Prague (Palacky, vii. 185, 262). After this Payne is not mentioned for five years; but in the autumn of 1426 John Pribram began to attack the doctrines of Wiclif; and on 25 Dec. a disputation was held at Prague before Prince Korybut between Pribram and Payne, in which the latter maintained the doctrines of his countryman against the romanising teaching of the former. After the outbreak against Korybut, who was intriguing with the pope, articles were drawn up in May 1427 with the intention of preserving unity among the Hussites. The article setting forth the doctrine on transubstantiation was specially directed against Payne, who now dissociated himself from the Praguers, and joined the sect of the ‘Orphans’ (ib. vii. 427–8). In the following summer came the crusade of Henry Beaufort [q. v.], the cardinal and bishop of Winchester, against the Bohemian reformers. After his defeat at Tachau, Beaufort arranged for a conference between Bohemian and papal delegates. In the discussions which took place at Zebrak on 29 Dec., Payne and John Rokycana appeared as the Hussite theologians (ib. vii. 459). The year 1428 was filled with fighting, but in the spring of 1429 an endeavour was made to arrange peace. A number of Bohemian representatives, of whom Payne was one, came to Sigismund at Pressburg on 4 April. The conference lasted till 9 April, Sigismund urging the Bohemians to submit to the council, which was to met at Basle two years later. The Bohemian representatives pleaded that they had not full power to act, and the meeting broke up with an arrangement that a Landtag should be held at Prague on 23 May. In the Landtag Payne took no prominent part. But afterwards he held a fresh disputation with Pribram, which lasted for three weeks from 20 Sept., in the presence of an assembly of Bohemian and Moravian notables at Prague. Pribram charged Wiclif with heresy; Payne maintained the catholicity of all his opponent's citations; but the debate ended in a species of truce, the terms of which Pribram did not well observe, and he again charged Payne and the Taborite party with heresy (ib. vii. 485–7; Hoefler, Geschichtsschreiber der Hussitischen, ii. 594–596). In March 1431 a fresh conference of the sects with a view to the proposed council was arranged to take place at Cracow in the presence of Wladyslaw of Poland. Payne was present as a representative of his party; but the congress effected nothing, and the Bohemians went home very wroth before Easter (Dlugosz, i. 577–8).
The terms on which the Bohemians would appear at the council were still unsettled, though the time for its assembly had arrived. In May 1432 representatives of the Bohemians, including Payne, met at Eger, and began negotiations with the council. The discussion was renewed at Kuttenberg in September, and at length terms were agreed upon. In a letter from the Praguers on 5 Sept. 1432 Payne was named one of the Bohemian delegates to the council, and on 6 Dec. he set out with his colleagues for Basle, where they arrived on 4 Jan. 1433. On 6 Jan. the Bohemians held religious services, the ‘Orphan’ representatives, of whom Payne was one, preaching publicly in German (Mon. Conc. Gen. i. 64). Next day Procopius the Great, the principal Bohemian delegate, entertained his colleagues and some members of the council at dinner. Payne engaged in a hot dispute with John of Ragusa, who says ‘the Englishman was like a slippery snake—the more closely he seemed to be tied down to a conclusion, the more adroitly would he glide away to some irrelevant matter’ (ib. i. 260). On 13 Jan. Payne was one of the delegates who petitioned Cardinal Julian to grant the Bohemians a public reception in the cathedral. The request was refused, and three days later they had their first audience, when Payne, as one of the orators, delivered a brief allegorical address on the text (Psalm civ. 22) ‘ortus est sol, et congregati sunt in cubilibus suis,’ in which he compared the doctrines of Wiclif and Huss to the rays of the sun. In the subsequent meetings the Bohemian envoys spoke at length on various set themes; on 26 Jan. Payne began a discourse ‘De civili dominio clericorum,’ which lasted three days, and which he finally summed up in a short schedule, to be recorded in the acts of the council (Martene, viii. 215 E). The month of February was occupied with the replies of the catholic representatives. John of Ragusa spoke for eight days amid constant interruptions from Payne. On 4 Feb. Payne declared that certain opinions were falsely attributed to Wiclif by John of Ragusa. John Keninghale [q. v.] at once declared that he would produce extracts from Wiclif's works in refutation of Payne (John of Ragusa, p. 278). On 10 Feb. Payne started a controversy with John as to the institution of holy water by Alexander V (ib. p. 282; Petrus Zatecensis, p. 307). In the last week of February John de Palomar replied to Payne's speech ‘de civili dominio.’ After this the discussion was referred firstly to a committee of fifteen, and on 19 March to one of eight from each side. At length it was decided that the council should send
