Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/137

It is but fair to note that this movement did not influence the entire Táborite clergy. There were many men among them who, holding extreme puritanical views, abhorred church ornaments and vestments, and differed from the Church of Rome in their doctrine concerning the Sacraments more widely than did the moderate Utraquists, but who were by no means visionaries, and ardently wished to maintain public order. The leader of these men was Nicholas of Pelhřimov, whom the Táborites had, in the autumn of the year 1420, chosen as bishop. For a time, however, the fanatics seemed to prevail, and as was natural in a country where religious controversies had become the predominant interest, the crimes and follies of these men were by their opponents imputed to the whole Táborite community. Almost immediately after Koranda’s sermon in Prague, the people of Tábor and of the neighbouring districts began to attack all those who publicly approved of the wearing of vestments by priests when celebrating mass. Some of these men were declared heretics and burnt alive by the populace. Among the Táborite priests whose fanaticism endangered public order was one Martin Houška, surnamed Loquis who, in, a more enlightened age, would deservedly have been confined in a lunatic asylum. He professed an insane and fanatical hatred of the Sacrament of Communion, and expressed his views in a repulsively blasphemous fashion. Probably by request of Žižka he was arrested by Lord Ulrich of Jindřichův Hradec, one of the Utraquist nobles. From his prison in Lord Ulrich’s castle he wrote to his friends at Tábor, begging to be allowed to expound his views there. Lord Ulrich granted him his liberty, probably thinking that he would there be punished by the members of his own community. At Tábor he recanted the opinions opposed to the teaching of that community which he had previously professed, but not believing himself to be safe there he attempted to fly to Moravia, which appears to have been his home. On his way he was arrested at Chrudim by the commander of the district, Bořek of Mile-