Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/191

 as well as others to displays of anger. For his innumerable sins he asked the young man’s pardon as he also asked his prayers. He closed the document by bequeathing to Martin a gray cloak, if he chose to have it, and a white cloak to the parish priest. In case he did not care for the gray cloak, Huss asked him to give it to his faithful servant, George, or in its stead a guinea.

Huss’s party consisted of thirty persons, all mounted. In addition to the three delegates appointed by Sigismund, there were John, Cardinal of Reinstein, who had for a long time acted as Wenzel’s diplomatic agent, and John of Chlum’s amanuensis and clerk, Peter of Mladenowicz. As he was departing, among the many who expressed fears that he was starting on a journey from which he would not return was Jerome of Prague.

The route led through Biernau, Neustadt, Sulzbach, Hersbruck and Lauf to Nürnberg, which the party reached October 19, and from thence by way of Biberach in Würtemberg and Ravensburg on the lake of Constance. From Ravensburg they took boat to the city toward which their faces were turned. Notes left us in Huss’s own letters give a chatty account of the experiences by the way. Nowhere did he veil his identity. In spite of warnings that he had powers of sorcery, given by the bishop of Lebus, a canon of Prague, who preceded the party from place to place by a day’s journey, he was everywhere kindly received. The papal interdict was nowhere enforced. Teutons as well as Latins, officials, and people of all classes everywhere turned out to see him as if, so he wrote, they were going to a fair.

Priests and magistrates entertained him. At Biernau the parish priest received him into his house and set before him a large tankard of wine. At Nürnberg, where he had a notable reception, a few months before Sigismund had gone the rounds of the churches and worn the