BOOK IX.
FROM THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE TO THE END OF
THE FIFTH COUNCIL OF THE LATERAN, A.D. 1418-1517.
CHAPTER I.
MARTIN V. BOHEMIAN WAR.
A.D. 1418-1431.
The hopes with which those who desired a reform in the
church had looked to the council of Constance were to be disappointed. The
measures which the council took with a view to reform were scanty, and were too
likely to prove illusory in practice; nor, although it professed to limit the
power of the papacy, was there anything to prevent the popes, if so disposed,
from continuing to maintain their old assumptions, and to act on their own
authority, as if the decrees of the council had no existence.
Martin V, after his triumphant departure from
Constance, proceeded slowly towards the south, remaining for a considerable
time in some of the principal cities. At Milan he was received with great
magnificence by the duke, Philip Mary Visconti. Avoiding Bologna, which, on the
deposition of John XXIII, had declared itself independent, he arrived on the
26th of February 1419 at Florence, where he was lodged in the Dominican convent
of Santa Maria Novella. The state of Rome was not yet such as to invite the pope’s
return. Braccio of Montone, a condottiere who had been in the service of John
XXIII, had made himself master of the city after John’s deposition, professing
an intention of holding it for the future pope. A sickness which broke out
among his troops, and the approach of a stronger Neapolitan force, commanded by
Sforza Attendolo, had soon afterwards compelled him
to withdraw; but he had made himself lord of his native city, Perugia, and had
extended his sway over a large portion of the papal states.
Through the intervention of the Florentine magistrates
Braccio was persuaded to meet the pope at Florence, where he was received with
extraordinary honours. He was reconciled to the church, and undertook to reduce
the turbulent Bolognese to obedience—a task which, with the countenance of
cardinal Condolmieri as legate, he was able to
accomplish. But at Florence the splendour and the profuse expenditure which
the condottiere displayed were unfavourably contrasted in the popular
estimation with the close economy and the ungenial manners of the pope; and the
boys of the streets sang under Martin’s own windows a jingle in which he was
said to be not worth a farthing.
By these indications of unpopularity it would seem
that the pope was determined to leave Florence, after having taken leave of the
magistrates in a complimentary speech, and having rewarded the hospitality of
the citizens by erecting the see into an archbishopric. He arrived at Rome on
the 28th of September 1420, and two days later went in solemn procession from
the Flaminian gate to the Vatican. Although an attempt had been made to put on
a festive appearance by means of hangings and other decorations, the eye was
everywhere met by evidences of the misery to which the city had been reduced by
the long absence of the popes at Avignon, and by the calamities of later
years—decaying houses, streets choked by rubbish and filth, the monuments of
antiquity barbarously mutilated, dismantled and desolate churches; and beyond
the Tiber, the ancient Burg of the English appeared in ruins, having been laid
waste by the artillery of the castle of St. Angelo.
Amongst the citizens themselves, the unquiet years of
the schism had greatly increased that rudeness of manners which had been
already remarkable when pope Gregory XI returned from Avignon. It seemed, says
Platina, as if all the citizens were either sojourners or the confluence of the
lowest dregs of mankind; and soon after the pope’s arrival, the sufferings of
the people were brought to a height by a violent flood, which caused much
damage and produced a scarcity of food. Beyond the walls of the city, all way
disorder throughout the papal territory. The Campagna was distracted by the
feuds of town against town, of one baron or family against another. Robbers,
assassins, and soldiers of predatory habits, committed violence without any
check, so that it was unsafe for pilgrims to approach the capital of
Christendom.
From this depth of anarchy and wretchedness it was
Martin’s work to deliver Rome. Churches were restored—and in this the pope’s
example was followed by the cardinals, who repaired the churches of their
respective titles. The erection of public and private buildings marked the
beginning of a new era in the varied and eventful history of the city. The
vigour and the justice of Martin’s administration restored order and security,
such as had been long unknown, in the surrounding territory; and his subjects
in general, feeling the benefits which they owed to him, regarded him with
reverence and affection, which expressed themselves in styling him the third
founder of the city—the “happiness of his times”. But his cardinals, whom he
reduced to a degree of subjection before unknown, were on uneasy terms with
him, and, while the old corruptions of the curia were unabated, the pope
himself was charged with excessive love of money, with a sordid parsimony, and
with an undue care for the interests of his relations, whom he endowed with
castles and lands at the expense of the church.
While Martin was labouring to restore the material
fabric of his city, two popular saints—one of either sex—were zealously
labouring there for religious and moral reformation.
1420-31. ST. FRANCES OF ROME.
Frances of Rome, born in 1384, showed in early years a
wish to devote herself to virginity, but was constrained to marry a noble
Roman, Lorenzo de’ Ponziani, with whom she lived more than twenty-eight years.
But even while in the married state her life was very strict, and she founded
the order of “Oblates of the blessed Virgin”, which had its headquarters in the
Tor de’ Specchi at Rome. These oblates were not bound
by a vow of celibacy, but were at liberty to leave the order for marriage; and
they were under the superintendence of the monks of Mount Olivet, whose order
(as we have already seen) had been founded about a century earlier. Frances,
after her husband’s death, became the head of the oblate sisterhood, and gave heself wholly up to mortification, devotion, and charity.
