But it is important to remember that the Hussite movement had a secular as well as an ecclesiastical side. Bohemia [Sidenote: Political aspect of the Hussite movement.] was a Slav state, and for centuries there had been a conflict between Slavs and Germans. At one time the Slavs had advanced along the southern shores of the Baltic almost as far as the North Sea. But, harassed by the attacks of the Magyars, they had been unable to hold their own, and had gradually been subdued or driven eastwards by German influences, represented by the Dukes of Saxony, the Margraves of Brandenburg, the Hanseatic League, and finally the crusading order of the Teutonic Knights. At the end of the fourteenth century this steady eastward advance of the Germans met with a severe, and to some extent a permanent, check. No doubt the chief agency in effecting this was the success of the Jagellon kings of Poland in their war with the Teutonic Order. But the Hussite movement belongs to the same Slav reaction, and for a time contributed almost as directly as Polish victories to assure the successful resistance of the Slavs. Hus himself, born of humble parentage in the village of Husinec, was profoundly imbued with popular sympathies, and lost no opportunity of identifying himself and his teaching with the national cause. And in this aim he was served by events in the University of Prague, where he early rose to a distinguished position. Founded in the days of Bohemian ascendency under Charles IV., the University had from the first attracted a large number of German teachers and students, and had become far larger and more distinguished than any purely German university. Like the Paris University, on which it had been modelled, it was divided into four nations—Bohemians, Poles, Bavarians, and Saxons. After the foundation of a Polish university at Cracow, the Polish nation at Prague had come to be composed mainly of Germans from Silesia, Pomerania, and Prussia. Thus to all intents and purposes the University was composed of two nations, Germans and Bohemians, of whom the former had three times as much power as the latter. In all questions which were decided by the vote of the nations, the Germans had three votes to one, and as offices went in rotation to the four nations, they had three turns to the Bohemian one. As the divergent interests of Slavs and Germans became accentuated by political and religious differences, the inferiority of the Bohemians in their own University became more and more of a grievance. It was on religious questions that the quarrel was most embittered. The majority of the orthodox party in the University consisted of Germans, and they denounced the growth of Wycliffite heresy. A German teacher brought forward a number of propositions which had been attributed to Wyclif and condemned by a Synod in London. In spite of the opposition of Hus and his Bohemian supporters, the majority in the University voted that the doctrines were heretical, and