The Hussite movement was older than Hus, and it was |The Hussite movement.| partly native and partly foreign in its origin. The first impulse to religious reform is to be found, in Bohemia as in England, in the dissensions between the parish clergy and the mendicant orders. The latter, being in immediate dependence upon the Papacy, were not subject to the ordinary authority of the bishops, and soon learned to consider themselves superior to the parish clergy. The bishops usually supported their own dependants, while the friars often found a powerful ally in the Pope. One result of this long-standing quarrel was that the people learned to question the authority of their ecclesiastical superiors. Wherever it is necessary or possible to take one of two sides, a certain amount of thought and independence is called into exercise by the choice. This first questioning spirit among the Bohemians was taken advantage of by a series of reforming teachers in the fourteenth century, of whom the best known are Konrad Waldhäuser, Milecz of Kremsier, and Mathias of Janow. These men attacked the degradation of the Church, the vices of monks and friars, the wealth and worldliness of the higher clergy. But it was not until the rise of Hus that there was any system in the demand for reform, or any cohesion among the reformers. And the systematic teaching of Hus was for the most part derived from the great English teacher, John Wyclif. It was a rule in the University of Prague that Bachelors of Arts might not deliver their own lectures, but must expound the teaching of distinguished professors either of Prague, Paris, or Oxford. The marriage of Anne of Bohemia, Wenzel’s sister, with Richard II. led to considerable intercourse between England and Bohemia. Many Bohemian students, notably the friend and disciple of Hus, Jerome of Prague, completed part of their course in Oxford, and returned to their native land carrying with them Wyclif’s treatises, or the record and recollection of his oral teaching. Wyclif, like the Bohemian reformers, had begun by quarrelling with the friars and denouncing the vices of the clergy. The disputes with the Avignon Popes had led him on to attack the extreme claims of papal authority: and gradually he had come to question some of the most prominent dogmas of the Church, notably that of transubstantiation. Hus was at first reluctant to accept all the conclusions of Wyclif, but he advanced step by step in the same direction, and in the end it was as the avowed disciple of the English reformer that he became the leader of a religious party in Bohemia.
But it is important to remember that the Hussite movement had a secular as well as an ecclesiastical side. Bohemia |Political aspect of the Hussite movement.| was a Slav state, and for centuries there had been a conflict between Slavs and Germans. At one time the Slavs had advanced along the southern shores of the Baltic almost as far as the North Sea. But, harassed by the attacks of the Magyars, they had been unable to hold their own, and had gradually been subdued or driven eastwards by German influences, represented by the Dukes of Saxony, the Margraves of Brandenburg, the Hanseatic League, and finally the crusading order of the Teutonic Knights. At the end of the fourteenth century this steady eastward advance of the Germans met with a severe, and to some extent a permanent, check. No doubt the chief agency in effecting this was the success of the Jagellon kings of Poland in their war with the Teutonic Order. But the Hussite movement belongs to the same Slav reaction, and for a time contributed almost as directly as Polish victories to assure the successful resistance of the Slavs. Hus himself, born of humble parentage in the village of Husinec, was profoundly imbued with popular sympathies, and lost no opportunity of identifying himself and his teaching with the national cause. And in this aim he was served by events in the University of Prague, where he early rose to a distinguished position. Founded in the days of Bohemian ascendency under Charles IV., the University had from the first attracted a large number of German teachers and students, and had become far larger and more distinguished than any purely German university. Like the Paris University, on which it had been modelled, it was divided into four nations—Bohemians, Poles, Bavarians, and Saxons. After the foundation of a Polish university at Cracow, the Polish nation at Prague had come to be composed mainly of Germans from Silesia, Pomerania, and Prussia. Thus to all intents and purposes the University was composed of two nations, Germans and Bohemians, of whom the former had three times as much power as the latter. In all questions which were decided by the vote of the nations, the Germans had three votes to one, and as offices went in rotation to the four nations, they had three turns to the Bohemian one. As the divergent interests of Slavs and Germans became accentuated by political and religious differences, the inferiority of the Bohemians in their own University became more and more of a grievance. It was on religious questions that the quarrel was most embittered. The majority of the orthodox party in the University consisted of Germans, and they denounced the growth of Wycliffite heresy. A German teacher brought forward a number of propositions which had been attributed to Wyclif and condemned by a Synod in London. In spite of the opposition of Hus and his Bohemian supporters, the majority in the University voted that the doctrines were heretical, and prohibited their teaching. Wenzel, who was at this time supporting the rebellious cardinals, was anxious that his intervention should not be weakened by the charge of the prevalence of heresy in his dominions, and was at first inclined to support the majority. But when he applied to the University for their approval of the Council of Pisa, he found the Bohemians ready to acquiesce, while the Germans were mostly on the side of the Roman Pope. At this moment the so-called ‘contest of the three votes’ was at its height, and Hus had adroitly come forward as the champion of the cause of his fellow-countrymen. In the hope of forwarding his ecclesiastical policy, Wenzel was induced to intervene in the University quarrel. In January 1409 he issued an edict that henceforth the Bohemians should have three votes and three turns in office, while the foreign nations were only to have one between them. The Germans protested vigorously, and as they failed to obtain redress, determined to leave Prague. The roads were crowded with the emigrants, and it was reckoned that on one day two thousand Germans took their departure.
