Capistrano’s busy mischief-making was bearing its fruits. The breach between Rome and Bohemia was constantly widening, and if the zeal of the German princes could be brought to correspond to the ardor of the missionary of strife, the horrors of the old Hussite wars might be hopefully looked for again. During the remainder of the year 1452 we find him travelling through Germany, probably with this charitable object, though at Leipsic he paused long enough for his eloquence to win for his rigid Order sixty professors and students.[594] His efforts to raise a crusade against Bohemia, however, were frustrated by the capture of Constantinople in May, 1453. The immense impression which this produced throughout Christendom, the universal alarm at the progress of the Turk, and the necessity of defending Europe against his approach, speedily threw into the shade all minor questions. A new crusade was imperatively wanted, but it could not be wasted upon Bohemia and the Utraquists.
During the summer of 1453, as we have seen, Capistrano was tranquilly employing his enforced leisure in burning Jews at Breslau. Thence he went to Poland, where we find him at Cracow throwing into prison a physician, Master Paul, whom he suspected of being an emissary of Rokyzana. He applied again to Podiebrad for a safe-conduct to Prague, which was curtly refused on the ground that when it had been previously offered it had not been accepted, and that Ladislas did not want the peace of his kingdom disturbed. He left Cracow May 15, 1454, for Breslau and Olmütz, whence he still hoped to accomplish something within the charmed circle of Bohemia, into which he had not been allowed to penetrate. Rokyzana at this time was inspired with hopes that the terror of the Turk and the need for Christian unity would enable him to realize his dream of the archbishopric. He made the large concessions alluded to above on many of the points of dissidence, and used every effort with the emperor to procure through him the papal confirmation. A letter from Ladislas, of June 13, to the Bishop of Olmütz, asking him to restrain Capistrano from using such violent terms in denouncing Bohemians, as he was doing more harm than good, was evidently a move in the same game. Yet even the paramount interests of Christendom could not win for Rokyzana the coveted confirmation, although those interests soon diverted Capistrano’s fiery energies from the heretic to the infidel.[595]
A brief and clear-cut letter of Æneas Sylvius to Capistrano, dated July 26, 1454, tells him to give up the dream of getting to Prague and go to Frankfort, where he will be useful. An assembly of princes had been held in Ratisbon, where a crusade had been agreed upon, and Philip of Burgundy had consented to lead it. Final arrangements were to be made in Frankfort in October, and there Æneas Sylvius wanted the aid of Capistrano’s tireless ardor. Their correspondence at this juncture shows the terror which existed lest Europe should be overrun; the confusion and uncertainty which prevailed, and the selfish differences which threatened to neutralize effort. At Frankfort their worst fears were realized. The zeal of the princes had cooled, and they declared the purpose of the pope and emperor was to steal their money and not to fight. They demanded that the business should be conducted by a general council which should at the same time repress the Holy See—in fact, both parties were selfishly endeavoring to turn the agony of Europe to account; the pope to raise money, and the princes to recover their independence. All that Æneas and Capistrano could obtain was a promise that at the Pentecost of 1455 they would meet the emperor and determine what could be done. In February and March, 1455, they began to assemble at Neuburg, near Vienna, where Podiebrad again used every effort to procure Rokyzana’s confirmation. As for the crusade, the energies of Christendom seemed paralyzed by the petty jealousies and ambitions of its rulers. At last, under the unflagging eloquence of Æneas and Capistrano, things appeared to be taking shape, when the news was received of the death of Nicholas V. on March 22. Everything fell to pieces, and the princes departed, postponing action until the next year. It was a forcible example of the utility of the papacy, which supplied a common head to the discordant forces of the time.[596]
Capistrano’s impetuous energies were now fairly enlisted in the strife with the Turk, and the Hussites had a respite. In fact, the situation was too alarming to permit of their persecution, and it is a remarkable instance of the unbending rigidity of Rome, that even in this perilous juncture the overtures and concessions of Podiebrad and Rokyzana availed them nothing.