The biographies of this saint are full of miracles, prophecies, and visions.
Among other things we are told that an archangel was specially assigned to
attend on her in the form of a boy nine years old; that to this guardian
another angel of a lower order was afterwards added; and that she saw the
Saviour place a crown on the head of her archangel, as a reward for having well
kept her soul.
The death of Frances took place in 1440; she was
canonized by Paul V in 1608 and the church founded on the site of the temple of
Venus and Rome, which was formerly known as Santa Maria Nuova, and in which she
is buried, is now dedicated to her honour.
1420-40. ST. Bernadine of Siena.
The other great saint of the time, Bernardine of
Siena, was born in 1380, and entered the Franciscan order. Desiring a greater
rigour than that which he found around him, he may have been tempted to run,
like many of his brotherhood, into the extravagances of the fraticelli;
but instead of this he undertook a reform which was styled “of the strict
observance,” and the number of convents founded by him in Italy is said to have
exceeded 500. As a preacher he attained great eminence, which is said to have
been foretold by the most famous preacher of the preceding generation, St.
Vincent Ferrer; and it is added that, from the time when he entered on his
work, he was freed from a hoarseness of voice with which he had been before
afflicted. His eloquence was effectually exerted against the prevailing evils—a
disregard of the outward duties of religion, a neglect of the holy communion, a
fondness for gaming and other idle amusements, a reliance on arts of divination
and magic. He reconciled enemies, composed the feuds by which the Italians had
been distracted for generations, and expressed his abhorrence of worldly
vanities in a way at once symbolical and practical, by committing to a great
bonfire on the Capitoline hill, pictures, instruments of music, the implements
of gaming, false hair, and the extravagances of female attire in general. Many
miracles are ascribed to Bernardine, and he refused several bishoprics. But his
career excited much envy, and he was assailed by charges of heresy and idolatry
on account of an ornament which he invented as a help to devotion. The question
was discussed before the pope, who, although in general he heartily supported
Bernardine, pronounced against the use of the symbol; and the saint dutifully
obeyed. His death took place at Aquila in 1444; and at the jubilee of 1450 he
received the honour of canonization, for which he had been especially
recommended to Nicolas V by the influence of Alfonso of Naples.
NAPLES
The state of the Neapolitan kingdom contributed to the
difficulties of Martin’s position. Joanna II, who succeeded her brother
Ladislaus in 1414, had been the wife of an Austrian prince, after whose death
she gave herself up to the unrestrained indulgence of her passions, while the
government was made over to the rivalries of courtiers and favourites. From
among the princes who sued for her hand, Joanna, who had reached the age of
forty-six, chose James, count of La Marche, a member of the royal family of France,
and after some delay she bestowed on him the title of king. But the new
husband, wishing to guard himself against a repetition of her former
irregularities, placed her in a state of seclusion, from which she was
delivered by a popular insurrection. The king was imprisoned in his turn; but
after a time he obtained his release, and withdrew from Naples to become a
Franciscan in his native country, while Joanna relapsed into her old course of
life. Having resolved to adopt an heir, she at first chose Lewis III of Anjou,
then discarded him in favour of Alfonso V of Aragon, and again set aside
Alfonso for Lewis, whose death soon after gave occasion for further
difficulties. Martin was suspected of an intention to set one of his own
nephews, whom he had created prince of Salerno, on the throne at the queen’s
death. Braccio of Montone had again broken with the pope, and had threatened to
reduce him to such straits that he would be glad to say masses at a halfpenny
each.
The south of Italy was continually distracted by
contests which arose out of these affairs, and was a battle-ground for the
mercenary forces of Braccio and Sforza Attendolo,
until in 1424 Sforza was drowned in the Pescara, and Braccio died of wounds
received in action. In consequence of the difficulties as to Naples, it seemed
at one time likely that the king of Aragon might return to the obedience of
Benedict XIII, who, although deserted by almost all his scanty college of
cardinals, continued to maintain his claims to the papacy on the rock of Peñiscola. But Martin was able to avert this danger, and to
draw off from Benedict Scotland and such other powers as had hitherto adhered
to him. On the death of Benedict, in 1424, attempts were made to set up
successors of his line; but by the aid of Alfonso, with whom Martin was at
length fully reconciled, these attempts were easily frustrated, and the phantom
antipopes were glad to secure the reality of less exalted dignities which
Martin bestowed on them. Two cardinals, who obstinately held out, were seized
and imprisoned by the count of Foix; and their further history is unknown.
In his dealings with the kingdoms of Latin
Christendom, Martin was careful to maintain the highest views of the papal
prerogatives. The concordat of Constance was ill received in France, where the
parliament of Paris rejected it; and, although an attempt had been made to
conciliate the French by remitting half of the annates, in consideration of the
English war, a royal ordinance was issued in 1418, and again in 1422, renewing
the former prohibitions of sending money to the Roman court. On the death of Charles
VI, which took place in 1422, Martin attempted to entice his young successor,
Charles VII, into a surrender of the liberties which had been asserted for the
national church; it was said that the pastor’s judgments must be reverenced,
even although they may be unjust. Against this Gerson wrote a treatise, in
which, among other things, he referred to the oath by which the French kings at
their coronation bound themselves to defend the liberties of the church.
