A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 19

His saintly and self-denying life had gained him enviable powers as a thaumaturge, and his reputation as a preacher drew crowds to listen to his eloquence. In 1451 he was busy in exterminating the Fraticelli, but he suspended his b.l.o.o.d.y work at the call of Nicholas to undertake the conversion of the Hussites. Nothing was omitted that could contribute to the dramatic effect of his mission. Before a.s.suming it he sought the divine a.s.sent by consulting the Virgin at a.s.sisi, when the heavenly light diffused around him was a sign that his apostolate was confirmed; he accepted the enlarged powers which extended his inquisitorial commission to the Bohemian territories, and set forth. Everywhere on his road mult.i.tudes a.s.sembled to see and listen to the man of G.o.d, and everywhere his miraculous powers manifested the authenticity of his mission. At Brescia he addressed an a.s.sembly computed at one hundred and twenty thousand souls, and, though walls and trees were broken down by the ma.s.ses of men gathered thickly upon them, not a human being was injured. At the crossing of the River Sile, near Treviso, the party, with true Observantine austerity, had no money to pay ferriage, and the surly ferryman refused free transportation; but Capistrano quietly took the habit of San Bernardino, which he carried with him, laid it upon the waters, and they shrank away till all had pa.s.sed dry-shod, when they resumed their former volume. Thus heralded, his way through Venice and Vienna was a triumphal progress; crowds of sixty thousand or one hundred thousand to hear him preach were common; men came from a distance of five hundred miles to listen to him; at Vienna three hundred thousand were reckoned present; the sick were brought before him in thousands, and the miraculous cures which he wrought were computed by hundreds. The ecclesiastical machinery was evidently well-devised and effectively worked, and the desired impression was produced.[590]

In vain the emperor asked permission for him to visit Prague. Podiebrad and Rokyzana refused it peremptorily, and Capistrano's zeal for martyrdom was not sufficient to prompt him to disregard their wishes.

Furnished with imperial letters to the Catholic n.o.bles and to their leader, Ulric Mainhard of Rosenberg, he turned in July to the safer region of Moravia, where presumably the influence of Podiebrad and Rokyzana was not so strong. Here his career indicates how little foundation there was for the persistent Catholic complaints of the proscriptive intolerance of the Calixtins. Though on Bohemian territory, Catholic and Hussite seem to have been dwelling together in mutual harmony; the Bishop of Olmutz was a Catholic, and no hindrance seems to have been experienced by Capistrano in his labors for the conversion of the so-called heretics. Beginning at Brunn, August 1, 1451, there is a register containing names and dates of more than eleven thousand conversions made by him up to May, 1452. Yet at the same time he was restricted to persuasion, and was not allowed to use inquisitorial methods. As his converts were voluntary, he smoothed the path of the repentant heretic, reconciling him to the Church with only the infliction of a salutary penance, and allowing him to retain all his possessions and dignities. Where the heretic was hardened, he was powerless, except through such miraculous power as he could wield. The situation was an anomalous one--unexampled, in fact, in the Middle Ages--of heretic and Catholic dwelling together in peace, the heretic in the ascendant, yet not only tolerating the Catholic, but allowing a man like Capistrano to wander through the land denouncing heretics and making conversions unmolested. To Capistrano the position was irritating in the extreme, insomuch as he was limited to the arts of persuasion, and was unable to enforce his arguments with the dungeon and the stake.

This peculiar state of things is well ill.u.s.trated by an adventure related of him at Breslau. Though Silesia had a Catholic bishop, it belonged to Bohemia, and mutual tolerance was established. In the summer of 1453 Capistrano came there and labored to convert the Hussites, but these sons of Belial, to ridicule his miraculous powers, placed a young man in a bier, carried him to where the inquisitor was preaching, and asked the latter to resuscitate the dead. Capistrano sternly replied, "Let him have his portion with the dead in eternity!" and went his way. Then the heretics said to the crowd, "We have holier men among us;" and one of them went to the coffin, calling to its inmate, "Peter, arise!" and then whispering, "It is time to get up;" but there was no response, and the unfortunate youth was found to be really dead. Yet at this very time Capistrano had no difficulty in exercising his inquisitorial office pitilessly when the victims were unfortunate Jews. A country priest was said to have sold them eight consecrated hosts for use in their infernal rites. Capistrano seized those implicated, tortured them to confession, and burned them, while a woman who was implicated was torn with red-hot pincers. An old Jewess embraced Christianity, and soon afterwards was slain. The Jews were accused of the murder, and also of that of a Christian boy. Capistrano made another onslaught on them, and this time burned no less than forty-one. It is easy to gather from this incident what would have been the fate of the Hussites had he been able to wreak his will on them. Those of Moldavia and Poland, whither he despatched three of his a.s.sociate inquisitors under Ladislas the Hungarian, probably felt the full rigor of the canons.[591]

During all this the Calixtin leaders had not been wholly indifferent. At the commencement of Capistrano's mission Rokyzana wrote to him in a friendly tone, remonstrating with him for condemning as a heresy the communion in both elements, which the Council of Basle had permitted to the Bohemians. Some correspondence ensued, in which Capistrano took high ground as to the use of the cup and the papal supremacy; there were negotiations for a conference, and at one time hopes were entertained of an accommodation. Capistrano, however, skilfully eluded a disputation on various pretexts, but really, as we learn from his confidential letter to the cardinal-legate, Nicholas of Cusa, because he knew that the Calixtins had on their side the weight of authority and tradition. Both parties gradually lost their temper and published against each other letters filled with scurrility. Having thus rendered amicable negotiations impossible, Capistrano could safely, in 1452, ask Podiebrad for a safe-conduct to Prague, and on its refusal summon him to render the aid and service due to him as apostolic commissioner and inquisitor.[592]

