Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (13)

§ 119.3. =John Huss of Hussinecz= in Bohemia, born A.D. 1369,
was Bachelor of Theology at Prague, in A.D. 1394, Master
of Liberal Arts in A.D. 1396, became public teacher in the
university in A.D. 1398, was ordained priest in A.D. 1400,
undertook a pastorate in A.D. 1402 in the Bethlehem chapel,
where he had to preach in the Bohemian language, was chosen
confessor of Queen Sophia in A.D. 1403, and was soon afterwards
made synodal preacher by the new archbishop, Sbynko of Hasenburg.
Till then he had in pious humility accepted all the doctrines
of the Romish Church, and even in A.D. 1392 he offered his last
four groschen for an indulgence, so that for a long time dry
bread was his only nourishment. But about A.D. 1402 he reached
an important crisis in his life through the study of Wiclif’s
theological works.--Bohemians who had studied in Oxford brought
with them Wiclif’s philosophical works, and in A.D. 1348 the
discussion on realism and nominalism broke out in Prague. The
Bohemians generally sided with Wiclif for realism; the Germans
with the nominalists (§ 113, 3). This helped to prepare an
entrance for Wiclif’s theological writings into Bohemia. Of the
national party which favoured Wiclif’s philosophy and theology,
Huss was soon recognised as a leader. A university decree of
A.D. 1403 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s works
as heretical, and forbade their promulgation in lectures or
sermons. Huss however was still highly esteemed by Archbishop
Sbynko. In A.D. 1405 he appointed Huss, with other three
scholars, a commission to investigate a reputed miracle at
Wilsnack, where on the altar of a ruined church three blood-red
coloured hosts were said to have been found. Huss pronounced
the miracle a cheat, and proved in a tract that the blood of
Christ glorified can only be invisibly present in the sacrament
of the altar. The archbishop approved this tract, and forbade
all pilgrimages to the spot. He also took no offence at Huss
for uttering Wiclifite doctrine in his synod sermon. Only when,
in A.D. 1408, the clergy of his diocese complained that Huss by
his preaching made the priests contemptible before the people,
did he deprive him of his function as synod preacher. When the
majority of cardinals at Leghorn in A.D. 1408 took steps to put
an end to the schism, king Wenzel determined to remain neutral,
and demanded the assent of the university as well as the clergy
of his realm. But only the Bohemian members of the university
agreed, while the rest, along with the archbishop, supported
Gregory XII. Sbynko keenly resented the revolt of the Bohemians,
and forbade Huss as their spokesman to preach within his diocese.
Huss paid no attention to the prohibition, but secured a royal
injunction, that henceforth in the university Bohemians should
have three votes and foreigners only one. The foreigners then
withdrew, and founded the University of Leipzig in A.D. 1409.
Huss was made first rector of the newly organized University
of Prague; but the very fact of his great popularity in Bohemia
caused him to be profoundly hated in other lands.[349]

§ 119.4. The archbishop escaped prosecution only by
unreservedly condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, burning his
books, and prohibiting all lectures upon them. Huss and his
friends appealed to John XXIII., but this did not prevent the
archbishop burning in his palace yard about two hundred Wiclifite
books that had previously escaped his search. For this he was
hooted in the streets, and compelled by the courts of law to
pay the value of the books destroyed. John XXIII. cited Huss
to appear at Rome. King, nobles, magistrates, and university
sided with him; but the papal commission condemned him when he
did not appear, and the archbishop pronounced anathema against
him and the interdict against Prague (A.D. 1411). Huss appealed
to the œcumenical council, and continued to preach. The court
forced the archbishop to become reconciled with Huss, and to
admit his orthodoxy. Sbynko reported to the pope that Bohemia
was free from heresy. He soon afterwards died. The pope himself
was the cause of a complete breach, by having an indulgence
preached in Bohemia in A.D. 1412 for a crusade against Ladislaus
of Naples, the powerful adherent of Gregory XII. Huss opposed
this by word and writing, and in a public disputation maintained
that the pope had no right to grant such indulgence. His most
stanch supporter was a Bohemian knight, Jerome of Prague, who
had studied at Oxford, and returned in A.D. 1402 an enthusiastic
adherent of Wiclif’s doctrines. Their addresses produced
an immense impression, and two days later their disorderly
followers, to throw contempt on the papal party, had the bull
of indulgence paraded through the streets, on the breast of a
public prostitute, representing the whore of Babylon, and then
cast into the flames. But many old friends now withdrew from Huss
and joined his opponents. The papal curia thundered against him
and his followers the great excommunication, with its terrible
curses. Wherever he resided that place was put under interdict.
But Huss appealed to the one righteous Judge, Jesus Christ. At
the wish of the king he left the city, and sought the protection
of various noble patrons, from whose castles he went forth
diligently preaching round about. He spread his views all over
the country by controversial and doctrinal treatises in Latin
and Bohemian, as well as by an extensive correspondence with
his friends and followers. Thus the trouble and turmoil grew
from day to day, and all the king’s efforts to restore peace
were in vain.

