The papal recognition came in time to give increased importance and authority to the Council’s negotiations with [Sidenote: The Compacts with Bohemia.] the Bohemians, which had been carried on without interruption during the quarrel with Eugenius. Bohemian deputies, including Prokop himself—as redoubtable a theologian as he was a general—had been admitted to Basel at the end of 1432, and had carried on for three months a disputation with the speakers of the Council. The basis of discussion was supplied by the four articles of Prague, and, thanks to the conciliatory temper of Cesarini, the controversy had rarely gone beyond the decencies of orderly debate. No definite agreement was arrived at at Basel, but it was agreed that delegates from the Council should in their turn proceed to negotiate with the diet at Prague. There, after infinite labour, a rudimentary compromise was arranged in what are called the _Compactata_. On the great question of the cup the Council had to give way, and the Bohemians and Moravians were to be allowed to receive the communion in both kinds. Liberty of preaching was nominally conceded, but it was added that priests must be ordained by their ecclesiastical superiors, and that the authority of bishops must be obeyed. Clergy were to be punished for crimes ‘according to the law of God and the ordinances of the fathers.’ On the question of clerical property the Council gained the day. The right of the Church to possess and administer heritable property was fully recognised, and it was declared sacrilege for a layman to interfere with it.