Martin, however, succeeded in gaining the king’s mother and brother; and
through their influence Charles was persuaded to order, in 1425, that the papal
authority should be obeyed as it had been in the times of Clement VII and
Benedict XIII, notwithstanding any ordinances of the crown, decrees of the
parliament, or other orders or usages to the contrary. And as Charles himself,
when dauphin, had sworn to observe the national laws, the pope absolved him
from his oath.
With regard to England, Martin outdid his predecessors
in maintaining the abuses of which the nation had long and justly complained.
He appointed bishops by provision, in contempt of the electoral rights of
chapters; and of this encroachment it is said that thirteen instances occurred
in the province of Canterbury within two years. He usurped patronage, and
abused it, as in the case of his nephew Prosper Colonna, whom he made
archdeacon of Canterbury at the age of fourteen; and in this and other
instances he continued to sanction the crying evil of non-residence. But these
practices were not always allowed to pass without resistance. Thus the church
of York refused to accept the nomination of Robert Fleming to the
archbishopric; and Fleming was glad to fall back on the see of Lincoln, which
he had previously held. When the English representatives at Constance found the
pope hesitating and unsatisfactory in his reply to their statement of
grievances which needed redress, they told him that their mission was merely a
matter of courtesy, and that the king would take the matter into his own hands,
according to his right.
The death of Henry V, whose strength of character and
warlike successes had made him formidable, the infancy of his successor, and
the discords between the young king’s ambitious kinsmen, Henry Beaufort bishop
of Winchester, and Humphrey duke of Gloucester, encouraged the pope to
aggression. He designed to supersede the ordinary jurisdiction of the English
metropolitans by establishing a resident legate a latere;
and for this purpose the services which Beaufort had rendered at the council of
Constance were to be rewarded with the dignity of cardinal, and with a legatine
authority over England and Ireland. Against this legation archbishop Chichele had protested in a letter to Henry V, on the
ground that no legate a latere had
ever been sent into England except on special business; that such legates had
not been admitted without the sovereign’s licence: and that their stay had been
only for a short time. In consequence of the primate’s letter, the king forbade
the bishop to accept the intended appointments.
In 1426 Beaufort was declared cardinal of St.
Eusebius; and in September 1428 he ventured to appear in England as legate. But
he was compelled to promise, before the king’s council, that he would refrain
from all acts which might be against the rights of the crown or of the people.
Attempts were made to deprive him of Winchester, on the ground that it could
not be held with his new dignity; and although, after a struggle of four years,
he was allowed to retain his see, and to resume his place in the council, it
was under conditions which restrained him from acting as an instrument of the
papacy in opposition to the national interests.
To such a pope as Martin the statutes of provisors and
praemunire were not likely to be acceptable. In 1426 he wrote to the king, to
the parliament, and to the archbishops, urging a repeal of these statutes,
which he characterized as execrable, pernicious to souls worse than the laws by
opposing which St. Thomas Canterbury had become a martyr and a saint; worse
than y thing enacted against Jews or Saracens. He speaks of the king of England
as arrogating to himself the office of Christ’s vicar. To Chichele (who had offended him by opposition to papal exemptions) he writes with
extraordinary violence; throwing out against him charges of indifference to his
pastoral duty, and of caring only for money; and urging him to oppose the
obnoxious laws in parliament, to threaten their supporters with the censures of
the church, and in the meantime to treat them as a nullity. He even went so far
as to suspend the archbishop, who replied by appealing to a general council.
Yet his attempt failed of the expected success. Chichele contented himself with recommending matter to the
serious consideration of parliament, and representing the dangers of the pope’s
anger and of the interdict which he was likely to issue; and the parliament did
nothing beyond petitioning the king that he would obtain; through his
ambassador a cessation of the proceedings against the primate, and his
restoration to the pope’s favour.
As the time which had been appointed at Constance for
the meeting of the next general council approached, the pope was urged by the
university of Paris and from other quarters to take the necessary steps for
assembling it; but although he affected, in his answer to the Parisians, to
clear himself from suspicions of wishing to elude the decree of Constance, he
showed no eagerness in the matter, and it became evident that, instead of
allowing the council liberty, he intended to keep the control of it in his own
hands. Only a few bishops and others had assembled at Pavia, the appointed
place, when, in consequence of a pestilence which was raging, the pope
transferred the sessions to Siena. On the 21st of July the council opened,
under the presidency of papal commissioners, with a sermon by Fleming, bishop
of Lincoln; but, although it continued until the spring of the following year,
hardly anything was done beyond renewing the condemnations of Wyclif, Hus, and
Peter de Luna, and granting an indulgence to those who should serve against the
heretics. Something was also said as to a reunion with the Greeks, with a view
to which communications had lately taken place; and some proposals for
ecclesiastical reform were made by the French. But it was evident that nothing
was to be expected from the assembly, which dwindled from its originally small
numbers, and was distracted by differences among its members. On the 8th of
March 1424 the council of Siena broke up, and the hopes of Christendom were
turned to the next general council, which was to meet at Basel seven years
later—an interval which the reforming party, on finding themselves disappointed
at Siena, had vainly attempted to shorten.
