Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/259

 demand that Hus should be released from prison, and in contradiction to his former, probably also disingenuous, desire that the council should first devote its attention to church-reform, he now consented to its first discussing the schism. The negotiations between John XXIII. and Sigismund, between the pope and the college of cardinals, the dissensions between the cardinals and the other members of the council—all these events here require but brief mention. To exercise a certain pressure on John XXIII., it was decided that the council should not be considered as a continuation of that of Pisa, which had deposed Popes Gregory and Benedict. Representatives of these pontiffs were, therefore, allowed to appear before the council and the emperor. The representatives of Gregory declared that their master was willing to renounce the papal throne if John and Benedict did likewise, and Benedict’s envoys expressed themselves in a manner that was interpreted as expressing a similar intention. John XXIII., however, who denied the analogy between his own case and that of Gregory and Benedict, who had been deposed by the Council of Pisa, took up a very intransigent attitude. His partisans among the members of the council, however, constantly diminished in number, particularly after a document attributed to an Italian priest had been circulated, which contained a detailed account of all the crimes and sins committed by Baldassare Cossa. The document, probably published for the purpose of intimidating the pope, was promptly suppressed, but many of the unspeakable accusations contained in it were embodied in the act of deposition of John XXIII., which was published on May 25, 1415. A resolution of the council had meanwhile altered the system of voting at its deliberations, and had greatly reduced the power of the minor Italian ecclesiastics, who were Pope John’s principal adherents. He therefore determined to yield. At a general meeting of the council held on February 16, in the presence of Sigismund, Cardinal Zabarella read out a state-