firm, and in November, 1432, he issued an imperial declaration that he would sustain it against all assailants. Eugenius held out until February, 1433, when he assented to its continuance, but in July he again dissolved it, and in September repeated the command. Then the council commenced active proceedings to arraign and try him, and in December he revoked these bulls. In the subsequent quarrel the council decreed his suspension in January, 1439, and his deposition in June, while the election of Amedeo of Savoy as Felix V. was confirmed in November of the same year.[576]

Into the details of the interminable negotiations which followed between the council and the Hussites it is not worth while to enter. The latter carried their point, and, in a conference held at Eger, May 18, 1439, it was agreed that the questions should be debated on the basis of the Scriptures and the writings of the early fathers. The four articles which were the common ground of Calixtins and Taborites were put forward as their demands, and to these they steadily adhered through all the dreary discussions in Basle, Prague, Brünn, Stuhlweissenberg, to the final conference of Iglau in July, 1436. The discussions were ofttimes hot and angry, and the good fathers of Basle were sometimes scandalized at the freedom of speech of the Bohemian delegates. When John of Ragusa alluded to the Hussites as heretics, John Rokyzana, one of the Calixtin delegates, indignantly denied it, and demanded that if any one accused them of heresy he should offer the talio and prove it. Procopius, who represented the Taborites, joined in and declared that he would not have come to Basle had he known that he would be thus insulted. Time and skill were required to pacify the Bohemians, and John of Ragusa and the Archbishop of Lyons were forced to apologize formally. On another occasion the Inquisitor Henry of Coblentz, a Dominican doctor, complained that Ulric of Znaim, a deputy of the Orphans, had said that monks were introduced by the devil. Ulric denied it, and Procopius intervened, saying that he had remarked to the legate that if the bishops came from the apostles, and priests from the seventy-two disciples, the others could have had no other source but the devil. This sally raised a general laugh, which was increased when Rokyzana called to the inquisitor, “Doctor, make Dom Procopius provincial of your order.” These trifles have their significance when compared with the shouts of “Burn him! Burn him!” which assailed Huss at Constance. In fact the Hussites were urged to incorporate themselves with the council, but they were too shrewd to fall into the snare.[577]

By unbending firmness the Bohemians carried their point, and secured the recognition of the four articles, which became celebrated in history as the Compactata—the Magna Charta of the Bohemian Church until swept away by the counter-Reformation. This was agreed to in Prague, November 26, 1433, and confirmed by mutual clasp of hands between the legates of the council and the deputies of the three Bohemian sects, but matters were by no means settled. The four articles were brief and simple declarations which admitted of unlimited diversity of construction. The dialecticians of the council had no difficulty in explaining them away, until they practically amounted to nothing; the Hussites, on the other side, with equal facility, expanded them to cover all that they could possibly wish to claim. Hardly was the handclasping over when it was found that the Bohemians asserted that the permission of communion in both elements meant that they were to continue to administer it to infants, and to force it proscriptively on every one—positions to which the council could by no means assent. This will serve as an illustration of the innumerable questions which kept the negotiators busy during yet thirty dreary months. So far, indeed, was the matter as yet from being settled, that, in April, 1434, the council levied a half-tithe on Christendom for a crusade against the Hussites, which enabled it to stimulate with liberal payments the zeal of the Bohemian Catholic nobles.[578]

