Even the common people began to show an
intense interest in the numberless theological pamphlets, which were
published in Bohemia and Moravia for or against Huss. Among the
former, one written by a female deserves to be distinguished. The
copies of the Bohemian Bible became greatly multiplied; many of them
were made by females: and AEneas Sylvius takes occasion to praise the
biblical erudition of the women of the Taborites, whilst the abbot
Stephen of Dolan in Moravia complains of their meddling in
ecclesiastical affairs. In the revision of the text of the Bohemian
Scriptures, the clergy were indefatigable. From 1410 to 1488, when the
Bible was first printed, at least four recensions of the whole Bible
can be distinguished, and several more of the New Testament. The
different parties of the Hussites were united in a warm partiality for
their own language; the Taborites began as early as 1423 to hold their
service in Bohemian. After the compact of 1434, the Calixtins also
attempted to introduce the mass in their own language, an innovation
which caused new disturbances and contests. Meanwhile the language of
the country assumed gradually even among the Romanists its natural
rights; the privileges of the city of Prague, the laws of the
painters' guild, the statutes of the miners, were translated into
Bohemian.
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