Sacrament in the two kinds soon became the characteristic article of faith to which all Bohemian friends of Church reform conformed. The chalice became their emblem, and the whole national party was soon known as that of the Utraquists. The two parties into which the Bohemian nobility divided are by the contemporary chroniclers always described as the lords “sub Utraque” and the lords “sub una.” These distinctions, indeed, continued up to the time of the suppression of religious liberty in Bohemia in 1620.
The Bohemians, full of zeal for the doctrine of Utraquism, soon began to expel from their churches those priests—they were not numerous—who refused to administer the Sacrament in the now established fashion, and acts of violence began to take place. The nobles “sub Utraque” also now expelled from their estates those priests who refused to conform to Utraquism. Soon after Hus’s death violent letters were sent from Constance to Bohemia, accusing the inhabitants of that country of being heretics. A letter addressed to King Venceslas by Bishop John of Litomyšle,[1] though it was of a somewhat conciliatory character, greatly irritated the Bohemians, who knew that Bishop John had been one of the principal instigators of the trial and execution of Hus. The vast estates of the very wealthy prelate were seized by the neighbouring Utraquist nobles. On July 26, 1417, the Council of Constance addressed to the nobles and knights of Bohemia and to the citizens of the three towns of Prague[2] a somewhat menacing letter. After having severely censured the deeds of John Hus and Jerome, “those most wicked men, so dangerous to the Church, who had followed Wycliffe in many of his most damnable tenets,” the letter ended by stating that should the Bohemians audaciously attempt to oppose in any way the Council’s sentence on Hus, which was most pleasing to God and most salutary for the whole Christian people, and should
- ↑ See my Master John Hus, p. 337.
- ↑ The city of Prague then comprised three distinct municipalities, the Old Town, the New Town, and the “Small Side” (Malá Strana).
