Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/257

 Lady Anne of Wurtemberg, by birth a burgravine of Nuremberg. There came also with the king the most noble elector, Duke Louis of Saxony. After landing from the boats they retired to their apartments and warmed themselves for an hour. Then the citizens of Constance presented them with two golden cloths. The one was carried—as a baldachin—on four poles over the king, the other, also on four poles, over the queen and the Queen of Bosnia. Thus they proceeded to the cathedral, and the pope, wearing a handsome mitre adorned with gold and precious stones, read the first mass on Christmas Day, which they call Dominus dixit ad me.” Richenthal then continues to describe the other functions, for the pope, according to custom, said three masses on Christmas Day. He afterwards presented Sigismund with a sword, hoping that he would use it for the defence of the church. The German princes had not at first paid much attention to the council. The schism and the violent and undignified controversies between the adherents of the rival popes, which had been its consequence, had caused the clergy to fall in Germany into a state of contempt and disesteem, which is not the less certain because little written evidence of this feeling remains. The Bohemian writers of the fifteenth century who so strongly attacked papacy and the Roman Church certainly met with more sympathy in Germany than is usually supposed. The German princes, therefore, felt little inclined to go to Constance to greet Pope John XXIII. Some of their number, such as the Archbishop of Trier, still acknowledged the obedience of Pope Gregory XII. After the arrival of Sigismund, the head of the empire and—since his recent coronation at Aachen—emperor, a great change took place in this respect. In January 1415, the Bavarian princes, Louis Count Palatine—who played a prominent part at the execution of Hus—and Dukes Henry and Louis, arrived at Constance. Other new arrivals were, the 2em