against it the parish priests and canons, knowing that his (the devil’s) kingdom is disturbed by the preaching at that spot. I hope that God will deign to preserve the chapel, and that others will preach and will obtain there greater success than was possible to an imperfect man such as I am. I also beg you to love each other, not to allow good men to be oppressed, and to grant to all that which is due to them. Written on Monday, the night before the feast of St. Vitus, after the feast of the good angels” (June 10).
Several of the letters of Hus, which follow this one in chronological order, refer to events in Bohemia which occurred after the master’s departure, and which have already been mentioned here.[1] The council, the majority of whose members were Italians, does not appear to have had much knowledge of the state of affairs in Bohemia; but since the deposition of Pope John, Sigismund had entirely assumed the direction of the assembly. Never deficient in vanity and presumption, he claimed to act fully as representative of the papacy up to the time that a new pontiff should have been elected.[2] It was undoubtedly through his influence that the question of communion in the two kinds in Bohemia was brought before the council and there fully discussed. The theologians who were consulted, though not denying that communion in the two kinds had been instituted by Jesus Christ, condemned its revival by Jacobellus in Bohemia.[3] The matter was finally settled at a meeting of the council on June 15. A statement was read out by the Archbishop of Milan declaring that, “Though Christ had at the Last Supper administered the venerated sacrament of communion in the two species of
- ↑ See p. 232.
- ↑ It is beyond the purpose of this book to examine whether Sigismund appointed bishops in Germany during the vacancy of the papal see; that he claimed the right to do so is certain.
- ↑ “Hi (theologi) ergo post multos congressus et frequentes deliberationes teste Gersone tandem sex conclusionibus formatis recente a Jacobello inter Bohemos resuscitatum Eucharistiae usum condemnarunt.” (Von der Hardt, T. iv. p. 331.)
