rendered it the obvious policy of Venceslas to adopt it. Yet he found difficulties in his path. Archbishop Zbynek was then and continued to a somewhat later period an adherent of Gregory. At the university opinion was divided. The German magisters, many of whom secretly sympathised with Rupert in his conflict with their king, were loath to renounce the obedience of Gregory. The Bohemian members of the university, on the other hand, were unanimous in their desire to comply with the wishes of King Venceslas. They were by no means blind to the many failings of the king, but they believed him to be on the whole a well-meaning sovereign not unfavourable to the cause of church-reform. It should indeed be noted that the very exaggerated unfavourable accounts of the life of Wenceslas, which have been repeated by countless historians, had their origin rather in the favour he for a time accorded to Hus and his disciples than in the very real failings of Venceslas, which he shared with many other princes of the fifteenth century. The Bohemian members of the university were also largely dependent on the king's favour for obtaining the changes at the university favourable to their nation, which they desired. Another motive may also have influenced them. Many of the Bohemian masters may have read the works of Wycliffe and other opponents of the extreme pretensions of the papal see. Such men would be less opposed to the deposition of popes than others who upheld the unlimited authority of papacy; for we meet already with such upholders at this period.[1] The differences of opinion caused by the question of neutrality, as was inevitable, accentuated and envenomed the national discord which already prevailed at the university, where a Bohemian majority was oppressed and deprived of its rights by a somewhat overbearing German minority. At a meeting of the members of the university
- ↑ Dr. Harnack writes (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, vol. iii., pp. 398–399 n.): “The book de planctu ecclesiae of the Franciscan monk Alvarus Pelagius . . . contains passages which prove that even in the nineteenth century the glorification of papacy could not be carried to a greater extreme.”
