the most miserable spectable of inhuman bigotry to the Christian world. The aversion which John Huss, and Jerome, his companion, had against the Germans, was a third circumstance that contributed to determine their unhappy fate. This aversion they declared publicly at Prague, on all occasions, both by their words and actions; nor were they at any pains to conceal it even in the council of Constance, where they accused them of presumption and despotism in the strongest terms. The Germans, on the other hand, remembering the affront they had received in the university of Prague, by the means of John Huss, burned with resentment and rage both against him and his unfortunate friend; and, as their influence and authority were very great in the council, there is no doubt that they employed them, with the utmost zeal, against these two formidable adversaries. Besides, John Hoffman, the famous rector of the university, whom Huss had been the occasion of expelling from that city, together with the Germans, and who in consequence thereof became his most virulent enemy, was consecrated bishop of Misnia, in 1413, and held in this council the most illustrious rank among the delegates of the German church. This circumstance was also most unfavourable to Huss, and was, without doubt, ultimately detrimental to his cause.

orders extremely odious in the eyes of the peo- || the sin against the Holy Ghost,* and exhibited ple. The bishops, therefore, together with the sacerdotal and monastic orders, were very sensible that their honours and advantages, their credit and authority, were in the greatest danger of being annihilated, if this reformer should return to his country, and continue to write and declaim against the clergy with the same freedom which he had formerly exercised. Hence they left no means unemployed to accomplish his ruin; they laboured night and day, formed plots, bribed men in. power; they used, in short, every method that could have any tendency to rid them of such a formidable adversary.* It may be observed, secondly, that in the council there were many men of great influence and weight, who looked upon themselves as personally offended by him, and demanded his life as the only sacrifice that could satisfy their vengeance. Huss, as has been already mentioned, was not only attached to the party of the Realists, but was peculiarly severe in his opposition to their adversaries. And now he was so unhappy, as to be brought before a tribunal which was principally composed of the Nominalists, with the famous John Gerson at their head, who was the zealous patron of that faction, and the mortal enemy of Huss. Nothing could equal the vindictive pleasure the Nominalists felt from an event that put this unfortunate prisoner in their power, and gave them an opportunity of satisfying their vengeance to the full; and accordingly, in their letter to Louis, king of France, they do not pretend to deny that Huss fell a victim to the resentment of their sect, which is also confirmed by the history of the council. The animosities that always reigned between the Realists and Nominalists, were at this time carried to the greatest excess imaginable. Upon every occasion that offered, they accused each other of heresy and impiety, and constantly had recourse to corporal punishments to decide the dispute. The Nominalists procured the death of Huss, who was a Realist; and the Realists, on the other hand, obtained, in 1479, the condemnation of John of Wesel, who was attached to the opposite party. These contending sects carried their blind fury so far as to charge each other with

The circumstances now mentioned, as contributing to the unhappy fate of this good man, are, as we see, all drawn from the resentment and prejudices of his enemies, and have not the least colour of equity. It must, however, be confessed, that there appeared one mark of heresy in the conduct of this reformer, which, according to the notions that prevailed in this century, might expose him to condemnation with some shadow of reason and justice; I mean, his inflexible obstinacy, which the church of Rome always considered as a grievous heresy, even in those whose errors were of little moment. We must consider this man, as called before a council, which was supposed to represent the universal church, to confess his faults and to abjure his errors. This he

*In the Examen mentioned in the preceding note, we find the following striking passage, which may show us the extravagant length to which the dis putes between the Nominalists and Realists were now carried:-" Quis nisi ipse diabolus seminavit illam zizaniam inter philosophos et inter theologos, ut tanta sit dissensio, etiam animorum, inter diversa

