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 JOHN MALKAW. 207 lance, he was asserted to have taught that doctrine, and, therefore, to be a follower of Jean Pierre Olivi. All this was surely enough to warrant his burning, if he should obstinately refuse to recant, but apparently it was felt that the magistracy would decline to execute the sentence, and the assembly contented itself with refer- ring the matter to the bishop and asking his banishment from the diocese. Nothing further is known of the trial, but as, in 1392, Malkaw is found matriculating himself in the University of Co- logne, the bishop probably did as he was asked. We lose sight of Malkaw until about 1414, when we meet him again in Cologne. He had maintained his loyalty to the Roman obedience, but that obedience had been still further fractioned between Gregory XII. and John XXIII. Malkaw's support of the former was accompanied with the same unsparing denuncia- tion of John as he had formerly bestowed on the Avignonese antipopes. The Johannites were heretics, fit only for the stake. Cologne was as attractive a field for the audacious polemic as the Strassburg of a quarter of a century earlier. Two rival candi- dates for the archbishopric were vindicating their claims in a bloody civil war, one of them as a supporter of Gregory, the other of John. Malkaw was soon recognized as a man whose eloquence was highly dangerous amid an excitable population, and again the Inquisition took hold of him as a heretic. The inquisitor, Jacob of Soest, a Dominican and professor in the university, seems to have treated him with exceptional leniency, for while the investi- gation was on foot he was allowed to remain in the St. Ursula quarter, on parole. He broke his word and betook himself to Bacharach, where, under the protection of the Archbishop of Treves, and of the Palsgrave Louis III., both Gregorians, he maintained the fight with his customary vehemence, assailing the inquisitor and the Johannites, not only in sermons, but in an incessant stream of pamphlets which kept them in a state of indignant alarm. When Cardinal John of Ragusa, Gregory's legate to the Council of Constance, came to Germany, Malkaw had no difficulty in procuring from him absolution from the inquisitorial excom- munication, and acquittal of the charge of heresy ; and this was confirmed when on healing the schism the council, in July, 1415, declared null and void all prosecutions and sentences arising from it. Still, the wounded pride of the inquisitor and of the University