BOHEMIA
In the meantime Bohemia had been a scene of frightful
confusion. The tidings of Hus’s death were received there with unbounded
indignation. He and Jerome were celebrated as martyrs with a yearly festival.
Medals were struck in honour of Hus; his image or picture was placed over the
high altar in churches, and the zeal of some of his partisans went so far as to
declare that of all the martyrs no one had approached so near to the Saviour’s
example .
At the council of Constance (as we have seen) some
articles on the question of administering the Eucharist in one or m two kinds
were drawn up by a committee, who argued that, as the church had without
question changed the hour of celebration, so it had authority to deviate from
the original institution of the sacrament by withholding the cup from the
laity; and on this the council, June 15, about three weeks before Hus’s death,
passed a decree in condemnation of the opposite practiced. In answer to the
arguments and to the decree of Constance, Jacobellus of Misa, the author of the movement for administration in both kinds, put forth
a vehement defence of his opinion; and to this, by desire of the council,
replies were written by Gerson and by Maurice, a doctor of Prague. King
Wenceslaus and the archbishop of Prague united in ordering that the
administration in both kinds should be relinquished; but throughout Bohemia and
Moravia the order was generally disregarded. There were daily and nightly
conflicts between the opposite parties in the Bohemian capital. There were
continual disputations, in which Hussite laymen of mean occupations—tanners,
shoemakers, tailors, and the like—were forward to engage against the clergy.
In September 1415, a letter, to which four hundred and
fifty-two nobles and knights of Bohemia and Moravia attached their seals, was
addressed to the council, protesting vehemently against the iniquity of its
proceedings against Hus, against its treatment of Jerome (who was still in
prison), and against the imputations which had been cast on the orthodoxy of
Bohemia. And three days later the Hussite leaders bound themselves by an
engagement for six years to maintain the doctrine which they regarded as true and
scriptural. Some churches had already been given up for the administration of
the Eucharist in both kinds; but Nicolas of Hussinecz,
the patron of Hus, appeared before the fortress of the Wissehrad,
close to Prague, at the head of an armed multitude, demanding of the king that
a greater number of churches should be made over to the party. The council,
which had already announced the punishment of Hus to the Bohemians, and had
sent the bishop of Leitomysl into Bohemia with a
commission for the suppression of heresy, replied severely to the Hussite
manifesto; while Sigismund wrote from Paris in a conciliatory tone, assuring
the Bohemians that he had wished to protect Hus, but had found it impossible,
and earnestly exhorting them to avoid the danger of a religious war.
In March 1417, the university of Prague, of which
Hus’s friend John Cardinal had been elected rector, published a resolution in
favour of administering the chalice to the laity; but the council was still
resolved to make no concession, and drew up twenty-four articles with a view to
the suppression of the Hussite doctrines. In accordance with this course of
policy, pope Martin, on the 22nd of February 1418, sent forth a bull requiring
all authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, to labour for the suppression of the
heresies of Wyclif, Hus, and Jerome.
Immediately after the end of the council, cardinal
John of Ragusa (formerly a partizan of Gregory XII) was sent into Bohemia as
legate. The choice was unfortunate. John had before talked of reducing the
country by fire and sword, and, in his character of legate, he committed acts
of great violence, such as the burning of a priest and a layman who opposed him
in one place. By such means the Bohemians were roused to fury, and the
cardinal, having utterly failed to accomplish the object of his mission, withdrew
into Hungary, to report his ill-success to Sigismund. His death took place soon
after his arrival in that country.
With Nicolas of Hussinecz,
the political chief of the Hussites, who is described as a man of deep counsel
and of somewhat unscrupulous policy, was associated a leader of a different
stamp—John of Trocznow, known by the name of Ziska.
Ziska had in boyhood been a page in the household of Wenceslaus, and had since
distinguished himself in the Polish wars, to which his loss of an eye has been
commonly referred. He had sworn to avenge the death of Hus, and it is said that
he obtained a patent from the king, under which he raised a number of soldiers.
At the head of a powerful force he moved about the country, everywhere
enforcing the administration of the sacrament in both kinds; and, in token of
his devotion to the cause, he displayed the eucharistic cup on his banners, and
added the words “of the chalice” to the signature of his name.
On St. Mary Magdalene’s day 1419, a great meeting of
Hussites was assembled on a hill near Aust, in the
circle of Bechin, where the holy communion was
celebrated in the open air. There was no previous confession; the clergy (among
whom were John Cardinal and Jacobellus of Misa) wore
no distinctive vestures; the chalices were of wood, and the 300 altars were
without any covering. Forty-two thousand persons—men, women, and
children— communicated; and the celebration was followed by a love-feast, at
which the rich shared with their poorer brethren; but no drinking or dancing,
no gaming or music, was allowed. The people encamped in tents, which, in the
Bohemian language, were called Tabor; and out of this celebration
grew a town which received that name, with reference at once to the
circumstances of the meeting, and to the mount of the Saviour’s
transfiguration.
From this great assembly Ziska and his followers
proceeded to Prague, where they arrived by night. On the following day they
attacked and plundered some convents. The magistrates of the city, who had met
in the town-hall, were butchered or driven to flight; some of them were thrown
from the windows, and were caught by the Hussites on pikes and pitchforks. A
fierce struggle took place between the insurgents and the people of the Old
Town, who were in favour of the church. Wenceslaus, whose deposition had been
threatened, was agitated by these scenes to such a degree that he was seized
with apoplexy, which, in a few days, put an end to his life. Such was the fear
of the popular excitement, that his body was hastily thrust into the tomb,
without the usual ceremonies of royal interment.
