Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/145

 still in high favour with the archbishop. No one who has taken the trouble to read this document will hesitate to attribute mainly to the jealousy and animosity of the parish priests of Prague the persecution from which Hus suffered from the beginning of his preaching to the moment when he perished at the stake. The document printed by Palacky contains marginal notes by Hus answering some of the accusations. They are very valuable, as the proceedings at the archbishop’s court at which Hus appeared were secret, and they, therefore, are the only clue we have to Hus’s defence. He himself no doubt attached great importance to them, and it is probable that the notes were written out by him from memory in 1414 before his departure for Constance, where he, as he knew, would have to face the same calumnies and accusations. Here only some of the accusations can be mentioned. It was stated that Hus had publicly declared that a priest being in a state of mortal sin could not administer validly the venerated sacrament of the body of Christ, nor dispense the other sacraments of the church. The note of Hus ran thus: “All those who attended my sermons well know that I preached the exact contrary, saying that a bad priest administers the sacrament in the same fashion as a good one, for it is the divine goodness that acts by means of a good or of an evil priest.” Shortly afterwards followed another accusation, also referring to the then much discussed question of the validity of the sacraments when administered by unworthy priests. Hus’s teaching on this vexed matter was always in accordance with that of the Roman Church. The informer Protiva, author of most of the statements concerning Hus, declared that he had made many of the remarks that were incriminated while preaching at St. Michael’s Church. Hus replied that at the time mentioned he had not yet been ordained a priest, and had not yet begun preaching. Another accusation was, that when on the occasion of the drowning of John of Pomuk—an event that occurred ten years previously—the possibility was discussed in