I02

A HISTORY OF BOHEMIAN

LITERATURE

many opprobrious songs against the Archbishop were sung in the streets." ^ The rioting in Prague became so serious, that Wenceslas, who had been absent, returned hastily to his capital, and while ordering that the owners of the books of Wycliffe that had been burnt should be compensated, he forbade, under penalty of death, the singing of opprobrious songs, which had been one of the causes of the riots. Hus and his adherents were still confident that the Pope would, in consequence of their appeal, cancel In the meantime they the decree of the Archbishop. determined to defend publicly the orthodoxy of some of Wycliffe's works which the Archbishop had conIn the then usual manner a meeting of the demned. university was convoked, before which Hus, on July 28, defended the orthodoxy of Wycliffe's treatise, De increata, benedicta et venerabili Trinitate. On the following days some of his adherents, before the same forum, Hus also continued, defended other works of Wycliffe.^ in spite of the Archbishop's prohibition, to preach at the Bethlehem chapel, and his services were more crowded than ever. When Hus read to his audience a letter he had received from Richard Wyche,^ an English adherent of Wycliffe, and in the name of the Church of Christ in Bohemia saluted the Church of Christ in England, more than ten thousand people are stated to have been present at the sermon. The papal see had meanwhile entirely identified itself with Archbishop Zbynek. Without entering into details regarding the character of John XXIII. — it cannot be 1 2

Stah- Letopisove CelH (Ancient Bohemian Chronicles). See Chapter IV. Palackt, Documen/a, gives the names of the speakers and the list of the

works they defended.

3

See later, page 131.