As the late king had left no children, Bohemia fell by
inheritance to his brother Sigismund; and this change became the signal for
increased exasperation on the part of the Hussites. Wenceslaus, although
personally vicious and despicable, had in some measure directly favoured Hus
and his followers, while they had benefited in a much greater degree by his
indolence and apathy; whereas Sigismund was execrated by them, as the traitor
by whose safe-conduct Hus had been lured to Constance, and by whom he had there
been abandoned to the enemies of the true faith. At once the reformers broke
out without restraint. On the very next day after the death of Wenceslaus, some
convents at Prague were attacked, and many of the monks were slaughtered; and
the movement soon spread to other places. Churches and monasteries were
plundered and reduced to ruin, images were mutilated and broken to pieces,
organs were demolished, pictures and other ornaments were defaced and
destroyed; and in these outrages the lust of spoil mingled with the rage of
religious fanaticism.
Sigismund, being fully occupied by war with the Turks
on the east of his dominions, was unable to take such measures with regard to
Bohemia as might have checked the reforming movement at an early stage; and
when at length he turned his especial attention to the state of his
newly-inherited kingdom, he found that the Hussites had developed fresh
extravagances of opinion, and that they were no longer to be appeased by
concessions which, at an earlier time, they would have gladly accepted.
The popular assemblies, of which the example had been
given on the hill of Tabor, became a part of the Hussite system. Men, women,
and children flocked to them by tens of thousands, in defiance of the will of
their landlords. The spirit of the party was strengthened on such occasions by
the joint reception of the Eucharist in both kinds, and by exciting
denunciations of the simony, the greed, the luxury, and other vices, which were
freely imputed to the clergy of the church; and at every meeting of this kind
the place and time of the next meeting were fixed.
The Bohemians were much divided among themselves. A
small proportion—more considerable among the nobles than in any other
class—adhered to the Roman church, as did also the German inhabitants of the
kingdom, with the exception of some in the capital. Among those who were in
favour of reformation, the name of Utraquists or
Calixtines was given to the more moderate section, who would have been content
with the liberty of communicating in both kinds, and other such concessions,
and desired to remain, if possible, in the unity of the Roman church. The utraquists were supported by the authority of the
university of Prague; and among them were included the people of the capital in
general, with the reforming nobles. The fiercer zealots, who were known by the
name of Taborites, professed to rest on Scripture only, rejecting everything of
a traditional kind, and many of the externals of religion. They condemned all
occupations for which no scriptural authority could be shown; they denounced
all worldly amusements, and even all human learning. Their political opinions
tended to republicanism, and, while they were strong among the population of
towns, and yet more among the peasantry, the party had few adherents among the
nobility. Its chiefs belonged to the class of knights or gentry—such as the
politician Nicolas of Hussinecz and the warrior John
Ziska, who, on the death of Nicolas, became the acknowledged head of the
Taborites.
Ziska fixed his head-quarters, and established a
government, at Tabor; and to him it is probably to be attributed that Hussitism was able to surmount the dangers which threatened
it at the outset. His genius for war is described as marvellous. The tactics
which he had learned in the Polish campaigns were varied by his original
invention, and skilfully adapted to the special circumstances of his
followers. The peasantry whom he led had at first no other offensive weapons
than clubs and flails; but Ziska taught them to arm these with iron, and to
make them instruments of terrible power. He taught them to range their rough
carts together in the battlefield, and to connect them in such a manner as to
present to the assailants an impregnable fortress; and the novelty of these
contrivances increased the terror with which they were regarded by the enemy,
who sometimes fled in panic alarm at the very sight of the Hussites with their
strange equipments.
The eucharistic chalice was not only represented on
the banners of the party, but was carried by priests at the head of their
forces; and on reaching a town, the priests, in their ordinary dress, worn and
stained by travel, hurried to the altar of some church, said a short form of
consecration, and administered the sacrament in both kinds to all who would
receive it.
Fierce and pitiless, Ziska carried fire and sword in
all directions—massacring clergy and monks, burning and demolishing churches
and convents. However overmatched in numbers by his enemies, and although
obliged to form his armies out of unpromising materials, he was never defeated
in battle; and after he had been reduced to utter blindness, in March 1421, he
still continued to direct the operations of war with the same skill and success
as before. Yet, although Ziska was animated by a fury which may remind us of
the early warriors of Islam, and which might seem possible only for the most
exalted fanaticism, it is said that in opinions he rather agreed with the
Prague party than with the more extravagant sectaries; that he may be regarded
as faithfully representing the principles of Hus himself, apart from the
developments which these had undergone among the martyr’s followers.
