CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNING OF HUS’S OPPOSITION TO THE CHURCH OF ROME
It has already been noted that the end of the year 1408 is a very important landmark in the life of Hus. He henceforth appears an open enemy of Rome, though he continued to the end of his life to consider himself a true and faithful member of the Church of Christ. The history of Hus at this period widens out and becomes more closely connected with the vast stage of European politics on which Hus himself for a brief moment appears as a prominent figure. The political situation of Europe at the beginning of the fifteenth century was entirely, either directly or indirectly, influenced by the great Western schism. The cardinals assembled in Rome in 1378 had elected as pope, Bartolomeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, who assumed the name of Urban VI. Though the Roman Church has in later days declared that Urban VI. and his successors up to Gregory XII. were legitimate popes, Urban’s election was impugned almost immediately, as having been obtained by violence and by intimidation on the part of the populace of Rome. A few months after the election of Urban a certain number of—mostly French—cardinals elected as pope, Robert, Cardinal of Geneva, who took the name of Clement VII. The following period, during which two, and for some time three, popes claimed to be the successors of St. Peter, is one of the darkest in the history of the church. The struggle, however, here requires notice only as far as it concerned Bohemia and the fate of Hus in particular. Verbal warfare between the contending popes was waged in the coarsely vituperative manner customary among mediæval theologians. The formidable power of excommunication
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