from their context as to have an entirely different meaning from what was meant by the author, and that such adulteration of books was worthy of the most severe punishment. Hus’s defense of Wycliffe’s Articles brought a rupture between him and the archbishop. The enemies of Hus sent reports to Rome that heretical doctrines were disseminated in Bohemia, and that not only Hus, but the king and the archbishop, favored them. Gregory XII sent orders to the archbishop that all such heresies should be immediately extirpated. After much consultation and many discussions of the matter, the archbishop requested that all the books of Wycliffe should be brought to him for examination, that he might be able to point out what parts were heretical. It shows the influence of ages of superstition upon the human mind, that the learned doctors of the university, among them Hus, complied with this request. They probably imagined that, by virtue of his sacred office, the illiterate prelate was endowed with some mysterious power of discrimination, and so could judge of the substance of works that he could scarcely read.
The shrewd prelate would not expose his ignorance by pointing out errors, so he devised a more ingenious plan. He persuaded the Synod that was to assist him in the examination, to condemn all of Wycliffe’s works as heretical, and ordered them to be destroyed by fire; and, lest the action should be opposed, all preaching in the chapels was to be immediately stopped; this order being aimed especially against Hus.
The university entered a protest against this decision, declaring that the archbishop had no right to destroy books that were the property of its members,
