Waldenses of both sexes were burnt. Of the followers of Conrad Schmidt, of Thuringia, many were discovered in 1414, and ninety-one were burnt in one town, forty-four in another, and many more in the villages of that province. A still more horrible case occurred two years later, when 300 of the Flagellants, penitent as well as impenitent, suffered at the stake in one day. The superiority of the episcopate over the Inquisition was asserted by a Bull of Eugenius IV in 1431, which had the novel effect of rendering the Inquisitors liable to excommunication if they interfered with the Bishops. Persecution went on, however, until, in the time of the Reformation, most of the heretical bodies lost their identity in the spread of Lutheranism. One of the precursors of that great movement was Gregory of Heimburg, who for twenty-five years boldly wrote and preached against the Papacy and the abuse by the Church of its power. A similar campaign was carried on by Hans of Niklaushausen, who proclaimed that the wickedness of the clergy was bringing about the destruction of the world. He was seized by the episcopal tribunal of Wurzburg, and silenced in the customary manner. In spite of intermittent activity and a large number of burnings in Germany, the Inquisition never obtained a firm foothold in that country; while in Bavaria it was not formally established till 1599, and did not retain power for long. Had it been as strong and efficient as it proved in Spain, the career of Martin Luther would have been a brief one, and the Reformation would have been postponed indefinitely. _Bohemia._