ancestors, we shall find them in his own land, in a succession of
earnest and faithful preachers--among these Militz (d. 1374) and Janow
(d. 1394) stand out the most prominently--who had sown seed which could
hardly have failed to bear fruit sooner or later, though no line of
Wycliffe's writings had ever found its way to Bohemia. This land, not
German, however it may have been early drawn into the circle of German
interests, with a population Slavonic in the main, had first received
the faith through the preaching of Greek monks. The Bohemian Church
probably owed to this fact that, though incorporated from the first with
the churches of the West, uses and customs prevailed in it--as the
preaching in the mother tongue, the marriage of the clergy, communion in
both kinds--which it only slowly and unwillingly relinquished. It was
not till the fourteenth century that its lines were drawn throughout in
exact conformity with those of Rome. All this deserves to be kept in
mind; for it helps to account for the kindly reception which the seed
sown by the later Bohemian reformers found, falling as this did in a
soil to which it was not altogether strange.
John Huss took in the year 1394 his degree as bachelor of theology in
that University of Prague upon the fortunes of which he was destined to
exercise so lasting an influence; and four years later, in 1398, he
began to deliver lectures there. Huss had early taken his degree in a
school higher than any school of man's. He himself has told us how he
was once careless and disobedient, how the word of the Cross had taken
hold of him with strength, and penetrated him through and through as
with a mighty purifying fire. What he had learned in the school of
Christ he could not keep to himself. Holding, in addition to his
academical position, a lectureship founded by two pious laymen for the
preaching of the Word in the Bohemian tongue (1401), he soon signalized
himself by his diligence in breaking the bread of life to hungering
souls, and his boldness in rebuking vice in high places as in low. So
long as he confined himself to reproving the sins of the laity, he found
little opposition, nay, rather support and applause. But when he brought
the clergy and monks also within the circle of his condemnation, and
began to upbraid them for their covetousness, their ambition, their
luxury, their sloth, and for other vices, they turned resentfully upon
him, and sought to undermine his authority, everywhere spreading reports
of the unsoundness of his teaching.
Let us see on what side he mainly exposed himself to charges such as
these. Many things had recently wrought together to bring into nearness
countries geographically so remote from one another as Bohemia and
England. Anne, wife of our second Richard, was a sister of Wenceslaus,
King of Bohemia. The two flourishing universities of Oxford and Prague
were bound together by their common zeal for Realism. This may seem to
us but a slight and fantastic bond; it was in those days a very strong
one indeed. Young English scholars studied at Prague, young Bohemian at
Oxford. Now, Oxford, long after Wycliffe's death, was full of interest
for his doctrine; and among the many strangers sojourning there, it
could hardly fail that some should imbibe opinions and bring back with
them books of one whom they had there learned to know and to honor. Thus
Jerome, called of Prague, on his return from the English university,
gave a new impulse to the study of Wycliffe's writings, bearer as he was
of several among these which had not hitherto travelled so far.
This man, whose fortunes were so tragically bound up with those of Huss,
who should share with him in the same fiery doom, was his junior by
several years; his superior in eloquence, in talents, in gifts--for
certainly Huss was not a theologian of the first order; speculative
theologian he was not at all--but notably his inferior in moderation and
practical good-sense. Huss never shared in his friend's indiscriminate
admiration of Wycliffe. When, in 1403, some forty-five theses, which
either were or professed to be drawn from the writings of the English
reformer, were brought before the university, that they might be
condemned as heretical, Huss expressed himself with extreme caution and
reserve. Many of these, he affirmed, were true when a man took them
aright; but he could not say this of all. Not first at the Council of
Constance, but long before, he had refused to undertake the
responsibility of Wycliffe's teaching on the holy eucharist. But he did
not conceal what he had learned from Wycliffe's writings. By these there
had been opened to him a deeper glimpse into the corruptions of the
Church, and its need of reformation in the head and in the members, than
ever he had before obtained. His preaching, with the new accesses of
insight which now were his, more than ever exasperated his foes.
