§ 47. The Hussites.
§ 47. The Hussites.
The news of Huss’ execution stirred the Bohemian nation to its depths. Huss was looked upon as a national hero and a martyr. The revolt, which followed, threatened the very existence of the papal rule in Bohemia. No other dissenting movement of the Middle Ages assumed such formidable proportions. The Hussites, the name given to the adherents of the new body, soon divided into two organized parties, the Taborites and the Calixtines or Utraquists. They agreed in demanding the distribution of the cup to the laity. A third body, the Unitas Fratrum, or Bohemian Brethren, originated in the middle of the 15th century, forty years after Huss’ death. When it became known that Huss had perished in the flames, the populace of Prag stoned the houses of the priests unfriendly to the martyr; and the archbishop himself was attacked in his palace, and with difficulty eluded the popular rage by flight. King Wenzel at first seemed about to favor the popular party.
The Council of Constance, true to itself, addressed a document to the bishop and clergy of Prag, designating Wyclif, Huss and Jerome as most unrighteous, dangerous and shameful men,704 and calling upon the Prag officials to put down those who were sowing their doctrines.
The high regard in which Huss was held found splendid expression at the Bohemian diet, Sept. 2, 1415, when 452 nobles signed an indignant remonstrance to the council for its treatment of their "most beloved brother," whom they pronounced to be a righteous and catholic man, known in Bohemia for many years by his exemplary life and honest preaching of the law of the Gospel. They concluded the document by announcing their intention to defend, even to the effusion of blood, the law of Christ and his devoted preachers.705 Three days later, the nobles formed a league which was to remain in force for six years, in which they bound themselves to defend the free preaching of the Gospel on their estates, and to recognize the authority of prelates only so far as they acted according to the Scriptures.
To this manifesto the council, Feb. 20, 1416, replied by citing the signers to appear before it within 50 days, on pain of being declared contumacious.
Huss’ memory also had honor at the hands of the university, which, on May 23, 1416, sent forth a communication addressed to all lands, eulogizing him as in all things a master whose life was without an equal.706 In omnibus Magister vitae sine pari.
Upon the dissolution of the council, Martin V., who, as a member of the curia, had excommunicated Huss, did not allow the measures to root out Hussitism drag. In his bull Inter cunctos,707 Feb. 22, 1418, he ordered all of both sexes punished as heretics who maintained "the pestilential doctrine of the heresiarchs, John Wyclif, John Huss and Jerome of Prag." Wenzel announced his purpose to obey the council, but many of his councillors left the court, including the statesman, Nicolas of Pistna, and the military leader, the one-eyed John Zizka. The popular excitement ran so high that, during a Hussite procession, the crowd rushed into the council-house and threw out of the window seven of the councillors who had dared to insult the procession.
Affairs entered a new stage with Wenzel’s death, 1419. With considerable unanimity the Bohemian nobles acceded to his successor Sigismund’s demand that the cup be withheld from the laity, but the nation at large did not acquiesce, and civil war followed. Convents and churches were sacked. Sigismund could not make himself master of his kingdom, and an event occurred during his visit in Breslau which deepened the feeling against him. A merchant, John Krasa, asserting on the street the innocence of Huss, was dragged at a horse’s tail to the stake and burnt. Hussite preachers inveighed against Sigismund, calling him the dragon of the Apocalypse.
Martin V. now summoned Europe to a crusade against Bohemia, offering the usual indulgences, as Innocent III. had done two centuries before, when he summoned a crusade against the Cathari in Southern France. In obedience to the papal mandate, 150,000 men gathered from all parts of Europe. All the horrors of war were perpetrated, and whole provinces desolated. Five times the holy crusaders entered the land of Huss, and five times they were beaten back. In 1424 the Hussites lost their bravest military leader, John Zizka, but in 1427, under his successor, Procopius Rasa, called the Great, the most influential priest of Prag, they took the offensive and invaded Germany.
While they were winning victories over the foreign intruders, the Hussites were divided among themselves in regard to the extent to which the religious reformation should be carried. The radical party, called the Taborites, from the steep hill Tabor, 60 miles south of Prag, on which they built a city, rejected transubstantiation, the worship of saints, prayers for the dead, indulgences and priestly confession and renounced oaths, dances and other amusements. They admitted laymen, including women, to the office of preaching, and used the national tongue in all parts of the public service. Zizka, their first leader, held the sword in the spirit of one of the Judges. After his death, the stricter wing of the Taborites received the name of the Orphans.
The moderate party was called now Pragers, from the chief seat of their influence, now Calixtines,—from the word calix or cup,—or Utraquists from the expression sub utraque specie, "under both forms," from their insisting upon the administration of the cup to the laity. The University of Prag took sides with the Calixtines and, in 1420, the four so-called Prag articles were adopted. This compact demanded the free preaching of the Gospel, the distribution of the cup to the laity, the execution of punishment for mortal sins by the civil court, and the return of the clergy to the practice of Apostolic poverty. The Calixtines confined the use of Czech at the church service to the Scripture readings.708
After the disastrous rout of the Catholic army, led by Cardinal Cesarini at Tauss, Aug. 14, 1431, the history of the Bohemian movement passed into a third stage, marked by the negotiations begun by the Council of Basel and the almost complete annihilation of the Taborite party. It was a new spectacle for an oecumenical council to treat with heretics as with a party having rights. Unqualified submission was the demand which the Church had heretofore made. On Oct. 15, 1431, the council invited the Bohemians to a conference and promised delegates safe-conduct. This promise assured them that neither guile nor deceit would be resorted to on any ground whatsoever, whether it be of authority or the privileges of canon law or of the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Siena or any other council.709 Three hundred delegates appointed by the Bohemian diet appeared in Basel. On the way, at Eger, and in the presence of the landgrave of Brandenburg and John, duke of Bavaria, they laid down their own terms, which were sent ahead and accepted by the council.710 These terms, embodied in thirteen articles, dealt with the method of carrying on the negotiations, the cessation of the interdict during the sojourn of the delegates in the Swiss city and the privilege of practising their own religious rites. The leaders of the Bohemian delegation were John Rokyzana of the Utraquist party and the Taborite, Procopius. Rokyzana was the pastor of the Teyn Church in Prag.
