Fig. 316.--Jerome of Prague, a Disciple of John Huss, born at Prague about 1378; burnt alive for heresy at Constance in 1416. After the “Vrais Pourtraits des Hommes Illustres:” Jean de Laon, Geneva, 1581.] The Council of Constance, convoked for the 1st of November, 1414, was ordered to examine his doctrines. John Huss, far from flinching at this decisive moment, vehemently called upon his adversaries, by public placards, to come and put him to confusion before the council. “If,” he stated in these placards, “I can be convicted of any error, or of having taught anything contrary to the Christian faith, I am ready to undergo the punishment inflicted upon heretics.” He then solicited and obtained from the Emperor Sigismund a safe-conduct, in which it was stated that, “out of respect for the imperial majesty he was to be let freely and safely pass, sojourn, remain, and return, and be provided, if necessary, with other fitting passports.” John Huss left Prague on the 11th of October (Figs. 315 and 316), and on the 20th, in a letter written from Nuremberg, he expresses his satisfaction at the reception which he has everywhere met with, especially from the ecclesiastics, who seemed disposed to accept his doctrine. Upon reaching Constance, on the 3rd of November, he expounded his ideas very freely, both by word of mouth and in writing; and, in spite of the excommunication hurled against him, he said mass every day in a private room, but without making any secret of it, to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Upon the 28th of November he was arrested and cast into prison. After many witnesses had been examined, thirty-nine articles taken from his speeches and writings were read in public, the most important of which declared “that the elect alone are members of the Catholic Church; that St. Peter neither is nor ever has been the chief of that Church; that by the commission of mortal sin the ecclesiastical and civil authorities lose their rights and privileges; and lastly, that the condemnation of the forty-five articles of Wickliff was unreasonable and unjust.” The venerable Peter d’Ailly exhorted John Huss to submit himself to the judgment of the council; the emperor did the same, threatening him, if he refused, with the rigour of the law. Upon the following day he was given a recantation to sign, which he would not consent to do. A fortnight afterwards, on the 24th of June, his books were condemned to be burnt. On the 6th of July the council declared him to be a heretic, and degraded him from his ecclesiastical orders, by which process he was handed over to the secular arm. The emperor, who was present, had him immediately seized by the count-palatine, and the civil law, which condemned stubborn heretics to the stake, was applied in all its rigour. John Huss submitted to his fate with courage. Jerome of Prague at first signed the formula of recantation, but he soon afterwards disavowed it; and, after publicly declaring that he adopted