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JEAN PETIT. 337 until June 15. Meanwhile Gerson found an ally in the Polish nation. John of Falckenberg had written a tract applying the arguments of Jean Petit to the slaying of Polish princes, of which the Archbishop of Gnesen had readily procured the condemnation by the University of Paris, and the Polish ambassador joined Ger- son in the effort to have both put under the ban. On June 15, Andrea Lascaris, Bishop of Posen, proposed that a commission be appointed to conduct an inquisition upon new heresies. Jean Petit was not alluded to, but it was understood that his proposi- tions were aimed at, for the only negative vote was that of Martin, Bishop of Arras, the ambassador of Jean sans Peur, who asserted that the object of the movement was to assail his master ; and he further protested against Cardinal Peter d'Ailly, who was put on the commission with Orsini, Aquileia, and Florence, as well as two representatives of the Italian nation and four each of the French, English, and German. On July 6, after rendering judgment against Huss, the council condemned as heretical and scandalous the proposition Quilibet tyrannies, which was virtually the first of the nine condemned in Paris. This did not satisfy the French, who wanted the judgment of the University confirmed on the whole series. During the two years and a half that the council remained assembled, Gerson was unwearied in his efforts to accom- plish this object. These heresies he declared to be of more impor- tance than those of Huss and Jerome, and bitterly he scolded the fathers for leaving the good work unfinished. Interminable was the wrangling and disputation, appeals from Charles VI. and the University on the one side, and from the Duke of Burgundy on the other. John of Falckenberg was thrown into prison, but noth- ing would induce the council to take further action, and the affair at last died out. It is difficult for us at the present day to under- stand the magnitude which it assumed in the eyes of that genera- tion. Gerson subsequently felt himself obliged to meet the jeers of those who reproached him with having risked a question of such importance before such a body as the council, and he justi- fied himself by alleging that he had acted under instructions from the king and the University, and the Gallican Church as repre- sented in the province of Sens. Moreover, he argued, when the council had manifested such zeal in condemning the Wickliffite doctrines and in burning Huss and Jerome, he would have been III.— 22