CHAPTER V
HUS AS LEADER OF HIS NATION
As soon as the German students had left Prague, the Bohemians, together with the Polish students who had remained in the city, hastened to obey King Venceslas’s command. They elected a new rector, and though Hus had already held that office a few years previously, their choice naturally fell on him who had played so great a part in the recent events. Hus was now at the height of his political position. Venceslas was undoubtedly grateful to the man to whose action it was principally due that the University of Prague had discarded Pope Gregory. The queen and the Bohemian nobles treated him with greater favour than ever. He was the recognised leader of the university, and his popularity among the citizens of Prague was very great. His position with respect to the ecclesiastical authorities continued to be an undefined one, and indeed became constantly more difficult. An archiepiscopal decree had prohibited Hus from exercising ecclesiastical functions, but he continued to preach in the Bethlehem chapel. The congregation was very numerous, and the queen and many of the courtiers were frequently present. Present also were some less desirable visitors. Some of the parish priests of Prague, men who regarded Hus’s preaching as a reproach to their own unedifying lives and were therefore his bitterest enemies, were often present at the sermons in the Bethlehem chapel. They thus hoped to gather materials for new accusations against him. We are told that the parish priest of St. Clements, one Protiva, was in the habit of assisting at Hus’s sermons and taking notes which were to be used against the preacher. This was one
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