cils of Pisa and Constance,
including the election of the Pope himself. In their indignation the
members made a strong appeal to the Pope to fulfil the conditions agreed
upon before his election. But Martin had a weapon to hand which had been
furnished by the council itself.

It was the division into nations that had led to the fall of John XXIII,
and it was the same division into nations that had ruined the prospects
of reform. The Pope now drew up a few scanty articles of reform, which
he offered as separate concordats to the French, Germans, and English.
It was a dangerous expedient for a pope to adopt, because it seemed to
imply the separate existence of national churches; but it answered its
immediate purpose. Martin could contend that there was no longer any
work for the council to do, and he dissolved it in May, 1418.

He set out for Italy, where a difficult task awaited him. Papal
authority in Rome had ceased with the flight of John XXIII in 1414.
Sigismund offered the Pope a residence in some Germany city, but Martin
wisely refused. The support of his own family, the Colonnas, enabled him
to reenter Rome in 1421. By that time almost all traces of the schism
had disappeared. Gregory XII was dead; John XXIII had recently died in
Florence; Benedict XIII still held out in his fortress of Peniscola, but
was impotent in his isolation.

TRIAL AND BURNING OF JOHN HUSS

THE HUSSITE WARS

A.D. 1415

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH

Among the heralds of the Reformation, John Wycliffe, the
English Protestant who antedated Protestantism by a century
and a half, holds the first position in order of time. For
many years after the death of Wycliffe the movement which he
began continued to be, as it was at first, confined to
England; but at length it was to acquire a wider
significance and to enter upon its European extension.

Not long after his own day the spirit of Wycliffe--even
before knowledge of his work had crossed the Channel--had
come to a new birth on the Continent. And when some sparks
of Wycliffe's own fire were blown over the half of
Europe--even as far as Bohemia--the kindred fires which had
long burned in spite of all suppression were quickened into
a living and a spreading flame.

While then there was a direct and vital influence from the
work of the English reformer which gave to his teachings
partial identity with those of his Bohemian successors, the
movement