Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/99

 ference to discuss the question what vestments should be worn by the priests when celebrating mass. It was finally decided that Nicholas of Pelhřimov as representative of Tábor and Master Jacobellus of Stříbro in the name of the university should both forward to Lord Ulrich of Hradec Jindřichův, who presided at the conference, and to the burgomaster of Prague, a detailed written statement formulating their religious opinions. The conference then separated with only the negative result that a formal rupture between the Hussite parties had been avoided. On the following day Žižka and his soldiers returned to Tábor.

Politics and religious controversy were at that moment so closely connected in Bohemia that it is an easy transition to refer now to the political situation in Bohemia during the early part of the Hussite wars. Public opinion was greatly divided. Of the powerful Bohemian nobility, that part which was opposed to Church reform was, of course, entirely devoted to the cause of Sigismund, the champion of the Roman Catholic Church; they formed, however, but a small minority. Most Bohemian knights and nobles fervently revered the memory of Hus, whom many of them had known personally, and they were unanimous in demanding a thorough reformation of the discipline of the clergy and the right of receiving Communion in the two kinds. Many of these men, however, hesitated before formally renouncing their allegiance to Sigismund, and continued hopeless attempts to persuade their sovereign to make certain religious concessions to the Bohemian nation. It seems almost certain that these nobles had some ground for thinking that the compromise which they desired was not impossible. The treachery and duplicity of Sigismund render all conjectures admissible, even if we remember the virulent abuse of all heretics in which the King of Hungary frequently indulged. It is not improbable that in private conversations with some of the nobles Sigismund may have insinuated that he was prepared to make certain concessions