It is not likely that any results would have been reached but for events which at first seemed to threaten the continuance of the negotiations. The Taborites could only have consented to treat on the basis, so inadequate to them, of the four articles, in the confidence that the practical application would cover a vastly wider sphere. After the preliminary agreement of November 26, the construction assumed by the legates of the council made them draw back. The affair was reaching a conclusion, and it was necessary to have a definite understanding of that to which they were binding themselves. After the departure of the legates from Prague, in January, 1434, hot discussions arose between them and the Calixtins as to the continuance of the negotiations. There were political as well as religious differences between them. The Taborites were mostly peasants and poor folk; they wanted no nobles or gentlemen in their ranks, and seem to have had republican tendencies, as they desired to add to the four articles two others, providing for the independence of Bohemia and for the retention of all confiscated property. Both parties became exasperated, and flew to arms for a contest decisive as to their respective mastery. The Taborites had for some time been besieging Pilsen, a city which held out for Sigismund. Learning that their friends in the Neustadt of Prague had been slaughtered without distinction of age or sex, to the number, it is said, of twenty-two thousand, they raised the siege, May 9, to take vengeance on the city, but after a demonstration before it, they withdrew towards Moravia. Meanwhile the Calixtins had formed an alliance with the Catholic barons, who had been liberally subsidized by the council, and followed them with a formidable force. The shock came at Lipan, on Sunday, May 30. All day and night the battle raged, and until the third hour of Monday morning. When it was over, Procopius, Lupus, and thirteen thousand of the bravest Taborites lay dead upon the field, and the murderous nature of the strife is seen in the fact that but seven hundred prisoners were taken, though we may question the claim of the victors that the battle cost them but two hundred men, and we may hope that there is exaggeration in the boast that they burned several thousand of those whom they subsequently captured. The power of the Taborites was utterly broken. It is true that they continued to hold Mount Tabor until finally crushed by George Podiebrad, in 1452; and that in the December following the battle their unconquerable spirit was again contemplating an appeal to arms, but after Lipan they were only a troublesome element of insubordination, and not a factor in the political situation. The congratulatory letters sent by some of the victors to Sigismund, and the effusive joy with which he communicated the news to the council, show that the victory was one for the Catholics.[579]

Even after the virtual elimination of the Taborites there were ample subjects of dispute, and at one time the prospect seemed so unpromising that preliminary arrangements were set on foot, in August, 1434, for organizing a new crusade on the proceeds of the half-tithe levied shortly before. One source of endless trouble sprang from the personal ambition of Rokyzana. Learned, able, a hardy disputant, and a skilled man of affairs, he had determined to be Archbishop of Prague, and this object he pursued with unalterable constancy. He bore a leading part in the negotiations, and made himself as conspicuous as possible, shifting his ground with dexterity, interposing objections and smoothing them as the interest of the moment might dictate. At first he endeavored to have a clause inserted that the people and the clergy should be empowered to elect an archbishop, who should be acknowledged and confirmed by the emperor and the pope. This being rejected, he procured of Sigismund a secret agreement that the election should be held, and that the emperor would do all in his power to secure the confirmation by the pope, without cost for pallium, confirmation, or notarial fees. Although this, when discovered, was protested against by the legates of the council and refused by the council itself, he proceeded, in 1435, to obtain an election by the national assembly of Bohemia, to the great disgust of the orthodox, who reasonably dreaded this example of a return of the primitive methods of selecting prelates. Again Sigismund secretly accepted this, while the legates declared it to be invalid, and that, as an infraction of the Compactata, it must be annulled. On this question the whole negotiation was nearly wrecked, and it was only settled by Sigismund and his son-in-law and heir, Albert of Austria, promising to issue letters recognizing Rokyzana as archbishop, and to compel obedience to him as such. After this it required but a fortnight more of quarrelling to bring the matter to a termination, and signatures to the Compactata were duly exchanged July 5, 1436, amid general rejoicings. Sigismund, restored to the throne of his fathers, made a show of complying with his promise, by writing to the council a letter asking Rokyzana’s confirmation, at the same time explaining to the legates that he considered the council ought to refuse, but that he did not wish to break with his new subjects too suddenly. Of course the confirmation never came, and although Rokyzana called God to witness that he did not wish the archbishopric, the policy of his long life was devoted to obtaining it. With all convenient speed Sigismund forgot the pledge to enforce obedience to him. His position became so dangerous that he secretly fled from Prague, June 16, 1437, and remained in exile until after the deaths of Sigismund and Albert, when he returned in 1440, and speedily became the most powerful man in Bohemia. This position he retained until his death, in 1471, administering the archbishopric, constantly seeking confirmation at the hands of successive popes, and subordinating the policy of the kingdom, internal and external, so far as he dared, to that object—not the least anomalous feature of the anomalous Calixtin Church.[580]

