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Authors: Peter Demetz
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In Constance, Hus’s noble Czech and Moravian friends were unwilling to take his arrest idly. Jan of Chlum put up public notices against the flagrant violation of his friend’s safe-conduct, Italian guards were bribed to allow letters to pass from Prague to Hus and back (his friend Jakoubek of St
bro had begun to offer the chalice of wine as well as bread in communion, though Hus advised delay on this practice); and Moravian noblemen, led by Krava
of Lacek, pressured Sigismund to remember his promise that Hus would have a public hearing. At the Dominican monastery, in the meantime, the investigative commission, demanding in vain that Hus submit, confronted him once again with Wyclif’s forty-five articles, long condemned, and paraded before him a procession of star witnesses, including Št
pán Pále
and none other than Nicholas Zeiselmeister, the German priest of St. Philip and St. James, who had long felt shortchanged by the proximity to his parish of the Bethlehem chapel and the success of its preacher.
bro had begun to offer the chalice of wine as well as bread in communion, though Hus advised delay on this practice); and Moravian noblemen, led by Kravaof Lacek, pressured Sigismund to remember his promise that Hus would have a public hearing. At the Dominican monastery, in the meantime, the investigative commission, demanding in vain that Hus submit, confronted him once again with Wyclif’s forty-five articles, long condemned, and paraded before him a procession of star witnesses, including Štpán Páleand none other than Nicholas Zeiselmeister, the German priest of St. Philip and St. James, who had long felt shortchanged by the proximity to his parish of the Bethlehem chapel and the success of its preacher.Still, at moments in the late winter of 1415 Hus may have held high hopes of becoming free again. Pope John XXIII, after festively resigning to make way for a new election, tried to escape to his friends in France (he never made it across the Rhine), Hus’s Italian guards left to join the fugitive pope, now again merely the fat Neapolitan Baldassarre Cossa, the council was in danger of falling apart, and the Czech and Moravian nobles would have had an easy time of organizing a commando raid to save their man. Yet the council’s bureaucratic machinery went on functioning; after an evening without guards, Hus was taken by local soldiers to Gottlieben, the castle of the bishop of Constance, where he could move more freely by day but was chained to the wall by night (Baldassarre Cossa was imprisoned there too in early June). The council and Christianity were without a pope for the time being, the investigating commission had to be changed to include a number of theological and legal experts, and they all continued to insist that Hus give up the idea of a public hearing, but he persisted Sigismund, under increasing pressure from the Czech and Moravian nobles, was unable to ignore the demand, and it was decided to shift Hus from the castle of Gottlieben to
the Franciscan monastery at Constance, where the public hearings were to be held.
the Franciscan monastery at Constance, where the public hearings were to be held.
Unfortunately, the hearings were not what Hus had hoped for, but we are lucky that a young Moravian, Peter of Mladenovice (who rode with Hus from Bohemia to Constance and stayed with him to the bitter end), reported about them in a trustworthy account, long and rightly cherished as a unique document in Hussite history. Peter was excluded from the first hearing, but the noise of the chaotic shouting could be heard outside the hall, and it seemed that, once again, Wyclif was on the agenda; only the dean of Cracow University raised his voice to encourage the accused. Peter was present at the second and third hearings, however, chaired by King Sigismund himself on June 7 and 8, 1415. He clearly heard the questions asked by the haughty French Dominican Pierre d’Ailly, who headed the Inquisition at Lille and Tournai, and heard the cries of the prelates unwilling to listen to what Hus wanted to say about the testimony of witnesses and his treatise De
ecclesia (About the Church),
passages of which had been torn out of context by his Czech enemies. The procedure was so disorderly that a master from Oxford, otherwise quite reticent, felt it necessary to intervene to guarantee at least a modicum of procedural fairness. The result was predictable, but it cannot be said that the council did not try, for many days, to convince Hus to recant and to abjure his ideas (as interpreted by the learned
doctores)
or at least to accept a prudent face-saving formula. Delegates and older friends came and went, legal statements were tested, but Hus steadfastly refused all offers and suggestions, insisting that he would betray God and “fall into perjury” if he recanted; he knew that submission would be rewarded by lifelong imprisonment in a far-off monastery and would be used by the ecclesiastical and secular hierarchies to destroy the faithful trust of his friends in Bohemia and elsewhere.
ecclesia (About the Church),
passages of which had been torn out of context by his Czech enemies. The procedure was so disorderly that a master from Oxford, otherwise quite reticent, felt it necessary to intervene to guarantee at least a modicum of procedural fairness. The result was predictable, but it cannot be said that the council did not try, for many days, to convince Hus to recant and to abjure his ideas (as interpreted by the learned
doctores)
or at least to accept a prudent face-saving formula. Delegates and older friends came and went, legal statements were tested, but Hus steadfastly refused all offers and suggestions, insisting that he would betray God and “fall into perjury” if he recanted; he knew that submission would be rewarded by lifelong imprisonment in a far-off monastery and would be used by the ecclesiastical and secular hierarchies to destroy the faithful trust of his friends in Bohemia and elsewhere.