The council recognized the austere principles of the Hussites by calling upon the Basel authorities to prohibit all dancing and gambling and the appearance of loose women on the streets. On their arrival, Jan. 4, 1433, the Bohemians were assigned to four public taverns, and a large supply of wine and provisions placed at their disposal. Delegations from the council and from the city bade them formal welcome. They followed their own rituals, the Taborites arousing most curiosity by the omission of all Latin from the services and discarding altar and priestly vestments.
On the floor of the council, the Bohemians coupled praise with the names of Wyclif and Huss, and would tolerate no references to themselves as heretics. The discussions were prolonged to a wearisome length, some of their number occupying as much as two or three days in their addresses. Among the chief speakers was the Englishman, Peter Payne, whose address consumed three days. The final agreement of four articles, known as the Campactata, was ratified by deputies of the council and of the three Bohemian parties giving one another the hand. The main article granted the use of the cup to the laity, where it was asked, but on condition that the doctrine be inculcated that the whole Christ is contained in each of the elements. The use of the cup was affirmed to be wholesome to those partaking worthily.711 The Compacts were ratified by the Bohemian diet of Iglau, July 5, 1436. All ecclesiastical censures were lifted from Bohemia and its people. The abbot of Bonnival, addressing the king of Castile upon the progress of the Council of Basel, declared that the Bohemians at the start were like ferocious lions and greedy wolves, but through the mercy of Christ and after much discussion had been turned into the meekest lambs and accepted the four articles.712
Although technically the question was settled, the Taborites were not satisfied. The Utraquists approached closer to the Catholics. Hostilities broke out between them, and after a wholesale massacre in Prag, involving, it is said, 22,000 victims, the two parties joined in open war. The Taborites were defeated in the battle at Lipan, May 30, 1434, and Procopius slain. This distinguished man had travelled extensively, going as far as Jerusalem before receiving priestly orders. He was a brilliant leader, and won many successes in Austria, Moravia and Hungary. The power of the Taborites was gone, and in 1452 they lost Mt. Tabor, their chief stronghold.
The emperor now entered upon possession of his Bohemian kingdom and granted full recognition to the Utraquist priests, promising to give his sanction to the elections of bishops made by the popular will and to secure their ratification by the pope. Rokyzana was elected archbishop of Prag by the Bohemian diet of 1435. Sigismund died soon after, 1437, and the archbishop never received papal recognition, although he administered the affairs of the diocese until his death, 1471.
Albert of Austria, son-in-law of Sigismund and an uncompromising Catholic, succeeded to the throne. In 1457 George Podiebrad, a powerful noble, was crowned by Catholic bishops, and remained king of Bohemia till 1471. He was a consistent supporter of the national party which held to the Compactata. The papal authorities, refusing to recognize Rokyzana, despatched emissaries to subdue the heretics by the measures of preaching and miracles. The most noted among them were Fra Giacomo and John of Capistrano. John, whose miraculous agency equalled his eloquence, succumbed to a fever after the battle of Belgrade.
In 1462 the Compacts were declared void by Pius II., who threatened with excommunication all priests administering the cup to the laity. George Podiebrad resisted the papal bull. Four years later, a papal decree sought to deprive that "son of perdition" of his royal dignity, and summoned the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus, to take his crown.713 Matthias accepted the responsibility, the cross and invaded Moravia. The war was still in progress when Podiebrad died. By the peace of Kuttenberg 1485 and an agreement made in 1512, the Utraquists preserved their right to exist at the side of their Catholic neighbors. Thus they continued till 1629, when the right of communion in both kinds was withdrawn by Ferdinand II. of Austria, whose hard and bloody hand put an end to all open dissent in Bohemia.714
The third outgrowth from the Hussite stock, the Unitas Fratrum, commonly called the Bohemian Brethren, has had an honorable and a longer history than the Taborites and Calixtines. This body still has existence in the Moravians, whose missionary labors, with Herrnhut as a centre, have stirred all Protestant Christendom. Its beginnings are uncertain. It appears distinctly for the first time in 1457, and continued to grow till the time of the Reformation. Its synod of 1467 was attended by 60 Brethren. The members in Prag were subjected to persecution, and George Podiebrad gave them permission to settle on the estate, Lititz, in the village corporation of Kunwald.715 Martin, priest at Königgraetz, with a part of his flock affiliated himself with them, and other congregations were soon formed. They were a distinct type, worshipping by themselves, and did not take the sacraments from the Catholic priests. They rejected oaths, war and military service and resorted, apparently from the beginning, to the lot. They also rejected the doctrine of purgatory and all services of priests of unworthy life.
The exact relation which this Hussite body bore to the Taborites and to the Austrian Waldenses is a matter which has called forth much learned discussion, and is still involved in uncertainty. But there seems to be no doubt that the Bohemian Brethren were moved by the spirit of Huss, and also that in their earliest period they came into contact with the Waldenses. Pressing up from Italy, the followers of Peter Valdez had penetrated into Bohemia in the later part of the 14th century, and had Frederick Reiser as their leader.716 This Apostolic man was present at the Council of Basel, 1435, and styled himself, "the bishop of the faithful in the Romish church, who reject the donation of Constantine." With Anna Weiler, he suffered at the stake in Strassburg, 1458. One of the earliest names associated with the Bohemian Brethren is the name of Peter Chelcicky, a marked religious personage in his day in Bohemia. We know he was a man of authority among them, but little more.717
Believing that the papal priesthood had been corrupt since Constantine’s donation to Sylvester, the Brethren, at the synod of 1467, chose Michael, pastor of Senftenburg, "presbyter and bishop," and sent him to the Waldensian bishop Stephen for sanction or consecration.718 It seems probable that Stephen had received orders at Basel from bishops in the regular succession. On his return, Michael consecrated Matthias of Kunwald, while he himself, for a time and for a reason not known, was not officially recognized. The synod had resorted to the lot and placed the words "he is" on 3 out of 12 ballots, 9 being left blank. Matthias chose one of he printed ballots.719 Matthias, in turn, ordained Thomas and Elias bishops, men who had drawn the other two printed ballots.