When the German princes a.s.sembled in the Diet of 1452 the Bohemians addressed them, complaining that although they were living in peace and obedience to the Holy See, the provisions of the Compactata, which declared that no one should be stigmatized as a heretic for partaking in both elements, were violated by a friar named Capistrano, who, under the guise of an apostolic commissioner and inquisitor, was traversing their territories proclaiming that all Utraquists were heretics. The agreement which had cost so much blood was thus plainly infringed, and, notwithstanding their desire for peace, a persistence in this would revive all the old troubles. This was significant of strife, and Capistrano, on his side, was eagerly engaged in stimulating it. He wrote to the pope that certain propositions of accommodation entertained by the cardinal-legate were disgraceful, and spoke hopefully of negotiations which he was carrying on with the German princes for a new crusade against the Hussites. Nicholas of Cusa was effectually snubbed for daring to talk of conferences and terms of accommodation. He promptly threw himself on the other side and contributed his share towards provoking a fresh conflict, by issuing, in June, 1452, an encyclical to the Bohemians, in which he plainly told them that those who were not with the Church must be against it; that the Compactata must be thrown aside, as they had not effected the union for which they were designed, and that nothing save pure and simple obedience to the Holy See could be entertained. To render the irritation complete needed only the exquisite insolence with which he a.s.sured them that the Church was too pious a mother to concede to her children what she knew to be injurious.[593]

Capistrano's busy mischief-making was bearing its fruits. The breach between Rome and Bohemia was constantly widening, and if the zeal of the German princes could be brought to correspond to the ardor of the missionary of strife, the horrors of the old Hussite wars might be hopefully looked for again. During the remainder of the year 1452 we find him travelling through Germany, probably with this charitable object, though at Leipsic he paused long enough for his eloquence to win for his rigid Order sixty professors and students.[594] His efforts to raise a crusade against Bohemia, however, were frustrated by the capture of Constantinople in May, 1453. The immense impression which this produced throughout Christendom, the universal alarm at the progress of the Turk, and the necessity of defending Europe against his approach, speedily threw into the shade all minor questions. A new crusade was imperatively wanted, but it could not be wasted upon Bohemia and the Utraquists.

During the summer of 1453, as we have seen, Capistrano was tranquilly employing his enforced leisure in burning Jews at Breslau. Thence he went to Poland, where we find him at Cracow throwing into prison a physician, Master Paul, whom he suspected of being an emissary of Rokyzana. He applied again to Podiebrad for a safe-conduct to Prague, which was curtly refused on the ground that when it had been previously offered it had not been accepted, and that Ladislas did not want the peace of his kingdom disturbed. He left Cracow May 15, 1454, for Breslau and Olmutz, whence he still hoped to accomplish something within the charmed circle of Bohemia, into which he had not been allowed to penetrate. Rokyzana at this time was inspired with hopes that the terror of the Turk and the need for Christian unity would enable him to realize his dream of the archbishopric. He made the large concessions alluded to above on many of the points of dissidence, and used every effort with the emperor to procure through him the papal confirmation. A letter from Ladislas, of June 13, to the Bishop of Olmutz, asking him to restrain Capistrano from using such violent terms in denouncing Bohemians, as he was doing more harm than good, was evidently a move in the same game.

Yet even the paramount interests of Christendom could not win for Rokyzana the coveted confirmation, although those interests soon diverted Capistrano's fiery energies from the heretic to the infidel.[595]

A brief and clear-cut letter of aeneas Sylvius to Capistrano, dated July 26, 1454, tells him to give up the dream of getting to Prague and go to Frankfort, where he will be useful. An a.s.sembly of princes had been held in Ratisbon, where a crusade had been agreed upon, and Philip of Burgundy had consented to lead it. Final arrangements were to be made in Frankfort in October, and there aeneas Sylvius wanted the aid of Capistrano's tireless ardor. Their correspondence at this juncture shows the terror which existed lest Europe should be overrun; the confusion and uncertainty which prevailed, and the selfish differences which threatened to neutralize effort. At Frankfort their worst fears were realized. The zeal of the princes had cooled, and they declared the purpose of the pope and emperor was to steal their money and not to fight. They demanded that the business should be conducted by a general council which should at the same time repress the Holy See--in fact, both parties were selfishly endeavoring to turn the agony of Europe to account; the pope to raise money, and the princes to recover their independence. All that aeneas and Capistrano could obtain was a promise that at the Pentecost of 1455 they would meet the emperor and determine what could be done. In February and March, 1455, they began to a.s.semble at Neuburg, near Vienna, where Podiebrad again used every effort to procure Rokyzana's confirmation. As for the crusade, the energies of Christendom seemed paralyzed by the petty jealousies and ambitions of its rulers. At last, under the unflagging eloquence of aeneas and Capistrano, things appeared to be taking shape, when the news was received of the death of Nicholas V. on March 22. Everything fell to pieces, and the princes departed, postponing action until the next year.

