quences seems to have been foreseen by many of his contemporaries, and legends soon arose round the memory of the martyr. Thus it was said that an old woman had brought faggots to add to the funeral pile, and that Hus had then spoken the words: O sancta simplicitas. It was also said that Hus—and this legend was undoubtedly based on remarks of Hus that have been mentioned in this work—had predicted that he would have a successor who would be successful in the attempt in which he had failed—the general reform of the church.[1]
Few events in history have given rise to more controversy !than the trial and execution of Hus. In offering an opinion on this matter, it is necessary to distinguish between the conduct of the council and that of Sigismund. According to the ruling of the Roman Church, it was the duty of the council, as there was then no pope, to declare heretics all who differed from the teaching of the church, and to hand over such men to the temporal authorities. The latter were empowered by a decree of the Emperor Frederick II. to order them to be burnt. No faith could or should be kept with heretics.[2] Anything that resembled a bona-fide trial was, therefore, out of question. No legal representative could be granted a heretic. He had merely to appear before the council, recant everything he was accused of having said, and receive condign punishment. Gerson, one of the principal actors in the tragedy of Constance, strongly upheld this standpoint,[3] and it is that also of the earlier Roman writers on the death of Hus. Their attitude is certainly manlier and more straightforward than that of later defenders of the council, who falsely accused Hus of having attempted to fly from Constance, of having preached and said mass publicly at Constance, etc. It is true that, even if we
- ↑ The tale that Hus had said that they would indeed burn the goose (“hus” signifies goose in Bohemian), but that afterwards a swan would come, whom they would not burn, is founded on the totally erroneous supposition that “Luther” signifies “swan” in Bohemian.
- ↑ “Ad poenam quoque pertinet et odium hereticorum quod fides illis data servanda non sit” (Simancha Inst, cath., pp. 46, 52, quoted by Lord Acton).
- ↑ See Schwab, Johannes Gerson, particularly p. 583.