Among the more advanced Hussites, apocalyptic ideas
were zealously spread. It was said that the persecution of the faithful showed
the nearness of the second advent; that the ungodly were to be consumed by the
seven last plagues; that safety was to be attained only by “fleeing to the
mountains”; that with the exception of five towns, which were pointed out as
places of refuge, all cities—including Prague itself—were to be destroyed,
like Sodom and Gomorrah, by fire from heaven: and in consequence of such teaching
multitudes flocked from all parts of Bohemia and Moravia to the cities of
refuge, selling their all for such prices as could be got, and laying the money
at the feet of the clergy. A community of goods was established, and it was
taught that the Saviour would speedily come to set up his kingdom on earth—a
new state of paradise, in which his subjects would be free from pain and from
all bodily necessities, and would need no sacraments for their sanctification.
The reforming movement of Bohemia had drawn thither
persons from other countries whose opinions were obnoxious to the authorities
of the church. Among these, the most remarkable were known by the name of Picards,—apparently a form of the word beghards, which, as
we have seen, was then widely applied to sectaries. These Picards appear to have come from the Low Countries, and to have been akin in opinions
to the sect of the “Free Spirit”. They declared the eucharistic elements to be
mere bread and wine, and on this account were expelled from the Bohemian
capital. Some of them, through fasting immoderately in the hope of seeing
visions, went mad. Those who carried their extravagances furthest were styled
Adamites, from maintaining that the use of clothes was a slavery. They are said
to have affirmed that everything is holy so long as it is held in common, and
to have extended this principle to women to have asserted the lawfulness of
incest; to have renounced all books and all law; and to have believed that the Spirit
within them would preserve them from dying. These fanatics got possession of an
island in a river, and spread terror far around by their ravages and bloodshed,
until Ziska attacked them, overcame them after a furious defence, and burnt all
whom he was able to seize, with the exception of one, who was reserved that he
might give information as to the sect.
Greatly as the Bohemians differed among themselves,
and bloodily as they carried out their quarrels, the various sections were all
united for common defence. In the same spirit which led them to give to their
parties the names of Taborites and Horebites, they
spoke of Bohemia as the promised land, of the Germans and other enemies as
Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and the like; and all rose together in
resistance to those who had included them all in the common reproach of heresy.
The university of Prague had been consulted by Nicolas
of Hussinecz as to the lawfulness of a resort to
arms—not from any scruples of his own, but for the satisfaction of his
followers, who professed a rigid adherence to Scripture; and the answer was,
that, although it would be wrong to enforce the truth by the sword, yet in case
of extremity the sword might lawfully be employed for the defence of the true
religion.
The war of Bohemia was carried on with an atrocity
which has probably never been equalled. On the taking of a town all the
inhabitants were slain, with perhaps, the exception of a few women and
children. Churches, were burnt, with those who had taken refuge in them. The
churches and convents, which Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini describes as more
numerous, more magnificent, and more highly adorned than those of any other
European country, were demolished, so that, with the exception of the
incomplete cathedral in the Hradschin at Prague, no
specimen of the ancient splendour now remains. Ziska professed to destroy all
churches which bore the names of saints, on the ground that they ought to be
dedicated to God alone. He is said to have reduced to ruin more than 500
churches and monasteries and with the buildings perished their precious
ornaments, which were regarded as instruments of idolatry. By these acts of
fanatical barbarism the Taborites not only vexed their enemies, but practically
enforced their principle that for true believers no material buildings for
worship were necessary; that the use of such buildings was superstitious,
inasmuch as every believer ought to carry God’s living law in his own breast.
Nor was the destroying rage of the Hussites confined to things which might be
regarded as superstitious : thus, we are told that, on the taking of Rabic by Ziska, treasures which had been placed there with
a view to safety were burnt, with the captive monks and clergy, while nothing
but arms, horses, and money was exempted from the flames. On both sides
excessive cruelty was displayed, not only towards prisoners taken in war, but
towards others. Ziska was in the habit of burning priests and monks in pitch,
and after his death this and other barbarities continued to be practised by his
partisans. Nor were the Catholics slow to emulate the ferocity of their
opponents; and to this they sometimes—on the principle that no faith was due to
heretics—added a treachery from which the Hussites were free. Thus, when some Taborites
surrendered at Chatebor, on the assurance that their
lives should be spared, the promise was shamelessly set aside. Sigismund caused
a merchant of Prague to be dragged at the heels of horses, and afterwards
burnt, for speaking disrespectfully of the council of Constance and maintaining
the necessity of communion in both kinds; and many other cruelties are recorded
against him. The men of Kuttenberg, then the second
city of the kingdom, who were mostly Germans, employed in mining, and violent
in their zeal for the church, offered a reward for all Hussites who should be
put into their hands—one florin for a layman and five for a priest. In
consequence of this, the Hussites were hunted and entrapped like beasts; and it
is said that 1600 of them were put to death at Kuttenberg,
either by burning, beheading, or being cast into the depths of mines.
In addition to the ecclesiastical buildings, castles,
palaces, even whole towns, were destroyed. By the ravages of contending hosts,
and by the neglect of tillage, the country was reduced to a desert.
Manufactures and foreign commerce were annihilated. The manners and habits of
the people became ruder and less civilized than before. On both sides the lust
of spoil gradually mixed with the religious purposes with which the war had
been undertaken; and by the enlistment of foreigners—Poles, Prussians, and others,
including even Germans—in the Taborite forces, the character of “God’s
warriors”, on which Ziska had insisted, became lost.