By 1500, the Bohemian Brethren numbered 200,000 scattered in 300 or 400 congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. They had their own confession, catechism and hymnology.720 Of the 60 Bohemian books printed 1500–1510, 50 are said to have been by members of the sect. A new period in their history was introduced by Lucas of Prag, d. 1528, a voluminous writer. He gave explanations of the Brethren’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper to Luther. Brethren, including Michael Weiss, the hymnwriter, visited the German Reformer, and in 1521 he had in his possession their catechism.
The merciless persecutions of the Brethren and the other remaining Hussite sectarists were opened under the Austrian rule of Ferdinand I. in 1549, and continued, with interruptions, till the Thirty Years’ War when, under inspiration of the Jesuits, the government resorted to measures memorable for their heartlessness to blot out heresy from Bohemia and Moravia.
The Church of the Brethren had a remarkable resurrection in the Moravians, starting with the settlement of Christian David and other Hussite families in 1722 on land given by Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut. They preserve the venerable name of their spiritual ancestry, Unitas Fratrum, and they have made good their heritage by their missionary labors which have carried the Gospel to the remotest ends of the earth, from Greenland to the West Indies and Guiana, and from the leper colony of Jerusalem to Thibet and Australia. In our own land, David Zeisberger and other Moravian missionaries have shown in their labors among the Indian tribes the godly devotion of John Huss, whose body the flames at Constance were able to destroy, but not his sacred memory and influence.
Mandeville composed his travels in 1356 in French, and then translated out of French into English, that every man of his nation might understand. Trevisa, writing in 1387, said that all grammar schools and English children "leaveth French and construeth and learneth English."
See Kriehn, AmHist. Rev., pp. 480, 483.
Gascoigne, as quoted by Gairdner: Lollardy and the Reform., I. 262.
p. 253
His Defensio curatorum contra eos qui privilegatos se dicunt is printed in Goldast, II. 466 sqq. See art. Fitzralph, by R. L. Poole, Dict. of Nat. Biog., XIX. 194-198. Four books of Fitzralph’s De pauperie salvatoris were printed for the first time by Poole in his ed. of Wyclif’s De dominio, pp. 257-477. As for libraries, Fitzralph says that in every English convent there was a grand library. On the other hand, the author of the Philobiblion, Rich. de Bury, charges the friars with losing their interest in books.
Wyclif: De verit. scr., I. 30, 109, etc.
De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum ad suos Mertinenses, ed. by Sir Henry Saville, London, 1618. For other works, see Seeberg’s art. in Herzog, III. 350, and Stephens in Dict. of Nat. Biog., VI. 188 sq. Also S. Hahn, Thos. Bradwardinus, und seine Lehre von d. menschl. Willensfreiheit, Münster, 1905.
See art. by Tait in Dict. of Nat. Biog., LXIII. 225-231.
Rolls Series, IV. 559.
De eccles., p. 332
Walsingham, Hist. Angl., I. 200 sqq., and the pope’s reply, p. 208 sqq. Benedict showed his complete devotion to the French king when he wrote that, if he had two souls, one of them should be given for him. Quoted by Loserth, Stud. Zur Kirchenpol., p. 20.
Gee and Hardy, pp. 92-94.
For the text of the parliamentary brief and the king’s letter, which was written in French, see Merimuth, p. 138 sqq., 153 sqq., and for Clement’s reply, Bliss, III., 9 sqq.
See the texts of these statutes in Gee and Hardy, 103 sqq., 112-123. With reference to the renewal of the act in 1390, Fuller quaintly says: "It mauled the papal power in the land. Some former laws had pared the pope’s nails to the quick, but this cut off his fingers."
II. 345; III. 54 sq. Prebend has reference to the stipend, canonry to the office.
Bliss, II. 521. Cases of the payment of large sums for appointments to the pope and of the disappointed ecclesiastics-elect are given in Merimuth, pp. 31, 57, 59, 60, 61, 71, 120, 124, 172, etc., Bliss and others. Merimuth, p. 67, etc., refers constant]y to the bribery used by such expressions as causa pecunialiter cognita, and non sine magna pecuniae quantitate. In cases, the pope renounced the right of provision, as Clement V., in 1308, the livings held in commendam by the cardinal of St. Sabina, and valued at 1000 marks. See Bliss, II. 48. For the cases of agents sent by two cardinals to England to collect the incomes of their livings, and their imprisonment, see Walsingham, I. 259
Bliss IV. 257.
Inter curiales vertitur in proverbium quod Anglici sunt boni asini, omnia onera eis imposita et intolerabilia supportantes. Merimuth, p. 175. To these burdens imposed upon England by the papal see were added, as in Matthew Paris’ times, severe calamities from rain and cold. Merimuth tells of a great flood in 1339, when the rain fell from October to the first of December, so that the country looked like a continuous sea. Then bitter cold setting in, the country looked like one field of ice.
Often supposed to be a description of Wyclif.
Fasciculi, p. 362.
Leland’s Itinerary placed Wyclif’s birth in 1324. Buddensieg and Rashdall prefer 1330. Leland, our first authority for the place of birth, mentions Spresswell (Hipswell) and Wyclif-on-Tees, places a half a mile apart. Wyclif’s name is spelled in more than twenty different ways, as Wiclif, accepted by Lechler, Loserth, Buddensieg and German scholars generally; Wiclef, Wicliffe, Wicleff, Wycleff. Wycliffe, adopted by Foxe, Milman, Poole, Stubbs, Rashdall, Bigg; Wyclif preferred by Shirley, Matthew, Sergeant, the Wyclif Society, the Early English Text Society, etc. The form Wyclif is found in a diocesan register of 1361, when the Reformer was warden of Balliol College. The earliest mention in an official state document, July 26, 1374, gives it Wiclif. On Wyclif’s birthplace, see Shirley, Fasciculi, p. x sqq.
