History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

the consequence of this was that they held the
persons of Churchmen in less reverence, and their
excommunications in less awe than before. There
was planted thus an incipient revolt. The
movement received an impulse from the writings
of Wicliffe, which began to be circulated in the
Low Countries in the end of the fourteenth
century.[8] There followed, in the beginning of the
next century, the martyrdoms of Huss and Jerome.
The light which these two stakes shed over the
plains of Bohemia was reflected as far as to the
banks of the Rhine and the shores of the North Sea,
and helped to deepen the inquiry which the
teachings of the Waldenses and the writings of
Wicliffe had awakened among the burghers and
artisans of the Low Countries. The execution of
Huss and Jerome was followed by the Bohemian
campaigns. The victories of Ziska spread the terror
of the Hussite arms, and to some extent also the
knowledge of the Hussite doctrines, over Western
Europe. In the great armaments which were raised
by the Pope to extinguish the heresy of Huss,
numerous natives of Holland and Belgium enrolled
themselves; and of these, some at least returned to
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