aim at a reform of the Church in the manner of the later Church reformers, but was rather an endeavour to return to the Eastern Church, from which Bohemia first received the Christian doctrine. In the seventeenth century Paul Stransky[1] wrote that even after the Latin rites had been generally accepted in Bohemia, "humble people and the populace, contented with the former religious institutions of their land, tenaciously adhered to the rites of the Greek Church." The same theory has in the present century been maintained by Eugene Novikov, Hilferding, and other Russian writers. The patient and thorough investigation of this matter by modern Bohemian historians, particularly by Palacký, Dr. Kalousek, and Dr. Goll, has, however, proved to a certainty that all reminiscences of the Eastern Church had in Bohemia died out before the time of Hus.
It would be natural to attribute Hus's peculiar views principally to the influence of the writers of his own country who immediately preceded him and who have been noticed in the last chapter. It is therefore surprising to note that Milič, Stitný, and Matthew of Janov are scarcely noticed in the works of Hus that have been preserved. It has, however, been conjectured that further references to them may have been contained in the lost works of Hus. In sharp contrast with this independence of the writings of his countrymen is the strong influence of Wycliffe on the ideas and writings of Hus, which the recent publication of many of Wycliffe's works has rendered yet more evident. It is certain that the works of Hus, specially those written in Latin, contain lengthy extracts from Wycliffe's writings, and that many of the
- ↑ See Chapter VI.
