§ 118.6. An Italian Apostate from the Basel Liberal Party.—Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, born at Siena in A.D. 1405, appeared at Basel, first as secretary of a bishop, then of a cardinal, and finally of the Basel anti-pope Felix V., as a most decided opponent of Eugenius IV., and wrote in A.D. 1439 from this point of view his history of the council. In A.D. 1442 he entered the service of the then neutral Emperor Frederick III., was made Poeta laureatus and imperial councillor, and as such still fought for the independence of the German church. But in A.D. 1445, with all the diplomatic arts which were so abundantly at his disposal, he wrought to secure the subjection of the emperor and German princes under the pope (§ [110, 10]). Made bishop of Siena in A.D. 1450, he was raised to the cardinalate by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1456, and two years later ascended the papal throne as Pius II. The lasciviousness of his earlier life is mirrored in his poems, novels, dialogues, dramas, and letters. But as pope, old and weak, he maintained an honourable life, and in a bull of retractation addressed to the University of Cologne exhorted Christendom Æneam rejicite, Pium recipite!

§ 118.7. Reforms in Church Policy in Spain.—Notwithstanding the church feeling awakened by the struggle with the Moors, a vigorous opposition to papal pretensions was shown during the 14th century by the Spanish princes, and after the outbreak of the great schism the anti-pope Clement VII., in A.D. 1381, purchased the obedience of the Spanish church by large concessions in regard to appointment to its bishoprics and the removal of the abuses of papal indulgences. The popes, indeed, sought not unsuccessfully to enlist Spain in their favour against the reformatory tendencies of the councils of the 15th century, until Ferdinand of Aragon [Arragon], A.D. 1479-1516, and Isabella of Castille [Castile], A.D. 1474-1504, who had on account of their zeal for the Catholic cause been entitled by the pontiff himself “their Catholic majesties,” entered so vigorous a protest against papal usurpations, that toward the end of the 15th century the royal supremacy over the Spanish church had won a recognition never accorded to it before. They consistently refused to acknowledge any bishop appointed by the pope, and forced from Sixtus IV. the concession that only Spaniards nominated by the Crown should be eligible for the highest ecclesiastical offices. All papal rescripts were subject to the royal approval, ecclesiastical tribunals were carefully supervised, and appeals from them were allowed to the royal judicatures. The church had also to give ordinary and extraordinary tithes of its goods and revenues for State purposes. The Spanish inquisition (§ [117, 2]), thoroughly recognised in A.D. 1483, was more of a civil than an ecclesiastical institution. As the bishops and inquisitors were appointed by the royal edict, the orders of knights (§ [98, 13]), by the transference of the grand-mastership to the king, were placed in complete subjection to the Crown; and whether he would or not Alexander VI. was obliged to accord to the royal commission for church and cloister visitation and reform the most absolute authority. But in everything else these rulers were worthy of the name of “Catholics,” for they tolerated in their church only the purely mediæval type of strict orthodoxy. The most distinguished promoter of their reforms in church polity was a Franciscan monk, Francis Ximenes, from A.D. 1492 confessor to Isabella, afterwards raised by her to the archbishopric of Toledo, made a Roman cardinal by Alexander VI., and grand-inquisitor of Spain in A.D. 1507. He died in A.D. 1517.

§ 119. Evangelical Efforts at Reform.

Alongside of the Parisian reformers, but far in advance of them, stand those of the English and Bohemian churches represented by Wiclif and Huss. The reformation aimed at by these two was essentially of the same kind, Wiclif being the more original, while Huss was largely dependent upon his great English precursor. For in personal endowment, speculative power, rich and varied learning, acuteness and wealth of thought, originality and productivity of intellect, the Englishman was head and shoulders above the Bohemian. On the other hand, Huss was far more a man for the people, and he conducted his contention in a sensible, popular, and practical manner. There were also powerful representatives of the reform movement in the Netherlands during this period, who pointed to Scripture and faith in the crucified Saviour as the only radical cure for the corruptions of the church. While Wiclif and Huss attached themselves to the Augustinian theology, the Dutchmen gave themselves to quiet, calm contemplation and the acquirement of practical religious knowledge. In Italy too a reformer appeared of a strongly evangelical spirit, who did not however show the practical sense of those of the Netherlands.

