The letters of John Hus/Hus and Jerome; The Troubles of Jerome; The Persecution at Vienna

by Jan Hus

In Letter XXXI. we are reminded of the connection of Hus with that stormy petrel of the Bohemian Reformation, Jerome of Prague. The incessant travels of this rich young noble would take us far afield. The results of his journey to Oxford we have already seen (p. 8). Wherever he went, his militant Wyclifism brought him into trouble with the authorities. In Paris, Gerson the Chancellor was taking measures for his arrest when he ‘secretly slipped away’; on a second visit to Oxford in 1407–8, he was charged with heresy, and only obtained his release through the intercession of Prague. Similar troubles and similar escapes attended his visits to Buda-Pesth (October 1410), to Lithuania (March 1411), and Cracow (March 1413).

This was not the first time that Jerome had met with opposition at Vienna. In September 1410 we hear of his preaching Lollardism in that newly founded University, and being excommunicated by the clergy of St. Stephen’s. But on September 12 he escaped, ‘like a sparrow from the net of the fowlers,’ to the castle of Bietow, in Moravia, which belonged to a friend of Hus. Whether Jerome had recently visited Vienna it is impossible to say, but on his arrival, in March 1413, at Cracow at the court of Ladislaus of Poland (Jagiello), he found letters of accusation from the University already awaiting him. Jerome, who had allowed his beard to grow in Lithuania, shaved, and presented his passports to Ladislaus, clothed in the red gown of his degree, but in a few days, at the instance of the clergy, was put over the frontier ‘that he might plough in his own country, for our soil seems too dry to receive his seed’ (Doc. 506).

Between the Czech University of Prague and the German University at Vienna, which owed its somewhat struggling existence to the jealousy of the Habsburgs, little love was lost at any time, nor was the rivalry lessened by Prague’s expulsion of the Germans. On the occasion of Jerome’s first trouble at Vienna, the University of Prague had at once petitioned the civil authorities for his protection (September 3, 1410). Now the new rector, Michael Malenicz, hastened to support the letter of Hus by a letter dated a week later (July 8, 1413), the similarity of whose language^[1] shows that it was inspired by Hus.

The text of this letter in Palackẏ and Höfler differs considerably; and, on the whole, the better readings will be found in Höfler (ii. 209). To some of the differences we draw attention in the notes.

 

1. See Doc. 512.