The council’s final judgment declared Hus to be “a veritable and manifest heretic,” to be degraded and delivered up for inevitable punishment to the secular authorities; all his writings, in Latin and in Czech, which few members of the council could have read or understood, were to be burned. After the judgment was passed, the cardinals and bishops prepared for the theatrical scene of degrading the heretic. Hus was first clothed in ceremonial vestments, as if he were to celebrate mass, and then, after another exhortation to submit, the vestments were taken from him one by one while the prescribed curses were uttered. Next, his tonsure was obliterated (there was a short discussion whether to use a razor or scissors, and the scissors won), and a paper hat, eighteen inches high,
with images drawn on it of three devils seizing an unfortunate’s soul, was put on his head. He was handed over to the secular power, represented by Duke Ludwig of the Palatinate, who in turn formally entrusted him to the executioner and the guards, who marched him off to the place of execution, passing by the cemetery where his books were being burned.
with images drawn on it of three devils seizing an unfortunate’s soul, was put on his head. He was handed over to the secular power, represented by Duke Ludwig of the Palatinate, who in turn formally entrusted him to the executioner and the guards, who marched him off to the place of execution, passing by the cemetery where his books were being burned.
Intent upon finishing the investigation, begun in 1410, the council members had been more eager to demonstrate that their prisoner was a Wyclifite than to listen to his responses, counterarguments, and thoughtful statements. In many theological respects, Hus was not a Wyclifite at all, or an extremely conservative, if not circumspect, one. Unlike many of his more radical Prague friends, he never accepted Wyclif’s idea of remanence, and he also did not accept Wyclif’s radical idea that bishops and priests “in mortal sin” could not consecrate or baptize; he clung, long before and during the investigations of the council, to the distinctly softer view that sinful bishops and priests might not act “worthily” but what they did was spiritually valid because God was acting through them and they were merely his instruments. The theologians at Constance were possibly more deeply shocked by the full meaning of his largely Wyclifite concept of the church, and his moral opposition to the absolute claims made upon Christian believers by church powers which, he thought, were long alienated from Christ’s truth, an opposition strongly nourished by the Czech reform movement of Mili
and Mat
j. His distinction between the universal church, composed of those predestined by the inscrutable will of God and headed by Christ, and the church militant, made up of the good and the bad ruled by cardinals and the pope, hardly veiled his idea of who was the true head of the church. Ecclesiastical traditionalists and learned theologians had reasons to be disturbed by his insistence that “obedience should be rendered to pope and cardinals as long as they taught the truth according to God’s law,” and his unshakable belief that all claims and decisions of the church were to be measured against what the Scriptures had to say. When it came to the ultimate choice, Hus sincerely wanted to obey Christ rather than the church, and he calmly held his ground, hoping against hope that the noble assembly would come to understand the veracity of his beliefs.
and Matj. His distinction between the universal church, composed of those predestined by the inscrutable will of God and headed by Christ, and the church militant, made up of the good and the bad ruled by cardinals and the pope, hardly veiled his idea of who was the true head of the church. Ecclesiastical traditionalists and learned theologians had reasons to be disturbed by his insistence that “obedience should be rendered to pope and cardinals as long as they taught the truth according to God’s law,” and his unshakable belief that all claims and decisions of the church were to be measured against what the Scriptures had to say. When it came to the ultimate choice, Hus sincerely wanted to obey Christ rather than the church, and he calmly held his ground, hoping against hope that the noble assembly would come to understand the veracity of his beliefs.The place of execution was on the road to Gottlieben (today close to the municipal gasworks) and stank execrably because the burghers used it as a dump for the carcasses of dead animals. Hus prayed, the crowd gawked, the executioner put a rusty chain around his neck and fastened him to an upright pole, put two bundles of wood under his feet and placed other bundles, interspersed with straw, around his body up to his
chin. An imperial delegate once again asked Hus to recant; Hus refused, the delegate clapped his hand, and the wood was lit. Hus began to sing aloud, but when the flames blew in his face, he only prayed silently and, after a while, died. The executioners broke his bones and his skull with clubs, received payment from the imperial delegate for his vestments and shoes (usually theirs to sell but thrown into the flames too in order to deprive loyal Bohemians of relics), and carefully searched for his heart, which they put on a sharpened club to “roast” in the flames. Finally, they swept up the ashes, carried them to the Rhine, flowing nearby, and threw them into its waters. It was July 6, 1415.
chin. An imperial delegate once again asked Hus to recant; Hus refused, the delegate clapped his hand, and the wood was lit. Hus began to sing aloud, but when the flames blew in his face, he only prayed silently and, after a while, died. The executioners broke his bones and his skull with clubs, received payment from the imperial delegate for his vestments and shoes (usually theirs to sell but thrown into the flames too in order to deprive loyal Bohemians of relics), and carefully searched for his heart, which they put on a sharpened club to “roast” in the flames. Finally, they swept up the ashes, carried them to the Rhine, flowing nearby, and threw them into its waters. It was July 6, 1415.
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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