*The bribery and corruption that were employed in bringing about the ruin of John Huss, are manifest from the following remarkable passages of the Diarium Hussiticum of Laur. Byzinius: "Clerus perversus, præcipue in regno Bohemiæ et marchionatu Moraviæ, condemnationem ipsius (Hussi) contributione pecuniarum et modis aliis diversis procura-opinantes? Adeo ut si universalia quisquam realia vit, et ad ipsius consensit interitum." "Clerus per- negaverit, existimetur in Spiritum Sanctum peccaversus regni Bohemiæ et marchionatus Moravia, et visse; imo summo et maximo peccato plenus creditur præcipue episcopi, abbates, canonici, plebani, et reli- contra Deum, contra Christianam religionem, contra giosi, ipsius fideles ac salutiferas admonitiones, ad- justitiam, contra omnem politiam, graviter delihortationes, ipsorum pompam, simoniam, avaritiam,quisse. Unde hæc cæcitas mentis nisi a diabolo, qui fornicationem, vitæque detestandæ abominationem phantasias nostras illudit?" We see by this pasdetegentes, ferre non valendo, pecuniarum contribu- sage, that the Realists charged their adversaries tiones ad ipsius extinctionem faciendo procurarunt." (whose only crime was the absurdity of calling uni† See Baluzii Miscell. tom. iv. p. 534, in which we versal ideas mere denominations) with sin against find the following passage: "Suscitavit Deus docto- the Holy Ghost, with transgression against God, and res catholicos, Petrum de Alliaco, Johannem de against the Christian religion, and with a violation gersono, et alios quam plures doctissimos homines of all the laws of justice and civil polity. Nominales, qui, convocati ad concilium Constantiense, ad quod citati fuerunt hæretici, et nominatim Hieronymus et Johannes-dictos hæreticos per quadraginta dies disputando superaverunt."

See the Examen Magistrale et Theologicale Mag. Joh. de Wesalia, in Ortuini Gratii Fasciculo rerum expetend. et fugiendar. Colon. 1535.

See Theod. de Niem, Invectiva in Joh. XXIII., in Hardtii Actis Concilii Constant. tom. ii. p. 450. Improperabat etiam in publico Alamannis, dicendo, quod essent præsumptuosi, et vellent ubique per orbem dominari-Sicque factum fuisset sæpe in Bohemia, ubi volentes etiam dominari Alamanni violenter exinde repulsi et male tractati fuissent.'

the name and person of the author were spared, on account of the powerful patrons, under whose protection he had defended that pernicious doctrine. John, duke of Burgundy, had, in 1407, employed a band of ruffians to assassinate Louis duke of Orleans, only brother of Charles VI. king of France. While the whole city was in an uproar, in consequence of this horrible deed, Petit vindicated it in a

obstinately refused to do, unless he was pre-as an odious and detestable heresy; but both viously convicted of error; here, therefore, he resisted the authority of the catholic church, demanded a rational proof of the justice of the sentence it had pronounced against him, and intimated, with sufficient plainness, that he looked upon the church as fallible. All this certainly was most enormously criminal and intolerably heretical, according to the general opinion of the times; for it became a dutiful son of the church to renounce his eye-sight,public oration, in presence of the dauphin and and to submit his own judgment and will, with- the other princes of the blood, affirming, that out any exception or reservation, to the judg- the duke had done a laudable action, and that ment and will of that holy mother, under a it was lawful to put a tyrant to death, "in firm belief and entire persuasion of the infalli- any way, either by violence or fraud, without bility of all her decisions. This ghostly mo- || any form of law or justice, and even in opposither had, for many ages past, followed, when- tion to the most solemn contracts and oaths ever her unerring perfection and authority were of fidelity and allegiance." It is, however, to called in question, the rule which Pliny observ-be observed, that by tyrants, this doctor did not ed in his conduct toward the Christians: mean the supreme rulers of nations, but those "When they persevered, (says he, in his let-powerful and insolent subjects, who abused ter to Trajan,) I put my threats into execution, from a persuasion that, whatever their confessions might be, their audacious and invincible obstinacy deserved an exemplary punish- ||

ment."*

their opulence and credit to bring about measures that tended to the dishonour of their sovereign and the ruin of their country.* The university of Paris pronounced a severe and rigorous sentence against the author of this VIII. Before sentence had been pronounced pernicious opinion; and the council of Conagainst John Huss and Jerome of Prague, the stance, after much deliberation and debate, famous Wickliffe, whose opinions they were condemned the opinion without mentioning supposed to adopt, and who was long since the author. This determination, though modidead, was called from his rest before this spirit-fied with the utmost clemency and mildness, ual tribunal; and his memory was solemnly was not ratified by the new pontiff Martin V., branded with infamy by a decree of the coun- who dreaded too much the formidable power cil. On the 4th day of May, in 1415, many of the duke of Burgundy, to confirm a sentence propositions, invidiously culled out of his writ-which he knew would be displeasing to that ings, were examined and condemned, and an ambitious prince.† order was issued to commit all his works, to- X. After these and other transactions of a gether with his bones, to the flames. On the like nature, it was now time to take into con14th of June following, the assembled fathers sideration a point of greater importance than passed the famous decree, which took the cup had yet been proposed, even the reformation from the laity in the celebration of the eucha-of the church in its head and in its members, rist; ordered" that the Lord's supper should be by setting bound to the despotism and corrupreceived by them only in one kind, i. e. the|tion of the Roman pontiffs, and to the luxury bread," and rigorously prohibited the communion in both kinds. This decree was occasioned by complaints that had been made of the conduct of Jacobellus de Misa, curate of the parish of St. Michael at Prague, who, about a year before, had been persuaded by Peter of Dresden, to administer the Lord's supper in both kinds, and was followed in this by several churches. The council, being informed of this matter by a Bohemian bishop, thought proper to oppose with vigour the progress of this heresy; and therefore they enacted the statute, which ordered "the communion to be administered to the laity only in one kind," and which obtained the force and authority of a law in the church of Rome.

