difficulty arose only two days after the arrival of the Bohemians. As had been agreed at Cheb, the Bohemian priests, both the Calixtines and the Taborites, celebrated their religious services according to their own rites. Curiosity induced many citizens of Basel to attend these services. They found little in the Calixtine service to gratify their curiosity, as mass was said in the ordinary way, and the only novelty was that the faithful partook of the consecrated wine. They were more astonished when they witnessed the Taborite service conducted by Prokop the Great, for he used neither altar nor vestments, and all ceremonies were suppressed. The whole service consisted of short prayers, a sermon, and the communion in both kinds, of which the whole congregation partook. The ecclesiastical authorities brought their complaints before the Bohemian ambassadors ; they considered the permission given to the citizens of Basel to be present at the Hussite worship as an attempt to spread the utraquist teaching in the town. The Bohemians answered saying that they had invited no one to be present at their religious functions, and that it was not their business, but that of the authorities of the town, to prevent the citizens from attending divine service according to the Bohemian rites; the matter was then allowed to drop.
On January 10 the negotiations between the Bohemians and the Council began. It had been agreed that each of the four Articles of Prague should be discussed by one of the ecclesiastics forming part of the Bohemian mission. John of Rokycan undertook the defence of the second "article," which treated of communion in "the two kinds," and "Magister Engliš" that of the third one, which referred to the worldly possessions of the clergy. These were obviously the two most important points. After the ending of the pleading of the four Bohemian priests, four priests chosen by the Council were to reply. The proceedings opened with a touching exhortation by Cardinal Cesarini, at which all present, including the Bohemians, were moved to tears. Rokycan replied, complaining bitterly of the wrong done to his country by the aspersion of heresy that had been put upon it; he further expressed sincere hope that the whole Christian world would return to the institutions of the primitive Church. On January 16 Rokycan began his argument for the communion in two
