Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/41

, the biographer of Hus, whom he accompanied on his fatal journey to Constance. Mladenovič took part in this voyage as writer—or, as we should say, secretary—of Lord John of Chlum, one of the Bohemian nobles to whom the Emperor Sigismund had entrusted the task of conducting Hus safely to Constance and watching over his safety there. Mladenovič was present during the whole trial and the condemnation of Hus, and after the death of the martyr returned to Bohemia, where he became a prominent member of the moderate, or, as it was called, the Calixtine fraction of the Hussite Church. Mladenovič has left a detailed Latin account of Hus’s journey to Constance and his imprisonment. This book is the foundation of all records of the last days of Hus that can lay claim to any authenticity. It was edited and published by Palacký in the nineteenth century, and was very little known previously. This accounts for the fact that many totally groundless anecdotes referring to the death of the great Bohemian were circulated and frequently repeated by English as well as by Continental writers; thus it was said that an old woman had collected faggots for the stake of Hus, that Hus had before dying predicted the advent of Luther, and so forth. These unauthenticated tales are not found in the contemporary narrative of Mladenovič. Mladenovič, who has also left a short Bohemian account of the martyrdom of Hus, writes very plainly and with scarcely more grace of style than the early chroniclers of his country. He himself admits this in somewhat touching words, which I shall quote presently.