While the popes and cardinals previously mentioned enter but little into the life of Hus, this is not the case as regards Baldassare Cossa. We meet with Pope John XXIII. in some of the most important moments of the life of Hus. It was this pope who summoned Hus to Rome. It was the attempt of Cossa to raise funds in Bohemia for the continuation of his war against Naples that caused the troubles in Prague which forced Hus to exile himself. It was Pope John XXIII. who appears as Hus’s principal antagonist during the earlier part of his stay at Constance. It was Baldassare Cossa through whose influence Hus was imprisoned shortly after his arrival at Constance—though the pope repudiated the responsibility for this act whenever he found it convenient to do so. It is therefore interesting to glance briefly at the early life of this pontiff. Baldassare Cossa was born at Naples about the year 1360 and took orders at a very early age. He, however, early in life, felt the vocation of a soldier, and took part in the struggle for the Neapolitan throne between Ladislas of Hungary and Louis of Anjou. Military discipline, however, soon became irksome to Cossa, who is stated to have behaved rather as a brigand than as a soldier. Bishop Creighton, writing with his usual moderation, states that his life exceeded the bounds of military licence.”[1] It has often been stated[2] that he for a time became a pirate, but this tale probably only indicates that he took part in naval warfare during the struggle between the competitors for the Neapolitan crown. Though no one could be less worthy of the papal tiara than Cossa, he was undoubtedly, particularly in his younger days, a man of exceptional talent and reckless determination, endowed with an absolute contempt for the distinction of good and evil,
- ↑ History of Papacy, vol. i. p. 268.
- ↑ “Dum autem simplex clericus ac in adolescentia consti tutus existeret cum quibusdam fratribus suis piraticam in mari Neopolitano, ut fertur exercuit.” (Theodoric de Niem, De Vita Papae Joannis XXIII.) Except the members of the council of Constance, no one writes of Baldassare Cossa with greater animosity than this grey-grown servitor of the popes.
