Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/459

 WICKLIFF IN BOHEMIA. ^^o Alexander V. ordered Archbishop Zbinco not to permit his errors to be taught or his books to be read, yet when, in 1410, John X.xm. referred his writings to a commission of four cardinals who convoked an assembly of theologians for their examination' a naajonty decided that Archbishop Zbinko had not been iustified m burnmg them. It was not until the Council of Rome in 1413 that there was a formal and authoritative condemnation pro- nounced, and it was left for the Council of Constance, in 1415 to proclaim Wiokliff as a heresiarch, to order his bones exhumed and to define his errors with the authority of the Church Univer' sal. Huss might well, to the last, believe in the authenticity of the spurious letters of the University of Oxford, brought to Prague about 1403, in which Wickliff was declared perfectly orthodox and might conscientiously assert that his books continued to be read and taught there.* The marriage of Anne of Luxembourg, sister of Wenceslas of Bohemia, to Richard II., in 1382, led to considerable intercourse between the kingdoms until her death, in 1394. Many Bohemi ans visited England during the excitement caused by Wickliff's controversies, and his writings were carried to Prague, where they tound great acceptance. Huss tells us that about 1890 they com menced to be read in the University of Prague, and that they con- mued thenceforth to be studied. No orthodox Bohemian had hitherto ventured as far as the daring Englishman, but there were many who had entered on the same path, to say nothing of the secret Waldensian heretics, and the general feehng excited through- out Germany by the reckless simony and sale of indulgences which marked the later years of Boniface IX. Thus the movement which had been m progress since the middle of the century received a tresh impulsion from the circumstances under which the works of Wickhfl were perused and scattered abroad in innumerable copies All of his treatises were eagerly sought for. A MS. in the Hof- bhothek of Vienna gives a catalogue of ninety of them which • Raynald. ann. 1377, No. 4-6.-LechIer's Life of Wickliff, Lorimer's Trans lation, II. 388-90, 343-7.-Loserth, Has und Wiclif, pp. 101I2, m-Z^Z Conc.1. VIII. 203.-Von der Hardt III. x.i. 168; IV. 153, 328.-Jo. Hus Replica contra P. Stokes (Monument. I. 108 «).-H6fler, Prager Concilien. p. 53