The life & times of Master John Hus

Front matter

THE LIFE & TIMES

OF

MASTER JOHN HUS

Front matter

THE LIFE & TIMES

OF

MASTER JOHN HUS

Preface

PREFACE

It is hardly necessary to state that it is not without diffidence that I attempt to give an account of the life and times of John Hus. So much has been written on the great subject of the Bohemian reformation, and yet so little that is satisfactory. Hus has often been described as a martyr and as a forerunner of the German reformation, and both statements are to a certain extent true. It has equally often been attempted to blacken the memory of Hus, frequently by the most unworthy means. I write as a fervent admirer of Hus, both as an enthusiastic Bohemian patriot and as a fervent and pious Christian, whose life-purpose was to strive for a return to the conditions of the apostolic church, and to rescue the Church of Rome from the state of unspeakable corruption into which it had then fallen; and from which, partly by the action of Hus, it has since been delivered. It is no part of my task to attempt to prove that Hus was perfect. No man, indeed, would have resented such an attempt more than he, who in his writings constantly refers in a childlike and touching manner to his—very insignificant—shortcomings.

The very fact that my sympathy is entirely with Hus has, I hope, been to me an inducement to sift carefully all reliable evidence that may be contrary to him, and to study diligently the writings of all those who have written unfavourably of Hus. This impartiality appears to me as a duty for those who attempt, as historians, to pass judgment on the great men of bygone days. Not one of these great men has been judged more differently than Hus; and recent German historians have with great ingenuity attempted to classify the writers who have dealt with the life of the greatest man who belonged to the Czech or Bohemian race. It is sufficient to note here that these writers are either favourable to the Church of Rome and therefore, though often with great limitations, hostile to Hus, or opponents of Rome, who revere in him one of the earliest champions of religious liberty and one of the forerunners of the German reformers. This division may appear obvious, but it is far less absolute than might be imagined. Thus Romanist writers who belong to the Czech or Bohemian nationality have often written somewhat favourably of Hus. Though condemning those of his views—far less numerous than has often been thought—which are opposed to Rome, these writers have done thorough justice to the beauty of his truly saintly character, and they have admitted that it was the virtuous indignation caused in him by the immoral life led by many—and principally the higher—ecclesiastics of the Roman Church that induced him to denounce that church in very strong terms.

On the other hand, Protestant German writers have, principally within the last years, violently attacked the memory of Hus. They saw in him mainly the undaunted champion of the oppressed Czech or Bohemian nationality. It was found easier in Germany to render justice to Hus at a time when the national cause for which he struggled so manfully appeared to be doomed, than it is now, when the Bohemian language, which owes so much to Hus, has attained a development that was undreamt of a century ago. Incidentally, and no doubt unintentionally, these German writers have done great service to the fame of Hus by drawing attention to the great part which he played as a Bohemian patriot. It was the word of Hus, as well as the sword of Zizka, which preserved the autonomy and the national character of Bohemia, which at the period of the Hussite wars were seriously menaced by the numerous German colonists whom the policy of the Premyslide princes had established in the Bohemian towns. It will, of course, be my duty to point out the great part that Hus played as a Bohemian patriot. He believed as firmly as the Bohemian patriots of the present day that the nation as an individuality stands and falls with its language. Hus devoted much time and care to the development of that language, and a little-known part of his activity also consisted in his endeavour to introduce into the churches the singing by laymen of hymns in the national language.

