John Hus Part 2

On his journey Hus was everywhere welcomed heartily and at Biberach even triumphantly. He reached Constance, a beautiful city of fifty thousand inhabitants, on Nov. 3, and found lodgings with Fida, "a second widow of Sarepta," in St. Paul St.,--now Hus St.--near the Schnetz Gate, not far from the abode of Pope John XXIII. On the same day came the historic and notorious safe-conduct of Sigismund--"The honorable Master John Hus we have taken under the protection and guardianship of ourselves and of the Holy Empire. We enjoin upon you to allow him to pa.s.s, to stop, to remain and to return, freely and without any hindrance whatever; and you will, as in duty bound, provide for him and for his, whenever it shall be needed, secure and safe conduct, to the honor and dignity of our Majesty." Dated at Speyer, October 18, 1414.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE WITH TABLET WHERE HUS LODGED AND THE SCHNETZ GATE.]

John XXIII with piratical pomposity promised the papal protection: "Even if Hus had killed my own brother, he shall be safe in Constance."

With the Emperor Sigismund came twenty princes and one hundred and forty counts. The Pope had been a pirate; at Bologna he had plundered and oppressed his people and sold licenses to usurers, gamblers, and prost.i.tutes; his cruelty thinned the population; in the first year as legate at Bologna he outraged two hundred maidens, wives, or widows, and a mult.i.tude of nuns; at least so Catholic historians say.

With this holy father there came to the Council twenty-nine cardinals, seven patriarchs, over three hundred bishops and archbishops, four thousand priests, two hundred and fifty university professors, besides Greeks and Turks, Armenians and Russians, Africans and Ethiopians, in all from sixty to a hundred thousand strangers, and thirty thousand horses.

In order to amuse these G.o.dly fathers amid their grave labors there came seventeen hundred artists, dancers, actors, jugglers, musicians and--prost.i.tutes, seven hundred public ones, not counting the private ones.

Hus wrote: "Would that you could see this Council, which is called most holy and infallible; truly you would see great wickedness, so that I have been told by Suabians that Constance could not in thirty years be purged of the sins which the Council has committed in the city."

These men of sin, who kissed the toe of Pope John XXIII, a man of sin, burned the saintly Hus; no wonder he likened them to the scarlet wh.o.r.e of the Revelation. At one stage of the holy and infallible Council these learned fathers used arguments that strike us as rather striking: a cardinal a.s.saulted an archbishop; a patriarch hit a protonotary; a Spanish prelate hurled an Englishman into the mud; the English were caught in arms to a.s.sault Pierre d'Ailly, the Cardinal of Cambray. As members of the Church militant they were certainly fighting a good fight.

Sigismund burnt Hus as a Wiclifite, the next year the Council called the Emperor a Wiclifite and Hussite and heretic. Pope John XXIII condemned Hus as a heretic, soon after he was a prisoner in the same prison with Hus. Dramatic!

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIERRE D'AILLY]

John Gerson, the celebrated Chancellor of the great University of Paris and "Doctor Christianissimus," and Pierre d'Ailly, the great Cardinal of Cambray, accused Hus of heresy; later on themselves were accused of heresy by the same Council. Gerson declared Hus had never been sentenced had not an attorney been denied him, and himself would rather be tried by Jews and infidels than before the commission. Such were the men that were to try a man such as Hus.

As Paul preached in his own hired house under the very palace of Nero, so Hus preached Christ to all who came to his humble house and with a few friends maintained daily worship, close to the Pope's palace.

Greater than emperors and popes, princes and prelates from all Europe that crowded Constance, was the humble Bohemian Hus; they are seen today mainly in the light shed from his shining name.

XII.

Hus in Prison.

Despite the royal safe-conduct and the promised papal protection, Hus was flung into prison in a prelate's palace on Nov. 28.

John of Chlum forced his way into the papal apartments and charged the holy ex-pirate Pope John XXIII to his infallible face with having broken his sacred papal promise, and then fixed on the doors of the Cathedral a solemn protest against the papal perfidy and the shameless violation of the royal safe-conduct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUS TOWER]

On Dec. 6, Hus was dragged to the Dominican convent on an island in Lake Constance, and stuck into a dark hole at the opening of a sewer, where he was struck down by a violent fever, so that his life was despaired of, and the Pope sent his own physician.

