in a document termed the Compactata. The communion might be given in both kinds to all adults, who should desire it; but it must, at the same time, be taught that the whole Christ is received under each of the elements. The infliction of penalties on persons guilty of mortal sin, on which the Utraquists insisted, must be left with priests in the case of clerical persons, and with magistrates in the case of laymen. The Article in regard to the free preaching of the Word was qualified by confining the liberty to preach, to persons regularly called, and authorized by bishops. As to the control of property, this was to be allowed to secular priests only, and by them to be exercised according to the prescribed rules. The Compactata was the charter, in defense of which the Utraquists waged many a hard contest; since it was a constant effort of the popes to annul the concessions which it contained, and to reduce even the most moderate of the Hussite sects to an exact conformity to the Roman ritual, and to the mandates of the Roman See. This agreement operated also to divide the Calixtines and Taborites into mutually hostile camps. An armed conflict ensued, in which the Taborites were thoroughly vanquished. Thenceforward the power remained in the hands of the Utraquists who were desirous of approaching as nearly to the doctrines and rites of the Catholic Church in other countries as their convictions would allow. It was far from being true that peace resulted from the downfall of the Taborites, and the conciliatory proceedings of the Calixtines. The history of Bohemia, through the fifteenth century, is a long record of bitter and bloody conflicts, having for their end the restoration of uniformity in religion. About the middle of the century, a new party, the Brethren in Unity, who inherited many of the doctrinal ideas of the Taborites, but with a more conservative tenet relative to the sacrament, and a more gentle and peaceful temper, separated entirely from the Church.

They, in their turn, were the objects of persecution at the hands of the more orthodox Utraquists. Ultimately the Brethren were joined by some nobles, and acquired a greater degree of security. They were connected with certain Waldensian Christians, and, to some extent, influenced by them.

Thus Bohemia for several generations had really been engaged in a struggle to build up a national church in opposition to the dominating and unifying spirit of Rome. When Luther's doctrine became known, it was favorably received by the Brethren, and they desired to connect themselves with the Saxon reform. At first Luther was not satisfied with their opinions, especially on the sacrament; but, after conferences with them, he concluded that their faults were chiefly in expression and were owing to a want of theological culture. After the example of the Lutherans at Augsburg, the Evangelical Brethren, in 1535, presented to King Ferdinand their Confession. The Calixtines were divided on the question of pushing forward the Hussite reform in the direction indicated by Luther. A majority of the estates was at first obtained in favor of declarations virtually Lutheran. But the more conservative Utraquists, who planted themselves on the Compactata, sọon rallied and gained the upper hand. However, the Lutheran doctrine continued to spread and to multiply its adherents among the Calixtines as well as the Brethren. The two parties, on embracing Protestantism, differed from one another chiefly on points of discipline. When the Smalcaldic war broke out, the Utraquists refused to furnish troops to Ferdinand, in aid of the attempt of Charles V. to crush the Protestants, but joined the Elector of Saxony. The Bohemians shared in full measure the disasters which fell upon the Protestant party after their defeat at Mühlbach. Ferdinand inflicted upon them severe penalties. Toleration was now denied to all except the anti-Lutheran Hussites; and this drove

many of the Brethren into Poland and Prussia. From the year 1552, the Jesuits who then came into the country, endeavored to persecute all whose dissent from the Romish Church went beyond the standard of the Compactata. In 1575, the Evangelical Calixtines and Brethren united in presenting a confession of faith to Maximilian II. As the power of the Jesuits increased, there was no safety for the adherents of the Lutheran or the Swiss reforın, In 1609, to such as received the confession of 1575 there was granted a letter patent or "letter of majesty "— which placed them on a footing of legal equality with the Catholics.