§ 119.5. The Roman emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to attend the
Council of Constance (§ 110, 7), and promised him a safe-conduct.
Though not yet in possession of this latter, which he only
got at Constance, trusting to the righteousness of his cause,
for which he was quite willing to die a martyr’s death, he
started for Constance on 11th October, A.D. 1414, reaching his
destination on 3rd November. On 28th November he was sentenced
to imprisonment at a private conference of the cardinals, on the
pretended charge of an attempt at flight, first in the Dominican
cloister, then in the bishop’s castle of Gottlieben, where he
was put in chains, finally in the Franciscan cloister. Sigismund,
who had not been forewarned when he was cast into prison, ordered
his release; but the council convinced him that Huss, arraigned
as a heretic before a general council, was beyond the reach
of civil protection. His bitterest enemies and accusers were
two Bohemians, Michael of Deutschbrod and Stephan of Palecz.
The latter extracted forty-two points for accusations from his
writings, which Huss from his prison retracted. D’Ailly and
Gerson were both against him. The brave knight John of Chlum
stood faithfully by him as a comforter to the last. For almost
seven months was he harassed by private examinations, in which,
notwithstanding his decided repudiation of many of them, he was
charged with all imaginable Wiclifite heresies. The result was
the renewed condemnation of those forty-five propositions from
Wiclif’s writings, which had been condemned A.D. 1408 by the
University of Prague. At last, on 5th June, A.D. 1415, he was
for the first time granted a public trial, but the tumult at
the sitting was so great that he was prevented from saying a
single word. Even on the two following days of the trial he
could do little more than make a vain protest against being
falsely charged with errors, and declare his willingness to be
better instructed from God’s word. The humility and gentleness of
his demeanour, as well as the enthusiasm and believing joyfulness
which he displayed, won for him many hearts even outside of the
council. All possible motives were urged to induce him to submit.
Sigismund so exhorted him, with the threat that if he did not
he would withdraw his protection. The third and last day of
trial was 8th June, A.D. 1415, and judgment was pronounced in
the cathedral church on the 6th July. After high mass had been
celebrated, a bishop mounted the pulpit and preached on Romans
vi. 6. He addressed Sigismund, who was present, “By destroying
this heretic, thou shalt obtain an undying name to all ensuing
generations.” Once again called upon to recant, Huss repeated
his previous protests, appealed to the promise of a safe-conduct,
which made Sigismund wince and blush, and kneeling down prayed
to God for his enemies and unjust judges. Then seven bishops
dressed him in priestly robes in order to strip him of them one
after another amid solemn execrations. Then they put on him a
high pyramidal hat, painted with figures of devils, and bearing
the inscription, _Hæresiarcha_, and uttered the words, “We give
thy soul to the devil.” He replied: “I commend it into the hands
of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” On that same day he was given over
by Sigismund to Louis Count-palatine of the Rhine, and by him
to the Constance magistrates, and led to the stake. Amid prayer
and praise he expired, joyfully, courageously, and confidently,
showing himself worthy to rank among the martyrs who in the best
times of Christianity had sealed their Christian confession with
their blood. His ashes were scattered on the Rhine. The later
Hussites, in accordance with an old Christian custom (§ 39, 5),
celebrated the day of his death as the _dies natalis_ of the
holy martyr John Huss.--=Jerome of Prague= had gone unasked to
Constance. When he saw that his longer stay would not help his
friend, but only involve himself in his fate, he left the city;
but was seized on the way, and taken back in chains in April,
A.D. 1415. During a severe half-year’s imprisonment, and wearied
with the importunities of his judges, he agreed to recant, and
to acquiesce in the sentence of Huss. But he was not trusted, and
after as before his recantation he was kept in close confinement.
Then his courage revived. He demanded a public trial before the
whole council, which was at last granted him in May, A.D. 1416.
There he solemnly and formally retracted his previous retractation
with a believer’s confidence and a martyr’s joy. On May 30th,
A.D. 1416, he, too, died at the stake, joyfully and courageously
as Huss had done. The Florentine humanist Poggio, who was present,
has given enthusiastic expression in a still extant letter to his
admiration at the heroic spirit of the martyr.

§ 119.6. In all his departures from Romish doctrine Huss was
dependent upon Wiclif, not only for the matter, but even for
the modes of expression. He did not however separate himself
quite so far from the Church doctrines as his English master.
He firmly maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation; he was
also inclined to withhold the cup from the laity; and, though
he sought salvation only from the Saviour crucified for us, he
did not refuse to give any place to works in the justification
of the sinner, and even invocation of the saints he did not
wholly condemn. While he energetically protested against the
corruption of the clergy, he never denied that the sacrament
might be efficaciously administered by an unworthy priest. In
everything else however he was in thorough agreement with the
English reformer. The most complete exposition of his doctrine
is found in the _Tractatus de ecclesia_ of A.D. 1413. Augustine’s
doctrine of predestination is its foundation. He distinguishes
from the church as a visible human institution the idea of the
church as the true body of Christ, embracing all elected in
Christ to blessedness from eternity. Its one and only head is
Christ: not Peter, not the pope; for this church is no monster
with two heads. Originally and according to Christ’s appointment
the bishop of Rome was no more than the other bishops. The
donation of Constantine first gave him power and dignity over
the rest. As the church in the beginning could exist without
a pope, so the church unto the end can exist without one. The
Christian can obey the pope only where his commands and doctrines
agree with those of Christ. In matters of faith Holy Scripture
is the only authority. Fathers, councils, and popes may err,
and have erred; only the word of God is infallible.--That
this liberal reforming Council of Constance, with a Gerson
at its head, should have sentenced such a man to death is not
to be wondered at when we rightly consider how matters stood.
His hateful realism seemed to the nominalistic fathers of the
council the source of all conceivable heresies. It had even
been maintained that realism consistently carried out would
give a fourth person to the Godhead. His devotion to the national
interests of Bohemia in the University of Prague had excited
German national feeling against him. And, further, the council,
which was concerned only with outward reforms, had little
sympathy with the evangelical tone of his spirit and doctrine.
Besides this, Huss had placed himself between the swords of two
contending parties. The hierarchical party wished, in order to
strike terror into their opponents, to show by an example that
the church had still the power to burn heretics; and the liberal
party refused to this object of papal hate all protection, lest
they should endanger the cause of reformation by incurring a
suspicion of sympathy with heresy.--The prophecy said to have
been uttered by Huss in his last moments, “To-day you burn a
goose (this being the meaning of Huss in Slavonian), but from
its ashes will arise a swan (Luther’s coat of arms), which you
will not be able to burn,” was unknown to his contemporaries.
Probably it originated in the Reformation age from the appeals
of both martyrs to the judgment of God and history. Huss had
often declared that instead of the weak goose there would come
powerful eagles and falcons.[350]

