READING HALL

DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF THE POPES FROM THE GREAT SCHISM TO THE SACK OF ROME

BOOK II.

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE

1414 — 1418.

CHAPTER V.

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND THE BOHEMIAN REFORMERS.

1414—1416

From his lodging by the city wall Huss looked out with surprise on the assembling of the Council, on the pomp that signified the arrival of princes of the Church; but he had no enthusiasm in his heart. He saw only the vice and luxury that accompanied this gathering of the faithful. “Would that you could see this Council”, he wrote afterwards to his Bohemian friends, “which is called most holy and infallible; truly you would see great wickedness, so that I have been told by Swabians that Constance could not in thirty years be purged of the sins which the Council has committed in the city”. Huss stayed quietly in his house, for he was still excommunicated, and the place where he was lay under an interdict. The Pope sent him a message saying that the interdict was suspended, and that he was at liberty to visit the churches of Constance; but, to avoid scandal, he was not to be present at High Mass. Huss seems to have made no use of this permission; he was busily employed at home in preparing for his defence.

Meanwhile his enemies were actively engaged in poisoning the Council against him. Chief amongst his opponents were the Bishop of Leitomysl and Michael of Nemecky Brod, who had formerly been a priest in Prague, but had been appointed by the Pope “procurator de causis fidei”, and from his office was generally called Michael de Causis. There too was Wenzel Tiem, anxious to avenge himself upon the man who had done such harm to his financing operations in the sale of indulgences. From the University of Prague came Stephen Palecz, who had formerly been a friend of Huss; but, alarmed at Huss’s action against the preaching of indulgences, had changed sides, and afterwards showed all a renegade’s bitterness against his former leader. Huss complains that the Bohe­mians were his bitterest foes; they gave their own account of what had happened in Bohemia, brought Huss’s writings to Constance and interpreted his Bohemian works, as they alone knew the language. Through the activity of these powerful opponents Huss’s cause was judged beforehand, and the only question which the Council had before it was the method of his condemnation.

It is difficult to see where Huss expected to find partisans in the Council. The Pope and the Cardinals had already declared themselves against him. England had abandoned Wycliffe, and was not likely to raise its voice in favor of Hus. France in its distracted condition brought its political animosities to the Council, and was not likely to lend help to one whose principles were subversive of political order. Already the ecclesiastical reformers of the University of Paris had taken steps to cut themselves off from all connection with those of Prague. In May, 1414, Gerson wrote to Conrad, the new Archbishop of Prague, exhorting him to root out the Wycliffite errors. On September 24, he sent the Archbishop twenty articles taken from the writings of Huss, which the theological faculty of the University of Paris had condemned as erroneous. These articles mostly dealt with Huss’s conception of the Church as the body of those predestinated to salvation, and the consequent inference that the commands of those predestinated to damnation were not binding on the faithful. Gerson was horrified at such a theory of the Church; he regarded it as subversive of all law and order. He and the conservative reformers of Paris were willing to reform the existing abuses in the ecclesiastical system, and for that purpose admitted a power residing in the whole body of the Church which was superior on emergencies to that of its ordinary ruler; but they shrank from a new conception of the Church which would allow the private judgment of the predestinated to override all authority. Gerson regarded Huss as a dangerous revolutionist; he wrote to the Archbishop on September 24, “The most dangerous error, destructive of all political order and quiet, is this—that one predestined to damnation or living in mortal sin, has no rule, jurisdiction, or power over others in a Christian people. Against such an error it seems to my humility that all power, spiritual and temporal, ought to rise and exterminate it by fire and sword rather than by curious reasoning. For political power is not founded on the title of predestination or grace, since that would be most uncertain, but is established according to laws ecclesiastical and civil”. The antagonism between the two schools of thought was profound. Huss, in his desire to deepen the consciousness of spiritual life, and bind together the faithful by an invisible bond of union with Christianity, was willing to sacrifice all outward organization. Gerson regarded the Church as a religious polity whose laws and constitution needed reform; but the most fatal enemy to that reform was the spirit of revolution which threatened the whole fabric with destruction. As a statesman and as a logician Gerson regarded Huss’s views as extremely dangerous. Hus, stirred only by his desire for greater holiness in the Church, believed that he could move the Council as he moved his congregation of Bethlehem. He wished only for an opportunity of setting forth his opinions before assembled Christendom, and thought that their manifest truth could not fail to carry conviction. There was a child­like simplicity about his character, and an ignorance of the world which some writers of modern times have mistaken for vanity.

Feeling that the Council was entirely on their side, the enemies of Huss were anxious to proceed against him before Sigismund’s arrival. John XXIII on his part was equally willing that the Council should find some occupation for its activity. The first step was to seize the person of Huss. Ungrounded rumors were spread that he had made an attempt to leave the city in a hay cart; it was urged that he said mass every day in his own house, and that many went to visit him and hear his false doctrines. Accordingly, on November 28, the Bishops of Augsburg and Trent, together with the burgomaster of Constance, came to Hus’s house while he was at dinner with John of Chlum, and informed him that the Pope and the Cardinals were ready to hear him. John of Chlum angrily answered that Huss had come at Sigismund’s request to speak before the Council; it was Sigismund’s will that he should not speak before his arrival. The Bishop of Trent answered that they had come on an errand of peace. On this Huss rose from the table and said that he had not come to Constance to confer with the Cardinals but to speak before the Council; nevertheless he was willing to go and answer anywhere for the truth. He bade adieu to his weeping landlady, who had seen the armed men with whom these messengers of peace had surrounded her house, and as Huss mounted his horse she begged his blessing, as from one who never would return.

When Huss appeared, at twelve o'clock, before the Cardinals in the Pope’s palace, he was told that there were many grievous charges against him of sowing errors in Bohemia. He answered, “Most reverend fathers, know that I would rather die than hold a single error. I came of my own accord to this Council, and if it be proved that I have erred in anything I am willing humbly to be corrected and amend”. The Cardinals said that his words were fair, and then rose, leaving Hus and John of Chlum under the guard of the soldiers who had escorted them there. A subtle theologian, in the guise of a simple friar in quest for truth, came meanwhile to talk with Huss on the doctrine of the Eucharist and the two natures of Christ. Hus, however, discovered him, and guarded against his desire for religious confidences.