A Wyclif is mentioned in connection with all of these colleges. The question is whether there were not two John Wyclifs. A John de Whyteclyve was rector of Mayfield, 1361, and later of Horsted Kaynes, where he died, 1383. In 1365 Islip, writing from Mayfield, appointed a John Wyclyve warden of Canterbury Hall. Shirley, Note on the two Wiclifs, in the Fasciculi, p. 513 sqq., advocated the view that this Wyclif was a different person from our John Wyclif, and he is followed by Poole, Rashdall and Sergeant. Principal Wilkinson of Marlborough College, Ch. Quart. Rev., October, 1877, makes a strong statement against this view; Lechler and Buddensieg, the two leading German authorities on Wyclif’s career, also admit only a single Wyclif as connected with the Oxford Halls.
So Lechler, who advances strong arguments in favor of this view. Loserth, who is followed by Rashdall, brings considerations against it, and places Wyclif’s first appearance as a political reformer in 1376. Studien zur Kirchenpol., etc., pp. 1, 32, 35, 44, 60. A serious difficulty with this view is that it crowds almost all the Reformer’s writings into 7 years.
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was the younger brother of the Black Prince. The prince had returned from his victories in France to die of an incurable disease.
Chron. Angl., p. 115 sq.
Gee and Hardy, p. 105 sqq.
Fasc., pp. 242-244.
Chron. Angl., p. 395; also Knighton, II. 184 sq.
Fasc., p. 104.
See Trevelyan, p. 199; Kriehn, pp. 254-286, 458-485.
Pref. to Expos. of St. John, p. 225, Parker Soc. ed.
Sicut in terrae visceribus includuntur aëret spiritus infecti et ingrediuntur in terrae motum, Fasc., p. 272.
Select Engl. Works, III. 503.
Gee and Hardy, pp. 108-110.
Select Engl. Writings, III. 507-523.
Fasc., pp. 272-333. See Shirley, p. xliv.
Latin Works, II. 577 sqq.
Fasc., p. 341 sq.; Lechler-Lorimer, p. 417, deny the citation. The reply is hardly what we might have expected from Wyclif, confining itself, as it does, rather curtly to the question of the pope’s authority and manner of life. Luther’s last treatment of the pope, Der Papst der Ende-Christ und Wider Christ, is not a full parallel. Wyclif was independent, not coarse.
2 The most credible narrative preserved of Wyclif’s death comes from John Horn, the Reformer’s assistant for two years, and was written down by Dr. Thomas Gascoigne upon Horn’s sworn statement. Walden twice makes the charge that disappointment at not being appointed bishop of Worcester started Wyclif on the path of heresy, but there is no other authority for the story, which is inherently improbable. Lies were also invented against the memories of Luther, Calvin and Knox, which the respectable Catholic historians set aside.
Bale, in his account of the Examination of Thorpe, Parker Soc. ed., I. 80-81. The biographies of Lewis, Vaughan, Lorimer and Sergeant give portraits of Wyclif. The oldest, according to Sergeant, pp. 16-21, is taken from Bale’s Summary, 1548. There is a resemblance in all the portraits, which represent the Reformer clothed in Oxford gown and cap, with long beard, open face, clear, large eye, prominent nose and cheek bones and pale complexion.
A part of the sentence rans, Sancta synodus declarat diffinit et sententiat eumdem J. Wicleff fuisse notorium haereticum pertinacem et in haeresi decessisse ... ordinat corpus et ejus ossa, si ab aliis fidelibus corporibus discerni possint exhumari et procul ab ecclesiae sepultura jactari. Mansi, XXVII. 635.
2 Green, in his Hist. of the Engl. People, passes a notable encomium on the "first Reformer," and the late Prof. Bigg, Wayside Sketches, p.131, asserts "that his beliefs are in the main those of the great majority of Englishmen to-day, and this is a high proof of the justice, the clearness and the sincerity of his thoughts." The Catholic historian of England, Lingard, IV. 192, after speaking of Wyclif’s intellectual perversion, refers to him, "as that extraordinary man who, exemplary in his morals, declaimed against vice with the freedom and severity of an Apostle."
Op. evang., p. 17, etc., De dom. div., p. 215, etc., De dom. civ., 384 sqq., where the case of Frederick of Lavagna is related at length.
Hergenröther, II. 881, speaks of Wyclif’s system as pantheistic realism and fatalism, D. Lehrsystem des Wiclif ist krasser, pantheistischer Realismus, Fatalismus u. Predestianismus.
The De dom. civ. and the De dom. div., ed. for the Wyclif Soc. by R. L. Poole, London, 1885, 1890. See Poole’s Prefaces and his essay on Wyclif’s Doctrine of Lordship in his Illustrations, etc., pp. 282-311. TheDialogus, sive speculum ecclesiae militantis, ed. by A. W. Pollard, 1886.
Salvator noster noluit esse proprietarie dominans, sed communicative, p. 204.
Loserth, Introd. to Lat. sermones, II., p. xx, pronounce their effect extraordinary. The Engl. sermons have been ed. by Arnold, Select Engl. Works, vols, I, II, and the Lat. sermons by Loserth, in 4 vols.
Evangelizatio verbi est preciosior quam ministratio alicujus ecclesiastici sacramenti, Op. evang., I. 375. Predicatio verbi Dei est solemnior quam confectio sacramenti, De sac. scr., II. 156. See also Arnold, Engl. Works, III. 153 sq., 464;Serm. Lat., II. 115;De scr. sac., II. 138.
Debemus loco miraculorum Christi nos et proximos ad legem Dei convertere. De ver., I. 90; Op. evang., I. 368.
See Mansi, XXVII., 632-636, and Mirbt, p. 157 sq.
De dom. civ., I. 358. Ecclesia cath. sive Apost. est universitas predestinatorum. De eccles., ed. by Loserth, pp. 2, 5, 31, 94, Engl. Works, III. 339, 447, etc.
De eccles., 5, 28 sq., 63, 88, 89, 355, 358, 360.
Engl. Works., I. 50.
