Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/524

 503 THE HUSSITES. citation on them personally, or, indeed, anywhere in Bohemia, it was ordered to be affixed on the church doors at Constance, Rat- isbon, Vienna, and Passau. This was foUoAved up with all the legal forms ; the citations were affixed to the church doors, and record made in Constance May 5, in Passau May 3, in Vienna May 10, and in Patisbon June 14, 21, and 24. On June 3 the offend- ers were declared to be in contumacy, and on September 4 the further prosecution of the matter was intrusted to John of Con- stantinople.* Here the affair seems to have dropped, for it had long been evident that the inquisitorial methods were of no avail when the accused constituted the great body of a nation. As early as March 27, 1416, the council had, without waiting to see the result of its judicial proceedings, resolved to appeal to force, if yet there was sufficient zeal for orthodoxy in Bohemia to render such appeal successful. The fanatic John of Litomysl was armed with lega- tine powers, and despatched with letters to the lords of Hazem- burg, John of Michaelsburg, and other barons known as opponents of the popular cause. The council recited in moving terms its patience and tenderness in dealing with Huss, who had perished merely through his own hardness of heart. In spite of this, his foUowers had addressed to the council libellous and defamatory letters, affording a spectacle at once horrible and ludicrous. Her- esy is constantly spreading and contaminating the land, priests and monks are despoiled, expelled, beaten, and slain. The barons are therefore summoned, in conjunction with the legate, to banish and exterminate all these persecutors, regardless of friendship and kinship. Bishop John's mission was a failure, in spite of letters written by Sigismund, March 21 and 30, in which he thanked the Catholic nobles for their devotion, and warned the Hussite mag- nates that, if they persisted, Christendom would be banded against them in a crusade. The University of Prague responded, May 23, with a pubhc declaration, certifying to the unblemished orthodoxy . and supereminent merits of Huss. His whole life spent among them had been without a flaw ; his learning and eloquence had - Palacky Documenta, pp. 566-7, 572-9, 602-3.-Von der HarcU IV. 528, 609-12, 724, 781-2, 823-40.— ^n. Sylvii. Hist. Bohem. c. 35.-Tbeod. a Niem Vit. Joann. PP. XXHI. Lib. iii. c. 12.