Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/15

Rh which he played as a Bohemian patriot. It was the word of Hus, as well as the sword of Zizka, which preserved the autonomy and the national character of Bohemia, which at the period of the Hussite wars were seriously menaced by the numerous German colonists whom the policy of the Premyslide princes had established in the Bohemian towns. It will, of course, be my duty to point out the great part that Hus played as a Bohemian patriot. He believed as firmly as the Bohemian patriots of the present day that the nation as an individuality stands and falls with its language. Hus devoted much time and care to the development of that language, and a little-known part of his activity also consisted in his endeavour to introduce into the churches the singing by laymen of hymns in the national language.

The fact that the movement in favour of church-reform, which had in England found expression in the writings of Wycliffe, found in Bohemia a particularly fruitful soil, was a consequence of the condition and past history of the country. Bohemia had first received the Christian teaching from Greek monks of Salonika, and even after it began to form part of the Western Church, Roman institutions penetrated into the country gradually and slowly. Thus the celibacy of the clergy was introduced into Bohemia later than into most countries, and it seems probable—though this is a most controversial matter—that communion in the two kinds continued to be customary there up to a late period, perhaps up to the beginning of the fifteenth century. It also requires mention that, in consequence of its geographical position, Bohemia for a long time suffered less from the extortions of the Roman pontiffs than many other countries. Only when, in consequence of the schism, the rival popes found that the number