A peace in which all parties distrusted each other and placed radically different interpretations on its conditions was not likely to heal dissensions so profound. The very day after the solemn ratification of the Compactata an ominous disturbance showed how superficial was the reconciliation. In the presence of an immense crowd, at the high altar of the church of Iglau, where the final conferences were held, the Bishop of Coutances, chief of the legation of the council, celebrated mass and returned thanks to God. After this the letters of agreement were read in Bohemian, and Rokyzana commented upon them in the same language, much to the discomfort of the legates. He had been celebrating mass at a side altar, and when the reading was finished he called out, “If any one wishes communion in both elements let him come to this altar and it will be given to him.” The legates rushed over to him and twice forbade him, but he quietly disregarded them and administered the sacrament to eight or ten persons. The incident excited intense feeling on both sides. The Bohemians demanded that a church be assigned to them in Iglau where during their stay they could receive the sacrament in both kinds; the legates refused the request, although urged by the emperor, and finally, after threats of departure, the Bohemians were forced to content themselves with celebrating, as they had previously done, in private houses.[581]

When Sigismund was fairly seated on the throne, there followed an endless series of bickerings, as the rites and ceremonies and usages of the Roman Church were restored, supplanting the simpler worship which had prevailed for twenty years. Consecrations, confirmations, images, relics, holy water, benedictions, were one by one introduced—even the hated religious orders were surreptitiously smuggled in. The canonical hours and chants were renewed in the churches, and every effort was made to accustom the people to a resurrection of the old order of things. On Corpus Christi day, May 30, 1437, a gorgeous procession swept through the streets of Prague bearing the host on high; the legate, the Archbishop of Kalocsa, and the Bishop of Segnia headed it, and were dutifully followed by the emperor and empress, the nobles and a mass of citizens. As a mute protest, Rokyzana met the splendid array, attended only by three priests, and bearing both host and cup. To the stern puritans who had so long struggled against the Scarlet Woman the imposing ceremony must have seemed a bitter mockery, for the Empress Barbara, who occupied a conspicuous position in the ranks, was a woman notorious for shameless licentiousness, and, moreover, was an avowed atheist, who disbelieved in the immortality of the soul.[582]

Within three weeks of this celebration, Rokyzana was a fugitive, seeking the protection of George Podiebrad at Hradecz, not without reason, if Æneas Sylvius is correct in saying that Sigismund was about to arrest him and punish him condignly. Then the process of reaction went on apace. Had Sigismund lived, he might have overcome all resistance, and reduced the land to obedience to Rome. His power was constantly growing. In March the surrender of the Taborite stronghold of Konigingrätz filled the Hussites with consternation. Not long after siege was laid to Zion, the fastness of John Rohacz, a powerful baron who had refused submission. He was finally captured in it, brought to Prague, and hanged in the presence of the emperor with sixty of his followers and a priest. Tradition relates that on that very day Sigismund was attacked with an ulcer which grew constantly worse and ended his days in December. Almost simultaneous with this was the decision by the Council of Basle on the question of communion in both elements, in which it skilfully evaded the inconsistency of the prohibition of the cup, and pronounced it to be the law of the Church, not to be modified without authority. As Albert of Austria, the son-in-law and successor of Sigismund, was a zealous Catholic prince, the council was emboldened in January, 1438, to issue an edict reciting and ordering the strict enforcement of the implacable bull of February 22, 1418, by Martin V., directed against the errors of Wickliff, Huss, and Jerome. This evidence of what they were to expect as the outcome of the Compactata gave the Taborites and the disaffected parties in Bohemia new energy. After a fruitless appeal to the council an alliance was made with Poland, whose boy-king, Casimir, was elected as a competitor. Thus strengthened they offered effective resistance to Albert, who up to his sudden death, October 27, 1439, was unable to occupy the whole of his kingdom. Four months later, Ladislas, his posthumous son, was born, and a long minority, with its accompanying turbulence, enabled the Calixtins again to get the upper hand, over both the Taborites and the Catholics. In 1441 a council held at Kuttenberg organized the national Church on a Calixtin basis. Several conferences were held with the Taborites, and the points at issue were referred to the national diet held in January, 1444. Its emphatic decision in favor of the Calixtin doctrine broke up the Taborite organization. The cities still held by them surrendered one by one, and the members were scattered, for the most part joining the Calixtins. As a separate sect they may be said to have disappeared when, in 1452, George Podiebrad captured Mount Tabor and dispersed their remains.[583]