of heresy.[1] Venceslas on this occasion certainly acted in accordance with the feelings of the Bohemian people, if we except the baser part of the clergy, who believed that free preaching was favourable to church-reform—the thing which from selfish motives they detested more than all others. Thus Lord Lacek of Kravar, a high court official, and Nicholas of Potstyn, Lord of Zampach, wrote to Pope John protesting strongly against all attempts to limit the liberty of preaching. The town councils of the cities of Prague also added their protest. The prohibition of preaching in the Bethlehem chapel, they wrote, and the burning of Wycliffe's writings had caused hatred, quarrels, incendiarism, and murder among the citizens, who had with constant faith professed entirely the Catholic creed. The citizens of the old town did not omit to mention that they had vested interests in the matter, as the appointment of one of the two preachers in the Bethlehem chapel was in the gift of their town council.[2]
It is difficult to imagine the impression which these letters may have produced on Baldassare Cossa. He probably thought that the men of the north took matters of slight importance very seriously. Though no one who knows the absolute recklessness with which the theologians of the period of the schism levelled even the most monstrous accusations against their opponents will believe all that was said against the diavolo cardinale at Constance, yet it is not unfair to believe that he held no very firm opinions on matters of religion. The letters from Bohemia would, however, in any case have remained resultless. Before receiving them the pope, who was then residing at Bologna, had already entrusted
- ↑ Referring to these letters of Queen Sophia and others that will be mentioned later, Baron Helfert, a firm adherent of the Roman Church in his “Hus und Hieronymus,” violently attacks Queen Sophia and the interference of women in politics generally. I have given a short account of this diatribe in my Bohemia, a Historical Sketch, p. 129, n. Baron Helfert is undoubtedly right in stating that Hussitism owed much to women.
- ↑ The letters of the nobles and citizens are printed by Palacky, Documenta pp. 413–415.
