Page:Bohemia's claim for freedom.djvu/29

 benefice, no exemption or dispensation, no hope of future preferment, not even the forgiveness of sins could be won without a cash payment. The Court of Rome gave nothing without payment; the very gifts of the Holy Ghost were for sale." The movement against these abuses began as a spiritual one, and as such was greatly favoured by the Royal Family and the Court, who felt keenly the necessity of national emancipation from German influence as propagated by the Roman Church. As time went on the agitation became more democratic, with a distinctly expressed tendency towards social reorganisation, a kind of precursor of Christian Socialism.

It goes without saying that such an impulse could not continue for long imchallenged by the dominating Church. The relations between Hus and Rome became especially strained when, by order of the Pope, Wycliffe's writings were publicly burned and soon afterwards Hus, who continued to preach, was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Prague.

The climax was reached, however, when the envoys of Pope John XXIII, who came to Bohemia in order to sell indulgences and to collect funds required by the Pope for the war against King Ladislas of Naples, were publicly denounced by John Hus. The city of Prague was laid under an interdict, and the churches closed. Hoping by his own voluntary retirement to settle the conflict, Hus left Prague, and this was really the beginning of the end for him. During his exile of twenty months he wrote fifteen books in the Czech language; he purified 25