While matters were in this strained condition, events took place at
Prague which are too closely connected with the story that we are
telling, exercised too great an influence in bringing about the issues
that lie before us, to allow us to pass them by, even though they may
prove somewhat long to relate. The University of Prague, though recently
founded--it only dated back to the year 1348--was now, next after those
of Paris and Oxford, the most illustrious in Europe. Saying this I say
much; for we must not measure the influence and authority of a
university at that day by the influence and authority, great as these
are, which it may now possess. This university, like that of Paris, on
the pattern of which it had been modelled, was divided into four
"nations"--four groups, that is, or families of scholars--each of these
having in academical affairs a single collective vote. These nations
were the Bavarian, the Saxon, the Polish, and the Bohemian. This does
not appear at first an unfair division--two German and two Slavonic; but
in practical working the Polish was so largely recruited from Silesia
and other German or half-German lands that its vote was in fact German
also.
The Teutonic votes were thus as three to one, and the Bohemians, in
their own land and in their own university, on every important matter
hopelessly outvoted. When, by aid of this preponderance, the university
was made to condemn the teaching of Wycliffe in those forty-five points,
matters came to a crisis. Urged by Huss--who as a stout patriot, and an
earnest lover of the Bohemian language and literature, had more than a
theological interest in the matter--by Jerome, by a large number of the
Bohemian nobility, King Wenceslaus published an edict whereby the
relations of natives and foreigners were completely reversed. There
should be henceforth three votes for the Bohemian nation, and only one
for the three others. Such a shifting of the weight certainly appears as
a redressing of one inequality by creating another. At all events it was
so earnestly resented by the Germans, by professors and students alike,
that they quitted the university in a body, some say of five thousand
and some of thirty thousand, and founded the rival University of
Leipsic, leaving no more than two thousand students at Prague. Full of
indignation against Huss, whom they regarded as the prime author of this
affront and wrong, they spread throughout Germany the most unfavorable
reports of him and of his teaching.
This exodus of the foreigners had left Huss, who was now rector of the
university, with a freer field than before. But church matters at Prague
did not mend; they became more confused and threatening every day,
until presently Huss stood in open opposition with the hierarchy of his
time. Pope John XXIII, having a quarrel with the King of Naples,
proclaimed a crusade against him, with what had become a constant
accompaniment of this--indulgences to the crusaders. But to denounce
indulgences, as Huss with fierce indignation did now, was to wound Pope
John in a most sensitive part. He was excommunicated at once, and every
place which should harbor him stricken with an interdict. While matters
were in this frame the Council of Constance was opened, which should
appease all the troubles of Christendom and correct whatever was amiss.
The Bohemian difficulty could not be omitted, and Huss was summoned to
make answer at Constance for himself.
He had not been there four weeks when he was required to appear before
the Pope and cardinals, November 18, 1414. After a brief informal
hearing he was committed to harsh durance, from which he never issued as
a free man again. Sigismund, the German King and Emperor-elect, who had
furnished Huss with a safe-conduct which should protect him, "going to
the Council, tarrying at the Council, returning from the Council," was
absent from Constance at the time, and heard with real displeasure how
lightly regarded this promise and pledge of his had been.
Some big words, too, he spoke, threatening to come himself and release
the prisoner by force; but, being waited on by a deputation from the
council, who represented to him that he, as a layman, in giving such a
safe-conduct had exceeded his powers, and intruded into a region which
was not his, Sigismund was convinced, or affected to be convinced.
Doubtless the temptations to be convinced were strong. Had he insisted
on the liberation of Huss, the danger was imminent that the council, for
which he had labored so earnestly, would be broken up on the plea that
its rightful freedom was denied it. He did not choose to run this risk,
preferring to leave an everlasting blot upon his name.
