that they need not pay tithes. It is a falsehood that indulgences are nothing. It is a falsehood that I have urged an actual attack on the clergy with the sword. It is a falsehood that I have preached or held any error or errors whatsoever or any heresy: or that I have seduced the people in any wise from the way of truth. It is a falsehood that I was the cause of certain German masters being expelled from Prague. As a matter of fact, they themselves were unwilling to enjoy the privileges of the foundation of the noble[1] University of Prague and declined to obey the lawful behests of the most serene prince and lord, Wenzel, King of the Romans, Emperor,[2] and King of Bohemia: and supposing that the University of Prague would be unable to exist without their presence, they retired of their own free will to their own homes or wherever they pleased.[3] Yet I admit that I appealed from the opinion of the very reverend father in Christ, my lord Zbinek, to the Apostolic Seat, and finally from the suits instituted on malicious information by the holy Apostolic See. For those who were jealous of the truth, forgetting their own honour and salvation, maliciously suggested to the Apostolic Seat that in the kingdom of Bohemia, in the city of Prague, and in the marchionate of Moravia, errors and heresies were sprouting up and had affected the hearts of many to such an
- ↑ Almæ.
- ↑ Semper Augustus. Wenzel had been deposed August 20, 1400. As he had never been crowned, he was never, strictly speaking, “Emperor” (Imperator). On July 21, 1411, Sigismund, his half-brother, had been unanimously elected King of the Romans. Wenzel had been won over by the promise that Sigismund would not during his lifetime seek the higher title.
- ↑ Supra, p. 18.
