Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/79

 and communion, is one of the most valuable parts of Janov’s great work. He has here expressed most fully and most clearly his views on the all-important subject of the sacrament, to which he refers very frequently in the Regulae. “In these days,” Janov writes, “some dispute on the frequent receiving of the body and blood of Jesus Christ by laymen; among these are preachers also and doctors who have expressed their views, some in favour, others in opposition to this practice, basing their opinions either on reasoning or on the Scriptures.” Janov then proceeds in the usual scholastic fashion, abounding in “distinctions” and classifications, to place before his readers, and then to refute, the arguments of those who were opposed to frequent communion. He strongly blames the priests who, from haughtiness, refused to administer the sacrament frequently to laymen, though David called it the “nourishment of the poor,” meaning hereby the laymen in distinction from the priesthood. Not only to men should frequent communion be allowed, but also to women, whose religious fervour Matthew greatly extolls. The great part played by women in the Hussite movement has not yet been sufficiently noticed, and we only occasionally find—as here—some mention of it in the scanty records of the period that have been preserved. Later on the Bohemian women were on Zizka’s hill to seal with their blood their devotion to the Hussite cause.

The second book of the Regulae also contained two treatises. The first one is entitled, De Hypocrisi, and Matthew here