§ 119.1. Wiclif and the Wiclifites.—In England the kings and the Parliament had for a long time withstood the oppressive yoke of the papal hierarchy. Men too like John of Salisbury, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Bradwardine had raised their voices against the inner corruption of the church. John Wiclif, a scholar of Bradwardine, was born about A.D. 1320. As fellow of the University of Oxford, he supported in A.D. 1366 the English Crown against the payment of tribute to the papal court then at Avignon, admitted by John Lackland (§ [96, 18]), of which payment had now for a long time been refused. This secured him court favour, the title of doctor, and a professorship of theology at Oxford; and in A.D. 1374 he was chosen as member of a commission which was to discuss at Brügge in the Netherlands with the papal envoys the differences that had arisen about the appointing to ecclesiastical offices. After his return he openly spoke and wrote against the papal “antichrist” and his doctrines. Gregory XI. now, in A.D. 1377, condemned nineteen propositions from his writings, but the English court protected him from the strict inquiry and punishment threatened. Meanwhile Wiclif was ever becoming bolder. Under his influence religious societies were formed which sent out travelling preachers of the gospel among the people. By their opponents they were called Lollards (§ [116, 3]), a name to which the stigma of heresy was already attached. Wiclif translated for them the Scriptures from the Vulgate into English. The bitterness of his enemies now reached its height. Just then, in A.D. 1381, a rebellion of the oppressed peasants that deluged all England with blood broke out. Its origin has been quite gratuitously assigned to the religious movement. When he had directly repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, a synod at London, in A.D. 1382, condemned his writings and his doctrine as heretical, and the university also cast him out. Court and Parliament could only protect his person. He now retired to his rectory at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died on 31st December, 1384.—For five centuries his able writings were left unprinted, to moulder away in the obscurity of libraries. His English works have now been edited by Matthews, London, 1880. Lechler of Leipzig edited Wiclif’s most complete and comprehensive work, the “Trialogus” (Oxford, 1869), in which his whole theological system is developed. Buddensieg of Dresden published the keen antipapal controversial tract, “De Christo et suo adversario Antichristo” (Leipzig, 1880). The Wiclif Society, instituted at the fifth centenary of Wiclif’s death for the purpose of issuing critical editions of his most important works, sent forth as their first performance Buddensieg’s edition of “twenty-six Latin controversial tracts of Wiclif’s from MSS. previously unprinted,” in 2 vols., London, 1883. Among Wiclif’s systematic treatises we are promised editions of the Summa theologiæ, De incarnatione Verbi, De veritate s. Scr., De dominio divino, De ecclesia, De actibus animæ, etc., some by English, some by German editors.—As the principle of all theology and reformation Wiclif consistently affirms the sole authority of Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He has hence been called doctor evangelicus. Anything that cannot be proved from it is a corrupting human invention. Consistently carrying out this principle, he denounced the worship of saints, relics, and images, the use of Latin in public worship, elaborate priestly choir singing, the multiplication of festivals, private masses, extreme unction, and generally all ceremonialism. The Catholic doctrine of indulgence and the sale of indulgences, as well as the ban and the interdict, he pronounced blasphemous; auricular confession he regarded as a forcing of conscience; the power of the keys he explained as conditional, its binding and loosing powerless, except when in accordance with the judgment of Christ. He denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and affirmed, like Berengar, a spiritual communication thereof, which however he makes dependent, not only on the faith of the receiver, but also on the worthiness of the officiating priest. The doctrine of purgatory he completely rejected, and supported Augustine’s predestinationism against the prevalent semipelagianism. The papacy was antichrist; the pope has his power only from the emperor, not from God. The hierarchical system should be replaced by the apostolic presbyterial constitution. Ordination confers no indelible character; a priest who has fallen into mortal sin cannot dispense the sacrament. Every believer is as such a priest. The State is a representation of Christ, as the God-Man ruler of the universe; the clergy represent only the poor and suffering life of His humanity. Monkery is contrary to nature, etc.—Wiclif’s supporters, many of them belonging to the noblest and most cultured orders, were after his death subjected to violent persecution, which reached its height when the House of Lancaster in the person of Henry IV. ascended the English throne in A.D. 1399. An act of parliament was passed in A.D. 1400 which made death by fire the punishment of the heresy of the Lollards. Among the martyrs which this law brought to the stake was the noble Sir John Oldcastle, who in A.D. 1418 was hung up between two beams in iron chains over a fire and there slowly burnt.The Council of Constance in A.D. 1415 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, and ordered his bones to be exhumed and scattered abroad. Many germs sown by him continued until the Reformation came.[348]