The exodus of the Germans from Prague is an important |Exodus of the Germans from Prague.| historical event. For sixty years Prague had been the capital of Germany, partly as the residence of the Emperor, and partly as the seat of the leading University. With the students had come German traders, who had made Prague a commercial as well as an intellectual centre. All this came to a sudden end in 1409. Prague lost its prominence among German towns. Other universities were strengthened by the addition of the exiles from Bohemia; and a large number of them founded a new university at Leipzig. Germany received a great intellectual impulse, which was strengthened rather than weakened by the loss of a general centre. And for Bohemia the consequences were no less important. The German element in the country received a blow which was fatal to its further development for two centuries. At the same time the great dam which had hitherto impeded the spread of the new religious doctrines was removed. The rapidity with which the people received the Wycliffite or Hussite teaching shows not only that the soil was already well prepared for the seed, but also the strength of the national antipathy to foreigners.
With the departure of the Germans, all opposition to the recognition of the Council of Pisa by Bohemia came to an end. But the religious dispute was as far from a settlement as ever. Although the people were inclined to regard Hus as the champion of the national cause, there was still a large orthodox party among the upper classes, and the clergy were resolutely opposed to doctrinal reform. Alexander V. issued a bull ordering the Archbishop of Prague to put down heresy, and Wyclif’s writings were publicly burned. Hus appealed from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope when he should be better informed. In 1412 the quarrel was envenomed. John XXIII. had proclaimed a crusade against Ladislas of Naples, and endeavoured to raise money by the sale of indulgences. Hus protested against such an iniquity as vigorously as did Luther a century later, and the papal bull was burned in the public square. Riots broke out in Prague, and Bohemia seemed to be on the verge of civil war. Wenzel could only obtain a temporary truce by persuading Hus to retire for a time into the country. Meanwhile Sigismund had succeeded in inducing John XXIII. to summon a General Council, and anxious to pacify his future kingdom, he invited Hus to attend. The reformer’s friends warned him of the danger he would run in accepting the invitation, but Hus was eager to state his opinions before an assembly of Christendom, and on receiving a promise of |Hus invited to Constance.| a personal safe-conduct from Sigismund, he arrived in Constance on November 3, 1414.
The Council of Constance is one of the most notable |The Council of Constance.| assemblies in the history of the world. In the number and fame of its members, in the importance of its objects, and above all, in the dramatic interest of its records, it has few rivals. It is like the meeting of two worlds, the old and the new, the mediæval and the modern. We find there represented views which have hardly yet been fully accepted, which have occupied the best minds of succeeding centuries: at the same time, the Council itself and its ceremonial carry us back to the times of the Roman Empire, when Church and State were scarcely yet dual, and when Christianity was co-extensive with one united Empire. At Constance all the ideas, religious and political, of the Middle Ages seem to be put upon their trial. If that trial had ended in condemnation, there could be no fitter point to mark the division between mediæval and modern history. But the verdict was acquittal, or at least a partial acquittal; and the old system was allowed, under modified conditions, a lease of life for another century. It must not be forgotten that there were great secular as well as ecclesiastical interests involved in the Council. Princes and nobles were present as well as cardinals and prelates. The Council may be regarded not only as a great assembly of the Church, but also as a great diet of the mediæval empire.
The man who had done more than any one to procure the summons of the Council, and whose interests were most closely |Parties at Constance.| bound up in its success, was Sigismund, King of the Romans and potential Emperor. He was eager to terminate the schism, and to bring about such a reform in the Church as would prevent the recurrence of similar scandals. But his motive in this was not merely disinterested devotion to the interests of the Church. He wished to revive the prestige of the Holy Roman Empire, and to gratify his own personal vanity, by posing as the secular head of Christendom and the arbiter of its disputes. More especially he wished to restore the authority of the monarchy in Germany, and to put an end to that anarchic independence of the princes, of which the recent schism was both the illustration and the result. In pursuing this aim he was confronted by the champions of ‘liberty’ and princely interests, who were represented at Constance by the Archbishop of Mainz and Frederick of Hapsburg, Count of Tyrol. The archbishop, John of Nassau, had been prominent in effecting and prolonging the schism in the Empire. He was a firm supporter of John XXIII., and had no interest in attending the Council except to thwart the designs of the king, whom he had been the last to accept. Frederick of Tyrol was the youngest son of that Duke Leopold who had fallen at Sempach in the war with the Swiss. Of his father’s possessions Frederick had inherited Tyrol and the Swabian lands, and the propinquity of his territories made him a powerful personage at Constance. His family was the chief rival of the House of Luxemburg for ascendency in eastern Germany, and he himself seems to have cherished a personal grudge against Sigismund. To these enemies Sigismund could oppose two loyal allies, the Elector Palatine Lewis, who had completely abandoned the anti-Luxemburg policy pursued by his father Rupert, and Frederick of Hohenzollern, the most prominent representative of national sentiment in Germany, who had already given in Brandenburg an example of that restoration of order which he wished Sigismund to effect throughout his dominions.