The condemnatory epithets and characterizations are found in the Engl. Works, ed. by Matthew, De papa, pp. 458-487, and The Church and her Members, and The Schism of the Rom. Pontiffs, Arnold’s ed., III. 262 sqq., 340 sqq., the Trialogus, Dialogus, the Latin Sermons, vol. II., and especially the Opus evangelicum, parts of which went under the name Christ and his Adversary, Antichrist. See Loserth’s introductions to Lat. Serm., II. p. iv sq., and Op. evang., vol. II.; also his art. Wiclif’s Lehre, vom wahren, undfalschen Papsttum, Hist Ztschrift, 1907, and his ed. of the De potestate papae. In these last works Loserth presents the somewhat modified view that when Wyclif inveighed against the papacy it was only as it was abused. The De potestate was written perhaps in 1379. His later works show an increased severity.
Lat. Serm., IV. 95; De dom. civ., 366-394; De ver. scr., II. 56 sqq.; Dial., p. 25; Op. evang., I. 38, 92, 98, 382, 414, II. 132, III. 187; Engl. Works, II. 229 sq., etc.
Op. evang., II. 105 sq.; Engl. Works, I. 350 sq.
De ver., I. 267; Engl. Works, III. 341 sq.; De Eccles., 189, 365 sqq.; Op. Evang., III. 188.
Engl. Works, III. 320. Letter to Urban VI., Fasc. ziz., p. 341; Engl. Works, III. 504-506.
His De eucharistia et poenitentia sive de confessione elaborates this subject. See also Engl. Works, I. 80, III. 141, 348, 461.
De eccles., p. 162; De ver. scr., II. 1-99. Omne mendacium est per se peccatum sed nulla circumstantia potest rectificare, ut peccatum sit non peccatum, De ver., II. 61.
Engl. Works, III. 420 sqq.; Op. evang., II. 40; Lat. serm., IV. 62, 121, etc.
See the tract Of Feigned Contemplative Life in Matthew, pp. 187, 196; De eccles., p. 380; Lat. Serm., II. 112.
Lat. serm., II. 84; Trial., IV. 33; Engl. Works, III. 348; Dial., pp. 13, 65, etc.
Ab isto scandaloso et derisibili errore de quidditate hujus sacramenti, pp. 52, 199.
Corpus Chr. est dimensionaliter in coelo a virtualiter in hostia ut in signo. De euchar., pp. 271, 303. Walden, Fasc. ziz., rightly represents Wyclif as holding that "the host is neither Christ nor any part of Christ, but the effectual sign of him."
De euchar., p. 11; Trial., pp. 248, 261.
De euch., pp. 78, 81, 182; Engl. Works, III. 520.
De veritate Scripturae, ed. by Buddensieg, with Introd., 3 vols., Leip., 1904. The editor, I. p. xci, gives the date as 1387, 1388. Wyclif starts out by quoting Augustine at length, I. 6-16. The treatise contains extensive digressions, as on the two natures of Christ, I. 179 sqq., the salutation of Mary, I. 282 sqq., lying, II. 1-99, Mohammedanism, II. 248-266, the functions of prelates and priests, III. 1-104, etc.
lex domini immaculata ... verissima, completissima et saluberrima, I. 156.
Illum librum debet omnis christianus adiscere cum sit omnis veritas, I. 109, 138.
I. 54. Aliae logicae saepissime variantur ... logica scripturae in eternum stat.
I. 22, 29, 188. Christianus philosophiam non discit quia Aristotelis sed quia autorum scripturae sac. et per consequens tamquam suam scientiam quo in libris theologiae rectius est edocta.
I. 151, 200, 394, 408; Lat. serm., 179; De eccles., 173, 318, etc.
Tota scrip. est unum magnum Verbum Dei., I. 269. Autores nisi scribae vel precones ad scrib. Dei legem. I. 392. Also I. 86, 156, 198, 220 sqq., III. 106 sqq., 143.
Falsitas in proposito est in false intelligente et non in Scrip. sac., p. 193. Nulli alii in quoquam credere nisi de quanto se fundaverit ex script. I. 383. De civ. dom., p. 394.
De ver., 114, 119, 123. Sensus literalis script. est utrobique verus, p. 73. Solum ille est sensus script. quem deus et beati legunt in libro vitae qui est uni talis et alteri viatoribus, semper verus, etc., p. 126.
Oportet conclusiones carnis et seculi me deserere et sequi Christum in pauperie si debeam coronari, I. 357. Also II. 129-131. In view of the above statement, it is seen how utterly against the truth Kropatschek’s statement is, Man wird den Begriff Vorreformatoren getrost in die historische Rumpelkammer werfen können, we may without further thought cast the idea of Reformers before the Reformation into the historical rag bag. The remark he makes after stating how little the expression sola scriptura meant in the mouths of mediaeval reformers. See Walter In Litzg., 1905, p. 447.
Illum librum debet omnis Chriatianus adiscere cum sit omnis veritas. De ver., I. 109. Fideles cujuscunque generis, fuerint clerici vel laici, viri vel feminae, inveniunt in ea virtutem operandi, etc., pp. 117, 136. Op. evang., II. 36.
Matthew, Sel. Works, p. 429 sq.
The text pub. Cambr., 1902 and 1905, by Anna C. Paues: A Fourteenth Engl. Bible Vs.
The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal Books, in the earliest English Versions made from the Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his Followers. 4 vols., Oxford, 1850. The work cost 22 years of labor. It contains Purvey’s Prologue and an exhaustive Preface by the editors. Purvey’s New Test. had been printed by John Lewis, London, 1781, and reprinted by Henry Baber, Lond., 1810, and in the Bagster English Hexapla, Lond., 1841. Adam Clarke had published Wyclif’s version of the Canticles in his Commentary, 3rd vol., 1823, and Lea Wilson, Wyclif’s New Test., Lond., 1848.
Commune aeternum. It is hard to give the exact rendering of these words. Knighton goes on to refer to William of St. Amour, who said of some that they changed the pure Gospel into another Gospel, the evangelium aeternum or evangelium Spiritus sancti. Knighton, Chronicle, II. 151 sq.
Novae ad suae malitiae complementum Scripturarum in linguam maternam translationis practica adinventa. Wilkins, III. 350.
More’s Works, p. 240, quoted by Gairdner, I. 112.
