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

by Henry Charles Lea

Ladislas was a good Catholic, and Sixtus IV., who had aided in his election, hoped that the opportunity had at last arrived to break down the stubbornness of the Calixtins. The king made the attempt, but bloody tumults in Prague, which nearly cost him his life, showed that, slight as was the difference between Catholic and Utraquist, the old fanaticism for the cup survived. At length, in 1485, at the Diet of Kuttenberg, mutual toleration was agreed upon, and Ladislas, who was of easy disposition, ran no further risks. Thus the anomalous position of Bohemia, as a member of Latin Christendom, became more remarkable than ever. The great majority of the people were Calixtins and therefore heretics, but the Church had to abandon the attempt to coerce them to salvation. Missionary inquisitors were commissioned from time to time, but practically their efforts were limited to persuasion and controversy. Even Pius II., in 1463, felt obliged to caution Zeger, the Observantine Vicar-general, that his brethren, in dealing with heretics, should restrain their zeal from the customary curses and insults, and should try the effect of gentleness and argument. That these missionaries were mostly Franciscans perhaps explains why the toleration accorded to Catholics could not be enforced against the popular prejudices of which the Order was the object. Even George Podiebrad, in 1460, had permitted the Franciscans to return to Prague, but their zeal was not to be restrained, and they were expelled in 1468. Under Ladislas they came again, in 1482, but in the disturbances of the following year they were glad to escape, their house was levelled to the ground, and was not rebuilt until 1629. From time to time other communities were founded at Hradecz, Glatz, and Neisse, but they were short-lived, and were speedily destroyed by the fanaticism of the people. As the invention of printing facilitated controversy, polemical zeal multiplied treatises to prove the iniquity of the Utraquist heresy, but the Utraquists were not to be converted. They maintained the Compactata as the charter of their religious independence. When, in 1526, King Louis fell in the disastrous day of Mohacz, and the House of Austria, in the person of Ferdinand I., obtained the Bohemian throne, good Catholic though Ferdinand was, he was obliged to pledge himself to preserve the Compactata.[603]

It is not to be imagined that the teachings of Wickliff and Huss were wholly forgotten in Utraquist degeneracy. Their real inheritors were the Taborites, and although these, in their disorderly enthusiasm, vainly contended against the spirit of the age and disappeared from sight under the strong hand of Podiebrad, the seed which they had nurtured was not wholly lost. The profound religious convictions which animated these poor and simple folk are visible through the satire with which Æneas Sylvius requited their hospitality in 1451, on the eve of their suppression. Travelling with some nobles, on a mission from Frederic III., he was benighted near Mount Tabor, and thought it safer to trust himself with the enemies of his faith than to pass the hours of darkness in the open villages. In return for the simple kindliness of his reception the polished scholar and courtier describes them with the liveliest ridicule, and with brutal sneers at their poverty. They were mostly peasants, and as they came forth to greet him in the cold and rain, many were almost naked, having nothing but a shirt or a sheepskin to protect them; one had no saddle, another no reins, another no spurs; this one had lost an eye, that one an arm. Ziska was their patron saint, whose portrait was painted on the city gates. Though they ridiculed the consecration of churches, they were very earnest in listening to the word of God, and if any one was too busy or too lazy to go to the wooden house where they assembled for preaching he was compelled by stripes. Though they paid no tithes, they filled their priests’’ houses with corn, beer, wood, vegetables, meat, and all the necessaries of life. Firm as they were in defence of their religious independence, they were not intolerant, and wide diversity of opinion was allowed among them.[604]

When such men as these were driven forth and scattered among the people they were much more likely to make converts than to be converted, and though lost to sight they were assuredly not false to their convictions. The reactionary course of Rokyzana and Podiebrad during the succeeding years could hardly fail to provoke discontent among the more earnest even of the Calixtins and to furnish fresh disciples and teachers. Materials existed for a sect representing the doctrines which, a generation earlier, had set Bohemia aflame; and although when that sect timidly appeared it prudently and sedulously disavowed all affiliation with the hated and dreaded Taborites, there can be no doubt that it was, to a great extent, composed of the same elements.

