but Matthew of Janow had gone a step further than his predecessors, as—besides inveighing against the notorious immorality of the clergy—he also attacked several dogmas of the Church. He was indeed persuaded to withdraw his heretical statements, but this in no way impeded the growth of the movement, which, through the agency of John Hus, was soon to become of world-wide importance.
It has often been asked why the general degradation of the clergy and the scandal caused by the schism, seeing how common they were to the whole Western Church, should have aroused in Bohemia a wider movement than in any other country. One of these reasons is generally supposed to be the influence of Wycliffe in Bohemia, and it is certain that his writings were more studied at the University of Prague than in many places nearer England, and that several of his doctrines were defended by Hus. The influence of Queen Anne of England has also been put forward as facilitating knowledge in Bohemia of occurrences in England, and from the queen's pious disposition it is not unlikely that the correspondence she carried on with relations and friends in Bohemia contained allusions to theological matters. The fact of the possession by the queen of a Bible in the vulgar tongue (a fact already mentioned), has been made an excuse for many suppositions, but there is no direct evidence that the queen favoured any movement for Church reform either in England or in Bohemia.
If the writings of Wycliffe attracted more attention in Bohemia than elsewhere, it is because the soil was already prepared for religious changes. The movement against the Roman Church was, on the whole, an indigenous one, and was to a great extent caused by the national differences between Germans and Bohemians.
The Bohemian language, which had been neglected at court and in the towns during the reigns of the last Přemyslides, had increased in importance under Charles, and still more under Venceslas. The principal causes of this change date from the reign of King Charles; they were the creation of the Archbishopric of Prague, by which Bohemia was detached from the German Archbishopric of Maintz, and the foundation of the "new town" of Prague in which—contrary to the customs of the older town—the Bohemian language was used for the purpose of administration and
