Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/40

 of this which deserves mention here is that of Arnold of Brescia (twelfth century). This outbreak was extinguished and its leader burned. The Cathari, or Puritans, under the local name of Albigenses (thirteenth century), next came in conflict with the Church in Languedoc, where they were put down by crusades and the newly-instituted Inquisition. Then Wycliffe (fourteenth century) appeared in England, quietly translated the Scriptures, wrote and lectured against ecclesiastical abuses and corruptions, enjoyed some royal and princely favor as well as the aid of such men as Chaucer, the poet, and his disciples never became extinct in England until they disappeared in the light of the Reformation.

Wycliffe's writings were sent to her own country by Anna, the British queen, a sister of Wenceslas, King of Bohemia, herself probably a believer in their teachings. Here occurred the greatest, up to its time, of the eruptions in the Roman Catholic Church. It kept at bay, in the long Hussite war, the armed forces raised for its suppression, received concessions in the Council of Basel, in 1433, about fifteen years after its origin, and was still strong in Bohemia two centuries later, when the war, of which these volumes treat, broke out upon the same ground.

It was an exact century after the movement of Huss, when that of Luther began in Germany. This became general, and was never put down, the last attempt at this being that called the Thirty Years’ War, which opened just a century from the time of Luther’s nailing his theses to the church-door.

As Professor Gindely begins his work by leaping at once into the exciting scene of the outbreak at Prague, in 1618, it will be important, to the best understanding of