Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/547

Rh conference and to give them a safe-conduct, although the letters were not forwarded until November 26.

Meanwhile the inevitable quarrels between pope and council had broken out with bitterness. But three weeks after the invitation to the Bohemians had been despatched, on December 18, Eugenius took the extreme step of dissolving the council and calling another to be held in eighteen months at Bologna, where he would preside in person. At this action Germany was aghast. Sigismund remonstrated energetically, and the council, assured of his support, refused to obey. Cardinal Giuliano was won over and made himself its mouthpiece. He had had an opportunity of ob- serving the condition of men's minds north of the Alps, and he knew to what a storm the bark of St. Peter would be exposed. It may safely be said that since the papacy became dominant over the Church few popes have received from a subordinate so vigorous a reproof as that in which Giuliano gave his reasons for disobedience, and it contains so vivid a picture of the times that a brief abstract of it cannot well be spared. Clerical wickedness, he says, in Germany is such that the laity are irritated to the last degree against the Church, wherefore it is greatly to be feared that if there is no reformation they will execute their public threats of rising, like the Hussites, against the clergy. This turpitude has given great audacity to the Bohemians and lends color to their heresy, and if the clergy cannot be reformed the suppression of this heresy would lead only to the breaking-out of another. The Bohemians have been invited to the council; they have replied and are expected to come. If the council is dissolved, what will the heretics say? Will not the Church confess herself defeated when she dares not await those whom she has invited? Will not the hand of God be seen in it? A host of warriors has fled before them, and now the Church universal flies! Behold, they cannot be overcome either by arms or arguments! Alas for the wretched clergy wherever they be! Will they not be deemed incorrigible and determined to live in their filth? So many councils have been held in our days from which no reformation has come! From this one the nations have expected some