Some modern sophists assure us that this safe-conduct--or free pass, as
they prefer to call it--engaged the imperial word for Huss' safety in
going to the council, but for nothing more--a most perfidious document,
if this is all which it undertook; for the words--I quote the more
important of them in the original Latin--are as follows: "_ut ei
transire, stare, morari, redire permittatis_." But the treachery was not
in the document, and nobody at the time attempted to find it there. If
this had not engaged the honor of the Emperor, what cause of complaint
would he have had against the cardinals as having entangled him in a
breach of his word? what need of their solemn ambassage to him? Untrue
also is the assertion that this was so little regarded by Huss himself
as a safe-conduct covering the whole period during which he should be
exposed to the malice of his enemies that he never appealed to it or
claimed protection from it. He did so appeal at this second formal
hearing, June 7th, the first at which Sigismund was present. "I am
here," he there said, "under the King's promise that I should return to
Bohemia in safety"; while at his last, by a look and by a few like
words, he brought the royal word-breaker to a blush, evident to all
present, July 6th.
But to return a little. More than seven months elapsed before Huss could
obtain a hearing before the council. This was granted to him at last.
Thrice heard, June 5, 7, 8, 1415--if, indeed, such tumultuary sittings,
where the man speaking for his life, and for much more than his life,
was continually interrupted and overborne by hostile voices, by loud
cries of "Recant, recant!" may be reckoned as hearings at all--he bore
himself, by the confession of all, with courage, meekness, and dignity.
The charges brought against him were various; some so far-fetched as
that urged by a Nominalist from the University of Paris--for Paris was
Nominalist now--namely, that as a Realist he could not be sound on the
doctrine of the eucharist. Others were vague enough, as that he had sown
discord between the church and the state. Nor were accusations wanting
which touched a really weak point in his teaching, namely, the
subjective aspect which undoubtedly some aspects of it wore; as when he
taught that not the baptized, but the predestinated to life, constituted
the Church. Beset as he was by the most accomplished theologians of the
age, the best or the worst advantage was sure to be made of any
vulnerable side which he exposed.
But there were charges against him with more in them of danger than
these. The point which was really at issue between him and his
adversaries concerned the relative authority of the Church and of
Scripture. What they demanded of him was a retractation of all the
articles brought against him, with an unconditional submission to the
council. Some of the articles, he replied, charged him with teaching
things which he had never taught, and he could not by this formal act of
retractation admit that he had taught them. Let any doctrine of his be
shown to be contrary to God's holy Word, and he would retract it; but
such unconditional submission he could not yield.
His fate was now sealed--that is, unless he could be induced to recant;
in which event, though he did not know it, his sentence would have been
degradation from the priesthood and a lifelong imprisonment. Many
efforts up to the last moment were made by friend and foe to persuade
him to this, but in vain. And now once more, July 6th, he is brought
before the council, but this time for sentence and for doom. The
sentence passed, his suffering begins. The long list of his heresies,
among which they are not ashamed to include many which he has distinctly
repudiated, is read out in his hearing. He is clothed with priestly
garments, that these, piece by piece, and each with an appropriate
insult malediction, may be stripped from him again. The sacred vessels
are placed in his hands, that from him, "accursed Judas that he is,"
they may be taken again. There is some difficulty in erasing his
tonsure; but this difficulty with a little violence and cruelty is
overcome. A tall paper cap, painted over with flames and devils, and
inscribed "Heresiarch," is placed upon his head. This done, and his soul
having been duly delivered to Satan, his body is surrendered to the
secular arm. One last touch is not wanting. As men bind him to the
stake, attention is called to the fact that his face is turned to the
east. This honor must not be his, upon whom no sun of righteousness
shall ever rise. He is unfastened, and refastened anew. All is borne
with perfect meekness, in the thought and in the strength of Him who had
borne so much more for sinners, the Just for the unjust; and so, in his
fire-chariot of a painful martyrdom, Huss passes from our sight.