See Forshall and Madden, p. xxxii, and Eadie, pp. 90-94.
Buddensieg, Introd. to De ver., pp. xxxii, xxxviii.
See De ver. scr., I. 209, 212, 214, 260, II. 234. He made a distinction between the material and formal principles when he spoke of the words of Christ as something materiale, and the inner meaning as something formale. Buddensieg, p. xlv, says Wyclif had a dawning presentiment of justifying faith. According to Poole, he stated the doctrine in other terms in his treatment of lordship. Rashdall, Dict. Natl. Biog., LXIII. 221, says that, apart from the doctrine of justification by faith, there is little in the teachings of the 16th cent. which Wyclif did not anticipate.
Summus philos., immo summa philosophia est Christus, deus noster, quem sequendo et discendo sumus philosophi. De ver. scr., I. 32.
De ver. scr., I. 346 sqq. See Loserth, Kirchenpolitik, pp. 2, 112 sq. Buddensieg, De ver. scr., p. viii, says, Was er war wissen wir, nicht wie er es geworden. We know what he was, but not how he came to be what he was. See, for a Rom. Cath. judgment, Hergenröther-Kirsch, II. 878, who finds concentrated in Wyclif the false philosophy of the Waldenses and the Apocalypties, of Marsiglius and Ockam.
Melanchthon, in a letter to Myconius, declared that Wyclif was wholly ignorant of the doctrine of justification, and at another time he said he had foolishly mixed up the Gospel and politics.
In 1382 Repyngdon was called Lollardus de secta Wyclif, and Peter Stokes was referred to as having opposed the "Lollards and the sect of Wyclif," Fasc., 296. Knighton, II. 182, 260, expressly calls the Wycliffians Lollards, Wycliviani qui et Lollardi dicti sunt.
Fredericq, I. 172. A certain Matthew, whose bones were exhumed and burnt, is called Mattaeus Lollaert. Fred., I. 250. For documents associating the Lollards with other sectarists, see Fred., I. 228, II. 132, 133, III. 46, etc.
So Jan Hocsem of Liége, d. 1348, who in his Gesta pontiff. Leodiensium says, eodem anno (1309) quidam hypocritae gyrovagi qui Lollardi sive Deum laudantes vocabuntur, etc. Fred., I. 154. Chaucer, in his Prologue to the Shipman’s Tale, says:—
This loller here wol prechen us somewhat
He wolde sowen some difficulte
Or sprenge cokkle in our clene corn.
Cheyney, p. 436 sqq.
Gee and Hardy, pp. 126-132. Fasc., pp. 360-369. See Gairdner, I. 44-46
Knighton, II. 191.
De comburendo haeretico, Gee and Hardy, pp. 133-137.
Knighton, II. 171 sqq., gives the recantation in English, the Fasc., p. 329, in Latin. John Foxe’s accounts of the Lollard martyrs are always quaintly related. Gairdner is the fullest and best of the recent treatments. For his judgment of Foxe, see I. 159, 336 sqq. He ascribes to him accuracy in transcribing documents. The articles in the Dict. of Natl. Biog. are always to be consulted.
Gee and Hardy give the sentence and the Fasc. the proceedings of the trial. It is a matter of dispute under what law Sawtré was condemned to the flames. Prof. Maitland, In his Canon Law, holds that It was under the old canon practice as expressed in papal bulls. The statute De comburendo was before parliament at the time of Sawtre’s death.
The proceedings are given at great length by Foxe and by Bale, who copied Tyndale’s account. Sel. Works of Bp. Bale, pp. 62-133.
Walsingham, II, 244; Knighton, II. 181; Chron. Angl., p. 377.
Walsingham, II. 328, says he was hung as a traitor and burnt as a heretic. Usk p. 317 , reports he "was hung on the gallows in a chain of iron after that he had been drawn. He was once and for all burnt up with fierce fire, paying justly the penalty of both swords." The Fasciculi give a protracted account of Sir John’s opinions and trial. Judgments have been much divided about him. Fuller speaks of him "as a boon companion, jovial roysterer and yet a coward to boot." Shakespeare presents him in the character of Falstaff. See Gairdner, I. 97 sq.
Summers, p. 67.
Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 175.
Mitchell: Scottish Reformation, p. 15.
Among these works was the Provoker, in which Pecock denied that the Apostles had compiled the Apostles’ Creed. See Introd. to Babington’s Ed. of the Repressor in Rolls Series, and art. Pecock in Dict. Natl. Biog., XLIV. 198-202.
Knighton, II. 155, complains of the Lollards having the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. Such a translation he said the laity regarded as melior et dignior quam lingua latina.
So Walsingham, II. 253.
Summers, p. 60, speaks of an unpublished Lollard MS. of 37 articles which deal with clerical abuses, such as simony, quarrelling, holding secular offices, oaths, the worship of images, the eucharist and papal authority.
Trevelyan, p. 349.
The truth of Rokyzana’s statement is denied by Loserth, In Herzog, VIII. 588 sq. On other Bohemian preachers of Huss’ day, see Flajshans, Serm. de Sanctis, p. iv.
See Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 70. Wenzel or Wenceslaus IV., surnamed the Lazy, was the son of Charles IV. His second wife was Sophia of Bavaria. His half-brother, Sigismund, succeeded him on the throne.
Flajshans: Serm. de Sanctis, p. xxi. Nürnb. ed., I. 135.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, pp. 94, 118, 163, 189, 192, 198, 201. The spelling, Hus, almost universally adopted in recent years by German and English writers, has been exchanged by Loserth in his art. in Herzog for Huss, as a form more congenial to the German mode of spelling. For the same reason this volume has adopted the form Huss as more agreeable to the English reader’s eye and more consonant with our mode of spelling. Karl Müller adopts this spelling in his Kirchengeschichte. The exact date of Huss’ birth is usually given as July 6th, 1369, but with insufficient authority. Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. 65 sq.
De Omni Christi sanguine glorificato, ed. by Flajshans p. 42.