At four o'clock the Cardinals again assembled to consider Huss’s case. The articles prepared by Michael de Causis were laid before them. They accused Huss (1) of teaching the necessity of receiving the Eucharist under both kinds and of attacking transubstantiation; (2) of making the validity of the sacraments depend on the moral character of the priest; (3) of erroneous doctrine concerning the nature of the Church, its possessions, its discipline, and its organization. Huss’s opponents were there, and urged the necessity for putting him in prison; if he were to escape from Constance he would boast that he had been tried and acquitted, and would do more harm than any heretic since the times of Constantine the Great. It was evening when the master of the Pope’s household came to announce to John of Chlum that he was free to depart if he chose, but Huss must remain in the palace. The fiery Bohemian forced his way into the Pope’s chamber. “Holy Father”, he exclaimed, “this is not what you promised. I told you that Master Huss came here under the safe-conduct of my master the King of the Romans; and you answered that if he ‘had killed your brother he should be safe’. I wish to raise my voice and warn those who have violated my master’s safe-conduct”. The Pope called the Cardinals to witness that he had never sent to take Huss prisoner. He afterwards called John of Chlum aside, and said to him: “You know how matters stand between me and the Cardinals; they have brought me Huss as a prisoner, and I am bound to receive him”. John XXIII cared little about his promise, or about Huss; he frankly admitted that he was thinking only how to save himself. Huss was led to the house of one of the Canons of Constance, where he was guarded for eight days. On December 6 he was taken to the Convent of the Dominicans, on a small island close to the shore of the lake. There he was cast into a dark and narrow dungeon, damp with the waters of the lake, and close to the mouth of a sewer. In this noisome spot he was attacked by fever, so that his life was despaired of, and John sent his own physicians to attend him.

The anger of John of Chlum at the imprisonment of Huss gave a sample of the spirit which afterwards animated the whole Bohemian nation. He did not cease to complain in Constance of the Pope and his Cardinals; he showed Sigismund’s safe-conduct to all whom he met; he even fixed on the doors of the cathedral a solemn protest against the Papal perfidy. Sigismund himself was equally indignant at the dishonor done to his promise; he requested that Huss be immediately released from prison, otherwise he would come and break down the doors himself. But the enemies of Huss were more powerful than the remonstrances of Sigismund. Perhaps John XXIII was not sorry to find a subject about which he might try to create a quarrel between Sigismund and the Council. Proceedings against Huss were begun; on December 4 the Pope appointed a commission of three, headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, to receive testimonies against Huss. Huss asked in vain for an advocate to take exception to the witnesses, of whom many were his personal foes. He was answered that it was contrary to law for anyone to defend a suspected heretic.

When Sigismund arrived in Constance on December 25, the first question that engaged his attention was that of Huss’s imprisonment. He demanded of the Pope that Huss should be released. John XXIII gave him the same answer as he had given to John of Chlum; he referred him to the Cardinals and the Council, whose work it was. Discussion went on sharply for some time. Sigismund urged that he was bound to see his safe-conduct respected; the fathers of the Council answered that they were bound to judge according to the law one suspected of heresy. When Sigismund urged the indignation which was rising in Bohemia at Huss’s imprisonment, he was answered that there would be serious danger to all authority, ecclesiastical and civil, if Huss were to escape to Bohemia and again commence his mischievous preaching. Sigismund threatened to leave Constance if Hus were not released; the Council answered that it also must dissolve itself if he wished to hinder it in the performance of its duty.

We are so far removed from a state of opinion in which a king could be urged to break his word, on the ground that it was only plighted to a heretic, that it is difficult for us to appreciate the arguments by which such conduct could be justified. The Council maintained that one of its chief objects was to put down heresy. Huss was certainly a heretic, and must be tried as such; he was now in their power, and if he were to escape the evil would be greatly increased. It was not their business to consider how he had put himself in their power. The existence of the Council was independent of Sigismund’s help, and it must not allow its independence to be fettered at the outset by Sigismund's interference. Moreover, the terrible conception of heresy in the Middle Ages put the heretic outside the limits of a king’s protection. He was a plague-spot in the body of a State, and must be cut out at once, lest the contagion spread. Heresy in a land was a blot on the national honor, which kings were bound to preserve intact; the heretic was a traitor against God, much more a traitor against his own sovereign. It was the clear duty of all in authority to protect themselves and the community against the risks which the spread of heresy inevitably brought. Nor could a promise of safe-conduct rashly made override the higher duties of a king. No promise was binding if its observance proved to be prejudicial to the Catholic faith. Rash and wicked promises are not binding, and the goodness of a promise must in some cases be judged by its result. “Call to mind”, urged the Bishop of Arras, “the oath of Herod, which the result proved to be an evil one; so in the case of a heretic with a safe-conduct, his obstinacy makes it necessary that the decree be changed; for that promise is impious which is fulfilled by a crime”. Such is a sample of the reasons which led the wisest and best men of Christendom to urge Sigismund to a shameless breach of faith. Their arguments were enforced by Sigismund’s fear lest the Council dissolve if he refused to listen, and so all the glory which he hoped to gain be lost to himself, and all the benefits of a reunion of Christendom be lost to mankind. King Ferdinand of Aragon wrote to Sigismund, expressing his surprise at any hesitation about punishing Huss. It was impossible, he said, to break faith with one who had already broken faith with God. This letter must have produced a great impression on Sigismund; if the Council were to succeed, Aragon must be brought to acknowledge its authority, and no pretext must be given which might cover a refusal. Over­borne by these considerations, Sigismund abandoned Huss to his fate.

We cannot resist a feeling of moral indignation at such sentiments and at such conduct. It is true that freedom of opinion has been established among us at the present day by the teaching of experience: we have learned that duty has an existence amongst men independent of the law of the Church. Such a conception did not exist in the Middle Ages. The belief that rightness of conduct depended on rightness of religious opinion was universal, and the spirit of persecution was but the logical expression of this belief. Yet, as a matter of fact, the spirit of persecution solely for matters of opinion had largely died away, and only existed where political or personal interests were involved in its maintenance. The treatment of Wycliffe in England was an example which the Council might well have followed. It preferred to fall back upon the procedure of the Inquisition. It revived persecution for the purpose of showing its own orthodoxy under exceptional circumstances, and it won Sigismund’s consent by the offer of political advantage in quieting his Bohemian kingdom. Huss was made a victim of the need felt by a revolutionary party for some opportunity of defining the limits of its revolutionary zeal.

