It had been settled at the council of Constance that regularly from time to time there should be held a general council, by which name was then meant a council gathered from the whole of the Western Church, but without any representatives of the Eastern Churches; and according to this decree a council was to meet at Basel, on the Rhine, in the year 1431. It was just before the time of its opening that Cardinal Cesarini was defeated by the Hussites of Bohemia, as we have seen. Being convinced that some gentler means ought to be tried with them, he begged the pope to allow them a hearing; and he invited them to send deputies to the council of Basel, of which he was president. The Bohemians did as they were asked to do, and thirty of them appeared before the council,--rough, wild-looking men for the most part, headed by Procopius, who was at once a priest and a warrior, and was called the great, in order to distinguish him from another of the same name. A dispute, which lasted many weeks, was carried on between the leaders of these Bohemians and some members of the council; and, at length, four points were agreed on. The chief of these was, that the chalice at the Holy Communion should not be confined to the priest alone, but might be given to such grown-up persons as should desire it. This was one of the things which had been most desired by the Bohemian reformers. We need not go further into the history of the Hussites and of the parties into which they were divided; but it is worth while to remember that the use of the sacramental cup was allowed in Bohemia for two hundred years, while in all other churches under the Roman authority it was forbidden.