§ 119.7. =Calixtines and Taborites.=--During the imprisonment
of their leader the Hussite party was headed by Jacob of Misa,
pastor of St. Michael’s church in Prague. With consent of Huss
he introduced the use of the cup by the laity and rejected the
_jejunium eucharisticum_ as opposed to Matthew xxvi. 26. This
led to an interchange of controversial tracts between Prague and
Constance on the withholding of the cup. The council decreed that
whoever disobeys the Church on this point is to be punished as a
heretic. This decree, followed by the execution of Huss, roused
Bohemia to the uttermost. King Wenceslaw died in A.D. 1419 in the
midst of national excitement, and the estates refused to crown
his brother Sigismund, “the word-breaker.” Now arose a civil war,
A.D. 1420-1436, characterized by cruelties on both sides rarely
equalled. At the head of the Hussites, who had built on the brow
of a steep hill the strong fortress Tabor, was the one-eyed,
afterwards blind, =John Ziska of Trocznov=. The crusading armies
sent against the Hussites were one after another destroyed;
but the gentle spirit of Huss had no place among most of his
followers. The two parties became more and more embittered toward
one another. The aristocratic =Calixtines= (_calix_, cup) or
Utraquists (_sub utraque_), at whose head was Bishop Rokycana
of Prague, declared that they would be satisfied if the Catholic
church would concede to them four articles:

1. Communion under both kinds;

2. Preaching of the pure gospel in the vulgar tongue;

3. Strict discipline among the clergy; and

4. Renunciation by the clergy of church property.

On the other hand, the =Taborites= would have no reconciliation
with the Romish church, regarding as fundamentally corrupt in
doctrine and worship whatever is not found in Scripture, and
passing over into violent fanaticism, iconoclasm, etc. After
Ziska’s death of the plague in A.D. 1424, the majority of the
Taborites elected Procopius the Great as his successor. A small
party that regarded no man worthy of succeeding the great Ziska,
refused him allegiance, and styled themselves Orphans. They were
the most fanatical of all.--Meanwhile the Council of Basel had
met (§ 110, 8) and after long fruitless negotiations it was
resolved in A.D. 1433 that 300 Hussite deputies should appear
at Basel. After a fifty days’ disputation the four Calixtine
articles with certain modifications were accepted by the council.
On the basis of this =Basel Compact= the Calixtines returned
to the Romish church. The Taborites regarded this as shameful
treason to the cause of truth, and continued the conflict. But
in A.D. 1434 they were utterly annihilated at Böhmischbrod, not
far from Prague. In the Treaty of Iglau in A.D. 1436 Sigismund
swore to observe the compact, and was recognised as king. But
the concessions sworn to by church and state were more and more
restricted and ultimately ignored. Sigismund died in A.D. 1437.
In place of his son-in-law, Albert II., the Utraquists set up a
rival king in the person of the thirteen year old Polish prince
Casimir; but Albert died in A.D. 1439. His son, Ladislaus, born
after his father’s death, had, in George Podiebrad, a Calixtine
tutor. After he had grown up in A.D. 1453, he walked in his
grandfather’s footsteps, and died in A.D. 1457. The Calixtines
now elected Podiebrad king, as a firm supporter of the compact.
Pius II. recognised him in the hope that he would aid him in his
projected war against the Turks. When this hope was disappointed
he cancelled the compact, in A.D. 1462. Paul II. put the king
under him, and had a crusade preached against him. Podiebrad
however still held his ground. He died in A.D. 1471. His
successor, Wladislaw II., a Polish prince, though a zealous
Catholic, was obliged to confirm anew to the Calixtines
at the Diet of Cuttenberg, in A.D. 1485, all their rights
and liberties. Yet they could not maintain themselves as
an independent community. Those of them who did not join
the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren gradually during the
16th century became thoroughly amalgamated with the Catholic
church.

§ 119.8. =The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.=--George Podiebrad
took Tabor in A.D. 1453, and scattered the last remnants of the
Taborites. Joining with the evangelical Friends of God, they
received from the king a castle, where, under the leadership
of the local pastor, Michael of Bradacz, they formed a _Unitas
fratrum_, and called themselves Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.
But in A.D. 1461 Podiebrad withdrew his favour, and confiscated
their goods. They fled into the woods, and met for worship in
caves. In A.D. 1467 the most distinguished of the Bohemian and
Moravian Brethren met in a Bohemian village, Shota, with the
German Waldensians, and chose three brethren by lot as priests,
who were ordained by Michael and a Waldensian priest. But
when the validity of their ordination was disputed, Michael
went to the Waldensian bishop Stephen, got from him episcopal
consecration, and then again ordained the three chosen at Shota,
one, Matthias of Conewald, as bishop, the other two as priests.
This led Rokycana to persecute them all the more bitterly. They
increased their numbers however, by receiving the remnants of
the Waldensians and many Utraquists, until by the beginning of
the 16th century they had four hundred congregations in Bohemia
and Moravia. Under Wladislaw II. persecution was stopped from
A.D. 1475, but was renewed with great violence in A.D. 1503. They
sent in A.D. 1511 a confession of faith to Erasmus (§ 120, 6),
with the request that he would give his opinion about it; which
he however, fearing to be compromised thereby, declined to do.
After the death of Bishop Matthias, in A.D. 1500, a dislike
of monarchy led to the appointment of four _Seniors_ instead
of one bishop, two for Bohemia and two for Moravia. The most
important and influential of these was Luke of Prague, who
died in A.D. 1518, rightly regarded as the second founder
of the union. He impressed a character upon the brotherhood
essentially distinct in respect of constitution and doctrine
from the Lutheran Reformation.--Continuation § 139, 19.

