formerly attributed to Hus really had as authors Matthew of Janov, Wycliffe, Chelcicky, and others. On the other hand, many authentic works of Hus disappeared during the so-called “Catholic reformation” which began after the battle of the White Mountain in 1620. The Jesuits were entrusted with the task of discovering and destroying every book that had not been sanctioned by the Church of Rome. The possession of such a book became a crime, punishable by death.[1] It is, therefore, probable that some works of Hus have altogether perished, while others have only recently been rediscovered and published. Though, therefore, even the latest bibliographical study of Hus, that of Dr. Flajshans, can lay no claim to completeness, attempts were made from a very early period to collect the scattered writings of the master and classify them. The first attempts to do so, however, extended only to the so-called writings of Constance, mainly letters to friends that were written by Hus in prison. The trusty disciple and companion of Hus, Peter Mladenovic, tells us that he preserved copies of the writings of the master, and he gives us some slight information as to what these writings were. Lawrence of Brezova[2] gives us somewhat more extensive information and states that Hus, besides numerous letters, wrote several small treatises while in prison.[3] These writers wrote immediately after the death of Hus, but somewhat later the tradition became more obscure. While, as Dr. Flajshans conjectures, some works of Hus were at this early period already definitely lost, works of other writers soon
- ↑ As late as in 1755 a Bohemian forester named Thomas Svoboda was sentenced to death at the stake because he had been found in possession of a Bible. By an act of grace he was strangled before being burnt.
- ↑ See my Lectures on the Historians of Bohemia, pp. 35–47.
- ↑ “In ipsa ergo captivitate Magister Johannes Hus virilem habens animum mori potius eligebat quam cleri pestiferi scelerum enormitates approbare, multasque epistolas et scripta utilissima occulte suis scribebat amicis . . . ad vota amicorum et aliquorum carceris custodum tractatus pulcerrimos . . . edidit puta de mandatis dei et oracione dominica, item qualiter committitur peccatum mortale, item de cognicione dei, item de tribus hostibus hominis. . . . Scripsit quoque tractatulum de communione utriusque speciei.” (Laurentii de Brezova, Historia Hussitica, ed. Goll, pp. 332–333.)
