a thick pole which they had sharpened at one end and driven into the ground in this field; under the feet of the master they placed two faggots and some loads of wood. When attached to the stake he retained his boots, as his feet were fettered with a chain. They then heaped up round his body these wooden faggots mixed with straw, so that they reached up to his chin.’
Mladenovič then mentions the last attempt of the Imperial marshal, Happe of Pappenheim, to induce Hus to retract his teaching, and then thus describes the execution: ‘When the lictors lighted the pile the master first sang with a loud voice, “Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on us,” and then again, “Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me.” When a third time he began singing, “Who art born of the Virgin Mary,” the wind soon blew the flames into his face; then still silently praying and moving his lips and head, he expired in the Lord. The space of time during which, after becoming silent, he still moved before dying, was that required to recite two, or at the utmost three, Paternosters.’
Mladenovič then tells us that the earthly remains of Hus were thrown into the Rhine, that his garments, to which the executioners had a traditional claim, were also destroyed, ‘lest the Bohemians should consider them as relics,’ and that the executioners were compensated.
Mladenovič finishes his account of the death of Hus, and at the same time his book, with the following words: ‘I have written in a very plain manner this account of the famed master John Hus, his death and his agony, which in the course of time have ever more vividly been recalled to my memory; for I considered that
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