PERSECUTION ESTABLISHED. 311 it is provided that, in case of their committing treason, the gift is not to be resumed without a previous investigation " by the Lord Djed and the Bosnian Church and good Bosnians." The Francis- cans complained of his lukewarmness to Nicholas Y., when he justified himself on the plea of necessity ; he longed, he said, for the time when he could offer to his subjects the alternative of death or conversion, but as yet the heretics were too numerous and powerful and his position too precarious. Nicholas calmed the Franciscans, and they eagerly awaited the good time to come.* The defeat, in 1448, of John Hunyady, in a three days' battle on the historic Amselfeld, led, in 1449, to a seven years' peace be- tween him and Murad II., in which Bosnia was included. Peace with Servia followed, and, thus reheved from the fear of foreign aggression, Stephen Thomas was summoned to perform his prom- ises. Before the papal representatives he was obliged to give a solemn pledge to John Hunyady that he would strike heresy with a crushing blow. Nicholas Y., who had sent the Bishop of Lesina back as legate, ordered him to preach a crusade with Holy Land indulgences, and active efforts were made in the good work. Early in 1451 the Bishop of Lesina sent most encouraging reports of the result. Many of the nobles had sought conversion; the king in every way helped the Franciscans, and had founded sev- eral houses for them ; wherever these houses existed the heretics melted away like wax before the fire, and if a sufficient supply of friars could be had heresy would be extirpated. Not quite so rose-colored was the statement of a Dominican, Fra Giovanni of Ragusa, that in Bosnia and Servia there were very few monks and priests, so that the people were wholly untrained in the faith. Unmindful of the danger of conjoining the two Orders, Nicholas sent him thither with some of his brethren on missionary work, and at the same time despatched the Franciscan Eugenio Somma to Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia in the double capacity of nuncio and inquisitor. f The good Bishop of Lesina had been over-sanguine. In the
- Klaic, pp. 373-4.— Raynald. ann. 1449, No. 9.
t Klaic. pp. 376-77, 379.— Raynald. ann. 1449, No. 9; ann. 1450, No. 13; ann. 1461, No. 136.— Wadding, aun. 1451, No. 47, 52-3.— Ripoll III. 286.