The fact that the movement in favour of church-reform, which had in England found expression in the writings of Wycliffe, found in Bohemia a particularly fruitful soil, was a consequence of the condition and past history of the country. Bohemia had first received the Christian teaching from Greek monks of Salonika, and even after it began to form part of the Western Church, Roman institutions penetrated into the country gradually and slowly. Thus the celibacy of the clergy was introduced into Bohemia later than into most countries, and it seems probable—though this is a most controversial matter—that communion in the two kinds continued to be customary there up to a late period, perhaps up to the beginning of the fifteenth century. It also requires mention that, in consequence of its geographical position, Bohemia for a long time suffered less from the extortions of the Roman pontiffs than many other countries. Only when, in consequence of the schism, the rival popes found that the number of countries from which they could derive funds was diminishing, the claims of Rome on Bohemia became more urgent and more frequent. The discontent caused by the rapacity of the rival pontiffs, whose violent controversies did not raise the Western Church in the esteem of the Bohemian people, found a centre in the University of Prague. Under the influence of this university, a school of theologians sprung up who are known as the forerunners of Hus. These writers long remained almost unknown, and it is only since the revival of Bohemian literature in the nineteenth century that their works have again begun to attract attention. Even now much work has to be done and many MSS. remain unprinted; still it can already be stated that recent research has thrown much new light on Hus and the Hussite movement. I have in this work endeavoured to give a resume of the studies of modern Bohemian writers on this movement. These works, mostly written in the national language, have by no means received hitherto the attention which they well deserve.

It may be here stated that these writings prove clearly the existence in Bohemia of a strong national movement in favour of church-reform, which depended by no means entirely on foreign influences. As Dr. Kybal recently wrote in his valuable work on Matthew of Janov, the greatest of the forerunners of Hus: “The view that Hussitism is merely artificially fostered Wycliffism appears to me logically and historically as nonsense.” It would be invidious to attribute to racial antagonism the recent attempts of German writers to depreciate the importance of Hus. Yet it is certain that the German writers, who recently have extolled Wycliffe at the expense of Hus, have attributed to the English divine greater originality and greater depth of thought than is generally attributed to him by his countrymen.

I have under the heading “” given a large though by no means complete list of the authorities which I have consulted, and specially drawn attention to the writings of the modern Bohemian historians, on whose labours this work is mainly based. I wish to express my particular thanks to Dean Müller of Herrnhut, who has kindly forwarded me a photograph of the portrait of Hus—reproduced here—which has been preserved by the community of Herrnhut.

Chapter 1

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MASTER JOHN HUS

CHAPTER I

EUROPE AND BOHEMIA AT THE TIME OF HUS

Hostility to the Church of Rome is almost as ancient as the prosperity of that church. The fabled “donation of Constantine,” the subject of the lamentations of Dante and so many other mediæval writers, certainly denotes a landmark in the history of the church. The suffering early church has, in the Christian martyrs, given to humanity some of its noblest types, and the comparison of Hus to these sufferers frequently recurs in the writings of the Bohemians. When Constantine granted to the church, not indeed sovereign power, but great authority and riches, a very sudden change took place. The contrast between the martyrs of the year 313 and the wealthy and worldly prelates who, under imperial presidency, discussed matters of dogma at Nicæa in 325 is very great. Henceforth the power and influence of the church constantly increase and the conception of the priest as an individual who, by virtue of his office, is superior to the layman, becomes more and more widely spread. As in many cases the life of the layman was simpler, more moral, more virtuous than that of the priest, this assumption caused great animosity against the clergy. Claims such as that of receiving communion more frequently, and of partaking of the sacrament in the two kinds—a favour not granted to laymen—were constantly brought forward by the priests, particularly in Bohemia. These pretentions, indeed, played a very great part in the Bohemian movement for church-reform, for the Bohemians considered them as indicating an ever-increasing endeavour on the part of the priests to raise new barriers between themselves and those who were not in holy orders. Thence sprang the fervent devotion of the Bohemians to the chalice which has surprised many writers, and has exposed the Bohemians to the ridicule of both ultramontanes and agnostics ever since the days of Hus. To the Hussites the chalice was an emblem signifying the equality of all true Christians.

The ideal object of all mediæval opponents of the Church of Rome was a return to the simplicity of the primitive church, and the poverty of the clergy which that return was considered to imply. All those who, in mediæval times, wished to rescue the church from the evil plight into which it had fallen—whether they remained in the Church of Rome or were excluded from it—felt and expressed profound veneration for poverty. As Cardinal Newman writes: “It will not be denied that, according to the Scripture view of the church, though all are admitted into her pale, and the rich inclusively, yet the poor are her members with a peculiar suitableness and by a special right. Scripture is ever casting slurs upon wealth and making much of poverty.”