§ 119.9. =The Waldensians.=

1. The range of the missionary enterprise of the
=Lombard-German Waldensians= was widely extended during
the 14th century. At the close of that period it stretched
“from western Switzerland across the southern borders
of the empire, from the upper and middle Rhine along
the Main and through Franconia into Thuringia, from
Bohemia up to Brandenburg and Pomerania, and with its
last advances reached to Prussia, Poland, Silesia, Hungary,
Transylvania, and Galicia.” The anonymous writer of Passau,
about A.D. 1260 or 1316, reports from his own knowledge
of numerous “Leonists,” who in forty-two communities, with
a bishop at Einzinspach, in the diocese of Passau, were in
his time the subject of inquisitorial interference, and in
theory and practice bore all the characteristic marks of
the Lombard Leonists. The same applies to the Austrian
Waldensians, of whose persecution in A.D. 1391 we have
an account by Peter of Pilichdorf. We may also with equal
confidence pronounce the Winkelers, so called from holding
their services in secret corners, who about this time
appeared in Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, and the Rhine
Provinces, to be Waldensians of the same Lombard type.
Their confessors, Winkelers in the narrower sense, were
itinerant, celibate, and without fixed abode, carrying
on missionary work, and administering the sacrament of
penance to their adherents. Although, in order to avoid
the attentions of the Inquisition, they took part in
the Catholic services, and in case of need confessed to
Catholic priests, they were nevertheless traced about
A.D. 1400 to Strassburg. Thirty-two of them were thrown
into prison, and induced under torture to confess. The
Dominicans insisted that they should be immediately burned,
but the council was satisfied with banishing them from the
city. At a later period the Hussites obtained an influence
over them. One of their most notable apostles at this time
was Fr. Reiser of Swabia. In his travels he went to Bohemia,
attached himself to the Hussites there, received from
them priestly ordination, and in A.D. 1433 accompanied
their representatives to the Basel Council. Then Procopius
procured him a call to a pastorate in the little Bohemian
town of Landscron, which, however, he soon abandoned.
Encouraged by the reformatory tendency of the council,
he now remained for a long time in Basel, then conducted
missionary work in Germany, at first on his own account,
afterwards at the head of a Taborite mission of twelve
agents, in which position he styled himself _Fridericus Dei
gratia Episcopus fidelium in Romana ecclesia Constantini
donationem spernentium_. At last, in A.D. 1457, he went
to Strassburg, with the intention of there ending his days
in peace. But soon after his arrival he was apprehended,
and in A.D. 1458, along with his faithful follower, Anna
Weiler, put to death at the stake.--On the Waldensians
in German Switzerland, and the Inquisition’s oft repeated
interference with them, Ochsenbein gives a full report,
drawn from original documents, specially full in regard
to the great Inquisition trial at Freiburg, in A.D. 1430,
consisting of ninety-nine wearisome and detailed examinations.
Subsequently terrible persecutions, aiming at their
extermination, became still more frequent in Switzerland.
Also the Swiss Waldensians already bore unmistakable
marks of having been influenced by the Hussites. Finally,
Wattenbach has made interesting communications regarding
the Waldensians in Pomerania and Brandenburg, based
upon a manuscript once in the possession of Flacius, but
afterwards supposed to have been lost, discovered again
in the Wolfenbüttel library in A.D. 1884, though in a
very defective form, which contains the original reports
of 443 prosecutions for heresy in Pomerania, Brandenburg,
and Thuringia. By far the greatest number of these trials
were conducted between A.D. 1373 and 1394, by the Cœlestine
provincial Peter, appointed inquisitor by the pope. From
A.D. 1383 Stettin was the centre of his inquisitorial
activity, and on the conclusion of his work he could boast
that during the last two years he had converted to the
Catholic faith more than 1,000 Waldensians. The victims of
the Inquisition belonged almost exclusively to the peasant
and artisan classes. Their objectionable doctrines and
opinions are essentially almost the same as those of their
ancestors of the 13th century. Although equally with their
predecessors they abhorred the practice of the Catholic
church, and declared all swearing and slaughter to be
mortal sin, they yet in great part, and as it seems even
without the application of torture, were persuaded to
abjure their heresy, and incurred nothing more than a
light penance. They did this, perhaps, only in the hope
that their indulgent confessors would absolve them from
their sin. The last protocols bring us down to A.D. 1458.
Since a great number of these heretics were found again
in Brandenburg, the elector caused one of their most
distinguished leaders, the tailor Matthew Hagen, and
three of his disciples to be taken prisoners to Berlin,
and commissioned the Bishop of Brandenburg to investigate
the case; but owing to his sickness this duty devolved
upon John Cannemann, professor and doctor of theology. The
elector was himself present at the trial. The investigation
showed that the Waldensians of Brandenburg had evidently
been influenced in their opinions by the Bohemian Taborites,
and that they were constantly in close communion with them,
and Hagen confessed that he had been there ordained by
Fr. Ryss or Reiser to the clerical office. When Hagen
persistently refused to retract, he was delivered over
to the civil authorities for punishment, and was by them
executed, probably at the stake. His three companions
abjured their heresy, and on submitting to church discipline
and wearing clothes marked with the sign of the cross, were
pardoned. Cannemann then proceeded to Angermünde, where in
the city and surrounding country crowds of such heretics
resided; and there he succeeded without great difficulty
in bringing them to abjure their errors and accept the
Catholic confession.--The Waldensians in Bohemia and
Moravia quite voluntarily amalgamated with the “_United
Brethren_” there. The remnants of the German and Swiss
Waldensians may have attached themselves to the Reformation
of the 16th century, but probably for the most part to the
Protestant sects of that age, some joining Schwenkfeld,
and still more going with the Anabaptists, to whom they
were essentially much more closely related than to Luther
or Zwingli.--As to the ultimate fate of the Lombard
Waldensians themselves, we know nothing. Probably many
of them sought escape from the persecutions which raged
against them among the French Waldensians in the valleys
of Piedmont.