The question of the abdication of John XXIII threw the cause of Huss for a time into the background. John’s flight on March 20 put the responsibility of Huss’s imprisonment in the hands of Sigismund and the Council. For a moment the friends of Huss hoped that Sigismund would use this opportunity and set Huss at liberty. He might have done so with safety, for the Council was now too far dependent upon him to take much umbrage at his doings. But Sigismund had entirely identified himself with the Council, and had no further qualms of conscience about his treatment of Huss; he is even said to have taken credit to himself for his firmness of purpose. There were great fears that the friends of Huss might attempt a rescue; so on March 24 Sigismund handed over the custody of Huss to the Bishop of Constance, who removed him by night, under a strong escort, to the Castle of Gottlieben, two miles above Constance, on the Rhine, where he was kept in chains. On April 6 a new commission, at the head of which were the Cardinals of Cambrai and St. Mark, was appointed to examine the heresies of Wycliffe and Huss. As the Council was anxious to have this matter ready to hand when it had finished its conflict with John XXIII, it again transferred, on April 17, the examination of Huss to another commission, whose members had more leisure than the Cardinals. No time was lost in inaugurating the Council’s activity against heresy. In the eighth session, on May 4, Wycliffe was condemned as the leader and chief of the heretics of the time. The forty-five articles taken from Wycliffe’s writings were condemned as heretical; two hundred and six others, which had been drawn up by the ingenuity of the University of Oxford, were declared heretical, erroneous, or scandalous; the writings of Wycliffe were ordered to be burnt; his memory was condemned, and it was decreed that his bones be exhumed and cast out of consecrated ground.

The friends of Huss saw that if they hoped to save him must act promptly. On May 16 a petition was presented to the Council, signed by Wenzel of Duba, John of Chlum, Henry of Latzenborck, and 0ther Bohemian nobles in Constance, praying for Huss’s release from prison, on the ground that he had come voluntarily with a safe-conduct to plead on behalf of his opinions, and had been thrown into prison unheard, in violation of the safe-conduct, though heretics condemned by the Council of Pisa were allowed to come and go freely. There were replies and counter-replies, which only embittered the enemies of Huss. At last, on May 10, an answer was given by the Patriarch of Antioch, on behalf of the Council, that they would in no case release from prison a man who was not to be trusted, but that, in answer to the request for a public audience, the Council would hear him on June 5.

If Huss’s cause had been prejudged by the Council when he was put in prison, everything that had happened since then had only strengthened the conviction that Hus and his opinions were most dangerous to the peace of the Church. The news from Bohemia told that the revolt against ecclesiastical authority was rapidly spreading. After the departure of Huss the chief place amongst his followers was taken by one Jakubek of Mies, who attacked the custom of the Church by preaching the necessity of the reception of the Eucharist under both kinds. The question had previously been raised by Mathias of Janow, but in obedience to the Archbishop of Prague had been laid aside. Jakubek, not content with holding a disputation before the University in defense of his views, proceeded to administer the Communion under both kinds in several churches in Prague, heedless of the Archbishop’s excommunication. There was some difference of opinion on this question amongst Huss’s followers in Bohemia, and the opinion of Huss was requested. Huss gave his opinion in favor of Jakubek, on the ground that the Communion under both kinds was more in accordance with the teaching of S. Paul and the custom of the primitive Church; but it is evident from his way of speaking that he did not consider the question as one of vital importance. However, a letter of his to Jakubek, and Jakubek’s answer, which was expressed in imprudent language, fell into the hands of the spies of Michael de Causis, and were used to prove still more clearly the dangerous character of Huss.

Moreover, the friends of Huss showed a zeal in his behalf which the Council regarded as unseemly, if not suspicious. Huss wrote to warn them to curb their desire to come and visit him. One of them, Christian of Prachatic, was imprisoned on the accusation of Michael de Causis, and was only released on Sigismund’s intervention, who had a special care for him as a learned astronomer. Huss’s warnings, however, did not prevent his fiery scholar, Jerome of Prague, from venturing secretly to Constance. Jerome was the knight-errant of the Hussite movement, whose restless activity spread its influence far and wide. Sprung from a noble family, he represented the alliance between Huss and the Bohemian aristocracy. He studied at Heidelberg, Koln, Paris, and Oxford, and wandered over Europe in quest of adventures. He had been imprisoned as a heretic at Pesth and at Vienna, and had only escaped through the intervention of his noble friends and of the University of Prague. He had dreamed of a reconciliation between the Bohemian reformers and the Greek Church. Violent and impetuous in all things, he hastened to Constance, where he kept himself hid, and on April 7 posted on the church doors a request for a safe-conduct, saying that he was willing to appear before the Council and answer for his opinions. On April 17 the Council cited him to appear within fifteen days, giving him a safe-conduct against violence, but announcing the intention of proceeding legally against him. Jerome already repented of his rashness; he judged it wiser to return to Prague, but was recognized when close on the Bohemian frontier, at Hirschau, was made prisoner and was sent back to Constance, where he arrived on May 23. He was led in chains by his captor to the Franciscan monastery, where a general congregation of the Council was sitting. Jerome was asked why he had not appeared in answer to the citation, and answered that he had not received it in time to do so; he had waited for some time, but had turned his face homewards in despair before it was issued. Angry cries arose on every side, for Jerome’s keen tongue and fiery temper had raised him enemies wherever he had gone. Academic hatred blazed up; the hostility of the Nominalists against the Realistic philosophy was proved to be no inconsiderable element in the opposition to the tenets of Wycliffe and Huss. Gerson exclaimed, “When you were at Paris, you disturbed the University with false positions, especially in the matter of universals and ideas and other scandalous doctrines”. A doctor from Heidelberg cried out, “When you were at Heidelberg you painted up a shield comparing the Trinity to water, snow, and ice”. He alluded to a diagram which Jerome had drawn out to illustrate his philosophic views, in which water, snow, and ice, as three forms of one substance, were paralleled with the three Persons co-existing in the Trinity. Jerome demanded that his opinions be proved erroneous; if so, he was willing humbly to recall them. There were loud cries, “Burn him, burn him”. “If you wish my death”, he exclaimed, “so be it in God's name”. “Nay”, said the chivalrous Robert Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury, “Nay, Jerome; for it is written, I will not the death of a sinner, but rather that he be converted and live”. In the midst of general confusion Jerome was hurried off to prison in the tower of S. Paul’s Church—a dark and narrow dungeon where he could not see to read, and was treated with the utmost rigor.