It has often been noted that, during the long struggle between the popes and the rulers of Germany, known as the contest about investitures, the German emperors very rarely appealed to the popular feeling in their contest with the Roman pontiffs. We find, of course, an exception in the case of Frederick II., who, after his deposition by Pope Innocent IV. at the Council of Lyons in 1245, appealed to the sovereigns of Europe against the pontiff.This case is, however, an isolated one, and though the victory of the papacy over Germany cannot be considered a complete one, the tendency to increase the authority and powers of the pope and of the upper ranks of the Roman hierarchy at the expense of the parish-priests and laymen continued, with brief interruptions, up to the time of Hus. The Hussite movement, indeed, can be considered as the first serious obstacle which confronted the extreme autocratic tendencies of Rome. As has been often pointed out, these tendencies were greatly aided by the development of the study of canonic law. These codes, founded on the writings of the jurists of imperial Rome, who maintained the absolute and unlimited power of the sovereign, strongly favoured the claims of the popes to a similar unrestricted authority. The excessive study of canonic law to the detriment of the study of the Bible greatly displeased those who wished the church to be poor and pure. One of the earliest Bohemian reformers, Matthew of Janov, has expressed himself strongly on this subject.

In close connection with the papal claim of unrestricted authority was the question of the validity of the sacraments when dispensed by unworthy priests. It is difficult to overrate the importance of this question; for if it was admitted that immoral or dishonest priests could not validly administer the sacraments, the whole system of the papal hierarchy ceased to be sustainable. The popular mind was far more agitated by questions such as these than by the subtleties of dogmatic controversy on which later writers have laid so great a stress.

As already mentioned, the rulers of Germany had, during their prolonged struggle with papacy, entirely confined themselves to endeavours to limit the influence of the popes on the politics of Germany. If we except the belated attempt of Frederick II., nothing was done to arrest the development of the Roman hierarchy in an ever-increasingly absolutist sense. The German rulers also made but slight attempts to enlist to their side the popular feeling then strongly opposed to the Roman hierarchy, many of whose members were believed by the people to be haughty, avaricious, and devoid of all morality.

In the subsequent struggle between the papacy and the kings of France, matters were different. Writers such as John of Paris and Egydius Colonna, Archbishop of Bourges, strongly opposed the papal claims, and the latter went so far as to deny to the pontiff all right to temporal power. In this struggle the kings of France were victorious, and it was one of the results of their victory that the papal court was transferred to Avignon, a city in the immediate vicinity of the French territory, and which was under the rule of a relation of the King of France. During this struggle between papacy and the rulers of France, the University of Paris played a very great part, and it became for a time the central authority in France on questions of theology; its position was somewhat similar to that of the University of Prague at the beginning of the Hussite wars. The University of Paris thus acquired great fame and students flocked to it from all parts of Europe. Among them was Matthew of Janov, one of the earliest Bohemian church-reformers, whose name will be frequently met in these pages.