It was a forcible example of the utility of the papacy, which supplied a common head to the discordant forces of the time.[596]

Capistrano's impetuous energies were now fairly enlisted in the strife with the Turk, and the Hussites had a respite. In fact, the situation was too alarming to permit of their persecution, and it is a remarkable instance of the unbending rigidity of Rome, that even in this perilous juncture the overtures and concessions of Podiebrad and Rokyzana availed them nothing.

Calixtus III. was elected April 8, with a speed which showed how dangerous a papal interregnum was considered. He at once sent legates to preach the crusade throughout Europe, and commenced to build war-s.h.i.+ps on the Tiber. The Hungarians, who were justly excited at the impending invasion of Mahomet II. begged Capistrano to come to them and use his eloquence. Calixtus gave him permission, confirmed all the powers conferred on him by Nicholas, and he undertook the task which was to complete his life's work. Yet even these new duties, which wrought his fiery soul to a higher tension than ever, did not wholly distract his attention from the hated Hussites. The juncture seemed favorable for a reconciliation, which every motive of policy dictated. Besides, aeneas Sylvius had just been promoted to the cardinalate, and that crafty diplomat had succeeded in making the Bohemians look upon him as their friend. They not only hoped to obtain the confirmation of the Compactata, but the cardinal's hat for Rokyzana. Hearing of this, Capistrano wrote, March 24, 1456, from Buda to Calixtus dissuading him in the most vigorous terms. The Hussites are the worst of mankind, fearing neither G.o.d nor man; the heart can scarce conceive the errors which they believe, or the abominations which they practise in secret.

The Compactata are their sole bulwark; if these are confirmed, the Hussites, who abound secretly, not only in Bohemia but in Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and the neighboring regions, will rise and declare themselves. The warning was sufficient and the overtures were rejected.[597]

Suddenly the news came that the dreaded Mahomet II. was advancing, and had laid siege to Belgrade. Ladislas, who was King of Hungary as well as of Bohemia, was at Buda-Pesth, and with his uncle, the Count of Cillei, on pretext of a hunting-excursion, basely fled to Austria. John Hunyady, Count of Transylvania, who had been regent of the kingdom, organized the Hungarian forces, with some German crusaders who had come to his a.s.sistance, while Capistrano marched with him as papal commander of the crusade. Glorious in the annals of Hungary is the victory of Belgrade.

"With a flotilla of boats on the Danube, Hunyady, on July 14, 1456, cut his way into the town through the beleaguering forces. Furious were the attack and the defence until the 22d, when a fierce a.s.sault by the Turks was repulsed, and the besieged followed the retreating enemy, burned one of their camps, spiking some of their cannon and carrying the rest back into the town, where they did good service during the rest of that memorable day. Mahomet gathered together his forces for a last desperate attempt, which was a failure, and during the night he fled, leaving twenty-four thousand men upon the field, and three hundred cannon. His army was utterly dispersed, and this disaster, aided by the heroic resistance of Scanderbeg in Albania, arrested the Turkish invasion and gave Europe a breathing-spell. It cost, however, the lives of the two heroes to whom it was due. The stench of the dead bodies sickened the army of the victors, and John Hunyady fell a victim, August 11, to the epidemic, which prevented the following up of the advantage. Capistrano had thrown himself into the work with all his self-forgetful enthusiasm.

His eloquence had wrought the Christians up to the highest pitch of religious exaltation; the crusaders would obey no one but him, and his labors were incessant. He pa.s.sed days without time for food, and nights without rest; for seventeen days, it is said, before the victory, he slept but seven hours in all. He was in his seventy-first year, with a frame weakened by habitual austerities, and when the strain was past exhausted nature paid the penalty. A slow fever set in, August 6, under which he wasted away, and died, October 23. He was perhaps the most perfect type which the age produced of the ideal son of the Church; a purely artificial creation, in which the weakness of humanity disappeared with some of its virtues, and the whole nature, with its rare powers, was concentrated in unselfish devotion to a mistaken purpose. Such men are the tools of the worldly and unscrupulous who know how to use them, and for forty years Capistrano had been thus employed to bring misery on his fellow-beings, unconscious of the evil which he wrought. Yet, as aeneas Sylvius shrewdly points out, there was one weak spot left in his nature. In the letters in which he and Hunyady described the victory of Belgrade neither chief gave credit to the other. As aeneas says, "Capistrano had despised the pomps of the world, he had fled from its delights, he had trampled down avarice, he had overcome l.u.s.t, but he could not contemn glory."[598]

No one could be found worthy to replace Capistrano but his friendly rival, Giacomo della Marca, who was accordingly despatched, in 1457, to the scene of his labors of twenty years previous, armed with the same powers, as inquisitor and crusader. The danger from the Turk was still too pressing for him to waste thought on the former function, and he devoted himself to stimulating and organizing the war against the Moslem until his health gave way, and he returned to Italy, where, as we have seen, he not long afterwards had to defend himself from a charge of heresy brought by his zealous Dominican brethren. He was replaced by his disciples, Giovanni da Tagliacozza and Michele da Tussicino, who were followed in 1461 by Fra Gabriele da Verona; but though Franciscans still continued for a generation to labor for the conversion of the Calixtins, they had little success in the absence of power to employ the customary inquisitorial methods, of which more hereafter.[599]