IX. In the same year, the opinion of John Petit, a doctor of divinity at Paris, who maintained, that every individual had an undoubted right to take away the life of a tyrant, was brought before the council, and was condemned

*Plin. Epist. lib. x. ep. 97. "Perseverantes duci Jussi. Neque enim dubitabam, qualecumque esset quod faterentur, pervicaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri."

† Byzinii Diar. Huss. p. 124.

and immorality of licentious ecclesiastics. It was particularly with a view to this important object, that the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon the council, from a general persuasion of the necessity of this reformation, and an ardent desire of seeing it happily brought into execution. Nor did the assembled fathers deny, that this reformation was the principal end of their meeting. Yet this salutary work had so many obstacles in the passions and interests of those very persons by whom it was to be effected, that little could be expected, and still less was done. The cardinals and dignified clergy, whose interest it was that the church should remain in its corrupt and disordered state, employed all their eloquence and art to prevent its reformation; and observed, among other artful pretexts, that a work of

*This appears manifestly from the very discourse of Petit, which the reader may see in L'Enfant's History of the Council of Pisa, tom. ii. p. 303.* See also August. Leyseri Diss. qua Memoriam Joh. Burgundi et Doctrinam Joh. Parvi de Cæde per Duel. lium vindicat.

† Boulay, tom. v.-Argentre, Collectio Judicior. de novis Erroribus, tom. i. part ii.-Gersonis Opera, edited by M. Du-Pin, tom. v.-Bayle's Diction. tom.

iii. Some historians have erroneously represented Petit as a lawyer. See Dr. Smollet's History of England.

See also the same author's History of the Council of Constance, book iii. sect. xix.

firmly resolved to answer the end and purpose of their meeting, Eugenius was much alarmed at the prospect of a reformation, which he feared above all things; and beholding with terror the zeal and designs of these spiritual physicians, he twice attempted the dissolution of the council. These repeated attempts were vigorously opposed by the members, who proved by the decrees of the late assembly, and by other arguments equally conclusive, that the council was superior in point of authority to the Roman pontiff. This controversy was terminated in November, 1433, by the silence and concessions of the pope, who, in the following month, wrote a letter from Rome, expressing his approbation of the council, and his acknowledgment of its authority.*

such high moment and importance could not || crees that were enacted by its authority, that be undertaken with any prospect of success, the assembled fathers were in earnest, and until a new pontiff should be elected. And, what was still more shocking, Martin V. was no sooner raised to that high dignity, than he employed his authority to elude and frustrate every effort that was made to set this salutary work on foot, and made it appear most evidently, by the laws he enacted, that nothing was more foreign from his intention than the reformation of the clergy, and the restoration of the church to its primitive purity. Thus this famous council, after sitting three years and six months, was dissolved, on the 22d day of April, 1418, without having effected its chief ostensible object; and the members postponed to a future assembly of the same kind, which was to be summoned five years after this period, that pious design of purifying a corrupt church, which had been so long the object of the expectations and desires of all good Christians.

XI. Not merely five years, but almost thirteen, elapsed without the promised meeting. The remonstrances, however, of those whose zeal for the reformation of the church interested them in this event, prevailed at length over the pretexts and stratagems which were employed to put it off from time to time; and Martin summoned a council to meet at Pavia, whence it was removed to Sienna, and thence to Basil. The pontiff did not live to be a witness of the proceedings of this assembly, being carried off by a sudden death on the 21st day of February, 1431, just about the time when the council was to meet. He was immediately succeeded by Gabriel Condolmerio, a native of Venice, and bishop of Sienna, who is known in the papal list by the title of Eugenius IV. This pontiff approved all the measures of his predecessor, in relation to the assembling of the council of Basil, which was accordingly opened on the 23d of July, 1431, under the superintendence of Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who performed the functions of president in the place of Eugenius.

