fortress of Karlstein; he even permitted Zasada to revenge himself on the archbishop by plundering the archiepiscopal lands. This quarrel was finally made up, but the feeling at court against the archbishop became even more bitter than before. John of Jenstein certainly did not assume a conciliatory attitude. At a moment when the anti-clerical feeling was so strong in Bohemia, and when the Church was weakened by its division, he attempted to enforce claims that would have been challenged even in quieter times. The question as to the limits of temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction at that period caused great difficulties, as persons enjoying clerical immunities often committed the greatest excesses. In the year 1392 the archbishop excommunicated the king's vice-chamberlain, because he had ordered several students of theology—who had, however, not yet been consecrated as priests—to be arrested, and two of them to be executed. The vice-chamberlain had taken this action with the full approval of the king. The archbishop did not deny the justice of the punishment, but he complained of the infringement of the ecclesiastical immunities.
The excommunication of one of his officials for actions done with the knowledge and approval of the king violently irritated him, and another incident that occurred shortly afterwards raised the fury of the irascible king to the highest pitch. He had planned the foundation of a new bishopric in Bohemia, probably by the advice of the ecclesiastics at his court, who coveted the new appointment. Venceslas only waited for the death of the Abbot Raček of Kladrau to suppress that convent and endow the new bishopric with its revenues. No opposition was to be feared from Pope Boniface IX,[1] with whom the king was on terms of friendship. The archbishop, however, frustrated the plans of Venceslas by sending to Kladrau his vicar-general, John of Pomuk, who induced the monks, immediately after the death of Raček, to choose a new abbot, whose election Pomuk, in the name of the archbishop, immediately confirmed.
The king's fury now knew no bounds. The court officials very imprudently arranged a meeting between Venceslas and the archbishop. On seeing the latter the king was quite unable to control his fury. He ordered John of
- ↑ Boniface IX had succeeded Urban VI in 1389. In 1394 Benedict XIII succeeded Clement VII as anti-Pope at Avignon.