In fact, the prospects of reducing Bohemia to obedience were steadily diminis.h.i.+ng. In the wildest uproar of the Hussite wars there were powerful barons and cities who steadily held out for the pope and kaiser, and under the interregnum there had at first been a dual government, shared equally by Catholic and Calixtin. Under the firm hand of George Podiebrad the orthodox communities submitted one by one, and in spiritual matters Rokyzana was supreme. It is true that there was now little to distinguish the churches in doctrine or practice save the use of the cup; but independence served as a protection against the greed of the Roman curia, and there was small encouragement for a surrender of this independence in the clamor which was now going up from Germany. The Basilian regulations, confirmed by Eugenius, had for a time served as a safeguard to some extent, but now these were coolly treated as obsolete, and complaints were loud that all the old abuses were flouris.h.i.+ng as vigorously as ever. Elections were set aside, or heavy sums were extorted for their confirmation, while the country was drained of money by the exaction of tenths and the sale of indulgences. Secure in their isolation, the Bohemians might well submit to some inconvenience to be spared the costly blessing of apostolic paternal care. The only hope of Rome lay in the approaching majority of the Catholic youth Ladislas; but when, on the eve of his marriage with the daughter of Charles VII. of France, he suddenly died, towards the close of 1457, not without suspicions of foul play, and George Podiebrad soon afterwards was elected and crowned, it might well seem that, short of Divine interposition, the peaceful return of Bohemia was not to be looked for.[600]

Yet at first it looked as though an accommodation might be reached.

Ladislas, shortly before his death, had proposed to send an emba.s.sy to Rome for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation, and Calixtus III.

had asked of Podiebrad to gratify his vehement desire of seeing Rokyzana, whose high reputation was well known in Rome. Podiebrad, moreover, caused himself to be crowned according to the Roman rite; having no bishop of his own, he borrowed from his son-in-law, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, those of Raab and Bacs, to perform his consecration; in his coronation oath he swore obedience to Calixtus and his successors, to restore the Catholic religion, and to persecute heretics; he wrote to Calixtus as a faithful son of the Church, and obtained from him letters recognizing him as King of Bohemia; he sent envoys to Rome, who held out promises that Rokyzana would follow, and settle on a lasting basis the submission of Bohemia. All this was mere skirmis.h.i.+ng for position; but when, a few months later, Calixtus died, and was succeeded by aeneas Sylvius, who took the name of Pius II., men might hope that some reasonable accommodation could be reached. Since he had gone to Basle in the suite of Cardinal Capranica, and had become the mouth-piece of the antipapal party, influenced, as he himself says, by cupidity rather than by truth, and inspired by the hostility to the Church usually felt by the laity, the new pope had been occupied almost exclusively with German and Bohemian affairs, which he knew better than any living man; he had taken part in the negotiations resulting in the Compactata; he was shrewd, clear-headed, and troubled with few scruples, and, sharing fully in the papal anxiety to unite Christendom against the Turks, he might be expected to recognize the vital importance of reconciliation with Bohemia. George made haste to send an emba.s.sy to renew his protestations of obedience, and to ask for the confirmation of the Compactata. Pius, who took no shame in issuing a solemn bull condemning and disavowing all his early opinions uttered during his service with the council, was prepared to break with his own traditions rather than with those of his predecessors. He gave a dubious response; George could win his recognition as king by extirpating heresy, and he promised to send legates. They came, but the pope, although he addressed George as king and as his dearest son when soliciting his co-operation in the crusade, shortly afterwards took a step which, with his knowledge of Bohemia, he knew could not but provoke a rupture. Wenceslas, Dean of Prague, was a Catholic, and a bitter enemy of Rokyzana, and this man Pius appointed as administrator of the archbishopric, thus ousting Rokyzana. All at once was in uproar. Wenceslas endeavored to a.s.sert himself, but the power remained in Rokyzana's hands. George threw into prison Fantinus, who had been his procurator in the curia, and who had been sent with a commission as papal orator, and detained him there for three months. Frederic III., whom George, by a stroke of happy audacity, had recently liberated from a siege by his rebellious subjects in the castle of Vienna, interposed, and delayed the explosion of the papal wrath; but to his earnest request that George should be acknowledged as king Pius returned an absolute refusal. George was a heretic, incapable of the crown, and his subjects' oaths of allegiance were void; only by returning to the Church could he hope to be fitted for the royal dignity. In June, 1464, Pius, in full consistory, published a bull reciting all the griefs of the Church against Bohemia, p.r.o.nouncing the Compactata void, as never having been confirmed by the Holy See, and summoning George before him to stand trial for heresy within three terms of sixty days each. In two months Pius was dead, but his successor, Paul II., carried forward the proceedings with the old inquisitorial weapons.

Three cardinals were appointed in 1465 to try George as a relapsed heretic, and summoned him in August, as a private person, to appear before them within six months for judgment. Without waiting for the expiration of the term, early in December, Paul issued a bull absolving all George's subjects from their allegiance, alleging as a reason for haste that the sentence would grow more difficult by delay. The papal wrath increased with the obstinacy of the a.s.sumed heretic. In 1468 another summons was issued to him to appear before the cardinals for judgment; and in February, 1469, his name was placed as that son of perdition, the Hussite George Podiebrad, together with those of Rokyzana and Gregory of Heimburg, in the curse of the Cna Domini, to be anathematized thrice a year, in the solemnities of the ma.s.s, in all cathedrals, both in Latin and in the vernacular.[601]

All this was not a mere _brutum fulmen_. It was not difficult to excite rebellion among turbulent subjects and attacks from ambitious neighbors.

