ht certainly appears as
a redressing of one inequality by creating another. At all events it was
so earnestly resented by the Germans, by professors and students alike,
that they quitted the university in a body, some say of five thousand
and some of thirty thousand, and founded the rival University of
Leipsic, leaving no more than two thousand students at Prague. Full of
indignation against Huss, whom they regarded as the prime author of this
affront and wrong, they spread throughout Germany the most unfavorable
reports of him and of his teaching.

This exodus of the foreigners had left Huss, who was now rector of the
university, with a freer field than before. But church matters at Prague
did not mend; they became more confused and threatening every day,
until presently Huss stood in open opposition with the hierarchy of his
time. Pope John XXIII, having a quarrel with the King of Naples,
proclaimed a crusade against him, with what had become a constant
accompaniment of this--indulgences to the crusaders. But to denounce
indulgences, as Huss with fierce indignation did now, was to wound Pope
John in a most sensitive part. He was excommunicated at once, and every
place which should harbor him stricken with an interdict. While matters
were in this frame the Council of Constance was opened, which should
appease all the troubles of Christendom and correct whatever was amiss.
The Bohemian difficulty could not be omitted, and Huss was summoned to
make answer at Constance for himself.

He had not been there four weeks when he was required to appear before
the Pope and cardinals, November 18, 1414. After a brief informal
hearing he was committed to harsh durance, from which he never issued as
a free man again. Sigismund, the German King and Emperor-elect, who had
furnished Huss with a safe-conduct which should protect him, "going to
the Council, tarrying at the Council, returning from the Council," was
absent from Constance at the time, and heard with real displeasure how
lightly regarded this promise and pledge of his had been.

Some big words, too, he spoke, threatening to come himself and release
the prisoner by force; but, being waited on by a deputation from the
council, who represented to him that he, as a layman, in giving such a
safe-conduct had exceeded his powers, and intruded into a region which
was not his, Sigismund was convinced, or affected to be convinced.
Doubtless the temptations to be convinced were stron