Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/37

 The designation of heretic always deeply offended the Bohemians, who maintained that they were members of the universal Church. The Bohemians further asked Sigismund to use his influence with the Pope to induce him to permit Communion in the two kinds in Bohemia, and finally demanded that very severe measures should be taken to check the simony and evil living that were then very prevalent among the Bohemian clergy. The citizens of Prague added several other demands. They begged the King to condone the recent riots and to grant his sanction to the election of the new town-councillors, whom they had, during the disturbances, chosen illegally, that is, without requesting the approval of their sovereign. They lastly begged that the houses of ill-fame that had been destroyed should not be rebuilt. The King’s answer was a short and evasive one. He promised to maintain the ancient privileges of Bohemia, and stated that he could give no decisive answer with regard to Communion in the two kinds till he had returned to Bohemia and consulted the nobles and the clergy of the country. The conciliatory attempt of the Utraquist nobles, who had limited their demands to the right of communicating in the two kinds and to the King’s consent to regulations which would have checked simony and the immorality of the clergy, had thus failed, as attempts at mediation on the part of moderate men in a time of revolution generally do. Both the Romanists and the Utraquists very soon resumed hostilities.

The more advanced Hussites—who soon became known as the Táborites—had from the first placed no faith in the attempted mediation. Their meetings, therefore, continued. On September 30 a large meeting took place at a spot known as “at the crossways” (“U Křižku”) near Benešov, and not far from Prague; it had evidently been chosen for the purpose of facilitating the attendance of the Praguers, many of whom were, no doubt, expected. The meeting was a very orderly one. Several sermons were preached, one by