§ 119.9A.

2. The remnants of the =French Waldensians= and their lay
adherents down to the beginning of the 14th century had for
the most part settled in the remote and little cultivated
valleys on both sides of the Cottian Alps. This settlement,
which bore the character of an assembly as well as that of
an isolation, now rendered indispensable the organization
of an independent congregational order, such as had never
been attempted before. In the arrangements of this community,
not only was the question of clerical rank simplified by
the combination of the order of bishop or _majoralis_ with
that of the presbyter, to which combined office was given
the honourable designation of “_barbe_,” uncle, and instead
of the hitherto annual tenure of this office was introduced
a life tenure, but also to the laity was assigned a share
in the church government at their synod meetings. A bull
of John XXII., of A.D. 1332, informs us that then in the
Piedmontese valleys _ita creverunt et multiplicati sunt
hæretici, præcipue de secta Waldensium, quod frequenter
congregationes per modum capitali facere inibi præsumpserunt,
in quibus aliquando 500 Valdenses fuerunt insimul congregati_;
yet certainly not merely clergy, as among the earlier
congregations on the yearly tenure. The great, yea,
extraordinarily great, number of the Waldensians in the
Piedmontese valleys is proved by this, that from thence,
since A.D. 1340, flourishing colonies of Waldensians were
transplanted into Calabria and Apulia with the connivance
of the larger proprietors in those parts. Those who had
settled on the western side, in the province of Dauphiné,
succumbed completely in A.D. 1545 to the oft repeated
persecutions. The colonies of southern Italy, however,
seem long to have led a quiet and little disturbed life
under the protection of the territorial princes, until
their adoption of Protestant views called down upon
them the attention of the Inquisition, and led to their
utter extermination in A.D. 1561. On the other hand, the
Waldensians of Piedmont, in spite of continuous oppression
and frequently renewed persecution, maintained their
existence down to the present day. When in the beginning
of the 15th century their residence came under the sway of
the Duke of Savoy, the persecutions began, and lasted down
to A.D. 1477, when a crusade for their extermination was
summoned by Innocent VIII., which ended in the utter rout
of the crusading army by Savoy and France. They had now a
long period of repose, till their adoption of Protestant
views in the 16th century anew awakened against them the
horrors of persecution. In this time of rest brotherly
intercourse was cultivated between the Waldensian groups
and the Bohemian Brethren, who had hitherto maintained
relations only with the German Waldensians. This movement
originated with the Bohemians. Even at an earlier date,
these, inspired by the wish to seek abroad what they could
not obtain at home, namely, communion with a church free
from Romish corruptions, had made a voyage of discovery
in the east, which yielded no result. Now, in A.D. 1497,
they determined to make another similar search, under the
leadership of Luke of Prague, in the primitive haunts of
the Waldensians in France and Italy. The deputies went
forth, beginning with the south of France, and the remnants
of the French communities in their settlements among the
Piedmontese Alps. More detailed reports of their intercourse
with these no longer exist, but it cannot be doubted that
there was a mutual interchange of religious writings. It
is a question therefore that has been much discussed as
to which party was the chief gainer by this interchange.
But it can now be no longer questioned that the Waldensians,
as those who were far less advanced in the direction of
the evangelical reformation, learnt much from the Bohemians,
and by transferring it into their own literature, secured
it as their permanent property.

§ 119.10. =The Dutch Reformers= sprang mostly from the Brothers
of the Common Life (§ 112, 9).

1. =John Pupper of Goch= in Cleves, prior of a cloister
founded by him at Mecheln, died A.D. 1475. His works
show him to have been a man of deep spirituality. Love,
which leads to the true freedom of sons of God, is
the _material_, the sole authority of Scripture is the
_formal_, principle of his theology, which rests on a
purely Augustinian foundation. He contends against the
doctrine of righteousness by works, the meritoriousness
of vows, etc.

2. =John Ruchrath of Wesel=, professor in Erfurt, afterwards
preacher at Mainz and Worms, died in A.D. 1481. On the
basis of a strictly Augustinian theology he opposed the
papal systems of anathemas and indulgences, and preached
powerfully salvation by Jesus Christ only. For the church
doctrine of transubstantiation he substituted one of
impanation. He spiritualized the doctrine of the church.
Against the ecclesiastical injunction of fasts, he wrote
_De jejunio_; against indulgences, _De indulgentiis_;
against the hierarchy, _De potestate ecclesiastica_. The
Dominicans of Mainz accused and condemned him as a heretic
in A.D. 1479. The old man, bent down with age and sickness,
was forced to recant, and to burn his writings, and was
sentenced to imprisonment for life in a monastery.