§ 119.2. Precursors of the Hussite Movement.—Owing to its Greek origin (§ 79, 2, 3), the Bohemian church had a certain character of its own and barely tolerated the Roman constitution and ritual. In Bohemia too the Waldensians had numerous supporters during the 13th century. And even before the appearance of Huss three distinguished clergymen in and around Prague by earnest preaching and pastoral work had awakened in many a consciousness of crying abuses in the church.

  1. Conrad of Waldhausen was a famous preacher when called by Charles IV. to Prague, where after fifteen years’ labour he died in A.D. 1369. Preaching in German, he inveighed against the cupidity, hypocrisy, and immorality of the clergy and monks, against the frauds connected with the worship of images and relics and shrines, and threw back upon his accusers the charge of heresy in his still extant Apologia.
  2. More influential than Conrad as a preacher of repentance in Prague was John Milicz of Cremsier in Moravia, who died in A.D. 1374. Believing the end of the world near and antichrist already come, he went to Rome in A.D. 1367 to place before Urban V. his scheme of apocalyptic interpretation. Escaping with difficulty from the Inquisition, he returned to Prague, and there applied himself with renewed zeal to the preaching of repentance. His preaching led to the conversion of 200 fallen women, for whom he erected an institution which he called Jerusalem. But the begging friars accused him before Gregory XI. as a heretic. Milicz fearlessly went for examination to Avignon in A.D. 1374, where he soon died before judgment had been passed. The most important of his works is De Antichristo.
  3. Matthias of Janow, of noble Bohemian descent, died in A.D. 1374, after fourteen years’ work as a preacher and pastor in Prague. His sermons, composed in Bohemian, lashed unsparingly the vices of the clergy and monks, as well as the immorality of the laity, and denounced the worship of images and relics. None of his sermons are extant, but we have various theological treatises of his on the distinguishing of the true faith from the false and the frequent observance of the communion. At a Prague synod of A.D. 1389 he was obliged to retract several of his positions, and especially to grant the propriety of confessing and communicating half-yearly. Janow however, like Conrad and Milicz, did not seriously contest any fundamental point of the doctrine of the church.

