ritual arrangements, suggesting that money—or a certain way of handling it—was at the core of what constituted a reformed place, a view that fits with common fifteenth-century concerns about clerical greed and corruption, which were, incidentally, central not only to Hus’s preaching but to the local reform tradition that preceded him.
The different provisions anticipated numerous possible ways in which a less-than-dutiful cleric might try to take advantage of the post and made those impossible. The charter’s provisions were intentionally specific and elaborately set out so as to combat three grave sins that, according to the charter’s authors, plagued the contemporary church: plurality of benefits, clerical laziness, and greed.25 In order to eliminate these vices, at least from the chapel’s premises, the charter stipulated that the priest must reside at the chapel and not take on additional benefices while serving at Bethlehem. The charter recognized that “it is often the case that some seek their own good and not that of Jesus Christ, so when they receive a benefice, they care little for the work involved.” The charter also stipulated that “if the preacher leaves for any reason not deemed reasonable and approved by the local ordinary or general vicars, his rent is to be cut in accordance with the length of his absence and that money be used for building, equipment or other needs of the chapel.”26 If the priest left his post for another, for any period of time, he lost a part of his salary. This provision aimed to remove the attraction of taking on additional benefices. It is clear that the founders meant to ensure that the chapel would not fall prey to priests interested in the money but not in the work.
The chapel’s provisions spelled out the priest’s compensation in no less detail and were also tailored to preemptively combat potential embezzlement by imposing controls and limits on how money was to be spent and by whom. The priest was to live off the endowment, but was to be paid no more than twenty groschen and was specifically prohibited from asking for more money.27 The provisions allowed for no pay raise except in the case of the priest deciding to use his own money to do so. The charter was also specific about the way in which gifts, alms, and other contributions were to be handled, again making it preemptively difficult to cheat. The knowledge that his income was fixed and that there was no further available funding was probably supposed to free the priest from plotting to make money and dreaming up ways for how. This was eminently important to the chapel’s founders, who—along with Prague’s pro-reform clerics—saw greed as the greatest stumbling block in the life of a priest and, therefore, of the church.
In order to lessen the temptation and also to weed out candidates interested solely in additional incomes, the founders spoke explicitly about the problem of greed in the charter’s provisions. The charter described greed as the “mother of all temptation leading many to their downfall.”28 Underscoring the temptations of greed, the charter’s author wrote, for the first time switching to a firstperson narrative, “I decided that gifts, alms, and other contributions will not be handled by the preachers for any reason; they are to be locked in a common chest and kept under three locks. The first key will be in the hands of the preacher, the second in the hands of the masters, and the third in the hands of the patron or whomever he entrusts the key to.”29 This arrangement was supposed to make it impossible for the priest to embezzle the chapel’s funds. To ensure honesty and fairness, the funds were to be handled only by the three overseers. It was an intricate arrangement. The gifts were to be used for the following in this order: to pay the priest from the adjacent church (ninety groschen twice a year); if anything was left over, it was to be used for the building and reconstruction of the chapel. If there was no need for such expenditures, it was to be used for books for the chapel and for the preacher, and when there were enough of them, all surplus money was to be kept and used to increase the salary for the chaplain. If there was money left over, it was to be used to establish another preacher, and—if there was not enough money in the endowment—to supplement his income from the surplus money; and after that, the surplus was to be used to buy an annual rent; once that was established, it was to be used to support one able student, who was poor but dedicated to the study of theology. If there was yet additional surplus, then two (or more) students were to be financed in this way; the establishment of the students (duties, rule, manner of life) was left up to the preacher and the three masters of the university at the time.30
The charter spelled out a hierarchy of payments: the priest in the adjacent parish church, whose revenues were bound to shrink with the establishment of Bethlehem and whose opposition could create problems for the fledgling foundation, the building itself, then books for the preacher and for the chapel. Any surplus was then to be used to augment the salary of the chaplain up to a specific amount and, with his payment ceiling having been reached, for the establishment of another preacher (whose duties were to be shared with the chapel’s original preacher) and, last, for the establishment of students. These financial arrangements show that the founders saw careful money management as integral to the chapel’s success, as a reformed place, that is to say, as a place that preemptively combated what the founders perceived to be the worst and most persistent errors of the contemporary church, with the chapel’s provisions mimicking the complaints made by reform clerics of the clerical culture as a whole. This suggests that the reform efforts at this time were primarily aimed at clerics, making the reform a curiously clerical affair. The laity, on the other hand, appears almost peripheral to the efforts of reforming the church.
Hus’s Tenure at Bethlehem
Bethlehem did not become instantly popular. Little is known about the decade immediately after the chapel’s founding, but frequent personnel changes (three different priests in six years) suggest some uncertainty about its direction. However, the chapel began to draw big crowds with the arrival of Jan Hus in 1402.31 Hus was about thirty-two years old when he was appointed to Bethlehem Chapel.32 And while the income from the chapel was not large, to the best of our knowledge, Hus never sought another, better-paying job.33 He worked there tirelessly, preaching sermons that drew vast crowds, until he was excommunicated and forced to leave Prague in October 1412.34 The chapel was not a part of Prague’s parish network, but rather a kind of para-church organization, adherence to which was voluntary and constituted a commitment beyond regular church attendance. This suggests that the audience was self-selecting and motivated, both of which would become important characteristics in Hus’s quest to build a reformed faction.
During his tenure at Bethlehem, Hus preached about 3,500 sermons,35 many of them extant.36 According to contemporary accounts, the chapel was usually full to the bursting point. Given the fact that many would first attend mass in their own parish church and then go to hear Jan Hus speak, we can assume that Hus had a charismatic presence and a message that resonated.37 Indeed, Hus was a performer, combining spiritual exhortations with sharp critique of his contemporary society and its higher echelons. On some days, he would hold his audience’s attention for hours, occasionally even preaching two sermons back to back. The vast majority of his sermons were recorded in Latin and not in Czech, which was the language in which they were delivered, and so we will never know exactly how he spoke, what jokes he made, or if his words were infused with irony or sarcasm. But we do know that he was lively and his words had traction.
However, Hus’s vernacular preaching eventually proved contentious because he used the pulpit at Bethlehem to air complaints about the clergy in Prague. That is to say, Hus’s seditious preaching was the original reason why he was noticed by the authorities. He first came under attack in 1408, six years after he took over the pulpit at Bethlehem,38 when the clergy of Prague accused him of sedition before the archbishop. The fact that the first complaint came from the clergy of Prague, in effect from among Hus’s colleagues, suggests that the case against him grew out of local conflict. The accusers found Hus’s sermons to be inciting the people against the ecclesiastical hierarchy and subverting clerical reputations. The complaints show us how Hus irritated his colleagues and superiors, which in turn helps us understand his popular appeal.
The document against Hus contained three articles.
The first