Of the clerical members of the Council the most prominent at the commencement was the Pope John XXIII. He had been forced by his difficulties in Italy to issue the summons, but as the time for the meeting approached he felt more and more misgiving. His one object was to maintain himself in office; but he was conscious that neither Sigismund nor the cardinals would hesitate to throw him over if he stood in the way of the restoration of unity. He therefore allied himself with Sigismund’s opponents, the Elector of Mainz and Frederick of Tyrol, and spared no pains to bring about dissension between Sigismund and the Council.
The assembled clergy may be divided roughly into two parties: the reformers, and the conservative or ultramontane |Clerical parties.| party. The reformers were not in favour of any radical change in the Church. They were if anything more vehemently opposed than their antagonists to the doctrines of Wyclif and Hus. Such reform as they desired was aristocratic rather than democratic. They had no intention of weakening the authority of the Church; but within the Church they desired to remove gross abuses, and to strengthen the hierarchy as against the Papacy. Their chief contention was that a General Council has supreme authority, even over the Pope, and they wished such councils to meet at regular intervals. By this means papal absolutism would be limited by a sort of oligarchical parliament within the Church. The conservatives, on the other hand, consisting chiefly of the cardinals and Italian prelates, had no wish to alter a system under which they enjoyed material advantages. Their object, as it had been at Pisa, was to restore the union of the Church, but to defeat, or at any rate postpone, any schemes of reform.
The Council was opened on November 5, but the meeting was only formal, and no real business was transacted for a month. Meanwhile Hus had been followed to Constance by the representatives of the orthodox party in Bohemia, who brought a formidable list of charges against the reformer. John XXIII. at once saw in this an opportunity for embroiling the Council with Sigismund. Adroitly keeping himself in the background, he allowed the cardinals to take the lead in the matter. They summoned Hus to appear before them, and in spite of his protest that he was only answerable to the whole Council, they committed |Hus imprisoned.| him to prison. The news that his safe-conduct had been so insultingly disregarded reached Sigismund as he was starting for Constance after the coronation ceremony at Aachen. He arrived on Christmas day, and at once demanded that Hus should be released. The Pope excused himself, and threw the blame on the cardinals. To the king’s right to protect his subject the cardinals opposed their duty to suppress heresy. In high dudgeon, Sigismund declared that he would leave the Council to its fate, and actually set out on his return journey. The Pope was jubilant at the success of his wiles. But Sigismund’s friends, and especially Frederick of Hohenzollern, urged him not to sacrifice the interests of Germany and of Christendom for the sake of a heretic. This advice, and the feeling that his personal reputation was staked on the success of the Council, triumphed. Sigismund returned to Constance, and Hus remained a prisoner. From this moment John XXIII. began to despair.
The Pope’s position became worse when the Council, copying the procedure of the universities, began to discuss matters, |Attacks on John XXIII.| not in a general assembly, but each nation separately. This deprived John of the advantage which he hoped to gain from the numerical majority of Italian prelates attending the Council. Four nations organised themselves: Italians, French, Germans, and English. Over the last three John XXIII. had no hold whatever. To his disgust they treated him, not as the legitimate Pope, whose authority was to be vindicated against his rivals, but as one of three schismatic Popes, whose retirement was a necessary condition of the restoration of unity. When he tried to evade their demand, they brought unanswerable charges against his personal character, and threatened to depose him. He tried to disarm hostility by declaring his readiness to resign if the other Popes would do the same. His promise was welcomed with enthusiasm, but neither Sigismund nor his supporters were softened by it. In spite of the vehement protests of the Elector of Mainz that he would obey no Pope but John XXIII., the proposal was made to proceed to a new election. John had to fall back upon his last expedient. If he departed from Constance he might throw the Council into fatal |The Pope’s flight.| confusion: at the worst he could maintain himself as an Antipope, as Gregory and Benedict had done against the Council of Pisa. His ally Frederick of Tyrol was prepared to assist him. Frederick arranged a tournament outside the walls, and while this absorbed public interest, the Pope escaped from Constance in the disguise of a groom, and made his way to Schaffhausen, a strong castle of the Hapsburg count.