The hopes of Huss and his friends fell lower and lower, as the months of his imprisonment went on. The Commissioners of the Council plied Huss with questions and framed their indictment against him. Huss labored hard to prepare his defense, and still found time to write little tractates for the use of his friends and even of his guards. His own desire was that he might have the opportunity of defending his opinions openly. So entirely were they the expression of his whole moral nature, that he could not imagine it possible for anyone to consider that the frank expression of such opinions was really culpable.

But the Council saw no reason for listening to Huss’s explanations. In their mind his guilt was clear; his writings contained opinions contrary to the system of the Church; he had openly acted in defiance of ecclesiastical authority, and had taught others to do the same. It was useless to give one another such opportunity of raising his voice. The Council that had just been victorious over a Pope thought it beneath its dignity to waste time over a heretic. The very fact of the overthrow of John XXIII made the condemnation of Huss more necessary. If the Council had been compelled by the emergency to overstep the bounds of precedent in its dealings with the Pope, Huss afforded it an opportunity of showing Christendom how clearly it distinguished between reform and revolution; how its anxiety to amend the evils of the Church did not lead it to deviate from the old ecclesiastical traditions. The real state of affairs was accurately expressed in the advice given to Huss by a friend who was a man of the world, “If the Council were to assert that you have only one eye, though you have two, you ought to agree with the Council’s opinion”. Huss answered, “If the whole world were to tell me so, I could not, so long as I have the reason that I now enjoy, agree without doing violence to my conscience”. Hus had the spirit of a martyr, because he had the singleness of character which made life impossible if purchased by the overthrow of his moral and intellectual sincerity.

So when, on June 5, the Fathers of the Council assembled in the refectory of the Franciscan Convent, they came to condemn Huss, not to hear him. Before Huss was brought in, the report of the Commissioners appointed to examine his case was read. A Bohemian, looking over the reader’s shoulder, saw that it ended in a condemnation of various articles taken from Huss’s writings. When John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba heard this they went to Sigismund, who was not present at the congregation, and besought him to interfere. Sigismund was moved to send Frederick of Nurnberg and the Pfalzgraf Lewis to request the Council not to condemn Huss unheard, but to give a careful hearing to his defense. The friends of Huss objected that the articles against Huss were taken from garbled copies of his writings, and they laid before the Council Huss’s original manuscript of the “De Ecclesia” and other works on condition that they should be safely returned.

After these preliminaries, Huss was brought in. He admitted that the manuscripts which he was shown were his; he added that if they were proved to contain any errors, he was ready to amend them. The first article of his accusation was then read, and Huss began to answer it. He had not proceeded far before he was stopped by cries on all sides. It was not the Council’s notion of a defence that the accused should discuss the standard of orthodoxy, or bring forward quotations from the Fathers in proof of each of his opinions. To them the rule of faith was the Church, and the Church was represented by the Council. It was for them to say what opinions were heretical or erroneous. The only question in Huss’s case was whether or not he owned the opinions of which he was accused. “Have done with your sophistries”, was the cry, “and answer yes or no”. When he quoted from the writings of the early Fathers, he was told that was not to the point: when he was silent, his foes exclaimed: “Your silence shows assent to these errors”. The more sober members decided the Council to defer for two days the further hearing of Huss.

At the second audience, June 7, Sigismund was present, and there was greater order, owing to a proclamation, in the name of the King and the Council, that any one crying out in a disorderly way would be removed. The first point on which Hus was accused was his view of the Sacrament of the Altar, about which Huss denied, as he always had done, that he shared Wycliffe’s views. Peter d'Ailly, who was president at the session, tried to discuss the question on philosophical grounds, and to prove that Huss, as a realist who believed in universals, could not accept the true doctrine on the subject. The English, who had been experienced in this question since Wycliffe’s days, took a great share in the discussion. At last one of them brought it to an end by declaring that these philosophical points had nothing to do with the matter: he declared himself satisfied with the soundness of Huss’s opinion on this point. There was some warmth in the discussion, and many spoke at once, till Huss exclaimed, “I expected to find in the Council more piety, reverence, and order”. This exclamation produced silence, for it was a quiet appeal to the mandate against interruption: but D'Ailly resented the remark, and said, “When you were in your prison, you spoke more modestly”. “Yes”, retorted Hus, “for there at least I was not disturbed”.

The discussion then passed into an attempt to discover: what was the nature of the evidence by which a man’s opinions were to be determined. Cardinal Zabarella remarked to Huss that, according to Scripture, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established”: as on most points there were at least twenty witnesses who deposed against Huss, it was difficult to see what he could gain by denying the charges. Huss answered, “If God and my conscience witness for me that I never taught what I am accused of teaching, the testimony of my opponents hurts me not”. To this Cardinal d'Ailly observed with truth, “We cannot judge according to your conscience, but according to the testimony laid before us”. Here, in fact, lay the inevitable difference in point of view that made the trial of Huss seem, in his own eyes, to be a mere mockery of justice.

The discussion wandered on aimlessly. Hus was accused of defending Wycliffe and his doctrines, of causing disturbances in the University of Prague and in the kingdom of Bohemia. Cardinal d'Ailly quoted, in support of the charge of sedition, a remark by Huss when he was first brought before the Cardinals, that he had come to Constance of his own free will, and if he had not wished to do so, neither the King of Bohemia nor the King of the Romans could have compelled him. Hus answered, “Yes, there are many lords in Bohemia who love me, in whose castles I could have been hid, so that neither King could have compelled me”. D'Ailly cried out on such audacity; but John of Chlum rose and said sturdily, “What he speaks is true. I am but a poor knight in our kingdom, yet I would willingly keep him for a year, whomsoever it pleased or displeased, so that no one could take him. There are many great lords who love him and would keep him in their castles as long as they chose, even against both Kings together”.

John’s remark was noble and brave and true, but it was not politic. The King of the Romans, the disposer of Christendom, the idol of the Council, sat by with wrath and heard the bitter truth about his mightiness, and was publicly braved for the sake of an obscure heretic. President d'Ailly saw an opportunity for closing triumphantly this unprofitable wrangle. Turning to Huss, he said, “You declared in prison that you were willing to submit to the judgment of the Council: I advise you to do so, and the Council will deal mercifully with you”. Sigismund, smarting under the affront of John of Chlum, publicly abandoned Huss. He told him that he had given him a safe-conduct for the purpose of procuring him a hearing before the Council. He had now been heard: there was nothing to be done but submit to the Council, which, for the sake of Wenzel and himself, would deal mercifully with him. “If, however”, he continued, “you persist in your errors, it is for the Council to determine what it will do. I have said that I will not defend a heretic; nay, if any one remained obstinate in heresy, I would, with my own hands, burn him. I advise you to submit entirely to the Council’s grace, and the sooner the better, lest you be involved in deeper error”. Huss thanked Sigismund—it must have been ironically—for his safe-conduct, repeated his vague statement that he was willing to abandon any errors about which he was better informed, and was conducted back to his prison.

