Page:The Peace League of George Poděbrad, King of Bohemia.pdf/11

 In all these things the Hussites realized a much greater progress with their humanitarian ordinances than it was the case with ordinances of the church- or canon-law of the same epoch, the latter forming the first and fundamental conception of martial law of the christian world at the time. As may be seen by this the soil was already noticeably well prepared in Bohemia and the whole situation favorable at the time when George of Poděbrad made known his great idea and plans. On the other hand, he was not so well understood abroad.

The conception of the plan of a great Peace federation of Christian Princes is, properly taken, not so much king George’s work, as it is that of his adviser and counsellor, the genial adventurer Antoine Marini of Grenoble, a Frenchman by birth. George was in the habit of solving with his help many questions of foreign politics and political economy, and often enough Marini furnished him with new and happy ideas. So, for instance, different questions, seven in all, of this kind had to be solved between them (about 1463), and amongst these questions there was in the second place that «of how it would be possible to bring about a general understanding of all Christian kings and princes, securing for them not only a lasting peace amongst themselves, but also for the purpose of preserving and restricting at the same time to a just mesuremeasure [sic] all powers and rights of the pope and the emperor and, last but not least, protecting Christianity against the Turks.» — —

In answer to this question Marini refers to the project of an international parliament, in pursuance of which he had already undertaken many journeys into foreign countries.—Thus, the project itself dates from a somewhat earlier period.

At the beginning of the sixties (about 1460) king George’s importance was already very great indeed. The international conflicts between Bohemia and Poland were then tor the greater part already settled by the treaty of Bytom; great meetings of the princes of Germany were arranged at Cheb and Nürnberg under participation of George or his representatives. Settled through his intervention were also the Hungarian questions, and a decision, favorable to Bohemia, was obtained in the Czecho-brandenbourghish conflict, the object of which was the possession of Lusatia. In the summer of 1461 Marini went to Rome as king George’s ambassador and in one of his letters the project of the Peace-federation is mentioned for the first time. In case