With all his vigor and capacity George found the maintenance of his position by no means easy. When, in 1468, the German princes had agreed upon a five years' truce in order to concentrate their energies against the Moslem, Paul II. threw the empire into confusion by sending the Bishop of Ferrara to preach a crusade with plenary indulgences against Bohemia, adding the special favor that all who joined in the preaching should have the privilege of choosing a confessor, and receiving from him plenary absolution and indulgence. The kingdom was bestowed upon Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who took the cross, and with an army of crusaders occupied Moravia. A long war ensued, during which George died, in 1471, released from excommunication on his death-bed, and Ladislas II., son of Casimir of Poland, was elected as his successor. In 1475 the rivals came to terms; both were recognized as kings of Bohemia, while Matthias was to have for life Moravia, Silesia, and the greater part of Lusatia, and the survivor was to enjoy the whole kingdom. On the death of Matthias, in 1490, Ladislas recovered the three provinces, and shortly afterwards added Hungary to his dominions.[602]

Ladislas was a good Catholic, and Sixtus IV., who had aided in his election, hoped that the opportunity had at last arrived to break down the stubbornness of the Calixtins. The king made the attempt, but b.l.o.o.d.y tumults in Prague, which nearly cost him his life, showed that, slight as was the difference between Catholic and Utraquist, the old fanaticism for the cup survived. At length, in 1485, at the Diet of Kuttenberg, mutual toleration was agreed upon, and Ladislas, who was of easy disposition, ran no further risks. Thus the anomalous position of Bohemia, as a member of Latin Christendom, became more remarkable than ever. The great majority of the people were Calixtins and therefore heretics, but the Church had to abandon the attempt to coerce them to salvation. Missionary inquisitors were commissioned from time to time, but practically their efforts were limited to persuasion and controversy. Even Pius II., in 1463, felt obliged to caution Zeger, the Observantine Vicar-general, that his brethren, in dealing with heretics, should restrain their zeal from the customary curses and insults, and should try the effect of gentleness and argument. That these missionaries were mostly Franciscans perhaps explains why the toleration accorded to Catholics could not be enforced against the popular prejudices of which the Order was the object. Even George Podiebrad, in 1460, had permitted the Franciscans to return to Prague, but their zeal was not to be restrained, and they were expelled in 1468.

Under Ladislas they came again, in 1482, but in the disturbances of the following year they were glad to escape, their house was levelled to the ground, and was not rebuilt until 1629. From time to time other communities were founded at Hradecz, Glatz, and Neisse, but they were short-lived, and were speedily destroyed by the fanaticism of the people. As the invention of printing facilitated controversy, polemical zeal multiplied treatises to prove the iniquity of the Utraquist heresy, but the Utraquists were not to be converted. They maintained the Compactata as the charter of their religious independence. When, in 1526, King Louis fell in the disastrous day of Mohacz, and the House of Austria, in the person of Ferdinand I., obtained the Bohemian throne, good Catholic though Ferdinand was, he was obliged to pledge himself to preserve the Compactata.[603]

It is not to be imagined that the teachings of Wickliff and Huss were wholly forgotten in Utraquist degeneracy. Their real inheritors were the Taborites, and although these, in their disorderly enthusiasm, vainly contended against the spirit of the age and disappeared from sight under the strong hand of Podiebrad, the seed which they had nurtured was not wholly lost. The profound religious convictions which animated these poor and simple folk are visible through the satire with which aeneas Sylvius requited their hospitality in 1451, on the eve of their suppression. Travelling with some n.o.bles, on a mission from Frederic III., he was benighted near Mount Tabor, and thought it safer to trust himself with the enemies of his faith than to pa.s.s the hours of darkness in the open villages. In return for the simple kindliness of his reception the polished scholar and courtier describes them with the liveliest ridicule, and with brutal sneers at their poverty. They were mostly peasants, and as they came forth to greet him in the cold and rain, many were almost naked, having nothing but a s.h.i.+rt or a sheepskin to protect them; one had no saddle, another no reins, another no spurs; this one had lost an eye, that one an arm. Ziska was their patron saint, whose portrait was painted on the city gates. Though they ridiculed the consecration of churches, they were very earnest in listening to the word of G.o.d, and if any one was too busy or too lazy to go to the wooden house where they a.s.sembled for preaching he was compelled by stripes.

Though they paid no t.i.thes, they filled their priests' houses with corn, beer, wood, vegetables, meat, and all the necessaries of life.

Firm as they were in defence of their religious independence, they were not intolerant, and wide diversity of opinion was allowed among them.[604]

When such men as these were driven forth and scattered among the people they were much more likely to make converts than to be converted, and though lost to sight they were a.s.suredly not false to their convictions.

The reactionary course of Rokyzana and Podiebrad during the succeeding years could hardly fail to provoke discontent among the more earnest even of the Calixtins and to furnish fresh disciples and teachers.

Materials existed for a sect representing the doctrines which, a generation earlier, had set Bohemia aflame; and although when that sect timidly appeared it prudently and sedulously disavowed all affiliation with the hated and dreaded Taborites, there can be no doubt that it was, to a great extent, composed of the same elements.

