Chapter VII: Bohemia (4)

On May 30 the final acts of the tragedy were hurried through; the council assembled early, and by ten o'clock Jerome was at the stake. After the mass, the Bishop of Lodi preached a sermon. He had been selected to perform the same office at the condemnation of Huss, and the brutality of his triumph over the unfortunate prisoner on this occasion even exceeded his former effort. The charity and tenderness with which Jerome had been treated ought to have softened his heart, even had the recollection of his crimes failed to do so. A comparison was drawn between the favor shown him and the severity customary with suspected heretics. "You were not tortured--I wish you had been, for it would have forced you to vomit forth all your errors; such treatment would have opened your eyes, which guilt had closed." The nobles present were called upon to mark how Huss and Jerome, two base-born men, plebeians of the lowest rank and unknown origin, had dared to trouble the noble kingdom of Bohemia, and what evils had sprung from the presumption of those two peasants. Then Jerome in a few dignified sentences replied, asserting his conscientiousness and deploring his condemnation of Wickliff and Huss. Cardinal Zabarella, he said, was winning him over when his judges were changed and he would not plead to new ones. His abjuration was read to him; he acknowledged it; he said it had been extorted by the dread of fire. Then the prosecutor asked for a definite sentence in writing against him, and the head commissioner, John of Constantinople, read a long one condemning him as a supporter of Wickliff and Huss, and ending with the declaration that he was a relapsed heretic and anathematized excommunicate. To this the council unanimously responded "_Placet_." There was no pretence of asking mercy for him. He was handed over to the secular power with a command that it should do its duty under the sentence rendered. Not being in orders, there was no ceremony of degradation to be performed, but a tall paper crown with painted devils was brought. He tossed his cap among the prelates and put on the crown, saying, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to die for me, wore a crown of thorns. In place of that, I gladly bear this for his sake," and with this he was hurried off to execution on the same spot where Huss had suffered.[544]

The details of the execution were much the same, except that Jerome was stripped and a cloth tied around his loins. He sang the Creed and a litany, and when his voice could no longer be heard in the flames his lips were still seen to move as though praying to himself; after his beard was burned off, a blister the size of an egg was seen to form itself, showing that he still was alive, and his agony was unusually prolonged, through his extraordinary strength and vitality. One eye-witness says that he shrieked awfully, but other unfriendly witnesses declare that he continued praying till his voice was checked by the fire, and Poggio, who was present, was much impressed with his cheerful courage to the last. When bound to the stake, the executioner offered to light the fire from behind, where he could not see it, but he refused: "Come forward," he said, "and light the fire where I can see it. Had I feared this, I would not have been here." Æneas Sylvius likewise couples him with Huss for the unsurpassed constancy of his death. After it was over, his bedding, shoes, cap, and all his personal effects were brought from his dungeon and thrown upon the pile, that no relic of him might be left, and the ashes were cast into the Rhine.[545]

It only remained to secure the submission of John of Chlum, the courageous defender of Huss. He had remained in Constance and was in the power of the council. What means were adopted for his abasement do not appear, but, on July 1, he swore to maintain the faith, admitted that Huss and Jerome had suffered justly, and desired letters of his declaration to be made, that he might send them to Bohemia.[546]