the rough Bohemian in use about the year 1350, others in the more refined language of the fifteenth century. Some teemed with mistakes of the grossest description; others bore witness to the learning of the masters of the university. Of these some, including Hus, were acquainted with the Hebrew language.[1] Hus undertook the difficult task of revising and correcting the already existent translations of the Bible, and it may be said that it was mainly through him that the Scriptures became more accessible to the Bohemian people.[2]
In close connection with Hus’s striving to render his countrymen more familiar with the sacred documents which form the basis of Christianity, reference should be made to his endeavours to facilitate the participation of laymen in the religious rites, and more especially in church-song, which had gradually become an exclusive privilege of the clergy. This part of the activity of Hus had, up to recent times, been entirely neglected, and only recently scholars of the University of Prague have thrown some light on matters that were formerly almost unknown.[3] In consequence of the ever-increasing claims of the clergy to superiority over laymen, the custom—no doubt general in the time of the primitive church—that the congregation should join in the singing during religious services had gradually been abandoned. This caused great resentment among the people, particularly among the Bohemians, with whom a taste for music is innate. The early Bohemian church-reformers, Milic in particular, were deeply interested in this matter, and Hus here walked completely in their footsteps. We find here, as in so many other cases, close connection between Hus and his forerunners, while as
- ↑ Hus’s acquaintance with the Hebrew language is proved by passages in the Orthographia Bohemica which has just been mentioned—and in other of his works.
- ↑ Though so much study has recently been devoted to Hus by Bohemian scholars, his work as a translator and editor of Scripture requires further research.
- ↑ I must here acknowledge my great indebtedness to Dr. Nejedly, whose work, Pocatky Husitskeho zpevu (the beginnings of Hussite song) is most valuable.
