Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/511

JEROME OF PRAGUE. 495 asserted it, saving- Sigismund, Hed in his throat, was the vilest of traitors and the worst of heretics, and as such they would prose- cute him before the future pope. A more dangerous symptom of rebeUion was a pledge signed by the magnates, agreeing that aU priests should be allowed to preach freely the truths of Scripture that no bishop should be permitted to interfere with them unless they taught errors, and that no excommunications or interdicts from abroad should be received or observed.* This was firing at long range with no result but mutual exac- erbation, and it was probably the stimulus of Bohemian disaffec- tion which led the council about this time to act vigorously in the case of Jerome of Prague, whom the Bohemian nobles had erro- neously believed to have shared the fate of Huss Jerome of Prague stands before us as one of those meteoric natures which would be dismissed by the student as half mythical If the substantial facts which are on record did not fix the details of his career with an exactness leaving no room for doubt. Born at Prague, his early training was received at a time when men's minds were beginning to waver in the confusion of the Great Schism, and under the impulsion of the Wicklifiite writings. About the year 1400 he was brought under the influence of Huss and thereafter he continued to be the steadfast adherent and supp'orter Alrl/dv^^^f P^™*n'j' '^'^"'* '^" corruptions of the Church. wS;b /r^'i""^" H^^^^-^lberg, and Cracow-at aU of which he had been decorated with the honors of the universities- he had disturbed the philosophic calm of the schools with his sub- leties on the theory of universals ; at Paris, indeed, the disturb- ance had gone so far that John Gerson, the chanceU;r of the ul ver ity, had driven him forth, perhaps retaining a grudge whiSi exp ains his zeal in the prosecution of his old ant!gorfst fit restless spirit left scarce a region of the known civliz'd worid unvisited. At Oxfor d, attracted by the reput ation of wSh^ he T T5 ^ iv. 4»j yu, 494-7.— Palacky Documenta, pp. 580-4 ^c)^-A -Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 136). ' The temper of the Bohemians had been excited a f^^v^ ^... u 4^ ing of H„3, ,y ,,e news that in Ol.Ut. a Z^ o/;!!?,^ ) L T scnbed as a zealous follower of God had been within fh» ^ T ' ^^" W. a„ested, to.„ed, convicted. .d1,"::d.-PrS rur^^^^^^^^^