Archbishop Zbinek Zazic of Hasenburg had been elected while still young to the metropolitan see of Prague (November 29, 1402). The choice was a mistake. As a prelate Zbinek was weak though well-intentioned, more at home in the camp than in the council-chamber, little fitted to guide the Church of Bohemia in the complex struggle into which it had entered. A Czech himself, he was at first inclined to sympathise with the Czech reformers or nationalists. At one time, as this letter shows,
Hus enjoyed the complete confidence of the Archbishop. In 1405 Zbinek appointed Hus the special preacher before the Bohemian Synod. In the same year he nominated Hus to serve on a commission to investigate certain frauds carried on at Wilsnack, a village of Brandenburg, in connection with a relic of the blood of Christ. In 1407 Zbinek gave proof of the continuance of his friendship by once more appointing Hus the special preacher to the Synod. The sermons which Hus preached on these occasions have been preserved, and show no signs of revolt. The preacher confined himself to the stock theme of the vices of the clergy, sheltering himself, as was usual in such discourses, behind the authority of St.
Bernard. But the events of 1408, and the pronounced part that thenceforth Hus took in the spread of
Wyclif’s doctrines, turned the Archbishop’s favour into enmity. This letter of Hus, which the impartial critic will probably condemn as somewhat lacking in respect, contributed no doubt to the growing estrangement.
The circumstances which provoked the letter were as follows: In spite of the condemnation of 1403, the Wyclifists, as Stephen Dolein (infra, p. 74) complained, swarmed everywhere ‘in state apartments of princes, the schools of the students, the lonely chambers of the monks, and the cells of the Carthusians.’ Large sums of money were paid for manuscripts of the English doctor, and corrected copies were constantly brought from England. So rapid was the spread of his doctrines that in 1406 Zbinek, acting on the orders of Innocent VII., threatened with punishment all those who preached the heresies of the Reformer, and ordered that the Roman dogma of the Sacrament should be proclaimed to the people on the next Feast of Corpus Christi.
As the proclamation produced little effect, Zbinek resorted to other measures. In the May and June of 1408 certain masters
