A HISTORY OF BOHEMIAN
212
LITERATURE
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Rokycan published a very severe edict against them, for their attempt to establish an independent clergy was as obnoxious to the Utraquist as to the Roman priests. Brother Gregory lived for seven years after the assembly at Lhotka, and as he is stated to have been over fifty when the community of Kunwald was founded in 1457, he must have attained a considerable age. His entire energy and activity were to the last devoted to the Unity. Its constitution, which conferred the principal power on the so-called smaller ^ council, at whose head was a president (" ordinator often, though not in the fifteenth " the work of Gregory. century, called bishop," Though in every respect the leading spirit of the Unity, Gregory never aspired to be the recognised leader of his Church. That rank was from the time of the meeting of Lhotka assumed by the priest Matthew, who at the time of that meeting was young man of the age of twenty-five. Whether the fact that Matthew had been ordained as priest by the Church of Rome was not one of the causes of his election, cannot perhaps now The remarks of Gregory, quoted above, be ascertained. seem to be in opposition to this view. Matthew was on terms of friendship with Brother Gregory, and accepted his guidance on all matters of doctrine and discipline. man of weak character, and the described as He discord that broke out among the brethren after the death of Gregory seems to confirm this view. The small town of Brandeis on the Adler,^ situated in the picturesque valley of the Orlice or Adler, was one of the early centres of the community of the brethren, and was here that Brother Gregory spent the greater part In Bohemian tizky, literally "narrow."
In
Eastern Bohemia,
between the towns of Wildenschwert and Pardubic.