3. =John Wessel= of Gröningen was a scholar of the Brothers
of the Common Life at Zwoll, where Thomas à Kempis exerted
a powerful influence over him. He taught in Cologne, Lyons,
Paris, and Heidelberg, and then retired to the cloister
of Agnes Mount, near Zwoll, where he died in A.D. 1489.
His friends called him _Lux mundi_. Scholastic dialectics,
mystical depths, and rich classical culture were in him
united with a clear and accurate knowledge of science.
Luther says of him: “Had I read Wessel before, my enemies
would have said, Luther has taken everything from Wessel,
so thoroughly do our ideas agree.” His views are in
harmony with Luther’s, especially in what he teaches of
Holy Scripture, the universal priesthood of Christians,
indulgence, repentance, faith, and justification. He
taught that not only popes but even councils may err and
have erred; excommunication has merely outward efficacy,
indulgence has to do only with ecclesiastical penalties,
and God alone can forgive sins; our justification rests
on Christ’s righteousness and God’s free grace. Purgatory
meant for him nothing more than the intermediate position
between earthly imperfection and heavenly perfection, which
is attained only through various stages. The protection
of powerful friends saved him from the persecution of
the Inquisition. Many of his works were destroyed by the
diligence of the mendicant friars. The most important of
his extant writings is the _Farrago_, a collection of short
treatises.[351]

4. The priest of Rostock, =Nicholas Russ=, in the end of
the 15th century, deserves honourable mention alongside
of these Dutchmen. Living in intimate relations with
Bohemian Waldensians, he was subjected to many indignities,
and died a fugitive in Livonia. He wrote in the Dutch
language a tract against the hierarchy, indulgences,
worship of saints and relics, etc., which was translated
into German by Flacius. A copy of it was found in Rostock
library in A.D. 1850. It is entitled, “Of the Rope or
of the Three Strings.” The rope that will raise man from
the depths of his corruption must be made up of the three
strings, faith, hope, and love. These three strings are
described in succession, and so the book forms a complete
compendium of Christian faith and life, with a sharp polemic
against the debased church doctrine and morals of the age.

§ 119.11. =An Italian Reformer.=--=Jerome Savonarola=, born
A.D. 1452, monk and from A.D. 1481 prior of the Dominican
cloister of San Marco in Florence, was from A.D. 1489 in high
repute in that city as an eloquent and passionate preacher of
repentance, with even reckless boldness declaiming against the
depravity of clergy and laity, princes and people. With his whole
soul a Dominican, and as such an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas,
practising rigid self-discipline by fasts and flagellations,
he was led by the study of Augustine and Scripture to a pure
and profound knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of salvation,
which he sought, not in the merits and intercession of the saints,
nor in the performance of good works, but only in the grace of
God and justification through faith in the crucified Saviour
of sinners. But with this he combined a prophetic-apocalyptic
theory, according to which he thought himself called and fitted
by Divine inspiration, like the prophets of the Old Testament,
to grapple with the political problems of the age. And, in fact,
he made many a hardened sinner tremble by revealing contemplated
secret sins, and many of his political prophecies seem to have
been fulfilled with surprising accuracy. Thus he prophesied
the death of Innocent VIII. in A.D. 1492, and proclaimed the
speedy overthrow of the house of the Medici in Florence, as
well as the punishment of other Italian tyrants and the thorough
reformation of the church by a foreign king crossing the Alps
with a powerful army. And lo, in the following year, the king
of France, Charles VIII., crossed the Alps to enforce his claims
upon Naples and force from the pope recognition of the Basel
reforms; the Medici were banished from Florence, and Naples
unresistingly fell into the hands of the French. Thus the ascetic
monk of San Marco became the man of the people, who now began
with ruthless energy to carry out, not only moral and religious
reformatory notions, but also his political ideal of a democratic
kingdom of God. In vain did Alexander VI. seek by offer of a
cardinal’s hat to win over the demagogical prophet and reformer;
he only replied, “I desire no other red hat than that coloured
by the blood of martyrdom.” In vain did the pope insist that
he should appear before him at Rome; in vain did he forbid him
the pulpit, from which he so powerfully moved the people. An
attempt to restore the Medici also failed. At the carnival in
A.D. 1497 Savonarola proved the supremacy of his influence over
the people by persuading them, instead of the usual buffoonery,
to make a bonfire of the articles of luxury and vanity. But
already the political movements were turning out unfavourably,
and his utterances were beginning to lose their reputation
as true prophecies. Charles VIII. had been compelled to quit
Italy in A.D. 1495, and Savonarola’s assurances of his speedy
return were still unfulfilled. Popular favour vacillated, while
the nobles and the libertine youth were roused to the utmost
bitterness against him. The Franciscans, as members of a rival
order, were his sworn enemies. The papal ban was pronounced
against him in A.D. 1497, and the city was put under the
interdict. A monk of his cloister, Fra Domenico Pescia, offered
to pass the ordeal of fire in behalf of his master, if any of his
opponents would submit to the same trial. A Franciscan declared
himself ready to do so, and all arrangements were made. But
when Domenico insisted upon taking with him a consecrated host,
the trial did not come off, to the great disappointment of a
people devotedly fond of shows. A fanatical mob took the prophet
prisoner. His bitterest enemies were his judges, who, after
torture had extorted from him a confession of false prophecy
most repugnant to his inmost convictions, condemned him to
death by fire as a deceiver of the people and a heretic. On
23rd May, A.D. 1498, he was, along with Domenico and another
monk, hung upon a gallows and then burned. The believing
joy with which he endured death deepened the reverence of
an ever-increasing band of adherents, who proclaimed him
saint and martyr. His portrait in the cell once occupied
by him, painted by Fra Bartolomeo, surrounded with the halo
of a saint, shows the veneration in which he was held by his
generation and by his order. His numerous sermons represent
to us his burning oratory. His chief work is his _Triumphus
crucis_ of A.D. 1497, an eloquent and thoughtful vindication
of Christianity against the half pagan scepticism of the
Renaissance, then dominant in Florence and at the court.
An exposition of the 51st Psalm, written in prison and not
completed, works out, with a clearness and precision never
before attained, the doctrine of justification by faith. It
was on this account republished by Luther in A.D. 1523.[352]