The successful struggle of France against papacy was no doubt one of the causes of the energetic resistance offered to Rome by Louis of Bavaria, King of the Germans. A man of moderate intelligence, he entirely overlooked the immense difference between the position of a ruler of Germany, where the local potentates were ever increasing their power, and that of a king of France—a country in which even then a contrary, that is to say, a centralist tendency, began to appear. As had been the case in France, in Germany also, the sovereign found able literary men who devoted much talent and erudition to the defence of Louis of Bavaria. Such men were Marsiglio of Padua, John of Jandun, William of Occam, and others. If, on the whole, Louis’s struggle with papacy may be considered as having been unsuccessful, this cannot be entirely attributed to his incompetence, but to a certain extent also to the extreme vehemence of his literary allies, which alienated many moderate-minded men. These were fully aware of the necessity for church-reform—no right-minded man at that time could fail to perceive it—but they objected to the revolutionary character of some of the writings of Louis’s allies. This applies particularly to Marsiglio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis. In this strange work almost all the subsequent attacks on papacy are foreshadowed, and it has, as Neander has written, already what may be called a “Protestant” character. The Defensor is one of the most important works that belong to the Middle Ages. It contains the germ not only of Protestantism, but also of all those liberal and democratic views that only attained their full development centuries later. I shall here, however, as far as the necessary coherence of my work permits, limit myself to outlining that part of Marsiglio’s work in which he expresses opinions similar to those of Hus and the other Bohemian reformers. Marsiglio of Padua, born in the city of that name about the year 1270, studied for a considerable time at the University of Paris and was, in 1312, rector of that university. It is stated that in Paris he fell under the influence of William of Occam. They were men of about the same age, but it is probable—though the dates of the works of both writers are uncertain—that Occam expressed disagreement with the papal rule at an earlier period than Marsiglio. The latter appears also at this period already to have made the acquaintance of several Italian and German scholars—mostly monks belonging to the order of the minorites—who afterwards became his allies when he undertook to defend the cause of King Louis against papal agression. Marsiglio, whose views were on most subjects entirely opposed to those then generally accepted by the Roman Church, appears to have at this period already incurred the suspicion of heresy. It was at Paris that, in conjunction with his colleague, John of Jandun, he composed his masterpiece, the Defensor Pacis. It was reported that the two scholars had written the book in the space of two months. To all those who have even a superficial acquaintance with the Defensor this can only mean that it was during that time that they gathered together and shaped into a unity the results of many years of study. With this newly-written book as an introduction, Marsiglio and Jandun proceeded to the court of King Louis, who was then residing at Nürnberg.

As Dr. Riezler has written, the Defensor is one “of those books that have been more praised than read.” The reason is not far to seek. The constant repetitions, the incessant minute definitions, and all the armoury of mediæval scholasticism render the book most difficult and tedious to read. The mediævalism of the form of the book is the more striking when we note how very modern are the ideas which it contains. After referring to the necessity of peace in the world, a wish from which Marsiglio derived the name of his book, the author first gives a definition of the state, founded on Aristotle, in accordance with whom he also enumerates the different forms of government. Every state should be governed by laws, and all citizens, with the exception of foreigners, bondsmen, and women, should act as legislators. The prince, being human, cannot be considered as being infallible, and he should therefore be controlled in his actions by the legislators. In the last—nineteenth—chapter of the first part, Marsiglio raises the question why this system, which would ensure peace, cannot be carried out. The answer is: Because of the extreme power which, since the donation of Constantine, the church has acquired, and because of the interference of the clergy in temporal matters. This leads to the second part, which is far more important for the study of Hus, whose ideas Marsiglio here frequently anticipates. In this part the author deals with papacy, priesthood, and their relations to the temporal power. Marsiglio begins by defining the conception “church” (ecclesia), which according to him can be described as being the community of all who believe in Christ, be they priests or laymen. The following chapters deal with the authority of the pope to act as judge and ruler. By means of a vast array of biblical passages quoted in the manner usual in the scholastic school, the writer endeavours to prove that the pope has no legislative or punitive power over laymen, or even over priests, except so far and so long as it is granted to him by the temporal authorities. In chapter seven, Marsiglio proceeds to dispute the papal right to excommunicate temporal sovereigns or officials—a power that the popes had during their prolonged struggles with the German and French sovereigns frequently misused. The right of excommunication, according to Marsiglio, belongs only to the whole Christian community or to a general council representing it. Marsiglio then expresses disapproval of the exemption of the clergy from temporal jurisdiction, a rule that then and for many years afterwards was universally accepted. He next denies the power of the popes to inflict temporal punishment on heretics. Such men, he writes, should be punished by the civil power, but only if their conduct is also in opposition to civil law. After these deductions—of which I have here only given a brief outline—limiting in many respects the then generally admitted powers of Rome, Marsiglio devotes the following chapters to a definition of apostolic poverty. Like all antagonists of papacy, he lays great stress on this point, which, in consequence of the luxury, immorality, and avarice of the clergy of that time, was always before the mind of all thoughtful men. Christ, Marsiglio writes, did not sanction this pride and avarice; He, though it was in His power to appear in the world as a great king, yet preferred poverty. Marsiglio then studies the constitution of the church; like many other church-reformers he declares that the distinction between bishops and priests (presbyteros) does not go back to the time of Christ, but was established far later. In chapter seventeen, which treats of the “authority by whom bishops and other priests and servants of the church should be appointed,” Marsiglio declares that Christ alone is the Head of the church. The apostles were consecrated by Christ Himself, and the apostles ordained their immediate successors. Afterwards the priests were chosen by the community of the faithful, or by persons delegated by them. The writer then maintains the unity of the church, which can have but one creed founded exclusively on the teaching of Scripture. Scripture undoubtedly requires interpretation, and we cannot accept any other interpreter than a universal council inspired by the Holy Ghost. No such authority can be claimed by the popes, who have frequently erred and even fallen under the suspicion of heresy. Marsiglio then again refers to the gradual development of the papal primacy. Beginning, as was customary, with the donation of Constantine, he notes how the power of the Roman bishops, and with it the self-assertion of the pontiffs in their relations to temporal rulers, continued uninterruptedly to increase. After strongly insisting on the depravation of the papal court and of the higher ecclesiastics, who despised theological studies while they cherished the legists who were, through their knowledge of canonic law, able to support the unjustified claims of the priesthood, Marsiglio proceeds to discuss the conflict then raging between papacy and his patron, King Louis. It is difficult to overrate the historical importance of the Defensor Pacis. Many subsequent church-reformers have, perhaps unknowingly, borrowed from him; for the ideas contained in the Defensor seem to have been so generally shared by the thinkers of the time that they had almost become common property. As regards Hus, Dr. Lenz has, writing on the treatise De Ecclesia of Hus, declared—rightly from his standpoint as a Roman Catholic priest—that many statements contained in the treatise had already been declared heretical when Pope John XXII., in 1327, decreed that the Defensor Pacis was a work “false, heretical, and contrary to Scripture.”