XII. These preliminary measures being finished, the council proceeded with zeal and activity to the accomplishment of the important purposes for which it was assembled. The pope's legates were admitted as members, but not before they had declared, upon oath, that they would submit to the decrees that should be enacted in it, and more particularly that they would adhere to the laws of the council of Constance, in relation to the supremacy of general councils, and the subordination of the pontiffs to their authority and jurisdiction. These very laws, which the popes beheld with such aversion and horror, were solemnly renewed by the assembly in 1434; and in the following year, the Annates (as they were called) were publicly abolished, notwithstanding the opposition that was made to this measure by the legates of the Roman see. On the 25th of March, 1436, a confession of faith was read, which every pontiff was to subscribe on the day of his election; it was voted that the number of cardinals should be reduced to twenty-four; and the papal impositions, called Expectatives, Reservations, and Provisions, were annulled. These measures, with others of a like nature, provoked Eugenius

The two grand points, proposed to the deliberation of this famous council, were, the *The history of this grand and memorable council union of the Greek and Latin churches, and is yet a desideratum. The learned Stephen Baluze, the reformation of the church universal, both (as we find in the Histoire de l'Academie des Inscripin its head and in its members, according to tions et des Belles Lettres, tom. vi. p. 544,) and after him M. L'Enfant, promised the world a history of the resolution that had been taken in the late this council; but neither of these valuable writers council; for that the Roman pontiff, or the performed that promise.* The acts of this famous head of the church, and the bishops, priests, assembly were collected with incredible industry, in and monks, who were looked upon as its mema great number of volumes, from various archives and libraries, at the expense of Rodolphus Augustus, bers, had become excessively corrupt, and that, duke of Brunswick, by the very learned and laborious to use the expression of the prophet in a simi- Herman von der Hardt. They are preserved, as we lar case, the whole head was sick and the are informed, in the library of Hanover; and they certainly deserve to be drawn from their retreat, and whole heart faint,' were matters of fact too published to the world. In the mean time, the curi striking to escape the knowledge of the obscur- ous may consult the abridgment of the acts of this est individual. On the other hand, as it ap-code use in this history, as also the following aucouncil, published at Paris, in 1512, of which I have peared by the very form of the council, by thors: Æneæ Sylvii Lib. duo de Concilio Basiliensi.— its method of proceeding, and by the first de- Edm. Richerius, Histor. Concilior. General. lib. iii. cap. 1.-Henr. Canisii Lectiones Antiquæ, tom. iv. p. 447.

*

* By the form of the council, Dr. Mosheim undoubtedly means the division of the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, &c. into four equal classes, without any regard to the nation or province by which they were sent. This prudent arrangement prevented the cabals and intrigues of the Italians, whose bishops were much more numerous than those of other nations, and who, by their number, might have had it in their power to retard or defeat the laudable purpose which the council had in view, had things been otherwise ordered.

Dr. Mosheim has here fallen into an error; for L'Enfant did in reality perform his promise, and composed the History of the Council of Basil, which he blended with his history of the war of the Hussites, on account of the connexion between these subjects, and also because his advanced age prevented his indulging himself in the hope of being able to give, separately, a complete history of the council of Basil.

XIV. This election was the occasion of the revival of that deplorable schism, which had formerly rent the church, and which had been terminated with so much difficulty, and after so many vain and fruitless efforts, at the council of Constance. The new breach was even more lamentable than the former one, as the flame was kindled not only between rival pontiff's, but also between the contending councils of Basil and Florence. The greatest part of the church submitted to the jurisdiction, and adopted the cause of Eugenius; while Felix was acknowledged, as lawful pontiff, by a great number of universities, and, among others, by that of Paris, as also in several kingdoms and provinces. The council of Basil continued to deliberate, to enact laws, and pub

in the highest degree, and induced him to form || dignity Amadeus, duke of Savoy, who then the intention, either of removing this trouble-lived in the most profound solitude at a charmsome and enterprising council into Italy, or of ing retreat, called Ripaille, upon the borders setting up a new assembly in opposition to it, of the Leman Lake, and who is known in the which might fix bounds to its zeal for the re- papal list by the name of Felix V. formation of the church. Accordingly, on the 7th of May, 1437, the assembled fathers having, on account of the Greeks, come to a resolution of holding the new council at Basil, Avignon, or some city in the duchy of Savoy, the intractable pontiff opposed this motion, and maintained that it should be transferred into Italy. Each of the contending parties persevered, with the utmost obstinacy, in the resolution they had taken; and this occasioned a warm and violent contest between the pope and the council. The latter summoned Eugenius to appear at Basil, in order to give an account of his conduct; but the pontiff, instead of complying with the requisition, issued a decree, by which he pretended to dissolve the council, and to assemble another at Ferrara. This decree, indeed, was treated with the ut-lish edicts, until the year 1443, notwithstandmost contempt by the council, which, with the consent of the emperor, the king of France, and several other princes, continued its deliberations, and pronounced a sentence of contumacy against the rebellious pontiff, for having refused to obey its order.