The audience was continued next day, June 8, when thirty-nine articles against Huss were laid before the Council: twenty-six of them were taken from the treatise “De Ecclesia”, the remainder from his controversial writings. Huss’s manuscript was before the Council, and each article was compared with the passages on which it was founded: D'Ailly observed on several articles that they were milder than Huss’s words justified. The articles chiefly turned on Huss’s conception of the Church as the body of the predestinated, and the consequent dependence of ecclesiastical power on the worthiness of him who exercised it. Huss objected to several of the articles, that they did not properly express his meaning, were taken out of connection with the context, and paid no attention to the limitations which had accompanied his statements. To the article that “a wicked pope or prelate is not truly a pastor”, Huss put in a limitation that he meant they were not priests so far as their merits went, but he admitted that they were priests so far as their office was concerned. To back up this fine distinction, he urged the case of John XXIII, and asked whether he were really a pope, or really a robber. The Cardinals looked at one another and smiled, but answered, “Oh, he was a true pope”. The whole proceeding was wearisome and profitless, for the Council had no doubt that Huss’s teaching as a whole was opposed to all order, and they had in their favor the practical argument of the Bohemian disturbances. It was useless for Huss to palliate each separate article and urge that there was a sense in which it might have an orthodox meaning.

In spite of his attempts to be cautious, Huss occasionally betrayed the revolutionary nature of his views if pushed to the extreme. When the article was read, “If a pope, bishop, or prelate be in mortal sin, he is not a true pope, bishop, or prelate”, Huss urged the words of Samuel to Saul, “Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath rejected thee from being king”. Sigismund at the time was talking in a window with Frederick of Nurnberg and the Pfalzgraf Lewis; there was a cry, “Call the King, for this affects him”. When Sigismund had returned to his place, Huss was asked to repeat his remark. Sigismund with truth and pertinence remarked, “Huss, no one is without sin”. Peter d'Ailly was resolved not to let slip the opportunity of showing the danger attending Huss’s opinions if they were extended to political as well as religious matters. “It was not enough for you”, he exclaimed, “by your writings and teaching to throw down the spiritual power; you wish also to oust kings from their places”.

At length the reading of the articles and their attestation was ended. D'Ailly, as president, addressed Huss: “There are two ways open for your choice. Either submit yourself entirely to the mercy of the Council, which, for the sake of the King of the Romans and the King of Bohemia, will deal kindly with you; or, if you wish further to maintain your opinions, an opportunity will be given you. Know, however, that there are here many learned men, who have such strong reasons against your articles that I fear if you attempt to defend them further you will be involved in graver errors. I speak as an adviser, not as a judge”. There were cries on all sides urging Huss to submit. He answered, “I came here freely, not to defend anything obstinately, but to submit to better information if I was wrong. I crave another audience to explain my meaning, and if my arguments do not prevail, I am willing to submit humbly to the information of the Council”. His words awakened the anger of many. “The Council is not here to inform, but to judge; he is equivocating”, was cried out on all sides. Huss amended his words: he was willing to submit to their correction and decision. On this D'Ailly at once rose, and said that sixty doctors had unanimously decided on the steps which Huss must take: “He must humbly recognize his errors, abjure and revoke the articles against him, promise never to teach them again, but henceforth to preach and teach the opposite”. Huss answered that he could not lie and abjure doctrines which he had never held, as was the case with some of the articles brought against him. Hereon a verbal dispute arose about the meaning of abjuration, which Sigismund tried to settle by the remark that he was ready to abjure all errors, but this did not imply that he had previously held them. Cardinal Zabarella at last told Huss that a written form of abjuration would be submitted to him, and he could make up his mind at leisure. Huss demanded another chance of explaining his doctrines; but Sigismund warned him that two courses only were open—either he must abjure and submit to the Council’s mercy, or the Council would proceed to assert its rights. A desultory conversation followed. At last Palecz, moved in some way by the solemnity of the occasion, rose and protested that in promoting the cause against Huss he had been actuated by no personal motive, but solely by zeal for the truth. Michael de Causis said the same. Huss answered, “I stand before the judgment seat of God, who will judge both you and me after our deserts”. He was then taken back to his prison.

The laymen quickly left the Council chamber, and Sigismund remained talking in the window with some of the chief prelates. The Bohemians, John of Chlum, Wenzel of Duba, and Peter Mladenowic, remained sadly behind the rest, and so heard Sigismund’s conversation. With indignation and dismay they heard him urge on the Fathers Huss’s condemnation. There was more than enough evidence, he said; if Huss would not abjure, let him be burned. Even if he did abjure, it would be well to inhibit him from preaching again, as he could not be trusted; they must make an end of the matter, and root out all Huss’s followers, beginning with Jerome, whom they had in their hands. “It was only in my boyhood”, ended Sigismund, “that this sect arose in Bohemia, and see how it has grown and multiplied”. The prelates agreed with the King’s opinion, and Sigismund retired satisfied with his acuteness in turning things to his own advantage. He thought that vigorous measures on the part of the Council would overawe the turbulent spirits in Bohemia, and would spare him much trouble when the time came that he inherited the Bohemian crown. The unguarded words that he spoke lost him his Bohemian kingdom forever. Sigismund might have been forgiven for refusing to come into collision with the rights of the Council by insisting on the observance of his safe-conduct; he could never be forgiven for joining the ranks of Huss’s foes and hounding on the Council to condemn him. As King of the Romans he might have duties which brought him into conflict with the wishes of the Bohemians; he was discovered secretly using his influence against them, and striving to crush what the Bohemians longed to assert. The insult to the nation, of inciting the Council to root out errors from Bohemia, was deeply felt and bitterly resented. The people steeled their hearts to assert that they would not have this man to rule over them.