Calixtus III. was elected April 8, with a speed which showed how dangerous a papal interregnum was considered. He at once sent legates to preach the crusade throughout Europe, and commenced to build war-ships on the Tiber. The Hungarians, who were justly excited at the impending invasion of Mahomet II. begged Capistrano to come to them and use his eloquence. Calixtus gave him permission, confirmed all the powers conferred on him by Nicholas, and he undertook the task which was to complete his life’s work. Yet even these new duties, which wrought his fiery soul to a higher tension than ever, did not wholly distract his attention from the hated Hussites. The juncture seemed favorable for a reconciliation, which every motive of policy dictated. Besides, Æneas Sylvius had just been promoted to the cardinalate, and that crafty diplomat had succeeded in making the Bohemians look upon him as their friend. They not only hoped to obtain the confirmation of the Compactata, but the cardinal’s hat for Rokyzana. Hearing of this, Capistrano wrote, March 24, 1456, from Buda to Calixtus dissuading him in the most vigorous terms. The Hussites are the worst of mankind, fearing neither God nor man; the heart can scarce conceive the errors which they believe, or the abominations which they practise in secret. The Compactata are their sole bulwark; if these are confirmed, the Hussites, who abound secretly, not only in Bohemia but in Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and the neighboring regions, will rise and declare themselves. The warning was sufficient and the overtures were rejected.[597]
Suddenly the news came that the dreaded Mahomet II. was advancing, and had laid siege to Belgrade. Ladislas, who was King of Hungary as well as of Bohemia, was at Buda-Pesth, and with his uncle, the Count of Cillei, on pretext of a hunting-excursion, basely fled to Austria. John Hunyady, Count of Transylvania, who had been regent of the kingdom, organized the Hungarian forces, with some German crusaders who had come to his assistance, while Capistrano marched with him as papal commander of the crusade. Glorious in the annals of Hungary is the victory of Belgrade. “With a flotilla of boats on the Danube, Hunyady, on July 14, 1456, cut his way into the town through the beleaguering forces. Furious were the attack and the defence until the 22d, when a fierce assault by the Turks was repulsed, and the besieged followed the retreating enemy, burned one of their camps, spiking some of their cannon and carrying the rest back into the town, where they did good service during the rest of that memorable day. Mahomet gathered together his forces for a last desperate attempt, which was a failure, and during the night he fled, leaving twenty-four thousand men upon the field, and three hundred cannon. His army was utterly dispersed, and this disaster, aided by the heroic resistance of Scanderbeg in Albania, arrested the Turkish invasion and gave Europe a breathing-spell. It cost, however, the lives of the two heroes to whom it was due. The stench of the dead bodies sickened the army of the victors, and John Hunyady fell a victim, August 11, to the epidemic, which prevented the following up of the advantage. Capistrano had thrown himself into the work with all his self-forgetful enthusiasm. His eloquence had wrought the Christians up to the highest pitch of religious exaltation; the crusaders would obey no one but him, and his labors were incessant. He passed days without time for food, and nights without rest; for seventeen days, it is said, before the victory, he slept but seven hours in all. He was in his seventy-first year, with a frame weakened by habitual austerities, and when the strain was past exhausted nature paid the penalty. A slow fever set in, August 6, under which he wasted away, and died, October 23. He was perhaps the most perfect type which the age produced of the ideal son of the Church; a purely artificial creation, in which the weakness of humanity disappeared with some of its virtues, and the whole nature, with its rare powers, was concentrated in unselfish devotion to a mistaken purpose. Such men are the tools of the worldly and unscrupulous who know how to use them, and for forty years Capistrano had been thus employed to bring misery on his fellow-beings, unconscious of the evil which he wrought. Yet, as Æneas Sylvius shrewdly points out, there was one weak spot left in his nature. In the letters in which he and Hunyady described the victory of Belgrade neither chief gave credit to the other. As Æneas says, “Capistrano had despised the pomps of the world, he had fled from its delights, he had trampled down avarice, he had overcome lust, but he could not contemn glory.”[598]
No one could be found worthy to replace Capistrano but his friendly rival, Giacomo della Marca, who was accordingly despatched, in 1457, to the scene of his labors of twenty years previous, armed with the same powers, as inquisitor and crusader. The danger from the Turk was still too pressing for him to waste thought on the former function, and he devoted himself to stimulating and organizing the war against the Moslem until his health gave way, and he returned to Italy, where, as we have seen, he not long afterwards had to defend himself from a charge of heresy brought by his zealous Dominican brethren. He was replaced by his disciples, Giovanni da Tagliacozza and Michele da Tussicino, who were followed in 1461 by Frà Gabriele da Verona; but though Franciscans still continued for a generation to labor for the conversion of the Calixtins, they had little success in the absence of power to employ the customary inquisitorial methods, of which more hereafter.[599]
In fact, the prospects of reducing Bohemia to obedience were steadily diminishing. In the wildest uproar of the Hussite wars there were powerful barons and cities who steadily held out for the pope and kaiser, and under the interregnum there had at first been a dual government, shared equally by Catholic and Calixtin. Under the firm hand of George Podiebrad the orthodox communities submitted one by one, and in spiritual matters Rokyzana was supreme. It is true that there was now little to distinguish the churches in doctrine or practice save the use of the cup; but independence served as a protection against the greed of the Roman curia, and there was small encouragement for a surrender of this independence in the clamor which was now going up from Germany. The Basilian regulations, confirmed by Eugenius, had for a time served as a safeguard to some extent, but now these were coolly treated as obsolete, and complaints were loud that all the old abuses were flourishing as vigorously as ever. Elections were set aside, or heavy sums were extorted for their confirmation, while the country was drained of money by the exaction of tenths and the sale of indulgences. Secure in their isolation, the Bohemians might well submit to some inconvenience to be spared the costly blessing of apostolic paternal care. The only hope of Rome lay in the approaching majority of the Catholic youth Ladislas; but when, on the eve of his marriage with the daughter of Charles VII. of France, he suddenly died, towards the close of 1457, not without suspicions of foul play, and George Podiebrad soon afterwards was elected and crowned, it might well seem that, short of Divine interposition, the peaceful return of Bohemia was not to be looked for.[600]
