Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/224

Rh fiction. Of modern writers Palacký and Jireček maintain the truth of the ancient record of the Unity. What is, however, certain is that Rokycan's part in these events has been misrepresented. Political reasons at that moment rendered it advisable for King George to appear as the enemy of the extreme antagonists of Rome. Rokycan's influence on the king was then very slight, but such as it was, it induced George after a time to liberate Brother Gregory from prison.

Difficulties had meanwhile arisen in the small community, of which first Kunwald and then the neighbouring small town of Reichenau (Rychnov) on the Kněžna was the centre. Gregory was indeed the intellectual leader as well as the founder of the community, but the priests Michael and Martin seem, probably in consequence of their having been ordained as priests, to have claimed a certain superiority over the other brethren. To obviate these difficulties, Gregory resorted to what must then have appeared a most venturesome step. He decided that his followers should, in accordance with the example of the Apostles, elect priests from among their number. The doctrine of the necessity of the apostolic derivation of the clergy was then held even by sects that were strongly opposed to Rome. This is no doubt the reason why, according to most accounts, the new priests were subsequently consecrated by a Waldensian priest or bishop. It must be added that the part played by the Waldensian in the first ordination of the clergy of the Unity becomes much more prominent in the works of later writers than it was in those of contemporaries. Dr. Lechler has recently expressed doubts as to whether the intervention of a Waldensian at the first ordination that took place