Crowned in Aachen on Nov. 8, as Emperor of Germany, Sigismund arrived in Constance on Christmas and seated himself in his imperial robes on his throne in the cathedral during the imposing religious service.

The Emperor read the Gospel for the day from Luke 2:1--"There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus." The Pope trembled as he saw before him the successor to the throne and power of Caesar.

Near the Emperor sat the Empress; beside him stood the Markgraf of Brandenburg with the scepter; the Duke of Saxony, as marshal of the realm, held aloft a drawn sword; between the Pope and the Emperor stood his father-in-law, Count Cilley, holding the golden globe; the Pope handed the Emperor a sword with the charge to use it in defence of the Church, which Sigismund promised to do.

When the Emperor heard his safe-conduct had been disgracefully broken, he bl.u.s.tered. The Pope insisted the Emperor had no right to interfere in the treatment of a pestilent heretic. The Emperor broke his sacred word and sacrificed Hus to his enemies.

This treachery cost him the kingdom of Bohemia. The Holy Synod defended Sigismund, declaring "no faith whatever, either by natural, human or divine right, ought to be observed toward a heretic."

On the same day, New Year, 1415, the Emperor also sacrificed the Holy Father, John XXIII.

About the first of March Hus was taken to the Franciscan convent near the Pope's dwelling and fed from the Pope's kitchen, that is, he was almost starved; on March 20, the Pope fled, and Hus had to go without food for three days.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTLE OF GOTTLIEBEN ON THE RHINE]

Did the Emperor release Hus, now that the Pope was fled? On March 25, the Emperor turned Hus over to the Bishop of Constance, who imprisoned him in his Castle of Gottlieben in a chamber so low Hus could not stand upright. He was handcuffed by day and chained to the wall by night, poorly fed, and separated from his friends; and this went on for seventy-three days!

"The holy and infallible Council," as the Pope called it, brought against the infallible Pope seventy-two charges--the murder of Pope Alexander V, rape, adultery, sodomy, incest, simony, corruption, poisoning, denying the resurrection and eternal life, etc., etc.

Though hostile to the Pope personally, the Patriarch of Antioch quoted Gratian that if a Pope, by his misconduct and negligence, should lead crowds of men into h.e.l.l, no one but G.o.d would be ent.i.tled to find fault with him.

The Pope promised to resign, and the Emperor joyfully kissed the toe of John XXIII and thanked him in the name of the Council.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO POPE JOHN XXIII]

The Council considered the charges proved and on May 25, 1415, deposed him as "the supporter of iniquity, the defender of simonists, the enemy of all virtue, the slave of lasciviousness, a devil incarnate." The Bishop of Salisbury thought he ought to be burnt at the stake. And yet this precious prelate was made a cardinal and after his death at Florence on Nov. 23, 1419, an exquisite monument by Donatello was erected in 1427 to his saintly memory.

When the Council deposed John XXIII, Hus wrote: "Courage, friends! You can now give answer to those who declare that the Pope is G.o.d on earth; that he is the head and heart of the Church; that he is the fountain from which all virtue and excellence issue; that he is the sun, the sure asylum where all Christians ought to find refuge. Behold this earthly G.o.d bound in chains!"

On June 3, Pope John XXIII was a prisoner in the same prison with Hus!

On May 4, Wiclif's writings were ordered to be burnt as heretical; his memory was condemned, and it was decreed to dig out his bones and cast them out of consecrated ground. It does not need a prophet to foretell the end of Hus. It needed only to show Hus was a follower of Wiclif, and he would be burned also.

XIII.

Hus Before the Council.

Though the Bohemians and Moravians earnestly protested against the harsh treatment of Hus and demanded his release, he was not released. On June 5, he was brought to the Franciscan cloister, between the Cathedral and St. Stephen's Church, where he spent his last days on earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL OF CONSTANCE]

In the afternoon, bearing his chains, he was brought before the Council.

He admitted the authorship of his books and declared himself ready to retract every expression that could be proved wrong.

The first article was then read. When Hus tried to reply, he was bellowed into silence. When he was silent, they said, Silence gives consent.

Socrates was allowed to make a long defence before his heathen judges; Hus was overwhelmed with angry outcries by the representatives of all Christendom!

Luther commented: "All worked themselves into a rage like wild boars.

The bristles of their backs stood on end; they bent their brows and gnashed their teeth against John Hus."

Hus protested: "I supposed that there would have been more fairness, kindness, and order in the Council." Hus asked wherein he had erred.