Yet at first it looked as though an accommodation might be reached. Ladislas, shortly before his death, had proposed to send an embassy to Rome for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation, and Calixtus III. had asked of Podiebrad to gratify his vehement desire of seeing Rokyzana, whose high reputation was well known in Rome. Podiebrad, moreover, caused himself to be crowned according to the Roman rite; having no bishop of his own, he borrowed from his son-in-law, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, those of Raab and Bacs, to perform his consecration; in his coronation oath he swore obedience to Calixtus and his successors, to restore the Catholic religion, and to persecute heretics; he wrote to Calixtus as a faithful son of the Church, and obtained from him letters recognizing him as King of Bohemia; he sent envoys to Rome, who held out promises that Rokyzana would follow, and settle on a lasting basis the submission of Bohemia. All this was mere skirmishing for position; but when, a few months later, Calixtus died, and was succeeded by Æneas Sylvius, who took the name of Pius II., men might hope that some reasonable accommodation could be reached. Since he had gone to Basle in the suite of Cardinal Capranica, and had become the mouth-piece of the antipapal party, influenced, as he himself says, by cupidity rather than by truth, and inspired by the hostility to the Church usually felt by the laity, the new pope had been occupied almost exclusively with German and Bohemian affairs, which he knew better than any living man; he had taken part in the negotiations resulting in the Compactata; he was shrewd, clear-headed, and troubled with few scruples, and, sharing fully in the papal anxiety to unite Christendom against the Turks, he might be expected to recognize the vital importance of reconciliation with Bohemia. George made haste to send an embassy to renew his protestations of obedience, and to ask for the confirmation of the Compactata. Pius, who took no shame in issuing a solemn bull condemning and disavowing all his early opinions uttered during his service with the council, was prepared to break with his own traditions rather than with those of his predecessors. He gave a dubious response; George could win his recognition as king by extirpating heresy, and he promised to send legates. They came, but the pope, although he addressed George as king and as his dearest son when soliciting his co-operation in the crusade, shortly afterwards took a step which, with his knowledge of Bohemia, he knew could not but provoke a rupture. Wenceslas, Dean of Prague, was a Catholic, and a bitter enemy of Rokyzana, and this man Pius appointed as administrator of the archbishopric, thus ousting Rokyzana. All at once was in uproar. Wenceslas endeavored to assert himself, but the power remained in Rokyzana’s hands. George threw into prison Fantinus, who had been his procurator in the curia, and who had been sent with a commission as papal orator, and detained him there for three months. Frederic III., whom George, by a stroke of happy audacity, had recently liberated from a siege by his rebellious subjects in the castle of Vienna, interposed, and delayed the explosion of the papal wrath; but to his earnest request that George should be acknowledged as king Pius returned an absolute refusal. George was a heretic, incapable of the crown, and his subjects’’ oaths of allegiance were void; only by returning to the Church could he hope to be fitted for the royal dignity. In June, 1464, Pius, in full consistory, published a bull reciting all the griefs of the Church against Bohemia, pronouncing the Compactata void, as never having been confirmed by the Holy See, and summoning George before him to stand trial for heresy within three terms of sixty days each. In two months Pius was dead, but his successor, Paul II., carried forward the proceedings with the old inquisitorial weapons. Three cardinals were appointed in 1465 to try George as a relapsed heretic, and summoned him in August, as a private person, to appear before them within six months for judgment. Without waiting for the expiration of the term, early in December, Paul issued a bull absolving all George’s subjects from their allegiance, alleging as a reason for haste that the sentence would grow more difficult by delay. The papal wrath increased with the obstinacy of the assumed heretic. In 1468 another summons was issued to him to appear before the cardinals for judgment; and in February, 1469, his name was placed as that son of perdition, the Hussite George Podiebrad, together with those of Rokyzana and Gregory of Heimburg, in the curse of the Cœna Domini, to be anathematized thrice a year, in the solemnities of the mass, in all cathedrals, both in Latin and in the vernacular.[601]
All this was not a mere brutum fulmen. It was not difficult to excite rebellion among turbulent subjects and attacks from ambitious neighbors. With all his vigor and capacity George found the maintenance of his position by no means easy. When, in 1468, the German princes had agreed upon a five years’’ truce in order to concentrate their energies against the Moslem, Paul II. threw the empire into confusion by sending the Bishop of Ferrara to preach a crusade with plenary indulgences against Bohemia, adding the special favor that all who joined in the preaching should have the privilege of choosing a confessor, and receiving from him plenary absolution and indulgence. The kingdom was bestowed upon Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who took the cross, and with an army of crusaders occupied Moravia. A long war ensued, during which George died, in 1471, released from excommunication on his death-bed, and Ladislas II., son of Casimir of Poland, was elected as his successor. In 1475 the rivals came to terms; both were recognized as kings of Bohemia, while Matthias was to have for life Moravia, Silesia, and the greater part of Lusatia, and the survivor was to enjoy the whole kingdom. On the death of Matthias, in 1490, Ladislas recovered the three provinces, and shortly afterwards added Hungary to his dominions.[602]