Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/176

 the decision of the commission and, upon default, to pay sixty thousands groschen and be exiled from the realm.

In regard to the sacraments and some other matters, the representatives agreed to accept the definition of the Roman Church. On the definition of the church they divided, Palecz and his party insisting upon defining the church as the pope and the cardinals then living. The Hussites defined it as the body of which Christ is the head, the pope being the vicegerent. About this and other questions the commission decided to proceed on the assumption that the two parties were in substantial accord, and it proposed on the next day to bring forward matters of personal dispute between them, and at the same time a decision upon those matters. When the day came, Palecz and his friends offered unconditional objection to the several clauses incorporating the commission’s decision. One clause was that the Roman Church should be submitted to “as far as a good and faithful Christian ought to submit.” A second clause stipulated that Palecz and his party should write to the curia that they knew of no heresy in Bohemia and that no heretic had been found. Their refusal to comply with this second clause was in part on the ground that such a recommendation would give the lie to their former statements and in part on the ground that a proper search for heretics had not been made.

Hereupon the anti-Hussites, Peter of Znaim and Stanislaus of Znaim, John Elias, and Palecz, were found contumacious and were consigned by royal edict to perpetual banishment. Their canonries as well as their offices at the university were transferred to their four opponents. The University Chronicle states that the banished theologians “did not visit Prague again until after the king’s death, for that they had precipitated themselves into the penalty of exile.” Stanis-