THE CONCILIUM S SAAL AT CONSTANZ.
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prayers for the dcad and purgatory, as devices merely to fillthe cofFcrs of the Church.
Huss was at length, in 1410, summoned by Pope Alex-ander V. to appear in person at Bologna, and answer thecharges raised against him by the Archbishop of Prague. Buthe who had taught that the Pope had no more authority thanany other priest, and that the Papal rule was an odious tyranny,displayed of course no great alacrity in obeying the mandate;so that he was ere long declared to be excommunicatedthrough contumacy, and the Cardinal Otto von Colonna gaveOrders that no mass nor any holy ceremony was to be per-formed in Prague as long as Huss remained in the town.
Hereupon frequent tumults—often attended with blood-shed—disturbed the streets of Prämie; for the Hussites de-clared that their ministers had a right to celebrate the mass,whilst the Archbishop, on the other hand, called upon theauthorities of the town for the execution of the Papal bull.
Not long after this, the Pope had ordered that a Crusadeshould be instituted against Ladislaus, King of Naples, andthe command afforded Huss another opportunity for assailingthe Papal power. Accordingly, on the 24th August, 1413, heaffixed to the gates of the University and the churches ofPrague a challenge to all the doctors, who upheld the Pope'sauthority, to meet him and discuss the Papal claims to obe-dience and respect. But though no disputation ensued, thechallenge led, as usual, to increased rivalry between the con-tending parties.
The day after the notice had been affixed to the churchdoors the populace rose against the Papal preachers, andmaltreated a considerable number of them; whilst someof the Hussites, on hearing their tenets perverted by theRomish clergy, stood up in the church and gave thepreachers the lie direct, and others rose in the midst of tho
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