Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/79

 same.’ Hus further wrote a letter to the cardinals in the same tenor. Both of these letters, which display considerable political adroitness, especially in the sly hint that the origin of all the trouble is Hus’s adhesion to the Pisan Council, have been preserved for us, though whether they were ever forwarded appears more than doubtful. The draft of Zbinek’s letter also still exists. It states that, ‘after making diligent inquisition, I can discover no heresies in Bohemia. The dispute between Hus, the University, and myself has been settled.’ This letter certainly was never sent. Fresh disputes broke out which led Zbinek to appeal to Sigismund (September 5). He complained that for five weeks he had lingered at Prague ‘at great expense’ in the vain hope of an audience with Wenzel. The royal promises were still unfulfilled, the reign of terror still continued, and ‘foul lampoons against himself were still circulated.’ On his way to the court of Sigismund, Zbinek suddenly died at Pressburg (September 28, 1411). He was succeeded by an old man even weaker than himself, Wenzel’s physician, Albik of Unicow (October 29, 1411). The reign of this ‘greedy German’ was not long. He soon exchanged his difficult post with his suffragan, the Bishop of Olmütz, and retired (February 12, 1413) to a less thorny benefice, the titular bishopric of Kaisarije in Palestine.

With this introduction, the following letters, for the most part full of the strife of the times, will explain themselves:—

date of this letter is inaccurately given in the one MS. in which it has been preserved as ‘. Dominica Priscæ’—i.e., January 18, 1413 (N.S.) As Hus was at that time in exile, the date is improbable, while January 18 fell on a Sunday in 1411, not 1413. We therefore date accordingly, reading ‘.’ (O.S., i.e. 1411 N.S.) for ‘’

The illustrations in this letter, for which see the notes, were probably found by Hus in some one of the many commentaries on the famous Rule of Benedict, perhaps in Benedict Anianensis Concordia Regularum (see Migne, vol. ciii. pp . 1058 ff.). For other illustrations of this letter, see Migne, vol. lxvi. c. 33.