An attempt was made to bring Huss to retract. Some member of the Council, whom Huss knew and respected, was chosen to submit to him a formula of retractation, setting forth, “though many things are laid to my charge which I never thought, yet I submit myself concerning all such points, either drawn from my books or from the depositions of witnesses, to the order, definition, and correction of the Holy Council”. Huss answered that he could not condemn many truths which seemed to the Council scandalous; he could not perjure himself by renouncing errors which he did not hold, and so scandalizing Christian people who had heard him preach the contrary. “I stand”, he ended, “at the judgment-seat of Christ, to whom I have appealed, knowing that He will judge every man, not according to false or erroneous witness, but according to the truth and each one’s deserts”. There was no longer any attempt at special pleading. Huss asserted against authority the rights of the individual conscience, and removed his cause from the tribunal of man to the judgment-seat of God. A new spirit had arisen in Christendom when a man felt that his life and character had been so definitely built up round opinions which the Church condemned, that it was easier for him to die than to resign the truths which made him what he was.

There was but one course open to the Council, yet it hesitated to proceed to the condemnation of Hus. On June 15 it turned its attention again to the innovations introduced into Bohemia by Jakubek of Mies, in the administration of the Eucharist. It issued a decree declaring the administration under both kinds to be heretical, because opposed to the custom and ordinance of the Church, which had been made to prevent irregularities. Huss, in his letters to his friends, did not scruple to call this decree mere madness, in that it set the custom of the Roman Church against the plain words of Christ and of S. Paul. He wrote also to Havlik, who had taken his place as preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel, exhorting him not to withstand Jakubek’s teaching in this matter, and so cause a schism among the faithful by paying heed to this decree of the Council. Huss set himself more and more decidedly against the Council, and all efforts to induce him to submit were unavailing. Even Palecz, the friend of Huss’s youth and now his bitterest foe, visited him in prison and besought him to abjure.

“What would you do”, said Huss, “if you were charged with errors which you knew for certain that you never held? Would you abjure?”

“It is a hard matter”, answered Palecz, and burst into tears.

It was characteristic of Huss that he asked to have Palecz as his confessor, for he was his chief adversary. Palecz shrank from the office, but paid his former friend another visit, and excused himself for the part that he had taken against him.

Huss resolutely prepared to die, and wrote to bid farewell to his various friends in Bohemia and at Constance. A tranquil yet determined spirit breathes through his letters; the charm of his personal character is seen in the tenderness and thoughtfulness of the messages which he sends. Repeated deputations from the Council vainly endeavored to prove to him the duty, the easiness of recantation. At last, on July 1, a formal answer in writing was returned by Hus to the Council. He said that, fearing to offend God, and fearing to commit perjury, he was unwilling to retract any of the articles brought against him. On July 5, at Sigismund’s request, the Bohemian nobles, John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba, accompanied the representatives of the Council on a last visit to Huss. John of Chlum manfully addressed him, and his words are a strong proof of the sturdy moral spirit which Huss had awakened in his followers: “We are laymen and cannot advise you; consider, however, and if you feel that you are guilty in any of the matters laid to your charge, have no shame in recanting. If, however, you do not feel yourself guilty, by no means act contrary to your conscience, and do not lie in the sight of God, but rather persevere unto death in the truth which you know”. Huss answered: “If I knew that I had written or preached anything erroneous, contrary to the law and the Church, God is my witness that I would in all humility retract. But my wish always has been that better doctrine be proved to me out of Scripture, and then I would be most ready to recant”. One of the Bishops said indignantly:

“Will you be wiser than the whole Council?”.

Huss answered, “Show me the least member of the Council who will inform me better out of the Scriptures, and I will forthwith retract”.

 “He is obstinate in his heresy”, exclaimed the prelates, and Huss was led back to his prison.

Next day, July 6, was a general session of the Council in the Cathedral, which Sigismund attended in royal state. During the celebration of mass Huss was kept standing in the porch with an armed escort. He was brought in to listen to a sermon on the sin of heresy from the Bishop of Lodi. He was stationed before a raised platform, on which was a stand containing all the articles of a priest’s dress. During the sermon Huss knelt in prayer. When the sermon was over a proctor of the Council demanded sentence against Huss. A doctor mounted the pulpit and read a selection from the condemned articles of Wycliffe and the conclusions of the process against Huss. More than once Huss tried to answer to the charges, but he was ordered to keep silence. He pleaded that he wished to clear himself of error in the eyes of those who stood by; afterwards they might deal with him as they chose. When he was forbidden to speak, he again knelt in prayer. The number and rank, but not the names, of the witnesses to each charge, together with a summary of their testimony, was then read. Huss was aroused by hearing new charges brought against him, amongst others the monstrous assertion that he had declared himself to be the Fourth Person of the Trinity. He indignantly asked the name of the one doctor who was quoted as witness, but was answered that there was no need of naming him now. When he was charged with despising the Papal excommunication and refusing to answer the Pope’s summons, he again protested that he had desired nothing more than to prove his own innocence, and had for that purpose come to Constance of his own free will, trusting in the Imperial safe-conduct. As he said this he looked fixedly at Sigismund, who blushed through shame.

After this recital of his crimes, the sentence of the Council against Huss was read. First his writings, Latin and Bohemian, were condemned as heretical and ordered to be burnt. Huss asked how they could know that his Bohemian writings were heretical, seeing they had never read them. The sentence went on, that Huss himself as a pertinacious heretic be degraded from the priesthood. When the reading of the sentence was over, Huss prayed aloud: “O Lord Jesus Christ, pardon all my enemies, for Thy great mercy’s sake, I beseech Thee. Thou know that they have falsely accused me, brought forward false witnesses and forged false articles against me. Pardon them through Thy immense mercy”. The Archbishop of Milan, with six other Bishops, proceeded to the formal degradation of Huss. He was set on the platform in the middle of the cathedral, and was invested in the full priestly dress, with the chalice in his hand. Again he was exhorted to retract. He turned to the people, and, with tears streaming down his face, said, “See how these Bishops expect me to abjure: yet I fear to do so, lest I be a liar in the sight of the Lord—lest I offend my conscience and the truth of God, since I never held these articles which witness falsely against me, but rather wrote and taught the opposite. I fear, too, to scandalize the multitude to which I preached”.

