Note 513 — Chapter VII · BOHEMIA.

Richentals Chronik p. 78.--Von der Hardt IV. 313, 521-22.--Chron. Glassberger ann. 1415.--Martene Ampl. Collect. VIII. 131-33. Cf. Noel Alexander’s justification of the decree of September 23 (Hist. Eccles. Ed. Paris, 1699. T. VIII. p. 496). It is customary with modern Catholic writers to stigmatize as a Protestant calumny the assertion that the Church held the doctrine that faith is not to be kept with heretics. See, for instance, Van Ranst, Regent of the College of Antwerp, in his “Historia Hæreticorum” (4th. Ed. Venet. 1759, p. 263), together with his ingenious endeavor to argue away the case of Huss. I have already alluded to this subject (Vol. I. p. 228), and have shown that it was a recognized principle of the Church that faith and oaths pledged to heretics were void. It has also been seen how the efforts of the popes procured the insertion in the public law of Europe of the principle that suspicion of heresy in the lord released the vassal from the most binding engagement known to the Middle Ages--the oath of allegiance (Lib. V. Extra, VII. xiii. § 3). When thus the basis on which society itself was founded was destroyed by heresy all minor pledges were necessarily invalidated. The Church did not allow this to become obsolete. When, in 1327, John XXII. sentenced the Emperor Louis of Bavaria as a heretic, he not only released all his vassals from their oaths of allegiance, but declared void all compacts and agreements made with him (Martene Thesaur. II. 702, 775-6, 791). So, in 1463, when it pleased Pius II. to declare George Podiebrad a heretic, he released the communities of Breslau and Namslau from their allegiance, and excommunicated all who should lend their aid or service to their monarch (Æn. Sylvii Epist. 401); and when Frederic III. asked him to compel Breslau to submit to George, he replied by arguing that heresy dissolved compacts as effectually as death (Martene Ampl. Coll. I. 1598-99). When, in 1469, Paul II. again declared George a heretic he pronounced that each and every obligation, promise, and oath made to that heretic was null and void, for faith was not to be kept with him who kept not faith with God. Acting under this, when George released from prison Wenceslas of Biberstein, on bail of six thousand florins furnished by John and Ulric of Hazemburg, the papal legate Rudolph incontinently ordered the bailors neither to surrender the accused nor to pay the forfeit (Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VI. 77). The play upon the double meaning of the word faith by which this was epigrammatically justified was seriously accepted by Christendom. In April, 1415, Fernando of Aragon wrote to Sigismund earnestly remonstrating with him for the delay in judging Huss, and expressing the hope that the safe-conduct would not be allowed to protect him “quoniam non est frangere fidem in eo qui Deo fidem frangit.”--Andreæ Ratisponens Chron. ann. 1414 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. III. 626.--Palacky Documenta, p. 540). All statutes and laws impeding the free action of the Inquisition, directly or indirectly, were null and void ipso jure, as we have repeatedly seen above (see also Farinaccii de Hæresi Quæst. 182 No. 76); and what Sigismund could not have done at the head of the Imperial Diet, he certainly could not do by a simple safe-conduct, and no ecclesiastical jurisdiction was bound to respect it. If the Church thus disregarded the pledges of laymen, it was equally unmindful of its own when heretics were concerned. Even late in the sixteenth century the bull Multiplices inter of Pius V. annulled all letters of absolution and decrees of acquittal for heresy issued by inquisitors, bishops, popes, and even by the Council of Trent, showing how scant was the ceremony customarily used in such cases, and how completely suspicion of heresy deprived a man of all rights (Lib. V. in Septimo III. x.). Even without this general principle, however, there would have been no difficulty in soothing Sigismund’s scruples of conscience, if, perchance, he had any. The system of the mediæval Church so completely confused the ideas of right and wrong that the ordinary notions of morality were superseded. The power of the keys was such that a papal dispensation could release any one from an inconvenient vow or promise, no matter how binding might be its form. Sigismund’s father, Charles, when Margrave of Moravia, was released, in 1346, by Clement VI. from a troublesome oath which he had taken (Werunsky Excerptt. ex Regist. Clem. VI. p. 44); and the sin of perjury was one for which the popes were accustomed to grant efficacious pardons when it was committed in their interest (Ludewig op. cit. VI. 14). It was deemed only a reasonable precaution in compacts for the parties to pledge themselves that they would not seek a release by a papal dispensation (Hartzheim IV. 329; Preger, Der kirchenpolitische Kampf unter Ludwig dem Baier, p. 59). Sigismund, in the case of Huss, admitted that his pledge was dissolved by heresy and a dispensation was superfluous, but it could have been had for the asking. In view of these facts all attempts to argue away the betrayal of Huss are useless, nor is it possible to accuse the good fathers of Constance of conscious bad faith. They but accepted and enforced the principles in which they were trained.