Some may wonder that he, a reformer, should have been so treated by a
council, itself also reforming, and with a man like Gerson--_Doctor
Christianissimus_ was the title he bore--virtually at its head. But a
little consideration will dispel this surprise, and lead us to the
conclusion that a council less earnestly bent on reforms of its own
would probably have dealt more mildly with him. His position and theirs,
however we may ascribe alike to him and to them a desire to reform the
Church, were fundamentally different. They, when they deposed a pope,
where they proclaimed the general superiority of councils over popes,
had no intention of diminishing one jot the Church's authority in
matters of faith, but only of changing the seat of that authority,
substituting an ecclesiastical aristocracy for an ecclesiastical
monarchy--or despotism, as long since it had grown to be. And thus the
more earnest the council was to carry out a reformation in discipline,
the more eager was it also to make evident to all the world that it did
not intend to touch doctrine, but would uphold this as it had received
it. It is not then uncharitable to suspect that the leading men of the
council--like those reformers at Geneva who a century and a half later,
1553, sent Servetus to the stake--were not sorry to be able to give so
signal an evidence of their zeal for the maintenance of the faith which
they had received, as thus, in the condemnation of Huss, they had the
opportunity of doing. Nor may we leave altogether out of account that
the German element must of necessity have been strong in a council held
on the shores of the Bodensee; while in his vindication of Bohemian
nationality, perhaps an excessive vindication, Huss had offended and
embittered the Germans to the uttermost.
If any had flattered themselves that with the death of Huss the
Reformation in Bohemia had also received its death-blow, they had not
long to wait for a painful undeception. Words fail to describe the
tempest of passionate indignation with which the tidings of his
execution, followed within a year by that of Jerome, were received
there. Both were honored as martyrs, and already, in the fierce
exasperation of men's spirits against the authors of their doom, there
was a prophecy of the unutterable woes which were even at the door. Some
watchword by which his followers could know and be known--this
watchword, if possible, a spell of power like that which Luther had
found in the doctrine of justification by faith--was still wanting.
One, however, was soon found; which indeed had this drawback, that it
concerned a matter disciplinary rather than doctrinal, yet having a real
value as a visible witness for the rights of the laity in the Church of
Christ. So far as we know, Huss had not himself laid any special stress
on communion under both kinds; but in 1414--he was then already at
Constance--the subject had come to the forefront at Prague; and, being
consulted, Huss had entirely approved of such communion as most
conformable to the original institution and to the practice of the
primitive Church. On the other hand, the council, learning the agitation
of men's spirits in this direction, had declared what is called the
"Concomitance"--that is, that wherever one kind was present, there was
also the other, which being so, nothing was, indeed, withholden from the
communicant through the withholding of the cup. At the same time the
council had solemnly condemned as a heretic everyone who refused to
submit himself to the decision of the Church in this matter, June 15,
1415.
But there was no temper of submission in Bohemia--least of all when the
University of Prague gave its voice in favor of this demand. Wenceslaus,
the well-intentioned but poor-spirited King, was quite unable to keep
peace between the rival factions, and could only slip out of his
difficulties by dying, August 16, 1419. Sigismund, his brother, was also
his successor; but of one thing the Bohemians were at this time
resolved; namely, that the royal betrayer of his word should not reign
over them. And thus a condition of miserable anarchy followed, and, in
the end, of open war; which, lasting for eleven years, could be matched
by few wars in the cruelties and atrocities by which on both sides it
was disgraced. In Ziska, their blind chief, the Hussites had a leader
with a born genius for war. It was he who invented the movable
wagon-fortress whereof we hear so much, against which the German
chivalry would break as idle waves upon a rock. Three times crusading
armies--for this name they bore, thinking with no serious opposition to
enforce the decrees of the council--invaded Bohemia, to be thrice driven
back with utter defeat, disgrace, and loss; the Hussites, who for a long
while were content with merely repelling the invaders, after a while,
and as the only way of conquering a peace, turning the tables, and
wasting with fire and sword all neighboring German lands.