These new sectaries first present themselves in an organized form in 1457. Earnest, humble Christians, who sought to carry out the doctrines of Jesus, they differed from the Taborites in a yet closer approach to Waldensianism, due probably to the influence of Peter Chelcicky, who, without belonging to them, was yet to some extent their teacher. Like the Waldenses, they rejected the oath and the sword—nothing would justify the taking of human life, and consequently they were non-resistants. Since the time of Constantine and Silvester the Roman Church had gone astray in the pursuit of wealth and worldly power. The sacraments were worthless in polluted hands. Priests might hear confessions and impose penances, but they could not absolve; they could only announce the forgiveness of God. Purgatory was a myth invented by cunning priests. As for the mystery of the Eucharist, they prudently adopted the formula of Peter Chelcicky, which eluded the difficulty by affirming that the believer receives the body and blood of Christ, without pretending to explain or daring to discuss the matter. They ridiculed the superstition of the Calixtins, which exaggerated in the absurdest fashion the sanctity of the Eucharist, which carried the sacrament through the streets for adoration, and which held that he whose eye chanced to fall on it was safe from evil happening for that day; and they sometimes incurred martyrdom by publicly reproving the fanatic zeal which regarded the Eucharist as the holiest of idols. On this basis was founded the brotherhood of love and charity, of patient endurance and meekness, which represented more nearly the Christian ideal than anything the world had seen for thirteen centuries. With extreme simplicity of life there was no exaggeration of asceticism. Heaven was not to be stormed by mortification of the flesh, but was to be won by the sedulous discharge of the duties imposed on man by his Creator, in humble obedience to the divine will, and in pious reliance on Christ. Such was the “Unitas Fratrum”—the Bohemian or Moravian Brotherhood—and that a society thus defenceless and unresisting should endure the savage vicissitudes of that transitional period, and maintain itself through four hundred years to the present time, shows that force is not necessarily the last word in human affairs, and that average human nature is capable of a higher moral development than it has been permitted to reach under prevailing influences, secular and spiritual.[605]

At first they seem to have enjoyed the favor of Rokyzana, whose doctrines they claimed to follow, and whose nephew Gregory was one of their earliest leaders, along with Michael, priest of Zamberg. Rokyzana’s fluctuating policy, as the archbishopric seemed to approach or recede, soon led him to hold aloof, and when they drew apart from the Calixtins and organized themselves as a separate body he had no objection to see them persecuted. In vain they declared that they were neither Waldenses nor Taborites—the one was a word of bitter reproach, the other a terror. When, about 1461, Gregory, with a few companions, ventured secretly to Prague, they were betrayed as conspiring Taborites and put to the torture. It shows their state of religious exaltation that Gregory swooned on the rack and had a beatific vision. It may be put to the credit of Rokyzana that when he saw his nephew insensible from the torture he burst into tears, exclaiming, “O my Gregory, I would I were where thou art!” and that he soon afterwards obtained from Podiebrad permission for them to settle at Liticz. Here they prospered amid alternate peace and persecution, their numbers rapidly increasing.[606]

In retaining all the sacraments they retained belief in the necessity of apostolical succession for that of ordination; but as the sacraments were vitiated in unworthy hands, they became oppressed with misgivings as to the efficacy of the sacerdotal character of their priests, derived as it was through the Church of Rome. Some of them proposed sending to the legendary Christians of India, but they met with two men who had been in the East, and the accounts they received of the Oriental churches satisfied them that the succession there had been lost. Then they bethought them of the Greeks, but they met some Greeks in Prague, and many Bohemians had been in the Levant and Danubian provinces, from whom they learned that fees were required for ordination, thus rendering it void through simony; moreover, they heard of three Bohemians who had been ordained without inquiry as to their morals, which satisfied them that no true ordination was to be obtained there. Finally they turned to the Waldenses, of whom there was a community on the Austrian border. These claimed to descend from the primitive Church; that their ancestors had separated from Rome when the papacy was secularized under Silvester by the donation of Constantine, and that they had preserved the apostolic succession untainted. It remained for the brethren to see whether it was the will of God that they should organize themselves by means of these Waldenses. At Lhotka, in 1467, an assembly of about sixty chosen deputies was held. After fasting and earnest prayer, recourse was had to the lot, to decide whether they should separate themselves from the Roman priesthood. The result was affirmative. Then they selected nine men, from among whom three or two or one should be drawn, or none, if God so willed it. Twelve cards were taken, on three of which was written “is,” and on nine “is not.” These were mingled together, and a youth was directed to distribute nine of them among the men selected. All three with “is” proved to have been distributed, and the assembly devoutly thanked God for showing them the path to follow. Michael of Zamberg was sent to the Waldensian Bishop Stephen, who investigated his faith and life, and thanked God, with tears, that it had been vouchsafed him before he died to see such pious men. After episcopal consecration Michael returned; careful inquiry was made as to the antecedents of one of the three elect, named Matthias, and he was duly consecrated as bishop by Michael, who thereupon laid down both his Waldensian episcopate and Catholic priesthood, and was again ordained anew by Matthias.[607]

