elsewhere in force for the detection and punishment of heresy was virtually unknown in Bohemia.[1]
In 1318 John of Drasic, the Bishop of Prague, was summoned to Avignon by John XXII. to answer accusations brought against him by Frederic of Schönberg, Canon of Wyschehrad, as a fautor of heresy. The complaint set forth that heretics were so numer- ous that they had an archbishop and seven bishops, each of whom had three hundred disciples. The description of their faith would seem to indicate that there were both Waldenses and Luciferans— the latter forming part of the sect which we have seen described about this time as flourishing in Austria, where they are said to have been introduced by missionaries from Bohemia—and that their doctrines have been commingled. They are described as considering oaths unlawful; confession and absolution could be administered indifferently by layman or priest; rebaptism was allowed; the divine unity and the resurrection of the dead were denied; Jesus had only a phantasmic body; and Lucifer was ex- pected finally to reign. Of course there were also the customary accusations of sexual excesses committed in nocturnal assemblies held in caverns, which only proves that there was sufficient dread of persecution to prevent the congregations from meeting openly. The good bishop, it appears, only permitted these wretches to be arraigned by his inquisitors after repeated pressure from John of Luxembourg, the king. Fourteen of them were convicted and handed over to the secular arm, but the bishop interfered, to the great disgust of the king, and forcibly released them, except a physician named Richard, who was imprisoned; the bishop, moreover, discharged the inquisitors, who evidently were his own officials and not papal appointees. These were serious offences on the part of a prelate, and he expiated his lenity by a confinement of several years in Avignon. Possibly his hostility to the Franciscans may have rendered him an object of attack.[2]
Papal attention being thus called to the existence of heresy in
- ↑ Wadding. ann. 1257, No. 16. - Potthast No. 16819.- Höfler, Prager Concilien, Einleitung, p. xix.
- ↑ Palacky, op. cit. pp. 11-13.—Schrödl, Passavia Sacra, Passau, 1879, p. 242.—Dubravius (Hist. Bohem. Lib. 20) relates that in 1315 King John burned fourteen Dolcinists in Prague. Palacky (ubi sup.) argues, and I think successfully, that this relates to the above affair and that there were no executions.
