stating that he had, ‘in opposition to the decisions of the Holy Church and to the opinions of the Holy Fathers, and to the injury, shame, detriment and scandal of the whole clergy and the people generally,’ declared heretics the priests who took payment for ecclesiastical functions, and blamed the ecclesiastics who held numerous benefices. Hus, indeed, defended himself eloquently, but he was none the less deprived of the office of preacher before the Synod, which the archbishop had conferred on him some time before.
Relations between the archbishop and Hus became yet more embittered when the latter addressed to his ecclesiastical superior a letter of remonstrance which Dr. Lechler, a Protestant divine, describes as ‘reaching the extreme limit of what is permissible to a priest when writing to his ecclesiastical superiors.’ In this letter, written on behalf of Velenovic, a priest of Prague, who was accused of favouring Wycliffe’s views, Hus admonished the archbishop ‘to love the good, not to be influenced by flattery, to be a friend of the humble and not to hinder those who work steadfastly at the harvest of the Lord.’
At this period the racial and the religious struggle in Bohemia proceeded simultaneously; those who favoured the movement for Church reform were also warm friends of the Bohemian nationality. It was therefore a great triumph for this party, of which Hus was now the leader, when King Wenceslas, in January 1409, issued the ‘Decrees of Kutna Hora,’ which secured the permanent supremacy of the Bohemian nation at the University of Prague. The result was the departure of the German masters and students from Prague. They left the University probably in the number of five thousand, though some Bohemian writers give a much higher figure. After Archbishop Zbynek had recognised Alexander as the legitimate Pope, the proceedings against Hus had a much more rapid development. On July 15, 1410, Wycliffe’s writings were solemnly burnt in the courtyard of the archiepiscopal palace that was then situated in the Malá Strana, near the bridge.
The burning of Wycliffe’s works met with almost universal disapproval at Prague. A contemporary chronicler writes: ‘Instantly a great sedition and discord began. Some said that many other books besides those of Wycliffe had been burnt; therefore the people began to riot, the courtiers of the King were incensed against the canons and priests; many opprobrious songs against the archbishop were sung in the streets.’
Hus, at a meeting of the University, energetically defended Wycliffe’s teaching; he also, contrary to the positive orders of the archbishop, continued his sermons in the Bethlehem Chapel. On March 15, 1411, the sentence of excommunication which had been pronounced against Hus some time previously was published in the churches of Prague, while the town itself was placed under interdict. Endeavours to effect a settlement indeed still continued.