Note 44 — Chapter XI · THE REFORMATION, POLITICALLY CONSIDERED

There was thus a considerable movement in the direction of Church reform before either Huss or Wiclif was heard in Bohemia; and a Bohemian king had shown a reforming zeal, apparently not on financial motives, before any other European potentate. And whereas racial jealousy of the dominant Italians was a main factor in the movement of Luther, the much more strongly motived jealousy of the Czechs against the Germans who exploited Bohemia was a main element in the salient movement of the Hussites.44 Called in to work the silver mines, and led further by the increasing field for commerce and industry,45 the more civilized Germans secured control of the Czech church and monasteries, appropriating most of the best livings. As they greatly predominated also at the University of Prague, Huss, whose inspiration was largely racial patriotism, wrought with his colleague Jerome to have the university made strictly national.46 When, accordingly, the German heads of the university still (1403 and 1408) condemned the doctrines of Wiclif as preached by Huss, the motives of the censors were as much racial and economic as theological; that is to say, the “Teutonic conscience” operated in its own interest to the exaltation of papal rule against the Czech conscience.