Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/180

 who accompanied him back to his dwelling amidst great enthusiasm. The moderation displayed by Hus during the discussion on indulgences—a subject on which almost every one will at the present day admit that he was right—is all the more worthy of praise because almost at the same time the papal court had definitively and irrevocably declared itself hostile to his views. The parish priests, always, as has been frequently noted, bitter enemies of church-reform and of Hus in particular, thinking that the new archbishop was too lenient, again appealed to the pope. In the course of the year 1412 they sent to the papal court two further documents containing the complaints against Hus that have already been enumerated. They added, however, to their old grievances one new one, stating that Hus had blamed the pope's action in granting indulgences and remittance of sins to those who took part in the warfare against “Ladislas, King of Apulia, and Angelus Correr, who with sacrilegious daring calls himself Gregory XII.” Together with Hus some of his principal disciples were denounced in these letters. The parish priests were this time more successful than they had been in their former attacks on Hus. They had secured a wily and utterly unscrupulous agent at the papal court. This was one Michael, a German of Nemecky Brod (Deutschbrod), some time parish priest at St. Adalbertus’s in Prague. Michael was afterwards by Pope John XXIII. appointed advocate in matters of faith (procurator de causis fidei), and was therefore generally known as “Michael de causis.” His reputation was of the worst. Neglecting his parish duties, he endeavoured to obtain money by good or bad means. He offered King Venceslas to improve the working of the royal mines at Jilov, but absconded with the money that had been entrusted to him. He fled to the pope and gained a living by acting as advocate at the papal law-courts. Through the influence of the astute Michael,