The letters of John Hus/The Escape of Pope John; Hus Starving

by Jan Hus

Meanwhile in Constance the struggle between the Council and John XXIII., which had begun in the proposal for his abdication, had rapidly reached a crisis. John realised that his last throw must be made. On March 20^[1] he left Constance ‘in an indecent disguised lay dress’ ‘in the darkness of a foggy night.’ Two days later the Council received news that he had arrived at Schaffhausen. Hus soon learned the news, and adds an interesting comment.

If Hus’s first letter after the flight of John gives little indication of the excitement at Constance, his second letter, written three days later, throws a vivid side-light on the confusion. Hus himself ran some danger of starvation. Hitherto the Pope had paid ten florins a week for Hus’s support and the expenses of his imprisonment. Not only was this supply cut off, but, as

we learn from an anonymous letter of April 2, provisions in Constance ran very short (Doc. 543). The country folk were too uncertain of the future to bring in, as hitherto, their stores. Hus also was in no small alarm.

 

1. For the date see App. M. p. 360 of my Age of Hus.