These new sectaries first present themselves in an organized form in 1457. Earnest, humble Christians, who sought to carry out the doctrines of Jesus, they differed from the Taborites in a yet closer approach to Waldensianism, due probably to the influence of Peter Chelcicky, who, without belonging to them, was yet to some extent their teacher. Like the Waldenses, they rejected the oath and the sword--nothing would justify the taking of human life, and consequently they were non-resistants. Since the time of Constantine and Silvester the Roman Church had gone astray in the pursuit of wealth and worldly power. The sacraments were worthless in polluted hands. Priests might hear confessions and impose penances, but they could not absolve; they could only announce the forgiveness of G.o.d. Purgatory was a myth invented by cunning priests. As for the mystery of the Eucharist, they prudently adopted the formula of Peter Chelcicky, which eluded the difficulty by affirming that the believer receives the body and blood of Christ, without pretending to explain or daring to discuss the matter. They ridiculed the superst.i.tion of the Calixtins, which exaggerated in the absurdest fas.h.i.+on the sanct.i.ty of the Eucharist, which carried the sacrament through the streets for adoration, and which held that he whose eye chanced to fall on it was safe from evil happening for that day; and they sometimes incurred martyrdom by publicly reproving the fanatic zeal which regarded the Eucharist as the holiest of idols. On this basis was founded the brotherhood of love and charity, of patient endurance and meekness, which represented more nearly the Christian ideal than anything the world had seen for thirteen centuries. With extreme simplicity of life there was no exaggeration of asceticism.

Heaven was not to be stormed by mortification of the flesh, but was to be won by the sedulous discharge of the duties imposed on man by his Creator, in humble obedience to the divine will, and in pious reliance on Christ. Such was the "Unitas Fratrum"--the Bohemian or Moravian Brotherhood--and that a society thus defenceless and unresisting should endure the savage vicissitudes of that transitional period, and maintain itself through four hundred years to the present time, shows that force is not necessarily the last word in human affairs, and that average human nature is capable of a higher moral development than it has been permitted to reach under prevailing influences, secular and spiritual.[605]

At first they seem to have enjoyed the favor of Rokyzana, whose doctrines they claimed to follow, and whose nephew Gregory was one of their earliest leaders, along with Michael, priest of Zamberg.

Rokyzana's fluctuating policy, as the archbishopric seemed to approach or recede, soon led him to hold aloof, and when they drew apart from the Calixtins and organized themselves as a separate body he had no objection to see them persecuted. In vain they declared that they were neither Waldenses nor Taborites--the one was a word of bitter reproach, the other a terror. When, about 1461, Gregory, with a few companions, ventured secretly to Prague, they were betrayed as conspiring Taborites and put to the torture. It shows their state of religious exaltation that Gregory swooned on the rack and had a beatific vision. It may be put to the credit of Rokyzana that when he saw his nephew insensible from the torture he burst into tears, exclaiming, "O my Gregory, I would I were where thou art!" and that he soon afterwards obtained from Podiebrad permission for them to settle at Liticz. Here they prospered amid alternate peace and persecution, their numbers rapidly increasing.[606]

In retaining all the sacraments they retained belief in the necessity of apostolical succession for that of ordination; but as the sacraments were vitiated in unworthy hands, they became oppressed with misgivings as to the efficacy of the sacerdotal character of their priests, derived as it was through the Church of Rome. Some of them proposed sending to the legendary Christians of India, but they met with two men who had been in the East, and the accounts they received of the Oriental churches satisfied them that the succession there had been lost. Then they bethought them of the Greeks, but they met some Greeks in Prague, and many Bohemians had been in the Levant and Danubian provinces, from whom they learned that fees were required for ordination, thus rendering it void through simony; moreover, they heard of three Bohemians who had been ordained without inquiry as to their morals, which satisfied them that no true ordination was to be obtained there. Finally they turned to the Waldenses, of whom there was a community on the Austrian border.

These claimed to descend from the primitive Church; that their ancestors had separated from Rome when the papacy was secularized under Silvester by the donation of Constantine, and that they had preserved the apostolic succession untainted. It remained for the brethren to see whether it was the will of G.o.d that they should organize themselves by means of these Waldenses. At Lhotka, in 1467, an a.s.sembly of about sixty chosen deputies was held. After fasting and earnest prayer, recourse was had to the lot, to decide whether they should separate themselves from the Roman priesthood. The result was affirmative. Then they selected nine men, from among whom three or two or one should be drawn, or none, if G.o.d so willed it. Twelve cards were taken, on three of which was written "is," and on nine "is not." These were mingled together, and a youth was directed to distribute nine of them among the men selected.

All three with "is" proved to have been distributed, and the a.s.sembly devoutly thanked G.o.d for showing them the path to follow. Michael of Zamberg was sent to the Waldensian Bishop Stephen, who investigated his faith and life, and thanked G.o.d, with tears, that it had been vouchsafed him before he died to see such pious men. After episcopal consecration Michael returned; careful inquiry was made as to the antecedents of one of the three elect, named Matthias, and he was duly consecrated as bishop by Michael, who thereupon laid down both his Waldensian episcopate and Catholic priesthood, and was again ordained anew by Matthias.[607]

Thus all connection with Rome was sundered, and intimate relations were established with the Waldenses. Mutual sympathy and the ident.i.ty of their faith drew the two sects together, although the austere virtue of the Brethren reproached the older heretics with concealing their faith by attending Catholic ma.s.s, with acc.u.mulating wealth, and with neglecting the poor. The Waldenses took the reproof kindly, promised amendment, and in a short time the two sects united and formed one body.