See Rashdall: Universities of Europe, I. 211-242. The number of departing students is variously given. The number given above has the authority of Procopius, a chronicler of the 15th century. Only 602 were matriculated at Leipzig the first year, and this figure seems to point to a smaller number than 2000 leaving Prag. Kügelgen, Die Gefängnissbriefe, p. ix, adopts the uureasonable number, 5000.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 36.
Among the condemned writings, 17 in all, were the Dialogus, Trialogus, De incarnatione Verbi and the De dominio civili.
These letters are given by Workman, pp. 51-54.
Huss’ reply, Replica, and Stokes’ statement, which called it forth, are given in the Nürnb. ed., I. 135-139.
Huss’ tract is entitled De indulgentiis sive de cruciatu papae Joh. XXIII. fulminata contra Ladislaum Apuliae regem. Nürnb. ed., 213-235.
Workman: Hus’ Letters.
See Huss’ reply, Defensio quorundam articulorum J. Wicleff, and the rejoinder of the Theol. faculty, Nürnb. ed., I. 139-146.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, pp. 60, 66.
Workman, p. 107-120. Workman translates seventeen letters written from this exile, pp. 83-138.
Du Pin, Opp. Gerson., II. 901. The De ecclesia is given in the Nürnb. ed., I. 243-319.
Eccl. est omnium praedestinatorum universitas; quae est omnes praedestinati, praesentes, praeteriti et futuri. Nürnb. ed. I., 244.
Writing to Christian Prachatitz, in 1413, Huss said, "If the pope is the head of the Roman Church and the cardinals are the body, then they in themselves form the entire Holy Roman Church, as the entire body of a man with the head is the man. The satellites of anti-christ use interchangeably the expressions ’Holy Roman Church’ and ’pope and cardinals’ etc." Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 121.
Propter confessionem tam claram et firmam, dixit Petra Petro, et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus, id est confessor Petrae vertae qui est Christus et super hanc Petram quam confessus es, id est, super me, etc., Nürnb. ed., I. 257. Petrus non fuit nec est caput s. eccles. cathol., p. 263. See also the same interpretation in Huss’ Serm. de Sanctis, p. 84.
Nürnb. ed., I. 260, 284, 294, etc.
Huss also in his Letters repeatedly refers to Joan and Liberius, e.g. he writes, "I should like to know if pope Liberius the heretic, Leo the heretic and the pope Joan, who was delivered of a boy, were the heads of the Roman Church." Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 125.
Nürnb. ed., I. 302.
De indulgentiis, Nürnb. ed., pp. 220-228.
Loserth wrote his Wicliff and Hus to show the dependence of Huss upon his English predecessor, and the latter half of this work gives proof of it by printing in parallel columns portions of the two authors, compositions. He says, p. 111, that the De ecclesia is only "a meagre abridgement of Wyclif’s work on the same subject." This author affirms that in his Latin tractates Huss "has drawn all his arguments from Wyclif," and that "the most weighty parts are taken word for word from his English predecessor," pp. xiv, 139, 141, 156, etc. Neander made a mistake in rating the influence of Matthias of Janow upon Huss higher than the influence of Wyclif. He wrote before the Wyclif Society began its publications. Even Palacky, in his Church History of Bohemia, III. 190-197, pronounced it uncertain how far Huss was influenced by Wyclif’s writings, and questions whether he had attached himself closely to the English Reformer. The publications of the Wyclif Society, which make a comparison possible, show that one writer could scarcely be more dependent upon another than Huss was upon Wyclif.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 36.
Van der Hardt, I. 18; Palacky, Docum., pp. 523-528.
For these letters and copies of the handbill, see Workman, Hus’ Letters, p. 140 sqq.
Huss kept one for himself, thinking it might be necessary for him to ride and see Sigismund. Writing from Constance, Nov. 4th, he said that horses were cheap there. One, bought in Bohemia for 6 guineas, was given away for 7 florins, or one-third the original price. Workman: Letters, p. 158.
The charge is reported by Richental, p. 76 sq. His story is invalidated by the false date he gives and also by the testimony of Mladenowitz, who declared it wholly untrue. If there had been any attempt at escape, it would hardly have been allowed to go unnoticed in the trial. See Wylie, p. 139.
In an audience with Sigismund, D’Ailly protested that factum J. Hus et alia minora non debebant reformationem eccles. et Bon. imperii impedire quod erat principale pro quo fuerat concilium congregatum. Fillflastre, in Finke, p. 253.
On reading a letter in the Bethlehem chapel, Hawlik exclaimed, alas, Hus is running out of paper." And John of Chlum spoke of one of Huss’ letters as being written " on a tattered, three-cornered bit of paper." Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 196.
Workman: Letters, p. 174, 182, 184, 190.
See Card. Fillastre’s Diary in Finke’s Forschungen, pp. 164, 179.
Utinam anima esset ibi, ubi est anima Joh. Wicleff. Mansi, xxvII. 756.
Nos non possumus secundum tuam conscientiam judicare, etc., Palacky, Doc. 278. Tschackert, pp. 225, 235, says D’Ailly would have been obliged to lay aside his purple if he had not resisted Huss’ views. Huss had said of Gerson,O si deus daret tempus scribendi contra mendacia Parisiensis cancellarii, Palacky, Doc. 97. Gerson went so far as to say that Huss was condemned for his realism. See Schwab, pp. 298, 586.
See Tschackert p. 230. D’Ailly persisted in this position after he left Constance. Wyclif and Huss remained to him the dangerous heretics, pernitiosi heretici. Van der Hardt, VI. 16.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, pp. 226, 289-241.
See Workman, pp. 185, 245, 248.
Workman, p. 264.
Ibid., p. 276.
Non vellet abjurare sed millisies comburi, Mansi, XXVII. 764.
Ad medium concilii ubi erat levatus in altum scamnum pro eo. Mansi, XXVII. 747.
The articles are given in Mansi, pp. 754 sq., 1209-1211, and Hardt, IV. 408-12.
