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ingly brought up from his cell. Copies of his books were placed on a table before him, and he admitted the authorship of them. Then the reading of the Articles began. What followed may be told in the quaint language of L’Enfant’s translator: “They had scarce made an end of the first with the Evidences supporting it, when so terrible a noise arose, that the Fathers could not hear one another, much less the answers of John Huss. When the clamour was a little over, John Huss, offering to defend himself by the authority of the Scriptures and the Fathers, was interrupted as if he had spoke nothing to the purpose, and they set upon him with reproach and banter.”[1] The behaviour of this congregation was so disgraceful that its more moderate members interfered, and succeeded in carrying an adjournment till the next day.
At the second hearing, a certain amount of decency was ensured by the presence of the King of the Romans, who had been prevailed upon to attend by the Bohemian nobles. The first charge examined was the alleged denial of Transubstantiation. Huss could with justice maintain that he fully believed in Transubstantiation and he believed it on the strength of that realistic dogma of the accidens sine substantia, which had once been almost as much a part of the orthodox creed as the doctrine itself. But now Gallicanism, and consequently Nominalism—the doctrine of the once suspected Abelard, was completely in the ascendant. To the Cardinal d’Ailly and his friends it seemed that a Realist could not consistently believe a doctrine which as a formal Article of Faith owed its existence to an extravagance of Realism. He began to browbeat the Bohemian Master with questions about his views on the universale a parte rei and similar scholastic pedantries. The good sense of an Englishman put a stop to this irrelevant discussion: he declared that the Council ought to be satisfied with Huss’ assurances on the subject. L’Enfant thinks that his advice was taken, and that this was one of the two Articles which were expunged from the accusation. Then he was questioned about his defence of the forty-five Articles of Wyclif; his views as to the voluntary character of tithes; his Appeal to Christ; his sympathy with Wyclif; the part he had taken against the Germans in the matter of the three votes, and the part he was supposed to have taken in procuring the banishment of the four Bohemian Doctors. Lastly, he was reproached with having asserted that he had come to Constance voluntarily. This brought up the honest Knight of Chlum. “Though I am one of the meanest Lords in Bohemia,” he exclaimed, “I would undertake to defend him for a twelvemonth against the forces of the Emperor and the King.” The session concluded with a speech from Sigismund, who acknowledged that Huss had come voluntarily,
- ↑ L’Enfant. “Council of Constance.” Vol. 1., p. 323.
