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 HUSENBETH

589

HUSENBETH

Bohemia from the west: Procopius met and defeated them at Mies (4 Aug.)- Another army coming from Silesia had a similar fate.

Being complete masters of the situation at home, the Hussites set out for further raids abroad. Their own country was lying waste after so many years of war; the people had become a huge horde of brigands bent on bloodshed and plunder. In the years 1428- 1431 th? combined Orphans, Taborites, and the towns- men of Prague invaded Hungary, laid waste Silesia as far as Breslau, plundered Lusatia, Meissen, Saxony, and advanced to Nuremberg, leaving in their track the remains of flourishing towns and villages, and devastated lands. Negotiations for an armistice came to naught. When the raiders returned in 1430 they had with them 3000 wagons of booty, each drawn by from six to fourteen horses; a hundred towns and more than a thousand villages had been destroyed. In 1431 a fourth crusade, sent by the unbending Martin V, entered Bohemia. The crusa- ders numbered 90,000 foot and 40,000 horse; they were accompanied by the papal legate and commanded by the Electoral Prince Frederick of Brandenburg. They met a strong army of Hussites at Taus: the wild war-songs of the enemy filletl the soldiers of the Cross with uncontrollable fear: once more they fled in dis- order, losing many men and 300 wagons of stores (14 Aug., 1431). After so many reverses the Catholics realized that peace was only to be attained by con- cessions to the Hussites. Advances were made by Emperor Sigisraund and by the Coinicil of Basle, then sitting: a meeting of the contending parties' delegates took place at Eger, where preliminaries for further dis- cussion at Basle were agreed upon. Meanwhile the excommunicated .\rchbishop Conrad of Prague and the "iron" Bishop Johann of Olmiitz died, and the Utraquist Rokyzana had an eye on the See of Prague: it was therefore his interest to make further peace negotiations with Rome. The Taborites, on the con- trary, continued the war, heedless of the Eger arrangements; they raided Silesia and Brandenburg, advancing as far as Berlin, and fought Albert of .\us- tria in Moravia and in his own Austrian dominions.

At length, 4 Jan., 1433, a deputation of fifteen mem- bers, provided with safe-conducts and accompanied by a numerous train, arrived at Basle. Di-scussion on the Four Articles of Prague lasted till April witliout any result. The deputies left Basle on 14 .\pril, but with them went a deputation from the council to con- tinue negotiations with the diet assembled at Prague. Here some progress was made, notwithstanding the opposition of Procopius and the extreme Taborites, who were loth to lay down their arms and return to peaceful pursuits. The conferences dragged on till 26 November, 1433. The council, chiefly bent on safeguarding the dogma, consented to the following disciplinary articles, known as the Compactata of Basle: (1) In Bohemia and Moravia, communion under both kinds is to be given to all adults who desire it; (2) All mortal sins, especially public ones, shall be publicly punished by the lawful authorities; (3) The Word of God may be freely preached by approved preachers but without infringing papal authority; (4) Secular power shall not be exercised by the clergy bound by vows to the contrary; other clergy, and the Church itself, may acquire and hold temporal goods, but merely as administrators etc. In substance the Compactata reproduced the Four Articles of Prague. They were accepted by the delegates, but further discussion on minor points led to a new rupture and in the beginning of 1434 the delegates left Basle. A new party now arose: the friends of the Compactata. It soon gathered strength enough to order the Taborites, who were besieging Pilsen and infesting the country, to dissolve their armed bands. In.stead of dispersing they brought all their forces together at Lipau near Prague and offered battle : here they suffered a crush-

ing defeat from which they never recovered. Their two best leaders, Procopius the Shaven and Prokupek, were killed (30 May, 1434).

The tedious negotiations, in which religious, politi- cal, and personal interests hail to be .satisfied, went on with various vicissitudes until 5 July, 1436, when the Bohemian representatives at the Diet of Iglau, solemnly accepted the Compactata and promised obedience to the council: the repre.sentatives of the council, on their side, removed the ban from the Bohemians and ac- knowledged them as true sons of the Church. The diet accepted Sigismund as King of Bohemia: on 23 August he entered Prague, and took possession of his kingdom. Henceforth the Utraquists or Calixtines and the Subunists {suh una specie) had separate churches and lived together in comparative peace. Priests were ordained for the Utraquist rite. New difficulties were created by Rokyzana's failing to obtain the bishopric for which he had so long agitated, and which he had been promised by Sigismund. His partisans went back to former aberrations, e. g. they re-established the feast of the "Holy Martyr Hus" on 6 July.

In 144S Cardinal Carvajal came to Prague to settle the ever open question of Rokyzana's claims. Hav- ing demanded restitution of confiscated church prop- erty as the first step, he was threatened with murder, and fled. In December of the same year Rokyzana returned to Prague as president of the Utraquist consistory. The governor, George Podiebrad, sup- ported him in his disobedience to Rome antl nullified all Roman attempts at a final settlement; he opposed St. John Capistran, who was then converting thou- sands of Utraquists in Moravia. As things were going from bad to worse, Pope Pius II, who had had long experience of the sectarians at Basle and as legate to Prague, refused to acknowledge the Utraquist rite, and declared the Compactata null and void, 31 March, 1462. Podiebrad retaliated by persecuting the Catholics; in 1466 he was excommunicated by Paid II ; there followed other religious and civil wars. In 14S5 King Wladislaw granted equal liberty and rights to both parties. Judging by its results this was a step in the right direction. By degrees the Utraquists conformed to the Roman rites so as to be hardly distinguishable from them, except through the chalice for the laity. In the sixteenth century they resisted Lutheran inroads even better than the Subu- nists. Their further history is told in the article Bo- hemian Brethren.

The Acts of the Councils of Constance and Basle: CocHL.*:n8, Histohce Hussitarum (Mainz, 1549): P.\L.\cKY, Vrkundliche Beitrnge zur Geschichte dcs Husilcnkrieges (Prague, 1872); LuKSCH in Kirchenlex., s. v. Hiisitenkriege: Loserth in Real- encyc. fur prot. Thecl., 3ril ed.. VIII, 472; Lea, Hist, of the In- quisition (LondoD, ISSS), Bk. II, viii.

J. WiLHELM.

Husenbeth, Frederick Charles, b. at Bristol, 30 May, 1796; d. at Cossey, Norfolk, 31 Oct., 1872. The son of a Bristol wine-merchant and of a lady of Cornish family, a convert to Catholicism, he was sent at the age of seven to Sedgley Park School in Stafford- shire, and at fourteen entered his father's counting- house. Having formed the resolution, three years later, to study for the priesthood, he returned to Sedgley, going afterwards to Oscott College, where he was ordained by Bishop Milner in 1820. After serv- ing the Stourbridge mission, near Oscott, for a time, he was sent to Cossey Hall, Norfolk, as chaplain to Sir George Stafford Jerningham, who became Baron Stafford in 1824. He took up his residence in a cottage in the village, and continued his ministrations here to the Catholics of the mission until within a few months of his death. During this long period, ex- tending over more than half a century, he is said to have been absent from his mission only on three Sundays. Seven years after his appointment to Cossey he became grand vicar under Bishop Walsh,