Although the official name remained the "Unity of the Brethren,"

gradually the despised term of Waldenses came to be recognized, and was freely used by the body to designate themselves, in their confessions of faith and apologetic tracts. I have already alluded to the mission which was sent in 1498 to the Brethren of Italy and France, and to the increased spirit of vigor and independence which the old Alpine communities drew from the resolute steadfastness of their new a.s.sociates.[608]

Gregory had moulded the Church of the Brethren on the strictest basis.

Members on entering were not, it is true, obliged to contribute their property to the common fund, but this was frequently done. The closest watch was kept on the conduct of each, and any dereliction was visited with expulsion, not to be revoked without evidence of change of heart.

No one was allowed to take an oath, even in court, to hold an office, to keep an inn, to follow any trade except in the necessaries of life. Any n.o.ble desiring to join was required to lay aside his rank and resign whatever offices he might hold. In 1479 two barons and several knights applied for admission, when the rules were strictly enforced, and some submitted while others withdrew. This rigor at last caused violent dissensions, and in 1490 the Synod of Brandeis relaxed the rules. The puritan party recalcitrated and were strong enough to cause a revocation of this action in a subsequent synod. Much ill-feeling was generated, until, in 1495, at the Synod of Reichenau, there was mutual forgiveness and a moderation of the rules. Yet two of the puritan leaders, Jacob of Wodnan and Amos of Stekna, refused to accept the compromise, and founded the sect known as Amosites, or the Little Party, which maintained a separate existence for forty-six years.[609]

During this period the Brethren had been subjected to repeated and severe persecution. Sometimes driven for refuge to the mountain and forest, whence they earned the name of Jamnici, or cave-dwellers, they counted their roll of martyrs who had testified in the dungeon or at the stake to the strength of their convictions. Yet the little band steadily grew. In the year 1500 it was deemed necessary to increase the number of bishops to four. In Bohemia and Moravia they counted between three hundred and four hundred churches with nearly two hundred thousand members. There were few villages and scarce any towns in which they were not to be found, and they had powerful protectors among the n.o.bility, who, by the enslavement of the peasants in 1487, had become practically independent and able to shelter them during periods of persecution. The Brethren were active in education and in the use of the press. Every parish had its school, and there were higher inst.i.tutions of learning, especially at Jungbunzlau and Litomysl. Of the six Bohemian printing-offices they possessed three, while the Catholics had but one and the Calixtins two. Of the sixty books issued in Bohemia between 1500 and 1510, fifty were printed by the Brethren.[610]

From this period until the death of Ladislas, in 1516, they were subjected to intermittent but severe persecution, especially in Bohemia.

Ladislas, in his will, left instructions for their extermination "for the sake of his soul's salvation and of the true faith;" but the minority of his son Louis, only ten years old, the breaking-out of disturbances, and the feuds between Catholic and Calixtin brought them peace. The exiled pastors returned, the churches were reopened, and public service was resumed. With the rise of Lutheranism and the negotiations between the Bohemians and the German Protestants their history pa.s.ses beyond our present horizon, except to allude to the fidelity with which they endured the shocks of the counter-Reformation, and succeeded in transmitting to our own time the lessons which they had learned from Peter Waldo and John Wickliff. They brought across the Atlantic the union of fearless zeal with the gentler Christian virtues, and in the annals of Pennsylvania the name of Moravian came to represent all that serves as the firmest and surest foundation of social organization. Parkman has well indicated the contrast between the civilizing influence of the kindly Moravian missionaries and the manner in which their Jesuit rivals were content to subst.i.tute the cross as a fetich in place of the medicine-bag. The same well-directed enthusiasm endures to the present day. Small as is the Moravian Church, it maintained in 1885 no less than three hundred and nineteen missionaries scattered among the remote places of the earth, with over eighty-one thousand native converts as church members; and the more rugged and inhospitable the fields of labor the more earnest the zeal of the good Brethren. But for them the savage coasts of Greenland would be almost dest.i.tute of Christian teaching, and in their truly apostolic work we may recognize that the blood of the martyrs of Constance was not shed in vain.[611]

APPENDIX.

I.

EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE MAGISTRATES OF TOULOUSE, JULY 24, 1237.

(Doat, XXI. fol. 146.)

Manifestum eit omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris quod nos frater Stepha.n.u.s de ordine fratrum Minorum et frater Guilhelmus A. de ordine fratrum Predicatorum inquisitores inst.i.tuti ad faciendam inquisitionem contra hereticos, fautores, receptatores et deffensores hereticorum Tholose et in tota diocesi Tholosana; c.u.m per diligentem inquisitionem a n.o.bis factam const.i.terit n.o.bis R.

