was suffocated. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine, to prevent the Bohemians from carrying away any relics of him to their country.
The career of Hus has almost always been discussed from the point of view of theological controversy; whilst many have extolled him as a martyr, others have described him—as did the Council of Constance—as a "recusant heretic." His sincere piety, his conviction of the truth of his opinions, which he was ready to maintain at the cost of his life, his perfect disinterestedness in one of the most corrupt periods of history, and the personal purity of his life, no impartial student of those times can deny.
In Bohemia, whose inhabitants instinctively saw in Hus the greatest man of their race, he was from the first revered. Hus the Bohemian patriot is loved even by many of his countrymen who are devoted adherents of the church of Rome. The national church of Bohemia from its beginning conferred on Hus—as will be mentioned presently—the well-deserved name of a martyr.
Before referring to the momentous consequences which the death of Hus entailed on Bohemia, we must notice the end of Jerome of Prague, who, prior to the time when researches concerning the Hussite movement had become possible in Bohemia, was generally placed at the side of Hus as the most prominent of his disciples.
No greater contrast can be imagined than the lives of Hus and of Jerome. Whilst Hus had hardly ever left Bohemia before his fatal journey to Constance, Jerome had visited Palestine and many European countries, and had been received at various courts, where his learning and his attractive manners had gained him many friends. Jerome had, however, several times been imprisoned for uttering heretical opinions, and after a journey to Constance, where he had visited Hus, he was arrested near that town while on his way back to Bohemia and thrown into prison. His trial lasted some time, and he at one time—probably from physical fear—recanted those opinions which the Council considered to be heretical. He later again affirmed these opinions and was thereupon condemned to death and burnt (May 30, 1416).
The description of the trial and execution of Jerome given by the papal legate Poggio Bracciolini is well known; and is intensely interesting, as representing the views of an