§ 120. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

The classical literature of Greek, and especially of Roman, antiquity was during the Middle Ages in the West by no means so completely unknown and unstudied as is commonly supposed. Rulers like Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, Alfred the Great, and the German Ottos encouraged its study. Such scholars as Erigena, Gerbert, Barnard Sylvester, John of Salisbury, Roger Bacon, etc., were relatively well acquainted with it. Moorish learning from Spain and intercourse with Byzantine scholars spread classical culture during the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Hohenstaufen rulers were its eager and liberal patrons. In the 14th century the founders of a national Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, earnestly cultivated and encouraged classical studies. But an extraordinary revival of interest in such pursuits took place during the 15th century. The meeting of Greeks and Italians at the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6) gave the first impulse, while the Turkish invasion and the downfall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453 gave it the finishing touch. Immense numbers of Byzantine scholars fled to Italy, and were accorded an enthusiastic reception at the Vatican and in the houses of the Medici. With the aid of printing, invented about A.D. 1450, the treasures of classical antiquity were made accessible to all. From the time of this immigration, too, classical studies took an altogether new direction. During the Middle Ages they were made almost exclusively to subserve ecclesiastical and theological ends, but now they were conducted in a thoroughly independent spirit, for the purpose of universal human culture. This “humanism” emancipated itself from the service of the church, assumed toward Christianity for the most part an attitude of lofty indifference, and often lost itself in a vain worship of pagan antiquity. Faith was mocked at as well as superstition; sacred history and Greek mythology were treated alike. The youths of all European countries, thirsting for knowledge, crossed the Alps, to draw from the fresh springs of the Italian academies, and took home with them the new ideas, transplanting into distant lands in a modified form the libertinism of the new paganism that had now over-run Italy.

§ 120.1. =Italian Humanists.=--Italy was the cradle of humanism,
the Greeks who settled there (§ 62, 1, 2), its fathers. The first
Greek who appeared as a teacher in Italy was Emmanuel Chrysoloras,
in A.D. 1396. After the Council of Florence, =Bessarion= and
=Gemisthus Pletho= settled there, both ardent adherents of
the Platonic philosophy, for which they created an enthusiasm
throughout all Italy. From A.D. 1453 Greek _littérateurs_ came
in crowds. From their schools classical culture and pagan ideas
spread through the land. This paganism penetrated even the
highest ranks of the hierarchy. =Leo X.=[353] is credited with
saying, “How many fables about Christ have been used by us and
ours through all these centuries is very well known.” It may not
be literally authentic, but it accurately expresses the spirit of
the papal court. Leo’s private secretary, Cardinal =Bembo=, gave
a mythological version of Christianity in classical Latin. Christ
he styled “Minerva sprung from the head of Jupiter,” the Holy
Spirit “the breath of the celestial Zephyr,” and repentance
was with him a _Deos superosque manesque placare_. Even during
the council of Florence Pletho had expressed the opinion that
Christianity would soon develop into a universal religion not
far removed from classical paganism; and when Pletho died,
Bessarion comforted his sons by saying that the deceased had
ascended into the pure heavenly spheres, and had joined the
Olympic gods in mystic Bacchus dances. In the halls of the
Medici there flourished a new Platonic school, which put Plato’s
philosophy above Christianity. Alongside of it arose a new
peripatetic school, whose representative, =Peter Pompanazzo
[Pomponazzo]=, who died A.D. 1526, openly declared that from
the philosophical point of view the immortality of the soul
is more than doubtful. The celebrated Florentine statesman and
historian =Macchiavelli=,[354] who died A.D. 1527, taught the
princes of Italy in his “Prince,” in direct contradiction to
Dante’s idealistic “Monarchia,” a realistic polity which was
completely emancipated from Christianity and every system of
morality, and presented the monster Cæsar Borgia (§ 110, 12)
as a pattern of an energetic prince, consistently labouring for
the end he had in view. Looseness of morals went hand in hand
with laxity in religion. Obscene poems and pictures circulated
among the humanists, and their practice was not behind their
theory. Poggio’s lewd facetiæ, as well as Boccadelli’s indecent
epigrams, fascinated the cultured Christian world as much by
their lascivious contents as by their classical style. From the
dialogues of Laurentius Valla on lust and the true good, which
were meant to extol the superiority of Christian morals over
those of the Epicureans and Stoics, comes the saying that the
Greek courtesans were more in favour than the Christian nuns.
The highly gifted poet, Pietro Aretino, in his poetical prose
writings reached the utmost pitch of obscenity. He was called
“the divine Aretino,” and not only Charles V. and Francis I.
honoured him with presents and pensions, but also Leo X.,
Clement VIII., and even Paul III. showed him their esteem and
favour. In their published works the Italian humanists generally
ignored rather than contested the church and its doctrines and
morality. But =Laurentius Valla=, who died A.D. 1457, ventured
in his _Adnotationes in N.T._ freely to find fault with and
correct the Vulgate. He did even more, for he pronounced the
Donation of Constantine (§ 87, 4) a forgery, and poured forth
bitter invectives against the cupidity of the papacy. He also
denied the genuineness of the correspondence of Christ with
Abgarus [Abgar] (§ 13, 2), as well as that of the Areopagite
writings (§ 47, 11) and questioned if the Apostles’ Creed was
the work of the apostles (§ 35, 2). The Inquisition sought to
get hold of him, but Nicholas V. (§ 110, 10) frustrated the
attempt and showed him kindness. With all his classical culture,
however, Valla retained no small reverence for Christianity. In
a still higher degree is this true of =John Picus=, Prince of
=Mirandola=, the phœnix of that age, celebrated as a miracle
of learning and culture, who united in himself all the nobler
strivings of the present and the past. When a youth of twenty-one
he nailed up at Rome nine hundred theses from all departments
of knowledge. The proposed disputation did not then come off,
because many of those theses gave rise to charges of heresy,
from which he was cleared only by Alexander VI. in A.D. 1493.
The combination of all sciences and the reconciliation of all
systems of philosophy among themselves and with revelation on
the basis of the Cabbala was the main point in his endeavours.
He has wrought out this idea in his _Heptaplus_, in which, by
means of a sevenfold sense of Scripture, he succeeds in deducing
all the wisdom of the world from the first chapter of Genesis.
He died in A.D. 1494, in the thirty-first year of his age. In
the last year of his life, renouncing the world and its glory,
he set himself with all his powers to the study of Scripture,
and meant to go from land to land preaching the Cross of Christ.
His intentions were frustrated by death. His saying is a very
characteristic one: _Philosophia veritatem quærit, theologia
invenit, religio possidet_.