Centulli et Sicardum de Tholosa et R. Rogerii et Alamannum de Roaxio et R. Embruni et Ondradam uxorem Arnaldi Petrarii infectos esse heretica pravitate, per sententiam diffinitivam eos esse hereticos condemnaverimus. Petrum de Tholosa vicarium Tholose et capitularios Tholose diligenter et legitime tam per nos quam per alios admonuimus ut dictos hereticos caperent et de dictis hereticis facerent quod est de hereticis faciendum; c.u.mi gitur vicarius et capitularii, neglectis et contemptis omnibus supradictis admonitionibus a n.o.bisfactis, non solum non ceperunt eos nec de terra eos fugaverunt, vel eorum bona occupaverunt ut tenentur, sed etiam in periculum animarum suarum et in prejudicium fidei, pacis et ecclesie R. Rogerii et Alamannum de Roaxio predictos hereticos condemnatos tolerant et sustinent in stratis publicis circa Tholosam et aliis locis eotum jurisdictioni subditis, capere viros religiosos et clericos ac eorum bonis propriis spoliare et ad redemptionem compellere, et vulnerare et injuriis eos afficere, necnon et viros Catholicos c.u.m clericis commorantes occidere mutilare et alia mala ceclesiis et ecclesiasticis viris inferre, maxime c.u.m nos dicti inquisitores publice excommunicaverimus omnem hominem tam virum quam mulierem tanquam fautorem et deffensorem hereticorum qui eis consilium vel auxilium aliquod eis occulte vel manifeste prestaret, et vicarius et capitularii supradicti contra prohibitionem nostram temere supradictos hereticos in supradictis malitiis fovent nequiter et sustentant; et c.u.m insuper ipsi sacramento et const.i.tutionibus ecclesie teneantur hereticos ubique capere et totam terram eorum jurisdictioni subjectam a pravitate heretica extirpare, non attendentes quod scriptura dicit, non est grandis differentia utrum letum admittas vel differas quoniam mortem languentibus probatur infligere qui hanc, c.u.m possit, non excludit et alibi dicatur canone, quod error cui non resist.i.tur probatur, et negligere c.u.m possit arguere perversos nihil aliud est quam fovere, nec caret scrupulo societatis occulte qui manifesto facinori distulit obviare, maxime c.u.m vicarius et capitularii supradicti alia vice tanquam fautores et deffensores hereticorum fuerint excommunicati, predictos vicarium et capitularios, habito diligenti consilio et tractatu, a.s.sidentibus n.o.bis venerabili patre R. Dei gratia episcopo Tholosano et B. abbate Mansi sub Verduno, et P. preposito Sancti Stephani, et P. priore ecclesie beate Marie desurate, tanquam fautores et sustentatores hereticorum auctoritate qua fungimur excommunicationis vinculo innodamus.

Lata fuit hec sententia publice in ecclesia sancti Stephani Tholose, coram multis viris religiosis et capellanis parochialium ecclesiarum Tholose et aliis viris ecclesiasticis, IX Kal. Augusti anno Domini MCCx.x.xVII.

II.

ARGUMENT OF BERNARD DeLICIEUX BEFORE PHILIPPE LE BEL, TOULOUSE, 1304.

(Bib. Nat. MSS., fonds latin. No. 4270, fol. 138.)

Dixit etiam se dixisse tunc ipse frater Bernardus quod Deus fecerat magnam gratiam patriae in adventu ipsius domini regis, eo quod dictus frater Guilhelmus Petri, ordinis praedicatorum, tunc prior provincialis, praesentibus inquisitoribus Tolosae et Carca.s.sonae et multis aliis fratribus ejusdem ordinis, dixit et confessus est loquens in personam inquisitorum praedictorum, in praesentia ipsius regis et plurium quam quingentarum personarum in aula superiori ipsius domini regis existentium, quod in tota lingua occitana non erant haeretici nisi tantummodo in burgo Carca.s.sonae, Albiae vel Corduae, vel in circuitu per unam leucam vel duas, et quod illi non erant quadraginta, et si erant quadraginta non erant quinquaginta, et quod hoc dictus frater Guilhelmus dixit bis in praesentia praedictorum; et ideo intulit tunc ipse frater Bernardus, ut dixit, quod patria quae hactenus fuerat diffamata testimonio ipsorum inquisitorum ab infamia praedicta in adventu ipsius domini regis fuerat relevata, et sperabat frater Bernardus, ut dixit tunc se dixisse, quod ex quo tunc secundum verba eorum tota patria erat sana, excepta s.e.x leucis et quinquaginta personis, quod leucae illae et personae ac tres villae praedictae adhuc invenientur immunes a labe haeresis praedicta. Dixit etiam tunc se dixisse, quod si hodie viverent beati Petrus et Paulus, et contra eos impingeretur quod haereticos adora.s.sent, si procederetur contra eos super hujusmodi adoratione, sicut per aliquos inquisitores istarum partium aliquando contra multos fuit processum nee pateret eis via deffensionis. Si enim de fide interrogarentur, responderent sicut magistri et doctores, ubi autem diceretur eis quod haereticos adora.s.sent, et quaererent quos haereticos, et dicerentur eis sola nomina dictorum haereticorum (quae quidem nomina et cognomina multis conveniunt) et ipsi beati Petrus et Paulus dicerent "Istos nunquam novimus. Dicatis n.o.bis ubi sunt vel unde venerunt et quo iverunt, cujus linguae, staturae aut conditionis erant" et nihil eis diceretur per quod not.i.tia dictorum haeereticorum, qui dic.u.n.tur adorati haberi posset: si etiam quaererent quo tempore facta fuerit haec adoratio, et non diceretur dies, mensis nec annus: si etiam quaererent nomina testium et non darentur eis, non est qui possit exprimere, ut dixit tunc se dixisse ipse frater Bernardus quod hi apostoli qui tam sancti sunt, a tali macula coram hominibus se possent deffendere, maxime c.u.m si quis vellet eos deffendere statim impingeretur quod erat fautor haereticorum, sicut ipse frater Bernardus in se ipso et dicto vicedomino probavit.