city. Lengthy and wordy warfare was carried on between the contending parties by means of numerous books and pamphlets. Some writings of Hus which deal with these polemics will be mentioned presently when referring to his works of this period. The population of Prague took an increasing interest in the controversy. Bohemia has, except during the not infrequent periods when the ruling powers have forbidden all discussions on matters of religion, been one of those countries where, as in England and Scotland, theological controversies have greatly interested the large masses of the people. Nicknames were soon given to the adherents of the contending parties, and while the upholders of church-reform were called “Wycleffites,” its opponents became known as “the Mohamedans.” The latter strange byname is said to have been given to them because of the violence with which they enforced their doctrines.[1] It may also have conveyed an ironical allusion to the morals of the rich parish priests of Prague, who were Hus’s bitterest enemies.
Foreign countries, in which—with the exception of England—Hus’s teaching had not hitherto attracted much attention, now began to feel a certain interest in the Bohemian movement in favour of church-reform. The first statements concerning the Bohemian movement came from France, a country that, mainly through dynastic links, had for some time been closely connected with Bohemia. A man whose opinion carried the greatest weight in France wrote denouncing severely the endeavours of Hus and his friends. This man was the famed divine, John Gerson, then chancellor of the University of Paris. Since Dr. Schwab[2] has proved that Gerson was not the author of the treatise De modis uniendi et reformandi Ecclesiam[3] long attributed to him, and on the
- ↑ This is the explanation given by Magister Jacobellus in a treatise printed by Von der Hardt, Magnum Oecomenicum consilium Conlantiense, iii. 648. Jacobellus writes: “Hanc enim legem, ut legitur in chronicis Machmet docuit suos, ut scilicet persequerentur et occiderent, non Christus.”
- ↑ Dr. Schwab, Johannes Gerson.
- ↑ Printed by Von der Hardt, who attributed the authorship to Gerson.