§ 120.2. =German Humanism.=--The home of German humanism was
the University of =Erfurt=, founded A.D. 1392. At the Councils
of Constance and Basel Erfurt, next to Paris, manifested
the greatest zeal for the reformation of head and members,
and continued to pursue this course during the twenty years’
activity of John of Wesel (§ 119, 10). About A.D. 1460 the first
representatives of humanism made their appearance there, a German
Luder and a Florentine Publicius. From their school went forth
among others Rudolph of Langen, who carried the new light into
the schools of Westphalia, and John of Dalberg, afterwards Bishop
of Worms. When these two had left Erfurt, =Maternus Pistorius=
headed the humanist movement. Crowds of enthusiastic scholars
from all parts of Germany gathered around him. As men of poetic
tastes, who appreciated the ancient classics, they maintained
excellent relations with the representatives of scholasticism.
But in A.D. 1504 Busch, a violent revolutionist, appearing
at Erfurt, demanded the destruction of the old scholastic
text-books, and thus produced an absolute breach between the
two tendencies. Maternus retired, and =Mutian=, an old Erfurt
student, assumed the leadership in Gotha. Erfurt and Gotha were
kept associated by a lively intercourse between the students
resident at these two places. Mutian had no literary ambitions,
and firmly declined a call to the new University of Wittenberg.
All the more powerfully he inspired his contemporaries. His
bitter opposition to hierarchism and scholasticism was expressed
in keen satires. On retiring from public life, he devoted himself
to the study of Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Shortly before
his death he wrote down this as his confession of faith: _Multa
scit rusticus, quæ philosophus ignorat; Christus vero pro nobis
mortuus est, qui est vita nostra, quod certissime credo_. The
leadership passed over to Eoban Hesse. The members of the society
joined the party of Luther, with the exception of Crotus Rubianus.
=Ulrich von Hutten= was one of the followers of Mutian, a knight
of a noble Franconian family, inspired with ardent patriotism
and love of freedom, who gave his whole life to battle against
pedantry, monkery, and intolerance. Escaping in A.D. 1504 from
Fulda, where he was being trained for the priesthood, he studied
at Erfurt, fought in Maximilian’s army with the sword, in Mutian’s
and Reuchlin’s ranks with the pen, and after the fall of Sickingen
became a homeless wanderer, until he died in want, in A.D. 1523,
on Ufenan, an island in the Lake of Zürich.[355]

§ 120.3. Next to Erfurt, =Heidelberg=, founded in A.D. 1386,
afforded a congenial home for humanist studies. The most
brilliant representative of humanism there was =Rudolph
Agricola=, an admirer and disciple of À. Kempis and Wessel.
His fame rests more on the reports of those who knew him
personally than on any writings left behind by him. His pupils
mostly joined the Reformation.--The University of =Wittenberg=,
founded by Frederick the Wise in A.D. 1502, was the nursery of
a wise and moderate humanism. Humanist studies also found an
entrance into Freiburg, founded in A.D. 1455, into =Tübingen=,
founded in A.D. 1477, where for a long time Reuchlin taught,
and into =Ingolstadt=, founded in A.D. 1472, where the Duke
of Bavaria spared no efforts to attract the most distinguished
humanists. Conrad Celtes, a pupil of Agricola, taught at
Ingolstadt until his removal to Vienna in A.D. 1497. Eck
and Rhegius, too, were among its ablest alumni. As a bitter
opponent of Luther, Eck gave the university a most pronounced
anti-reformation character; whereas Rhegius preached the
gospel in Augsburg, and spent his life in the service of the
Reformation. Reuchlin also taught for a time in Ingolstadt,
and the patriotism and reformatory tendencies of Aventinus
the Bavarian historian received there the first powerful
impulse. At =Nuremberg= the humanists found a welcome in the
home of the learned, wealthy, and noble Councillor Pirkheimer.
In Reuchlin’s controversy with the scholars of Cologne he showed
himself an eager apologist, and headed the party of Reuchlin.
He greeted Luther’s appearance with enthusiasm, and entertained
the reformer at his own house on his return from the discussion
with Cajetan (§ 122, 3), on account of which Eck made the papal
bull against Luther tell also against him. What he regarded
as Luther’s violence, however, soon estranged him, while the
cloister life of his three sisters and three daughters presented
to him a picture of Catholicism in its noblest and purest form.
His eldest sister, Christas, abbess of the Clara convent at
Nuremburg [Nuremberg], one of the noblest and most cultured
women of the 16th century, had a powerful influence over him.
He died in A.D. 1530.