Thus all connection with Rome was sundered, and intimate relations were established with the Waldenses. Mutual sympathy and the identity of their faith drew the two sects together, although the austere virtue of the Brethren reproached the older heretics with concealing their faith by attending Catholic mass, with accumulating wealth, and with neglecting the poor. The Waldenses took the reproof kindly, promised amendment, and in a short time the two sects united and formed one body. Although the official name remained the “Unity of the Brethren,” gradually the despised term of Waldenses came to be recognized, and was freely used by the body to designate themselves, in their confessions of faith and apologetic tracts. I have already alluded to the mission which was sent in 1498 to the Brethren of Italy and France, and to the increased spirit of vigor and independence which the old Alpine communities drew from the resolute steadfastness of their new associates.[608]

Gregory had moulded the Church of the Brethren on the strictest basis. Members on entering were not, it is true, obliged to contribute their property to the common fund, but this was frequently done. The closest watch was kept on the conduct of each, and any dereliction was visited with expulsion, not to be revoked without evidence of change of heart. No one was allowed to take an oath, even in court, to hold an office, to keep an inn, to follow any trade except in the necessaries of life. Any noble desiring to join was required to lay aside his rank and resign whatever offices he might hold. In 1479 two barons and several knights applied for admission, when the rules were strictly enforced, and some submitted while others withdrew. This rigor at last caused violent dissensions, and in 1490 the Synod of Brandeis relaxed the rules. The puritan party recalcitrated and were strong enough to cause a revocation of this action in a subsequent synod. Much ill-feeling was generated, until, in 1495, at the Synod of Reichenau, there was mutual forgiveness and a moderation of the rules. Yet two of the puritan leaders, Jacob of Wodnan and Amos of Stekna, refused to accept the compromise, and founded the sect known as Amosites, or the Little Party, which maintained a separate existence for forty-six years.[609]

During this period the Brethren had been subjected to repeated and severe persecution. Sometimes driven for refuge to the mountain and forest, whence they earned the name of Jamnici, or cave-dwellers, they counted their roll of martyrs who had testified in the dungeon or at the stake to the strength of their convictions. Yet the little band steadily grew. In the year 1500 it was deemed necessary to increase the number of bishops to four. In Bohemia and Moravia they counted between three hundred and four hundred churches with nearly two hundred thousand members. There were few villages and scarce any towns in which they were not to be found, and they had powerful protectors among the nobility, who, by the enslavement of the peasants in 1487, had become practically independent and able to shelter them during periods of persecution. The Brethren were active in education and in the use of the press. Every parish had its school, and there were higher institutions of learning, especially at Jungbunzlau and Litomysl. Of the six Bohemian printing-offices they possessed three, while the Catholics had but one and the Calixtins two. Of the sixty books issued in Bohemia between 1500 and 1510, fifty were printed by the Brethren.[610]

From this period until the death of Ladislas, in 1516, they were subjected to intermittent but severe persecution, especially in Bohemia. Ladislas, in his will, left instructions for their extermination “for the sake of his soul’s salvation and of the true faith;” but the minority of his son Louis, only ten years old, the breaking-out of disturbances, and the feuds between Catholic and Calixtin brought them peace. The exiled pastors returned, the churches were reopened, and public service was resumed. With the rise of Lutheranism and the negotiations between the Bohemians and the German Protestants their history passes beyond our present horizon, except to allude to the fidelity with which they endured the shocks of the counter-Reformation, and succeeded in transmitting to our own time the lessons which they had learned from Peter Waldo and John Wickliff. They brought across the Atlantic the union of fearless zeal with the gentler Christian virtues, and in the annals of Pennsylvania the name of Moravian came to represent all that serves as the firmest and surest foundation of social organization. Parkman has well indicated the contrast between the civilizing influence of the kindly Moravian missionaries and the manner in which their Jesuit rivals were content to substitute the cross as a fetich in place of the medicine-bag. The same well-directed enthusiasm endures to the present day. Small as is the Moravian Church, it maintained in 1885 no less than three hundred and nineteen missionaries scattered among the remote places of the earth, with over eighty-one thousand native converts as church members; and the more rugged and inhospitable the fields of labor the more earnest the zeal of the good Brethren. But for them the savage coasts of Greenland would be almost destitute of Christian teaching, and in their truly apostolic work we may recognize that the blood of the martyrs of Constance was not shed in vain.[611]