The Bishops then proceeded to his degradation. Each article of his priestly office was taken from him with solemn formality, and his tonsure was cut on four sides. Then it was pronounced, “The Church has taken from him all rights of the Church; and commits him to the secular arm”. The paper cap, painted over with fiends, was put on his head, with the words, “We commit your soul to the devil”. Sigismund gave him to the charge of Lewis of Bavaria, who handed him to the civic officers for execution. As the procession passed out of the church Huss saw his books being burned in the churchyard. He was led out of the town into a suburb called Brüel, where in a meadow the stake had been prepared. To the last he asserted to the bystanders that he had never taught the things laid to his charge. When he was bound to the stake and Lewis of Bavaria again begged him to recant, Huss answered that the charges against him were false: “I am prepared to die in that truth of the Gospel which I taught and wrote”. As the pile was kindled Huss began to sing from the Liturgy:—

“O Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy upon us;

O Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me;

Thou who wast born of the Virgin Mary”.

The wind swept the flames upward into his face, and he remained speechless. His lips were seen to move for a few minutes and then his spirit passed away. The attendants took great care that his body was all reduced to ashes. His clothes, which, according to custom, belonged to the executioner, were bought from him by Lewis of Bavaria, and were also burned. The ashes were flung into the Rhine: it was determined that Bohemia should have no relics of her martyr.

Huss died protesting against the unfairness of his trial.

It is indeed impossible that a trial for opinions should ever be considered fair by the accused. He is charged with subverting the existing system of thought; he answers that some modification of the existing system is necessary, and that his opinions, if rightly understood, are not subversive, but amending. Into this issue his judges cannot follow him. It is as though a man accused of high treason were to urge that his treason is the noblest patriotism. There may be truth in his allegation, but it is a truth which human justice cannot take into account. The judge is appointed to execute existing laws, and till those laws are altered by the properly constituted authority, the best attempts to amend them by individual protest must be reckoned as rebellion. No doubt Huss’s Bohemian foes did their best to ruin him; but his opinions were judged by the Council to be subversive of the ecclesiastical system, and when he refused to submit to that decision, he was necessarily regarded as an obstinate heretic. It is useless to criticize particular points in his trial. The Council was anxious for his submission and gave him every opportunity to make it. But it is the glory of Huss that he first deliberately asserted the rights of the individual conscience against ecclesiastical authority, and sealed his assertion by his own life-blood.

The Council still had Jerome in their hands, but they were in no haste to proceed against him. The news of the death of Huss kindled in Bohemia the bitterest wrath. It was a national insult, and branded Bohemia in the eyes of Christendom as the home of heresy. The clergy and monks were regarded with hatred as the causes of Huss’s persecution. In Prague there was a riot, in which the clergy were severely handled; a crowd of Bohemians ravaged the lands of the Bishop of Leitomysl, who had been especially active in the prosecution of Huss. The Council thought it desirable to try and calm the irritation in Bohemia, and on July 23 sent a letter to the Bohemian clergy exhorting them to persevere in the extirpation of heresy. This letter only had the effect of sharpening the antagonism of the two parties in Bohemia. One party drew more closely to the side of the Council and of Catholic orthodoxy; the other more pronouncedly, asserted the claims of Bohemia to settle its religious controversies without foreign interference. The Bishop of Leitomysl was sent by the Council to protect the interests of the Church; but so strong was the feeling against him in Bohemia that he felt it wise to stay indoors, and lived in fear of his personal safety.

On September 2 a meeting was held at Prague of sixty-two Bohemian and Moravian nobles, who drew up an angry reply to the Council’s letter. They asserted their respect for Huss and their belief in his innocence; they defended Bohemia from the charge of heresy; they branded as a liar and traitor anyone who maintained such a charge for the future; they declared themselves determined to defend with their blood the law of Christ and its devout preachers in Bohemia. This letter received as many as 450 signatures. On September 5 the Hussite lords entered into a formal bond, or covenant, to uphold freedom of preaching in Bohemia, and defend against episcopal prohibition or excommunication all faithful preachers; the University of Prague was recognized as the arbiter in doctrinal matters. On October 1 a similar covenant was entered into by the Catholic nobles to uphold the Church, the Council, and the worship of their forefathers. Wenzel took no steps to prevent these threatenings of disturbance. He was angry at the execution of Huss, which he regarded as a slight upon himself and his kingdom. He was especially angry that it had been done under Sigismund’s sanction; for he still regarded himself as King of the Romans, and was indignant at this intrusion of Sigismund into matters concerning the kingdom of Bohemia. Moreover, Queen Sophia grieved over the death of her confessor, whom she revered, and whose genuine piety she knew. Though Wenzel gave a verbal adhesion to the Catholic League, he was not thought to be in earnest.

The fathers of Constance had seen what little impression their severity produced on Huss; they learned that it produced equally little on his followers in Bohemia. Hence there was a general wish to win over Jerome if possible to the Council’s side, or, at least, to spare the Council the odium of making another martyr. Every method was used to induce Jerome to retract; till, overcome by the pleadings of men whose character he could not but respect, he consented on September 10 to make his submission to the Council. He wrote to his Bohemian friends that, on examination of the articles against Huss, he found many of them heretical, and on comparing them with Huss’s own manuscript writings he had been forced to own that the articles fairly represented Huss’s words: he consequently felt bound to admit that Huss had been justly dealt with by the Council; though he wished to defend Huss’s honor, he did not wish to be associated with his errors. The Council was proud of its triumph, and caused Jerome to renew his retractation in a more formal manner in a public session on September 23. It also passed a decree against those who assailed Sigismund for violating his safe-conduct to Huss. The decree asserted that “neither by natural, divine, nor human law was any promise to be observed to the prejudice of the Catholic faith”.

Jerome’s recantation did not procure his freedom. He was taken back to prison, though his confinement was made much less rigid. The Commissioners who had examined him—Cardinals Zabarella, D'Ailly, Orsini and the Cardinal of Apulia—urged his release; but the Bohemian party dreaded the results of his return to Bohemia, and declared that his retractation was not sincere. Gerson wrote a pamphlet to examine the amount of evidence to be attached to the retractation of one accused of heresy. The fanaticism that had been aroused by antagonism to the Hussites won at Constance the victory which it could not win in Bohemia. The Council determined to proceed against Jerome, and on February 24, 1416, appointed fresh Commissioners to examine witnesses on the points laid to his charge. On April 27 the articles of accusation were laid before the Council. Jerome had not been a writer or preacher like Huss, and his works could not be quoted against him; but every act of his life was set forth as a separate charge. He had been to England, and had brought back the books of Wycliffe; he had been concerned in all the disturbances in Bohemia; he had rambled over Europe, carrying heresy in his train. Every daring act into which his impetuous temper had led him was now raked up against him. He had interfered to aid a citizen, whose servant was being carried off for some slight cause to a monastery prison, and when the monks attacked him, had snatched a sword from one of the citizens and put them to flight. He had been moved with pity for a young monk whose abbot denied him the necessaries of life, and had accompanied him into the abbot’s presence, where he flung off his cowl and rushed away from the monastery. He had slapped the face of a monk who publicly insulted him.