"

When the German Reformation began, Poland was rising to that position which rendered it, a generation later, the most powerful kingdom in Eastern Europe. The Slavonic population of Poland had never manifested any peculiar devotion to the Roman see. Conflicts between nobles and bishops, in which carnal weapons on one side were often opposed to the excommunication and the interdict on the other, and contests between princes and the popes on questions of prerogative, had been abundant in Polish history for several centuries.1 At the Council of Constance, Poles were active in the party of reform. Well-founded disaffection at the immoral character of the clergy had widely prevailed. Hence the anti-sacerdotal sects, as the Waldenses and the Beghards, won many followers, and were not exterminated by the Inquisition, by which, about the middle of the fourteenth century, their open manifestation was suppressed. Far more influential were the Hussites, who did much to prepare the ground for Protestantism. Bohemian Brethren, driven from their own land, naturally took refuge in Poland. These circumstances, and other agencies, such as the residence of Polish students at Wittenberg and the 1 Herzog, Real-Encycl., art. "Polen."

REFORMATION IN PRUSSIA.

185

employment of Lutheran teachers and preachers in the families of nobles, opened the door for the ingress of the Protestant doctrine. It early gained disciples, especially in the German cities of Polish Prussia. In Dantzig, the principal city of this province, it made such progress that in 1524 five churches were given up to its adherents.1 But here a turbulent party arose who, not satisfied with tol eration, insisted upon driving out the Catholic worship, and succeeded by violent measures in displacing the existing magistrates, and in supplying their places with officers from their own number. The interference of the King, Sigismund I., was invoked, who restored the old order of things. The progress of the Lutheran cause, however, was not stopped, and Dantzig in the next reign became predominantly Protestant. The council and the burghers of Elbing accepted the Reformation in 1523. Thorn also became Protestant. The advance of the Reformation in the neighboring communities made it impossible to exclude it from Poland, where numerous burghers and powerful nobles regarded it with favor. By the treaty of Thorn in 1466, the old Teutonic order of crusading knights, which had long governed Prussia, surrendered West Prussia and Ermeland to Poland, and retained East Prussia as a fief of the Polish crown. At the request of Albert of Brandenburg, the Grand Master, two preachers were sent by Luther to Königsberg, in 1523. The Reformation swiftly spread; and when Albert, after having been defeated by Poland, secularized his duchy, in 1525, the prevalence of the Protestant doctrine was secured. In 1524, he founded the University of Königsberg for the education of preachers and the extension of the new faith In Livonia, which, after 1521, was independent of the Teutonic Order, the Reformation likewise found a willing

1 Krasinski, Religious History of the Blavonic Nations, p. 126; History of the Reformation in Poland, i. 112 seq.; Die Schicksale d. Polnischen Dissidenten (Hamburg, 1768), i. 423.

acceptance. As early as 1524, Luther addressed a printed letter to the professors of the evangelical doctrine in Riga, Revel, and Dorpat. Cities in the various parts of Poland and families of distinction embraced the new faith. In 1548 a multitude of Bohemian Brethren, exiles from their country, came in to strengthen the Protestant interest. In this year Sigismund I. died, and was succeeded by his son, Sigismund II., or Sigismund Augustus, who was friendly to the evangelical doctrine. Calvin dedicated to him his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and subsequently corresponded with him. In the Diet of 1552, strong indignation was manifested against the clergy on account of the proceedings of an ecclesiastical tribunal against Stadnicki, an eminent nobleman. The clergy were forbidden to inflict any temporal punishment on those whom they might pronounce heterodox.1 At a Diet at Piotrkow in 1555, a national council for the settlement of religious differences was demanded, and was prevented from assembling only by the strenuous exertions of the Pope. Religious freedom was granted by the king to the cities of Dantzic, Thorn, and Elbing; and also to Livonia in the treaty of 1561, by which it was annexed to Poland. Dissension among Protestants themselves was the chief hindrance in the way of the complete diffusion of the Protestant faith, which at this time had penetrated all ranks of society. The Calvinists were numerous; they organized themselves according to the Presbyterian form, and a union between them and the Brethren, in respect to doctrine, was cemented at a synod in 1555. Opposed to these were the Lutherans, who were mostly Germans, and who took little pains to propagate their system through the instrumentality of any other language than their own. The Unitarians formed a third party, which found a leader in the erudite Italian,

1 Krasinski, Relig. Hist. of the Slavonic Nations, pp. 132, 133; Regenvolscius, Hist. Eccles. Slavonicarum (1654), p. 209.