A History of Bohemian Literature

by hrabe Francis Lützow

Such apprehensions did not induce Hus to waver even for an instant in his decision to attend the Council; he felt assured that, whatever might subsequently be his fate, he would be allowed freely to expound his views before the assembled Council. After having addressed a letter of farewell to his pupil Martin, and another—one of the most precious that has been preserved—to his Bohemian friends, Hus, on October 11, 1414, started from the castle of Krakovec directly for Constance. In his company were the Bohemian noblemen Wenceslas of Duba, John of Chlum, and Henry of Lacenbok, who were instructed to assure his safety during his journey. Among Hus's companions also was Peter of Mladenovič, private secretary to Lord John of Chlum, who left a valuable record of Hus's last journey, his trial and death. Hus and his companions arrived at Constance on November 3, and he at first occupied lodgings in the house of a widow named Fida; the house, situated in the street now known as the Husgasse, near the Schnetzthor, is still shown to travellers. Hus confined himself to his room to avoid publicity, and also to prepare the speech he intended to deliver before the Council.

He was not, however, allowed to remain at liberty long. On the 28th of November he was arrested by order of Pope John XXIII., and at first confined for a few days under strict guard in the house of a canon of Constance. Thence he was conducted to a monastery of Dominican friars situated on an island in the Rhine, and confined in a dark and gloomy dungeon in immediate vicinity to a sewer. He remained here from December 6 to March 24, 1415. Endeavours were made to justify the arrestation of Hus by the totally unfounded assertion that he had attempted to escape from Constance in disguise. Even the writers most hostile to Hus now admit that there was no truth in this rumour.

As might have been expected from the nature of his prison, Hus became seriously ill, and was for some time in danger of his life. His Bohemian friends had meanwhile protested energetically against his imprisonment, but their attempts to rescue him from his dungeon remained without result. It was hoped that Sigismund, who arrived at Constance on Christmas Day (1414), would interfere in favour of Hus, but though he at first expressed some indignation, this led to no consequences. From the beginning of January of the following year, Sigismund granted the Council full liberty of decision with regard to Hus's fate. It is, indeed, more than probable that during the last months of Hus's trial the king was in favour of his execution, hoping that this event would intimidate the Bohemians.

The Pope had meanwhile appointed a committee, consisting of three bishops, for the purpose of undertaking a preliminary examination of the teaching of Hus. The commissioners examined numerous witnesses, all of whom were ordered to take their oaths in the presence of Hus. Thus, on one of the days when his illness was at its worst, fifteen witnesses were consecutively introduced into his prison. Hus demanded that a legal adviser should be allowed him, but this was refused him on the plea that it was illegal that any one should afford aid to a heretic. It may be noted that the condemnation of Hus had been decided on long before his three days' trial in June 1415, perhaps even, as some writers have conjectured, as early as in the previous November, when he was arrested. As soon as Hus had somewhat recovered, the act of accusation—mainly the work of Paleč and Michael de Causis—was brought to his knowledge. The accusation, consisting of forty-two articles, was principally founded on statements contained in the Latin treatise De Ecclesia; the last articles only dealt with statements extracted from other works of Hus. According to Mladenovič, the authors of the accusation "had chosen their quotations from the treatise (De Ecclesia), falsely and unfairly abbreviating some in the beginning, some in the middle, and some at the end, and inventing matter that was not contained in the book." Hus immediately published his defence, proving that he had taken many of the passages in his works that were attacked from the writings of Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bishop Grossetête of Lincoln, and other writers of unimpeached orthodoxy; he also complained that the quotations from his book were incorrect.

New material for accusations against Hus had been meanwhile brought forward. After his departure from Prague, one of his pupils (Magister Jacobellus of Mies[43]) had defended the necessity of communion in the two kinds, afterwards the distinctive doctrine of the Hussites. The followers of Hus at Prague appealed to him, but he confined himself to declaring in his letters that communion in the two kinds was permissible. When, however, the Council of Constance had, on June 15—after the last day of Hus's trial and a few days before his death—entirely forbidden communion in the two kinds to laymen, Hus went somewhat farther. He declared the prohibition of communion in the two kinds to be in direct contradiction to the Gospel,[44] and advised those among his friends who were uncertain with regard to the new teaching of Jacobellus, no longer to oppose it, as unity among the Bohemians was necessary in view of the dangers that, as Hus foresaw, would shortly menace the country.

The Council of Constance had in March 1415 deposed Pope John XXIII., and the authority of the commissioners whom he had appointed to judge Hus ceased, while the decree of imprisonment issued by the Pope also became invalid. Sigismund, to whom the guardians of Hus applied for orders, contented himself with handing the prisoner over to the custody of the Bishop of Constance, by whose order he was now imprisoned in the castle of Gottlieben, not far from Constance. He remained there from March 24 to June 5, and was held in yet severer custody than in the Dominican convent. His feet were fettered with chains, and at night his hands were also fastened to the wall by a chain. All intercourse with his friends was forbidden, and we have therefore no letters from Hus written at Gottlieben, while he had been allowed to write when in confinement in the Dominican monastery.

Having passed judgment on the Pope, the Council now devoted its attention to questions of dogma. On May 5 the forty-five articles of Wycliffe, that have been so often mentioned, were again condemned at a plenary meeting of the Council. This may be said to have decided the fate of Hus, for the identity of many opinions advanced in his treatise De Ecclesia with Wycliffe's views was known to all. No agreement whatever was, indeed, possible between Hus and the members of the Council; for while Hus maintained that he had been summoned to the Council for the purpose of freely expounding his views, the Council now held even more decidedly than at first that their mission as far as Hus was concerned was limited to hearing his recantation of all the opinions that had rightly or wrongly been attributed to him, and then deciding what punishment he should receive.

It is probably mainly due to the energetic remonstrances of the Bohemian nobles who were present at the Council that Hus was at least allowed to appear before that assembly. His prison was again changed, and he was now conducted to a Franciscan monastery at Constance, where he spent the last weeks of his life. On June 5 he appeared for the first time before the Council. "When Hus attempted to speak he was interrupted, and when he was silent the cry arose, 'He has admitted his guilt.'"[45] As Hus afterwards wrote: "They almost all screamed at me, as did the Jews against Christ.... Many exclaimed, 'He must be burnt;' among them I heard the voice of Michael de Causis."