Jerome demanded a public audience in which to answer these charges, and on May 23 was brought before the Council. Amongst those present at his trial was Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini, who had come to Constance as secretary to John XXIII. On the dispersal of the Papal household he had wandered for a time in Germany, searching for manuscripts of the classics, and had again returned to Constance to seek his fortune from some patron of learning. Poggio was deeply impressed by the vigorous personality of Jerome, and communicated his impressions in a letter to his friend Leonardo Bruni. As a man of letters and of culture Poggio looked with some slight contempt on the theological disputes of the assembled fathers. As an Italian he found it hard to sympathize with men who thought it worthwhile to rebel against the system of the Church. To his mind theological questions were not of much importance. The established system must, of course, be maintained for the preservation of order; but, after a decent recognition of its outward authority, the cultivated individual might think or act as he pleased so long as he avoided open collision. Poggio had no fellow-feeling with a man who was prepared to die for his opinions: he thought him clumsy for reducing himself to such an unpleasant alternative. But he was attracted to Jerome by his force, his mental versatility, his fiery self-confidence, his keen wit, and, above all, his philosophic spirit. To Poggio Jerome was an interesting study of character, and he saw the permanent and human interest attaching to the religious martyr. From Poggio’s testimony we are able to bring vividly before our eyes the scene of Jerome’s trial.

When Jerome appeared he was called upon to answer to each of the articles brought against him. This he refused for a long time to do, and demanded that he should first state his own case, and then answer his adversaries’ allegations. When his claim was overruled he said, “What iniquity is this, that I, who have been kept in a foul prison for three hundred and forty days without means of preparing my defence, while my adversaries have always had your ears, am now refused an hour to defend myself? Your minds are prejudiced against me as a heretic; you judged me to be wicked before you had any means of knowing what manner of man I was. And yet you are men, not gods; mortals, not eternal; you are liable to error and mistake. The more you claim to be held as lights of the world, the more careful you ought to be to approve your justice to all men. I, whose cause you judge, am of no repute, nor do I speak for myself, for death comes to all; but I would not have so many wise men do an unjust act, which will do more harm by the precedent it gives than by the punishment it inflicts”.

He was heard with murmurs. The articles against him were read one by one from the pulpit. He put forth all his skill and eloquence to plead against their truth. Poggio was amazed at the dignity, openness, and vigor with which he spoke. “If he really believed what he said, not only could no cause of death be found in him, but not even of the slightest offence”. Sometimes with jest, sometimes with irony, sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes with fiery indignation, sometimes with fervid eloquence, he answered the charges brought against him. When he was pressed on the question of Transubstantiation, and was charged with having said that after consecration the bread remained bread, he dryly said, “At the baker’s it remains bread”. When a Dominican fiercely attacked him, he exclaimed, “Hypocrite, hold your tongue”. When another made oath on his conscience, he rejoined, “That is the surest way to deceive”. So numerous were the charges against him that his case had to be put off for three days, till May 26.

In the next audience the reading of the articles and testimony against him was ended, and Jerome with difficulty obtained leave to speak. Beginning with an humble prayer to God, he began a magnificent defence. Gifted with a sweet, clear, resonant voice, he sometimes poured forth torrents of fiery indignation and sometimes touched the chords of deepest pathos. He set forth the glorious fate of those who in old times had suffered wrongfully. Beginning with Socrates, he traced the persecutions of philosophers down to Boethius. Then he turned to the Scriptures, and from Joseph down to Stephen showed how goodness had met with calumny and persecution. Stephen, he urged, was put to death by an assembly of priests; the Apostles were persecuted as subverters of order and movers of sedition. He pleaded that no greater iniquity could be committed than that priests should be wrongfully condemned to death by priests; yet this had often occurred in the past. Then, turning to his own case, he showed that the witnesses against him were moved by personal animosity, and were not worthy of belief. He had come to the Council to clear his own character; he had hoped that men in these days might do as they had done of old, engage in amicable discussion with a view of investigating the truth. Augustine and Jerome had differed, nay, had asserted, on some points, contrary opinions, without any suspicion of heresy on either side.

His audience was moved by his eloquence, and sat expecting that he would urge his retractation and ask pardon for his errors. To their surprise and grief, he went on to say that he was conscious of no errors, and could not retract the false charges brought against him. He had recanted through fear and against his conscience, but now revoked the letter he had written to Bohemia. He had looked on Huss as a just and holy man, whose fate he was prepared to share, leaving the lying witnesses against him to answer for their doings in the presence of God, whom they could not deceive. A cry arose from the Council, and many strove to induce Jerome to explain away his words. But his courage had returned, and he was resolved to tread in his master’s footsteps to the stake. He repeated his belief in the opinions of Huss and of Wycliffe, except in points concerning the Eucharist, where he held with the doctors of the Church. “Huss”, he exclaimed, “spoke not against the Church of God, but against the abuses of the clergy, the pride and pomp of the prelates. The patrimony of the Church should be spent on the poor, on strangers and on buildings; but it is spent on harlots and banquets, horses and dogs, splendid apparel, and other things unworthy of Christ’s religion”.

The Council still gave him a few days for consideration, but to no purpose. On May 30 he was brought before a general session in the cathedral. The eloquence of the Bishop of Lodi was again called into request to convince the obstinate heretic of the justice of his doom. When the sermon was over Jerome repeated the withdrawal of his former retractation. Sentence was passed against him, and he was led away to be burned in the same place as Huss. Like Huss, he went to die with calm and cheerful face. As he left the cathedral he began to chant the Creed and then the Litany. When he reached the place of execution he knelt before the stake, as though it had been an image of Huss, and prayed. As he was bound he again recited the Creed, and called the people to witness that in that faith he died. When the executioner was going to light the pile at his back he called to him. “Come in front, and light it before my face; if I had feared death, I would never have come here”. As the flames gathered round him he sang a hymn till his voice was choked by the smoke. As in the case of Huss, his clothes were burned, and his ashes were cast into the Rhine.

The Council had done all that lay in its power to restore peace in Bohemia.

CHAPTER VI.

SIGISMUND’S JOURNEY, AND THE COUNCIL DURING HIS ABSENCE.

1415-1416.