Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/396

 named Loquis, who is described as a man of great eloquence. The people surnamed him the “prophet Daniel” and the “angel of the hosts of the Lord.” Another fanatical preacher was Peter Kanis, whose teaching was mainly founded on chiliastic views.

In connection with these fanatics, I must, according to the established custom, mention the sect of the Adamites, whose importance has been enormously exaggerated by writers hostile to the cause of Hus. Dr. Nedoma has indeed proved that the Adamite sect had no connection with Hussijtism, and he maintains that even the extreme Taborites, Martin Huska and Peter Kanis, cannot in any way be rendered responsible for the deeds of these obscene fanatics. Dr. Nedoma prints a letter addressed about the year 1409 to archbishop Zbynek by master John, vicar of Chvojnov, in which the latter states that in his parish the diabolical custom had sprung up that men and women met secretly at night in the woods and took part in terrible orgies, of which the worthy priest states that he dares not describe them. This was, of course, some years before the beginning of the Hussite wars. It should be added that the Adamitic movement by no means originated in Bohemia. The forerunners of the Adamites were undoubtedly the “turlupins” in France, and at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear of similar complaints against the Adamites in Germany and other countries. When some of these fanatics settled in an island in the Nezarka river near Tabor they were mercilessly destroyed by Zizka. It would hardly be necessary to dwell on this matter were it not that all enemies of the Hussite cause have laid great stress on it. Pope Martin V., when proclaiming a crusade against Bohemia, did not hesitate to identify the whole party of church-reform with the Adamites. Æneas Sylvius also in his Historia Bohemica has devoted to