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XLVII.: To John of Chlum ( Without date: February 28 ( ? ), 1415) - Jan Huss, The Letters of John Hus [1904]

Edition used:

The Letters of John Hus. With Introductions and Explanatory Notes by Herbert B. Workman and R. Martin Pope (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904).

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XLVII.

To John of Chlum

(Without date: February 28 (?), 1415)

Gracious lord, I am very glad to hear of your good health and your continued loyal and kindly constancy in all the efforts you are making for your poor friend. God hath endowed you with constancy above all other men and given you to me as a helper, for your good, I trust, both in this present life and in eternity. I beg you then, by God’s mercy, to await the issue of my case, like a soldier of Jesus Christ. If Master (dominus) John of Janowicz [Cardinalis] is quite well—he spent much time with me—I beg you to confer with him.

I feel my debt to the noble Baron Wenzel de Duba. Please greet him by my prayers, which are set loose by my prison, and give him my thanks for his faithful interest in my cause. Greet the rest of the faithful Bohemians.

I blame myself for not keeping back my tears on suddenly seeing Master Christian; but the sight of my faithful master and particular benefactor made them stream from my eyes.

I had heard that, with your whole family, you had gone away for a long visit,1 but now my soul is comforted. God, most gracious, at one time consoles me and at another afflicts me; but I trust He is ever with me in tribulation. For I have again been horribly racked with stone, from which I never suffered before, and with severe vomiting and fevers. My gaolers were afraid I should die, and removed me from the dungeon. Many articles from the Bag of Lies,2 and others from this same bag, as also those to which you have the replies, have been laid against me. I dare not write replies on your paper to the articles of the Paris doctors,3 because I could not conceal them on account of the watch kept over me. It is just as well to leave it over to avoid any harm coming to our faithful friend—you know whom I mean.4 I recommend him to you.

I should be glad to see you, together with Baron Wenzel [de Duba] and Master Christian. I fancy, if you speak to the Pope’s under-chamberlain, he will give you permission to visit me. You would have to speak in Latin before the gaolers, and in going out your man Peter1 should give them a gratuity in keeping with your rank. I have not dared to keep the articles by me. Make Peter copy my tract on the Commandments.2

I will answer the charges of the Paris Chancellor if I live;3 but if I die, God will answer them at the Day of Judgment. I do not know where Železný Jan [John Barbatus] is, faithful brother in Christ that he is.

I do not know whether Master Christian is with you. Pray greet him and Baron Wenzel and the rest of the faithful Bohemians.

Do not give way to worry because expenses run up here. Meet the situation as you can. If God shall free the Goose from his prison, He will give you good reason for not regretting these expenses. Please do what is sufficient by means of promises.

If Lord Henry of Plumlow4 or Stibor of Boczi is with you, please greet them and all the Bohemians.

To-morrow it will be eight weeks since Hus was lodged in the refectory.

Noble and gracious lord, guardian of the truth along with Lord Henry [Lacembok], stand by my side without flinching till the end comes, when the Lord Jesus Christ will use me for His glory and the blotting out of my sins. I commend this most faithful of friends to you. I am pleased with what you have done. I should be glad to find that my lord the King had given orders for the hearing of my replies to the articles of Wyclif. Oh, that God might inspire his lips, so that he might take his stand with his leading men in support of the truth!

To-day I finished a little tract, On the Body of Christ, and yesterday one, On Matrimony.1 Get them copied hereafter. Some Polish knights have paid me a visit,2 but no Bohemians, except one that came with them.

The following letter forms a pleasant break in the records of Inquisition methods. To understand it we must remember that Hus, when a priest in Prague, had adopted a novel method of advertising his creed. He had found a use for the great bare walls of the Bethlehem Chapel. On these, in addition to the customary pictures, he had painted up sundry theses, once even a long treatise, On the Six Errors. This idea Hus seems to have taken from the practice in the monastery at Königsaal, the burial-place of the Bohemian kings. His enemies did not fail to sneer at his twentieth-century methods of advertisement. ‘You paint,’ wrote Andrew Brod, ‘The Ten Commandments on your walls; would that you kept them in your heart!’ (Doc. 519).

The letters, undated both in the originals and Palackẏ, would seem to have been written on March 4 and 5. We infer this from the last sentence of Chlum’s reply

(see Hardt, Magnum Constantiense Concilium, iv. 52, and Finke, op. cit. p. 167).

From another letter of Hus we learn some further details of his dreams, of his own belief in their value, and, apparently John of Chlum’s incredulity.

(Compare infra, p. 222, with p. 192, second sentence.)

[1 ]This visit, if paid later, would explain what Hus calls ‘the negligence in writing’ on p. 198.

[2 ]Michael. A favourite insult of the times. Cf. Stephen Dolein’s ‘Sacce Wyclif, ora pro nobis’ (Antihussus, pp. 373, 426).

[3 ]See next page, n. 3.

[4 ]Gaoler Robert, who carried the letters.

[1 ]P.: vester Pater, following Ep. Piiss i. 2a. Read Petr.—i.e., Petrus Mladenowic.

[2 ]See pp. 154 and 171, and Mon. i. 296.

[3 ]Gerson, the great Chancellor of Paris, had despatched to Archbishop Conrad of Prague (September 24, 1414) a series of articles culled from Hus’s De Ecclesia (see Doc. 523-8). The arrival of Gerson at Constance on February 26 (for date see Finke, op. cit. 259) brought them into prominence, and made Chlum, as we have seen, anxious to smuggle out an answer to them from Hus. Hus’s intentions seem to have been frustrated by illness, and we find him in later letters still harping on his intended answer to Gerson. The answer, if ever completed, is now lost.

[4 ]Cf. p. 232. Boczi is a very uncertain reading from the Ep. Piiss.

[1 ]See p. 171. The De Corpore Christi is called in the MonumentaDe Cœna Domini.

[2 ]Possibly Janussius Kalisky and Zaurissius Niger, the ambassadors of Jagiello to the Council, who could therefore obtain access by reason of their office. For other Poles at Constance, see Doc. 256.