The writings of William of Occam also express views on the government of the church and the power of the pope which anticipate those of Wycliffe and Hus. Occam’s work was written during the pontificate of John XXII., who, mainly from political motives, and through the influence of France, waged a bitter and prolonged war against Germany. Though himself accused, not entirely without foundation, of professing heretical views, John XXII. expanded the pretensions of the papal see in a manner that none of his predecessors had attempted. Occam writes as a strong defender of the authority of temporal rulers. The pope, he declares, has no right to secular authority. Christ neither exercised nor claimed such a power.

This brief note on the state of Europe about the time of the birth of Hus is in many respects applicable to Bohemia. Yet the geographical and ethnographical position of the country and its history placed Bohemia in a position that was somewhat different from that of Western Europe. The country first received Christianity from the East, and though it afterwards acknowledged the rule of Rome—forming at first part of the archdiocese of Maintz in Germany, and being since the time of Charles IV. under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Prague—yet it is certain that many of the rites and regulations of Rome were accepted in Bohemia later than in most European countries. Celibacy of the clergy became general at a late period and very gradually. Communion in the two kinds continued to be customary up to the fourteenth century, though the learned work of the gifted Professor Kalousek has proved that it had probably died out before the time of Hus. The Bohemian exile, Paul Stransky, writing in the seventeenth century, states that the Eastern Church continued to have adherents among humbler men in Bohemia even after Romanism had been generally accepted. If we consider the great tenacity of the Bohemian people, which has so often been blamed by its enemies and praised by its friends, it does not appear improbable that this may have been the case, at least for a considerable period. Thus when the terrible persecution of all opponents of Rome that began in Bohemia in 1620 was ended by the “Toleranz Patent” of the Emperor Joseph II. in 1781, it was ascertained that in outlying parts of the country many peasants had, during this long period, continued to hold religious services according to the Hussite rites.