§ 119.3. John Huss of Hussinecz in Bohemia, born A.D. 1369, was Bachelor of Theology at Prague, in A.D. 1394, Master of Liberal Arts in A.D. 1396, became public teacher in the university in A.D. 1398, was ordained priest in A.D. 1400, undertook a pastorate in A.D. 1402 in the Bethlehem chapel, where he had to preach in the Bohemian language, was chosen confessor of Queen Sophia in A.D. 1403, and was soon afterwards made synodal preacher by the new archbishop, Sbynko of Hasenburg. Till then he had in pious humility accepted all the doctrines of the Romish Church, and even in A.D. 1392 he offered his last four groschen for an indulgence, so that for a long time dry bread was his only nourishment. But about A.D. 1402 he reached an important crisis in his life through the study of Wiclif’s theological works.—Bohemians who had studied in Oxford brought with them Wiclif’s philosophical works, and in A.D. 1348 the discussion on realism and nominalism broke out in Prague. The Bohemians generally sided with Wiclif for realism; the Germans with the nominalists (§ [113, 3]). This helped to prepare an entrance for Wiclif’s theological writings into Bohemia. Of the national party which favoured Wiclif’s philosophy and theology, Huss was soon recognised as a leader. A university decree of A.D. 1403 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s works as heretical, and forbade their promulgation in lectures or sermons. Huss however was still highly esteemed by Archbishop Sbynko. In A.D. 1405 he appointed Huss, with other three scholars, a commission to investigate a reputed miracle at Wilsnack, where on the altar of a ruined church three blood-red coloured hosts were said to have been found. Huss pronounced the miracle a cheat, and proved in a tract that the blood of Christ glorified can only be invisibly present in the sacrament of the altar. The archbishop approved this tract, and forbade all pilgrimages to the spot. He also took no offence at Huss for uttering Wiclifite doctrine in his synod sermon. Only when, in A.D. 1408, the clergy of his diocese complained that Huss by his preaching made the priests contemptible before the people, did he deprive him of his function as synod preacher. When the majority of cardinals at Leghorn in A.D. 1408 took steps to put an end to the schism, king Wenzel determined to remain neutral, and demanded the assent of the university as well as the clergy of his realm. But only the Bohemian members of the university agreed, while the rest, along with the archbishop, supported Gregory XII. Sbynko keenly resented the revolt of the Bohemians, and forbade Huss as their spokesman to preach within his diocese. Huss paid no attention to the prohibition, but secured a royal injunction, that henceforth in the university Bohemians should have three votes and foreigners only one. The foreigners then withdrew, and founded the University of Leipzig in A.D. 1409.Huss was made first rector of the newly organized University of Prague; but the very fact of his great popularity in Bohemia caused him to be profoundly hated in other lands.[349]

§ 119.4. The archbishop escaped prosecution only by unreservedly condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, burning his books, and prohibiting all lectures upon them. Huss and his friends appealed to John XXIII., but this did not prevent the archbishop burning in his palace yard about two hundred Wiclifite books that had previously escaped his search. For this he was hooted in the streets, and compelled by the courts of law to pay the value of the books destroyed. John XXIII. cited Huss to appear at Rome. King, nobles, magistrates, and university sided with him; but the papal commission condemned him when he did not appear, and the archbishop pronounced anathema against him and the interdict against Prague (A.D. 1411). Huss appealed to the œcumenical council, and continued to preach. The court forced the archbishop to become reconciled with Huss, and to admit his orthodoxy. Sbynko reported to the pope that Bohemia was free from heresy. He soon afterwards died. The pope himself was the cause of a complete breach, by having an indulgence preached in Bohemia in A.D. 1412 for a crusade against Ladislaus of Naples, the powerful adherent of Gregory XII. Huss opposed this by word and writing, and in a public disputation maintained that the pope had no right to grant such indulgence. His most stanch supporter was a Bohemian knight, Jerome of Prague, who had studied at Oxford, and returned in A.D. 1402 an enthusiastic adherent of Wiclif’s doctrines. Their addresses produced an immense impression, and two days later their disorderly followers, to throw contempt on the papal party, had the bull of indulgence paraded through the streets, on the breast of a public prostitute, representing the whore of Babylon, and then cast into the flames. But many old friends now withdrew from Huss and joined his opponents. The papal curia thundered against him and his followers the great excommunication, with its terrible curses. Wherever he resided that place was put under interdict. But Huss appealed to the one righteous Judge, Jesus Christ. At the wish of the king he left the city, and sought the protection of various noble patrons, from whose castles he went forth diligently preaching round about. He spread his views all over the country by controversial and doctrinal treatises in Latin and Bohemian, as well as by an extensive correspondence with his friends and followers. Thus the trouble and turmoil grew from day to day, and all the king’s efforts to restore peace were in vain.