On the 1st of March 1420, pope Martin, at the
emperor’s request, issued a bull, Omnium plasmatoris Domini, summoning the faithful to rise for the extirpation of Wyclifism, Hussitism, and other
heresies, and promising full indulgences to those who should take part in the
enterprise either personally or by substitute. Sigismund, after a great diet at
Breslau, collected an army, which is estimated at from 100,000 to 150,000 men,
not only from every part of Germany, but from all other European countries
except Italy and Scandinavia. The Bohemians flew together for mutual defence;
oaths were taken that they would spend their property and their blood to the
utmost for the principle of utraquism, and fierce
language was uttered against the Roman church. At midsummer, the crusading host
invaded the land, but proved unequal to cope with the exasperated zeal of the
people in behalf of their country and their religion, and with the genius of
Ziska, who on the 14th of July defeated the invaders with great slaughter on a
hill near Prague, which still bears his name. Sigismund, although he was
crowned as king of Bohemia by archbishop Conrad in the Hradschin,
found himself unable to gain possession of that part of his capital which lies
on the other side of the Moldau, and withdrew from the country, leaving behind
him a strong feeling of hatred in the hearts of the Bohemians, while his German
allies regarded him as a favourer of heresy for having entered into
negotiations with the Bohemian nobles. On the 31st of October, the great
fortress of the Wissehrad, which included within its
walls a palace and a monastery, was surrendered to the Hussites; and its
splendid buildings, with the precious contents, accumulated during several
centuries, were ruthlessly destroyed.
1420. FOUR ARTICLES OF PRAGUE.
The moderate party among the Hussites, which was
represented by the magistrates and the great mass of the citizens of the
capital, drew up in July 1420 a document, which was the result of many
conferences, and is known as the Four Articles of Prague. The substance of
these articles was: (1) that the word of God should be freely preached; (2)
that the holy Eucharist should be administered in both kinds to all faithful
Christians; (3) that the clergy should be deprived of their secular lordship
and temporalities, as being contrary to Christ’s law, hurtful to them in their
duty, and detrimental to the secular power; (4) that all deadly sins,
especially those of a public kind, and other disorders—including not only the
recognised breaches of morality, but the exaction of fees by the clergy—should
be forbidden and extirpated by those to whom it belongs.
But, wide as was the difference between these articles
and the system of the Roman church, they were far from satisfying the
Taborites, who proposed twelve additional articles as terms of union, requiring
among other things a more rigorous moral discipline, the confiscation of
church-property for the common benefit, the establishment of the divine law as
the only rule of government and justice, the destruction of “heretical”
monasteries and superfluous churches, with altars, images, rich vestments, church
plate, “and the whole idolatrous plantation of Antichrist”.
After a time, a compromise between the parties was
effected by the English preacher Peter Payne, who had been received among the
masters of the university, and had acquired much influence in Bohemia.
Sigismund was brought to tolerate the articles of Prague until the matter
should be more formally determined. Conrad, archbishop of Prague, accepted the
articles, and while for this he was anathematized by the pope, and the canons
of his cathedral renounced obedience to him, on the other hand the revenues of
the see were secularized, agreeably to the third article, and utraquists were put into all ecclesiastical dignities.
For a time Prague was under a theocratic republican
government, in which the greatest authority was wielded by a priest named John
of Selau, who had formerly been a Premonstratensian
monk. This John, in sermons which were eagerly heard by excited multitudes,
declared Sigismund to be the great red dragon of the Apocalypse; and all the
emperor’s attempts to conciliate his Bohemian subjects—his apologies and
explanations as to the past, his offers of concession—were received with scorn
and derision. A second and a third time Sigismund invaded the country at the
head of vast forces—in one case, it is said, of as many as 200,000 men; but
each time the invaders recoiled in confusion and disgrace before the invincible
Ziska.
In the meantime many of the nobles, disgusted by the
democratic and fanatical excesses of the Hussite parties, returned to the
obedience of the emperor and of the pope, and there were negotiations with
Poland and with Lithuania, which led to an attempt by a Lithuanian prince,
Sigismund Corybut, to establish himself as king of
Bohemia. In consequence of a change of the popular feeling, John of Selau was beheaded in March 1422, and on this removal of
the link by which the party of Prague had been connected with the Taborites,
the old hostilities of these parties broke out with a violence which was the
greater because for the time no foreign enemy was to be feared. The quarrel of
aristocracy and democracy was now mixed up with their religious enmities. On
the 8th of August 1423, Ziska inflicted a crushing defeat on the men of Prague;
and he would probably have punished their opposition by the destruction of
their city, but for the remonstrances of some of his chief associates, and the
entreaties of a deputation headed by John Rokyczana, an ecclesiastic of great
eloquence and ability, who played an important part in the later history.
Within a month after this, on the 11th of October 1424, Ziska died of a
pestilence which was raging in Bohemia. The last year of his life had also been
the fullest of violence and bloodshed; but immediately before his death he had
been engaged in negotiations with the emperor.
The loss of the great commander who had taught his
countrymen the art of war, and had always led them to victory, was deeply felt.
A large portion of his followers (towards whom his behaviour had commonly been
marked by a kindly familiarity, which strongly contrasted with his ruthless
ferocity to his enemies) took the name of Orphans, as if in Ziska they had lost
a father who could never be replaced. As to principles, this section took up a
middle position between the extreme parties, adhering to the doctrine of
transubstantiation and the use of vestments and ceremonies, while they rejected
the Roman church and hierarchy.