It is at any rate certain that, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, many prominent Russian scholars such as Novikov, Helferding, Vasiljew, and Palmov have, following the example of Stransky, maintained that the connection of Bohemia with the Eastern Church was of more importance and longer duration than had formerly been supposed. Some of these writers have even maintained that the Hussite movement itself was an attempt of the Bohemian people to return to the church from which it had first received Christianity. This supposition is entirely unfounded. It can be stated positively that we find in Hus no trace of the influence of the Eastern Church, though we cannot affirm this with the same certainty with regard to Jerome of Prague. It is a proof of the close connection between political and ecclesiastical matters that exists up to the present day in Austria, Bohemia, and Eastern Europe, that the question of the connection of Bohemia with the Eastern Church acquired a certain political importance during the period (1866–1872) when Russian opinion, and to a far lesser extent Russian diplomacy, supported the Bohemians in their struggle against the centralist policy of Vienna.

At the time when Bohemia first became part of the domain of the Western Church, it appears to have preserved a far greater degree of independence than did countries lying farther west. Immediately after the acceptation of the Roman rites the country was under the rule of the German Bishop of Regensburg; but when in 973 the bishopric of Prague was founded, it was but loosely connected with Rome. Its administrators were, on the other hand, greatly dependent on the rulers of Bohemia who considered them as their chaplains. For several centuries after the foundation of the bishopric of Prague, the influence of the papal see on the lands of the Bohemian crown was very insignificant. The supremacy of Rome, indeed, only finds expression in the fact that the popes confirmed the most important decrees of the Bohemian sovereigns which referred to ecclesiastical matters. This state of semi-independence in the course of time became displeasing to the rulers of the Western church. On several occasions papal legates appeared in Bohemia, who endeavoured to bring the Bohemian Church into closer subjection to Rome. They, however, encountered the hostility both of the sovereigns and of the people of Bohemia, and when, during the long contest about investitures, the rulers of Bohemia sided with the German emperors, all relations between Rome and Bohemia ceased for a considerable time.

The beginning of the thirteenth century is noteworthy as being the moment when a great change took place. Henceforth the power of the Roman Church incessantly increases. In Bohemia, as elsewhere, that church endeavoured to introduce obligatory celibacy among the clergy, and this demand appeared particularly arbitrary to the Bohemians who had first received Christianity from the Eastern Church. Their priests had hitherto almost all been married men, who were attached by family ties to the other members of the community. Thus Cosmas the chronicler, the earliest of Bohemian historians, though a canon of Prague, dedicated his great historical work to the memory of his wife, Bozetecha. In Bohemia, as elsewhere, it became part of the papal policy to establish—by enforcing the celibacy of the clergy—a caste apart from the laity, and subject only to the will of Rome. These attempts met with strong opposition on the part of the Bohemian priests. Thus we read that in 1197 the papal legate, Peter of Capua, who demanded that those who were to be ordained should take the vow of chastity, was nearly killed by the indignant priests. In the course of the thirteenth century, however, celibacy gradually became general among the Bohemian clergy.

Henceforth it may be also stated that the Roman pontiffs interfered more frequently in the internal organisation of the Bohemian Church. “Letters of immunity,” which released monasteries from the jurisdiction of the bishops, are very often met with, and they greatly strengthened the Roman influence in the country. Gradually and cautiously the popes also introduced into Bohemia the practice of granting “provisions” on bishoprics and abbeys, thus rendering illusory the right of the chapters to elect the bishops and abbots. These “provisions” became very frequent during the rule of the avaricious Pope John XXII., and still more so during that of Clement VI., who appointed two of his nephews, William and Nicholas Roget, to canonries at the Cathedral of Prague. As Dr. Krofta writes in his study, to which I have already referred, the Cathedral of Prague was so charged with papal “provisions” that it had become almost impossible to obtain a benefice there except by virtue of such a provision. The discontent which such an abuse naturally caused was aggravated by the fact that its profits fell almost exclusively into the hands of foreigners—friends either of the papal see or of the Bohemian court. That court at a period when the Bohemian kings were often German or Roman emperors frequently had an anti-national character. Of the native priests, also, generally those who were supported by Rome or the Bohemian court succeeded in obtaining benefices.