A conflict so hideous could not long be waged without a rapid
deterioration of all who were engaged in it. The spirit of Huss more and
more departed from those who called themselves by his name. Intestine
strifes devoured their strength. There were first the
Moderates--Calixtines, Utraquists, or "Those of Prague," they were
called--who, weary of the long struggle, were willing to return to the
bosom of the Church if only the cup (_calix_), and thus communion under
both kinds (_sub utraque_), were guaranteed to them, with two or three
secondary matters. Not so the Taborites, who drew their name from a
mountain fastness which they fortified and called Mount Tabor. These,
the Ultras, the democratic radical party, separating themselves off as
early as 1419, had left Huss and his teaching very far behind. Ignoring
the whole historical development of Christianity, they demanded that a
clean sweep should be made of everything in the Church's practice for
which an express and literal warrant in Scripture could not be found.
When at the Council of Basel an agreement was patched up with the
Calixtines on the footing which I have just named, 1433, a few further
promises being thrown in which might mean anything and, as the issue
proved, did mean nothing, the Taborites would not listen to the
compromise. Again they appealed to arms: but now their old comrades and
allies had passed to the other side; and, defeated in battle, 1434,
their stronghold taken and destroyed, 1453, their political power
forever broken, they, too, as so many before and since, were doomed to
learn that violence is weakness in disguise, and that the wrath of man
worketh not the righteousness of God.
Whether the Church of Rome made the concessions to the Calixtines which
she did, with the intention of retracting them at the first opportunity,
it is impossible to say. This, however, is certain, that half a dozen
years had scarcely elapsed before these concessions were brought into
question and dispute; while, in less than thirty, Pope Pius II formally
withdrew altogether the papal recognition of them, 1462; though a
struggle for their maintenance, not always unsuccessful, lasted on into
the century ensuing.
It was in truth a melancholy close of a movement so hopefully begun. And
yet not altogether the close; for, indeed, nothing, in which any
elements of true heroism are mingled, so disappears as to leave no
traces of itself behind. If it does no more, it serves to feed the high
tradition of the world--that most precious of all bequests to the
present age from the ages which are behind it. But there was more than
this. If much was consumed, yet not all. Something--and that the best
worth the saving--was saved from the fires, having first been purified
in them. The stormy zealots, as many as had taken the sword, had for the
most part perished by the sword.
But there were some who made for themselves a better future than the
sword could have ever made. A feeble remnant, extricating themselves
from the wreck and ruin of their party, and having been taught of God in
his severest school, pious Calixtines, too, that were little content
with the Compacts of Basel, a few stray Waldensians mingling with them,
all these, drawing together in an evil time, refashioned and
reconstituted themselves in humblest guise, though not in guise so
humble that they could escape the cruel attentions of Rome. Seeking to
build on a true scriptural foundation, with a scheme of doctrine, it may
be, dogmatically incomplete--even as that of Huss himself had been--with
their episcopate lost and never since recovered, the Unitas Fratrum, the
Moravian Brethren, trampled and trodden down, but overcoming now, not by
weapons of carnal warfare, but by the blood of the Cross, lived on to
hail the breaking of a fairer dawn, and to be themselves greeted as
witnesses for God, who in a dark and gloomy day, and having but a little
strength, had kept his word, and not denied his name.
THE HOUSE OF HOHENZOLLERN ESTABLISHED
IN BRANDENBURG
A.D. 1415
THOMAS CARLYLE
The German princely family of Hohenzollern, which ruled over
Brandenburg from 1415, has furnished the kings of Prussia
since 1701, and since 1871 those kings have also been German
emperors. The Hohenzollerns were originally owners of a
castle on the Upper Danube, at no great distance from the
ancestral seat of the Hapsburg family. They acquired
influence at the court of Swabia, and in 1192 had
established themselves in Nuremberg, where in that year
Frederick I became burggraf. When Rudolph I, founder of the
house of Hapsburg, finally defeated his rival, Ottocar of
Bohemia (1278), his cause was saved by the assistance of a
Hohenzollern--Frederick of Nuremberg.