teaching the doctrines of Huss or Wickliffe, or maintaining the sanctity of these men, should be committed to the flames. The laity were required, under pain of being regarded as favorers of heresy, to aid in the execution of these injunctions.1

Such a decree was directly calculated to defeat every purpose for which it was framed. It was the exhibition of senile malice and bare authority, and was conceived in the very spirit that had sent Huss and Jerome to the stake. Its violent tone awed less than it provoked. Its demands, moreover, were exorbitant. Many might have been disinclined to break altogether with the council, who would scorn compliance with terms like these. The circumstances of the case, indeed, rendered compliance impossible. A nation could not be bridled by a word. The convictions of years were not to be mastered by the sentence of a body of men, whose notoriety for intrigue and corruption, according to testimony above impeachment, had scandalized the world, and forfeited for themselves all respect.

Nearly at this same time (Feb. 22, 1418) Martin V. issued his bull against the followers and favorers of Wickliffe and Huss. It is addressed to all archbishops, bishops, and inquisitors throughout the world, and is a model from which bigoted intolerance and persecution might copy. It exhausts the odium of language in describing the character of the objects of its vengeance. They are "schismatic, seditious, impelled by Luciferian pride and wolfish rage, duped by devilish tricks, tied together by the tail, how

CH. XI]

BULL AGAINST HERETICS.

327

ever scattered over the world, and thus leagued in favor of Wickliffe, Huss, and Jerome. These pestilent persons had obstinately sown their perverse dogmas, while at first the prelates and ecclesiastical authority had shown themselves to be only dumb dogs, unwilling to bark or to restrain, according to the canons, these deceitful and pestiferous heresiarchs." The bull then proceeds to describe the wide spread of the mischief, lamenting it in the most lugubrious tones. It recites what had been done by the council to check the growing heresy, and ordains that all archbishops, bishops, and ecclesiastical authorities shall hasten to the rescue. They were to try and adjudge as heretics all who should be found "to think or teach otherwise than as the holy Roman and Catholic church thinks or teaches "-all who held the doctrines or defended the character of Huss or Wickliffe, and they were to deliver such over to the secular arm. Such as received or favored these persons were to be exemplarily and severely punished for their "enormous crime," that others might take warning. All kings, princes, lords, nobles, knights, cities, universities, etc., were to be admonished, and required to banish all such persons as bore this character for heresy from their territories, and all places subject to their dominion. They were not to suffer such persons to preach, dwell, possess property, engage in business, or have any thing to do in common with the faithful, in any place subject to their control. If they died heretics, even though the church had not formally declared them such, they were to be denied Christian burial. No masses should be

said for them. Their property should be confiscated and withheld from those to whom it would otherwise descend, at least until competent ecclesiastical authority had pronounced sentence in the case. Such as were suspected of heresy were to purge themselves under oath. If they refused or neglected to do it, they were to "be struck with the sword of anathema," and after a year's lapse condemned as heretics. All lay lords, magistrates, and judges, of what name or dignity soever, were required and commanded, as they prized the Christian name, to afford all necessary aid, whenever they should be called upon for it by the inquisitors or ecclesiastical authorities, for the arrest, restraint, or imprisonment of heretics, or their favorers. These last were to be carefully secured by "iron handcuffs and fetters," till their case had been carried through the ecclesiastical court; and any one who should be neglectful in guarding them while under his charge, was to be condignly punished. The bull then requires the archbishops, bishops, commissaries, inquisitors, etc., diligently to search out, in all places subject to their jurisdiction, all that are guilty of heresy, or of showing it favor; to pronounce against them sentence of excommunication, suspension, or interdict, as the case may require. All who should refuse or neglect to obey this command, should be deposed and deprived, and punished with other and more severe penalties, according to the enormity of their crime.

But even this was not enough. To aid the slow wit of any less facile persecutor, he was furnished in the bull itself with a full list of the points on which those

CE. XI.]

POINTS OF EXAMINATION.

329

suspected of heresy were to be examined, and from which they were to purge themselves on oath. These points embraced the forty-five articles of Wickliffe, and the thirty charged against Huss which the council had condemned, beside thirty-nine others, extending to subjects not included in the former. Of these thirty-nine the first eleven pertained to the persons and works of Wickliffe, Huss, and Jerome.' The person arraigned was asked whether he had known them, or had conversed with them, knowing them to be excommunicate; whether he had prayed for them, had spoken of them, or accounted them as holy; whether he approved their condemnation, and the acts and authority of the council; whether he possessed any of their works, or knew any that did possess them; and whether he condemned the articles of the heretics aforesaid, in the words of the council.

Of the other points of examination, some had reference to various sects that had arisen in that, or the previous age; some represented a peculiar phase of the opinions of Wickliffe, or Huss, and some had reference to ecclesiastical authority, the legiti mate election of the pontiff, or the infallibility of the council. One had respect to the venial nature of perjury, a subject which the perjured violators of the safe-conduct of Huss had better have let alone. One had reference to the subject of lay preaching; another to the right of a priest to preach out of his own parish.

On these points the suspected heretic was to be

'L'Enfant, 585.

examined under oath. He was to appear in person before the bishop or inquisitor, and give answer as he should be asked. No attorney or advocate was to be allowed him. The whole trial was to be conducted in the manner which the judge should deem most expedient. The sentence might extend to excommunication, suspension, or interdict; to deprivation of dignity or office; to fine and confiscation of property; to deposition from rank or professorships in universities; to imprisonment, and such corporeal inflictions as were allowable in the case of heretics. The judgment was to be summary and without appeal, and the delinquent, if it was found necessary, was to be given over to the secular arm. All these processes were made obligatory on the bishops and inquisitors, and their neglect would be accounted a crime. 1

Such was the document by which the new pontiff signalized his zeal against the Bohemian heresy. Every line and letter of it breathed the spirit that sent Huss to the stake. Nor was it meant to remain a dead letter. The news of Lord Cobham's death in England followed, in Bohemia, with scarce a day's interval, the announcement of the bull. That great and noble man, once the bosom friend of the king, had been hung in iron chains and roasted alive, as a sacrifice to the bigoted zeal of the church. His death by fire showed that he died, not as a traitor to the state, but as the victim of ecclesiastical intol Such an event was all that was necessary to fill to overflowing the odious cup which had been

erance.

1 Van der Hardt, iv. 1518.