ments at his feet. The procession moved from the cathedral to the Moldau and then across the bridge to the old city. The books, thrown under a gallows, were committed to the flames. In this act, which was intended to be a parody of the burning of Wyclif’s books, Jerome took a prominent part. An account has been left one of the students who took part, Martin Lupac, d. 1468.[1]
The preachers of pardons had no easy time of it. Public ministrations were interrupted by acts of violence. The rioters, cleric and laymen, men and women, were thrown into prison. The king, many of whose courtiers were in sympathy with the disturbances, was forced to take note of them. When they broke out he was at his summer residence at Zebrak. Thither he called the magistrates of the three Prague towns and ordered them to punish with death all offending in any way against the papal bulls and those preaching the indulgences. In spite of this apparently decisive attitude on the part of her royal consort, the queen continued to attend services at the Bethlehem chapel and Wok remained unpunished.
The riots culminated in the execution of three of the rioters, Martin, John, and Stafcon, written also Stasek, the last a shoemaker from Poland. Martin had cried out in one of the churches that the pope had shown himself to be antichrist by announcing a crusade against Christians. John threw a vender of indulgences out of a convent. Stafcon had also protested in the church against the sale of pardons. Vivid accounts of these facts and the scenes that followed Huss gives in his Treatise on the Church and in his Bohemian sermons. In the hope of making a lasting impression, the magistrates summoned the populace to be present at the execution set for July 11, 1412. Knowing that the three prisoners were sentenced to suffer for the views he had promulged, Huss, accompanied by other masters and followed
- ↑ Palacky, Gesch., 278.
