Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/37

 dignitaries of the church, but we find numerous and unfavourable reports on their conduct in contemporary records. A large number of these dignitaries lived in open concubinage. Thus we read that Stephen, canon of Prague, chief writer of Bohemia, had several sons whom he openly recognised. One of these, “John, son of master Stephen, chief writer of the kingdom of Bohemia,” was, under this designation, entered in the register of the University of Prague. The canon of Vysehrad, John Pecnik, a teacher (scholasticus), had several daughters whom he recognised, and one of whom he married to a tailor. These cases seem to differ somewhat from those mentioned previously, and it is difficult not to believe that the celibacy of the clergy was in the pre-Hussite period less firmly established in Bohemia than most writers have stated. It is certain that after the death of Hus the marriages of priests immediately became general and met with little or no opposition. Unfortunately, cases of gross and coarse immorality were also frequent among the dignitaries of the Bohemian Church. Thus the rector of the Church of St. John the Evangelist at Prague complained that in the house of John of Landstein, provost of Melnik, “the porter and portress gave shelter to disorderly women, for the provost and his brothers,