Page:John Huss by Hastings Rashdall (1879).pdf/14

 Hussite. To his position as one of the Royal Chaplains he no doubt owed not a little of the security which he enjoyed throughout the troubles of succeeding years.

In John Huss the liberal movement to which the study of Matthias of Janow and Wyclif had given rise in the University, formed a junction with the stream of popular religious life which had sprung from the teaching of Milicz and Conrad. A Bohemian knight, John of Mühlheim, and a merchant named Kreutz, had built a Chapel which was to be specially devoted to regular preaching in Bohemian on Sundays and holydays. Up to this time, in the words of the deed of foundation, “preachers, particularly preachers in the vulgar tongue, were compelled to wander about from one house or corner to another.” The new Chapel was dedicated to the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem. Its foundation was authorised by “the confirmation of the Lord Archbishop John, who laid the first stones of it with his own hands, by the King’s Charter (Libertatio), and by a grant of Privilege from Pope Gregory (Privilegiatio).” Thee Chapel was thus possessed of a perfectly regular ecclesiastical status; but it was no doubt looked upon by the parochial clergy of Prague with the same kind of suspicion which the Proprietary Chapels of the early Evangelicals excited among the “high and dry” Churchmen of the last century. Two years after he had held the office of Rector of the University, Huss became one of the “preachers and rectors” of this chapel. The mantle of Milicz and Conrad had fallen upon Huss. The Chapel was crowded Sunday after Sunday with persons of every class of society. The Queen was often among his auditors: there were nobles, priests, students, as well as burghers and artizans. The chapel is said to have held at times as many as three thousand people. Universities have been in all ages the homes of great religious movements. They supply the preacher not only with congregations com to a large extent of men of culture and education; but with congregations, a large part of which will in a few years be scattered over the length and breadth of the land. Luther at Wittemberg; Ridley, Latimer, and Simeon at Cambridge; Newman at Oxford; Huss at Prague, have thus taught the hundreds who should hereafter be the teachers of hundreds of thousands.

The popularity of Wyclif’s writings and the consequent diffusion of his doctrines among the students now began to excite the alarm of the clergy. In 1403, the Archbishop’s official and the Chapter of the Cathedral requested the University to examine forty-five propositions extracted from his books. The debate was a contest between the German and the Bohemian parties. The voting was