It was, however, before a far larger forum that the case between the enemies and the partisans of Church reform was now to be brought. In consequence of the intolerable condition of the Western Church, which, since the Council of Pisa, possessed three rival pontiffs, the demand was raised on all sides that a General Council be summoned for the purpose of ending the schism. The influence of Sigismund, king of the Romans and king of Hungary, brother of Wenceslas of Bohemia, finally induced the reluctant Pope, John XXIII., to consent to the meeting of the Council; and it was decided that its members should assemble at Constance on November 1, 1414. The assembly was, as already mentioned, convoked for the purpose of ending the schism, but the fact that the discord in the Church of Bohemia had now become widely known in Europe naturally drew the attention of the Council also to the views of Hus and his adherents. King Sigismund suggested that Hus should attend the Council, and there develop his views, and at the same time vindicate the orthodoxy of the Bohemian nation, on which he as well as his brother Wenceslas laid great stress. Before Hus set out on his journey, King Sigismund offered him a letter of safe-conduct, which allowed him, according to the words of Professor Tomek, "to come unmolested to Constance, there have free audience, and return unharmed, should he not submit to the authority of the Council." It is not necessary to discuss here the various opinions as to the exact meaning of the letter of safe-conduct; the statement of Dr. Tomek, the greatest living authority with regard to Hus, may be considered as decisive. That the letter was not merely a guarantee that Hus should reach Constance in safety, is proved by the fact that he only received it after he had arrived there; still less can the remarks of Hus himself, who in his letters before leaving Bohemia expressed forebodings of coming doom, he used as an argument to prove that the letter of safe-conduct had little value. Hus was well aware that no official injunctions could ensure him against possible violence on the part of such fanatical enemies as Michael de Causis; nor could the possibility that the thesis "that no faith should be kept with heretics," might be used against him escape the sagacity of Hus.