§ 119.5. The Roman emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to attend the Council of Constance (§ [110, 7]), and promised him a safe-conduct. Though not yet in possession of this latter, which he only got at Constance, trusting to the righteousness of his cause, for which he was quite willing to die a martyr’s death, he started for Constance on 11th October, A.D. 1414, reaching his destination on 3rd November. On 28th November he was sentenced to imprisonment at a private conference of the cardinals, on the pretended charge of an attempt at flight, first in the Dominican cloister, then in the bishop’s castle of Gottlieben, where he was put in chains, finally in the Franciscan cloister. Sigismund, who had not been forewarned when he was cast into prison, ordered his release; but the council convinced him that Huss, arraigned as a heretic before a general council, was beyond the reach of civil protection. His bitterest enemies and accusers were two Bohemians, Michael of Deutschbrod and Stephan of Palecz. The latter extracted forty-two points for accusations from his writings, which Huss from his prison retracted. D’Ailly and Gerson were both against him. The brave knight John of Chlum stood faithfully by him as a comforter to the last. For almost seven months was he harassed by private examinations, in which, notwithstanding his decided repudiation of many of them, he was charged with all imaginable Wiclifite heresies. The result was the renewed condemnation of those forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, which had been condemned A.D. 1408 by the University of Prague. At last, on 5th June, A.D. 1415, he was for the first time granted a public trial, but the tumult at the sitting was so great that he was prevented from saying a single word. Even on the two following days of the trial he could do little more than make a vain protest against being falsely charged with errors, and declare his willingness to be better instructed from God’s word. The humility and gentleness of his demeanour, as well as the enthusiasm and believing joyfulness which he displayed, won for him many hearts even outside of the council. All possible motives were urged to induce him to submit. Sigismund so exhorted him, with the threat that if he did not he would withdraw his protection. The third and last day of trial was 8th June, A.D. 1415, and judgment was pronounced in the cathedral church on the 6th July. After high mass had been celebrated, a bishop mounted the pulpit and preached on Romans vi. 6. He addressed Sigismund, who was present, “By destroying this heretic, thou shalt obtain an undying name to all ensuing generations.” Once again called upon to recant, Huss repeated his previous protests, appealed to the promise of a safe-conduct, which made Sigismund wince and blush, and kneeling down prayed to God for his enemies and unjust judges. Then seven bishops dressed him in priestly robes in order to strip him of them one after another amid solemn execrations. Then they put on him a high pyramidal hat, painted with figures of devils, and bearing the inscription, Hæresiarcha, and uttered the words, “We give thy soul to the devil.” He replied: “I commend it into the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” On that same day he was given over by Sigismund to Louis Count-palatine of the Rhine, and by him to the Constance magistrates, and led to the stake. Amid prayer and praise he expired, joyfully, courageously, and confidently, showing himself worthy to rank among the martyrs who in the best times of Christianity had sealed their Christian confession with their blood. His ashes were scattered on the Rhine. The later Hussites, in accordance with an old Christian custom (§ 39, 5), celebrated the day of his death as the dies natalis of the holy martyr John Huss.—Jerome of Prague had gone unasked to Constance. When he saw that his longer stay would not help his friend, but only involve himself in his fate, he left the city; but was seized on the way, and taken back in chains in April, A.D. 1415. During a severe half-year’s imprisonment, and wearied with the importunities of his judges, he agreed to recant, and to acquiesce in the sentence of Huss. But he was not trusted, and after as before his recantation he was kept in close confinement. Then his courage revived. He demanded a public trial before the whole council, which was at last granted him in May, A.D. 1416. There he solemnly and formally retracted his previous retractation with a believer’s confidence and a martyr’s joy. On May 30th, A.D. 1416, he, too, died at the stake, joyfully and courageously as Huss had done. The Florentine humanist Poggio, who was present, has given enthusiastic expression in a still extant letter to his admiration at the heroic spirit of the martyr.