Buddenseig, Hus, Patriot and Reformer, p. 11, says, "The whole Hussite movement is mere Wycliffism." Loserth, Wiclif and Hus, p. xvi, says, it was Wyclif’s doctrine principally for which Hus yielded up his life. Invectives flying about in Constance joined their names together. TheMissa Wiclefistarum ran, Credo in Wykleph ducem inferni patronum Boemiae et in Hus filium ejus unicum nequam nostrum, qui conceptus est ex spiritu Luciferi, natus matre ejus et factus incarnatus equalis Wikleph, secundum malam voluntatem et major secundum ejus persecutionem, regnans tempore desolationis studii Pragensis, tempore quo Boemia a fide apostotavit. Qui propter nos hereticos descendit ad inferna et non resurget a mortuis nec habebit vitam eternam. Amen.
Note appended to Huss’ writings, ed. 1537. See Huss’ Opp., Prelim. Statement, I. 4. It did not require the study of the modem historian to affirm the view taken above. John Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, presented it clearly when he said, "By the life, acts and letters of Huss, it is plain that he was condemned not for any error of doctrine, for he neither denied their popish transubstantiation, neither spake against the authority of the church of Rome, if it were well governed, nor yet against the seven sacraments, but said mass himself and in almost all their popish opinions was a papist with them, but only through evil will was he accused because he spoke against the pomp, pride and avarice and other wicked enormities of the pope, cardinals and prelates of the church, etc.
Gerson declared that among the causes for which Huss was condemned was that he had affirmed that the Church could be ruled by priests dispersed throughout the world in the absence of one head an well as with one head. Schwab, p. 588.
Schwab, pp. 588-599, 600. On the whole subject of Huss’ views Schwab has excellent remarks, p. 596 sqq.
See Workman: Age of Hus, pp. 284, 293, 364, and Wylie, p. 175 sqq.
Workman: Hus’ Letters, p. 269 sq.
Mansi, XXVII. 791, 799. Also Mirbt, p. 156. Lea, Inquisition, II. p. 462 sqq., has an excellent statement of the whole question of Huss’ safe-conduct.
Luther declared that a safe-conduct promised to the devil must be kept. See Köstlin, M. Luther, I. 352.
John Zacharias, one of the professors of the university at Erfurt, had taken a prominent part in the debates at Constance against Huss, and received as his reward the red rose from the pope. Köstlin, M. Luther, I. 53, 87.
Si aliqua persona ecclesiae me scrip. s. vel ratione valida,docuerit, paratissime consentire. Nam a primo studii mei tempore hoc mihi statui proregula, ut quotiescunque saniorem sententiam in quacunque materia perciperem, a priori sententia gaudenter et humiliter declinarem. Wyclif had expressed the same sentiment in his De universalibus, which Huss translated, 1398. See Loserth, p. 253.
Workman: Letters, p. 266.
Mansi, XXVII. 794 sqq., 842-864.
For the sentence, see Mansi, XXVII. 887-897. Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, gives a translation and an excellent account of the proceedings against Jerome and his martyrdom.
Laicus, Mansi, XXVII. 894.
Huss, Opera, II. 532-534. Palacky, Mon. 624-699. A full translation is given by Whitcomb in Lit. Source-Book of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 40-47.
Hist. Boh., c. 36.
704 Improbissimos, et periculosissimos, teterrimosque viros, Mansi, XXVII. 781-783.
705 Mansi, pp. 789-91.
706 Palacky, Monum., I. 80-82.
707 Mansi, XXVII. 1204-15. Also Mirbt, p. 157 sqq.
708 As early as 1423, dissenters with the name of Hussites appeared in Northern Germany and Holland, Fredericq, Corpus Inq., III. 65, 142, etc.
709 Sine fraude et quolibet dolo, occulte vel manifeste, etc. Mansi, XXIX. 27.
710 See Hefele, VII. 476 sq.
711 See Mansi, XXXI. 273 sqq.
712 Haller, Concil. Basil., I. 291 sqq.
713 Pius had received at Mt. Tabor hospitable treatment from the Hussites, whom he was afterwards to treat with wonted papal arrogance. Travelling through Bohemia on a mission from Frederick III., and benighted, he preferred to trust himself to the Taborites rather than to their enemies. Although he had found refuge with them, he used ridicule in describing their poverty and peasant condition. Some he found almost naked, some wore only a sheepskin over their bodies, some had no saddle, some no reins for their horses. And yet he was obliged to say that, though they were bound by no compulsory system of tithes, they filled their priests’ houses with corn, wood, vegetables and meat. See Lea, II. 561.
714 The Utraquists came into contact with Luther as early as 1519. At the time of the Leipzig Colloquy, two of their preachers in Prag, John Poduschka and Wenzel Rosdalowsky, wrote him letters. The first also sent Luther a gift of knives, and the second, Huss’ work On the Church, which was reprinted in Wittenberg, 1620. Luther replied by sending them some of his smaller writings. Köstlin, M. Luther, I. 290.
715 The old Moravian school for girls near Lancaster, Pa., gets its name from this colony. The wife of President Benjamin Harrison studied there.
716 For the earlier history of the Austrian Waldensians, see vol. V., part I., p. 500 sq.
717 Goll, Untersuchungen, is a strong advocate of the dependence of the Bohemian Brethren upon the Waldenses for their peculiar views, although he denies that the two sects had any organic connection. Karl Müller, Herzog Enc., III. 448, comes to the same conclusion. He is, however in doubt whether Chelcicky was associated with the Waldenses. Goll is of the opinion that he was strongly influenced by them. Preger, Ueber d. Verhältniss der Taboriten zu den Waldesiern des 14ten Jahrh., Munich, 1887, occupies an isolated position when he represents the Taborites as a continuation of the Bohemian Waldenses, with some modification. These two bodies were separate when the Bohemian Brethren began to appear on the scene.
718 So Lucas of Prag. See his writings in Goll, pp. 107, 112. De Schweinitz, Hist. of the Un. Fratrum, p. 141 sqq., accepts the ordination of Stephen as regular. Müller questions it, Herzog, III. 452.
719 See Goll, p. 87, and the letter to Rokyzana, whose nephew Gregory belonged to the Lititz colony, p. 92. Of the consecration of Michael by Stephen there is no doubt. There is some uncertainty about the details.
720 See Müller’s art. on Bohemian Hymnody in Julian’s Dicty.