ing the efforts of Eugenius and his adherents to put a stop to their proceedings. And, though in that year the members of the council retired to their respective places of abode, yet they declared publicly that the council was not dissolved.

In the mean time, the council of Florence, with Eugenius at its head, was chiefly employed in reconciling the differences between the Greeks and Latins; which weighty business was committed to the prudence, zeal, and piety, of a select number of eminent men on both sides. The most distinguished among those whom the Greeks chose for this purpose was the learned Bessarion, who was afterwards raised to the dignity of cardinal in the Romish church. This great man, engaged and seduced by the splendid presents and pro

XIII. In the year 1438, Eugenius in person opened the council, which he had summoned to meet at Ferrara, and at the second session thundered out an excommunication against the fathers assembled at Basil. The principal business that was now to be transacted, was the proposed reconciliation between the Greek and Latin churches; and, in order to bring this salutary and important design to a happy issue, the emperor John Palæologus, the Grecian patriarch Josephus, with the most eminent bishops and doctors among the Greeks, arrived in Italy, and appeared at Ferrara. The ex-mises of the Latin pontiff, employed the whole tremity to which the Greeks were reduced by extent of his authority, and the power of his elothe Turks, and the pleasing hope, that their quence, and even had recourse to promises and reconciliation with the Roman pontiff would threats, to persuade the Greeks to accept the contribute to engage the Latins in their cause, conditions of peace that were proposed by Eugeseem to have animated, in a particular manner, nius. These conditions required their consent to their zeal in this negotiation. Be that as it the following points:-"That the Holy Spirit may, there was little done at Ferrara, where proceeded from the Son, as well as from the Famatters were carried on too slowly, to afford ther; that departed souls were purified in the any prospect of an end of their dissensions: but infernal regions, by a certain kind of fire, bethe negotiations were more successful at Flo- fore their admission to the presence and vision rence, whither Eugenius removed the council of the Deity;-that unleavened bread might be about the beginning of the year 1439, on ac- used in the administration of the Lord's supcount of the plague that broke out at Ferrara.per;"-and lastly, which was the principal On the other hand, the council of Basil, exas- thing insisted upon by the Latins, that 'the perated by the imperious proceedings of Euge- Roman pontiff was the supreme judge, the nius, deposed him from the papacy on the 25th true head of the universal church.' Such of June, 1439; which vigorous measure was were the terms of peace to which all the not approved by the European kings and Greeks were obliged to accede, except Mark princes. It may be easily conceived what an of Ephesus, whom neither entreaties nor reimpression this step made upon the affronted wards could move from his purpose, or engage pontiff; he lost all patience; and devoted, for to submit to a reconciliation founded upon such the second time, to hell and damnation, the conditions. And indeed this reconciliation, members of the obnoxious council by a solemn which had been brought about by various and most severe edict, in which also he de- stratagems, was much more specious than clared all their acts null, and all their proceed-solid, and had by no means stability sufficient ings unlawful. This new peal of papal thun- to insure its duration. We find, accordingly, der was held in derision by the council of Ba-that the Grecian deputies had no sooner resil, whose members, persisting in their purpose, turned to Constantinople, than they declared elected another pontiff, and raised to that high || publicly, that all things had been carried on VOL. I.-53

at Florence by artifice and fraud, and renewed || preyed upon his spirits, and hastened his death, the schism, which had been so imperfectly which happened on the 24th of March, 1455. healed. The council put an end to its deliberations on the 26th of April, 1442,* without having executed any of the designs that were proposed by it, in a satisfactory manner; for, beside the affair of the Greeks, they proposed bringing the Armenians, Jacobites, and more particularly the Abyssinians, into the bosom of the Romish church; but this project was attended with as little success as the other.

That is to say, these elections were wrested out of the hands of the popes, who had usurped them; and, by the new edict, every church had the privi†This abdication was made on the 9th of April,lege of choosing its bishop, and every monastery its 1449, and was ratified on the 16th.