Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/268

 spread gradually in Western Europe. In a letter addressed to the Council of Basel by the Bishop of Arras on March 30, 1432, he writes that Bohemian heresies were spreading rapidly in his diocese. The penalties of heresy were then so terrible, and even the suspicion of not being a firm Roman Catholic so greatly endangered the life of him on whom such a suspicion fell, that we have naturally but very scanty information concerning the spreading of the Hussite doctrine in Western Europe. It is, however, probable that the cases mentioned above were by no means isolated.

These considerations undoubtedly influenced Prokop when he published in his own name and in that of some of his companions a manifesto addressed to the whole Christian world. This document, entitled “Epistola Procopii et aliorum Hussitarum honorabilibus, providis, honestis dominis, consulibus et toti communitati, divitibus et pauperibus,” attempts to justify the Hussites and very skilfully strives to create distrust of the Catholic clergy, whom the Hussites considered their most dangerous enemies. This manifesto was first published in 1430—Martène and Durand’s version has no date—and again in 1431. The two documents are, however, nearly identical. Prokop began by stating that there had for a long time been discord between the Bohemians and the Church of Rome, and that the Bohemians had been frequently attacked by the Roman Catholics. Yet, he continued, the partisans of Rome had never granted them a hearing nor heard from the mouths of the Bohemians what their doctrine was. This Prokop attributed to the influence of the clergy, who, by granting indulgences, excited the people to exterminate the Hussites.