1424-6. THE PROCOPII.
But within no long time two other leaders became
conspicuous among the Hussites—the great and the little Procopius. It is said
that the former of these had been recommended by Ziska as his successor; and he
was accepted by the Taborites, while the lesser Procopius was at the head of
the orphans. The great Procopius was also designated as the Shaven, from the
circumstance that he had unwillingly entered the priesthood at the instance of
an uncle, to whom he had been indebted for education and for the means of
travelling widely. Although he had married, he still continued to perform
priestly ministrations; and, while zealously discharging the functions of a
general, he did not himself engage in fight, or carry offensive weapons.
Procopius was distinguished from the other Taborite leaders by mental culture
and a love of learning. He had at one time been suspected of an inclination to
the extravagances of the Picards; and, although his
opinions had more lately been in some degree mitigated, they were even now more
remote from the Roman system than those of Ziska, while Procopius was less
fanatical and intolerant, and was guided in a greater degree by political
prudence, than the earlier leader.
By the death of Ziska, the Prague party gained
strength. Some of the older excesses, such as the destruction of churches, were
blamed; the more extravagant opinions were discountenanced; and it even seemed
as if a reconciliation with the Roman church might be effected. But the more
advanced Hussites refused to consent to articles which favoured
transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, purgatory, and the ecclesiastical
ceremonies, with other such points of doctrine and practice; and the
conferences which had been opened with a view to union ended in divisions wider
than before. On this occasion Peter Payne, taking offence at some calixtine articles which asserted the presence of the
Lord’s body in the Eucharist, joined the Orphans, from whom he afterwards
passed to the Taborites.
Notwithstanding their violent differences among
themselves, the Bohemians continued to be successful against external enemies.
After having defeated a German force at Aussig in
1426, with a slaughter which is estimated at from 9,000 to 15,000 men, while
the Bohemians lost only fifty, they advanced as far as Magdeburg, and,
following the example which had been given by Ziska, they often invaded the
neighbouring countries on all sides. In these outbreaks, to which they were
partly urged by the necessities which arose out of the desolation of their own
land, they everywhere committed extraordinary acts of cruelty and wanton
devastations.
In February 1427, Martin gave the commission of legate
for Bohemia, Germany, and Hungary, to cardinal Beaufort, who at that time was
not unwilling to withdraw for a season from the political contests of England.
Preparations were made for a crusade on a very great scale. Throughout the
empire a tax was raised for the suppression of Hussitism.
Four large armies, amounting (it is said) to 200,000 in all, were to enter
Bohemia from different quarters at midsummer. Strict rules of discipline,
befitting the religious nature of the enterprise, were laid down; all gaming
and other such irregularities were forbidden; every soldier was bound to
frequent confession and communion; and in their manner of warfare the crusaders
were to adopt something of the system which the genius of Ziska had taught his
countrymen. Although the various parties of Bohemians united for the common
cause, it is said that the force which they were able to oppose to this vast
host amounted only to 15,000 horse and 16,000 foot; but the great enterprise
speedily ended in disgraceful failure. At Mies, the Germans, on coming in sight
of the enemy, were seized with a panic; and the cardinal, as he was advancing,
met his troops fleeing in abject terror. It was in vain that, with the crucifix
in his hand, he entreated them, by the most solemn considerations of religion,
to rally. He himself was reluctantly carried away with the multitude, and in
this scandalous flight the Germans lost 10,000 men, besides the loss of many
more, who, in their retreat, were pursued and slain by the peasantry.
In 1428 and the following year, fresh expeditions were
projected and heavy taxation was imposed, which, in some parts of Germany,
excited discontent and open resistance. Attempts were also made to come to an
agreement by means of conferences; but, although Sigismund professed to be
tired of the weight of empire, and willing to content himself with his original
kingdom of Hungary, the Bohemians had acquired such confidence from their
successes, that they insisted on terms which he was unable to yield. And the
internal divisions of the Hussites continued. A divine named John of Przibram violently assailed the doctrines of Wyclif, and
did not spare even Hus; while Payne strongly opposed him, and Rokyczana took a
middle part, adhering to the doctrine of transubstantiation, but in other
things generally agreeing with Payne.
The cardinal of Winchester was withdrawn from Bohemian
affairs in consequence of the change produced in the relations of France and
England by the appearance of the Maid of Orleans; and the force which he had
raised for the Hussite war was employed against the French. But the pope was
still bent on the suppression of Hussitism, and in
January 1431 despatched as his legate Julian Cesarini, who had lately been
created cardinal of St. Angelo. Julian was a Roman, of a family whose poverty
is more certain than its nobility. He had risen to eminence by his merits, was
esteemed for ability, morals, and learning, and, from having been in Bohemia,
in attendance on a former legate, Branda of Castiglione, was supposed to have
special qualifications. for the office. A bull was drawn up, authorizing a new
crusade, and bestowing extraordinary powers on him; but before the bearer,
cardinal John of Olmütz (formerly bishop of Leitomysl)
arrived at Nuremberg, tidings were received there that Martin had died on the
20th of February.
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