He preached to tens of thousands that his sense of duty cried out when spiritual office was bought or sold for money or favours; That was flagrant abuse by the corps which was the corporate Church, he maintained.

John Hus's archbishop in Prague was a young noble, a well-meaning enough soldier who had been the Canon of Prague since he was fourteen. He had a smattering of theological education but not much because he gave his obedience to Pope Gregory even after Pope Gregory had been cast down at Pisa. King Wenzel had to force him to recognize Pope Alexander and urgently required him to declare that there existed no heresy in Bohemia. The archbishop burned all the books written by Wyclif, the reformer who strongly influenced Hus. Hus protested at this and the archbishop instantly excommunicated him.

Hus enjoyed the constant favour of the court. He was the queen's confessor. The king liked him. There were many nobles who would have protected him against, pope or other adversary. He was the idol of the Bohemian population and worshipped by all the pious ladies of Prague. Cossa solved the Hus problem by sending Cardinal Oddone Colonna to Prague to investigate him. Colonna accepted many presents of money and jewels from the archbishop, then himself excommunicated Hus (following the archbishop's excommunication), but Hus remained a leader of the reform movement. He denounced pride, luxury, avarice, simony and immorality, among both the lay and clerical members of the Church. He denounced the clergy living in concubinage or committing adultery. `We should have more people like, this;' Cossa said to me, `just as we should have a few more plagues. They are an impossibility. When this man became a priest, he took on the obligations of a priest.'

Meanwhile, spurred on, by the marchesa and, numbed by his obsessive thoughts of vengeance upon Catherine Visconti’s son, Cossa issued a bull calling for a crusade against Ladislas of Naples and Pope Gregory XII. The bull promised indulgences to anyone and everyone who would contribute to the crusade. Cossa ordered all prelates, under pain of excommunication, to declare Ladislas a perjurer, schismatic, blasphemer and heretic and, as such, an excommunicate. A second bull commissioned the indulgence sellers and excommunicated Gregory XII as a heretic and schismatic. Of the indulgence sellers appointed, for Bohemia, one was Wenceslas Tiem, a German, born at Mikulov in Moravia. He carried out his commission by farming out whole archdeaconries and parishes to unscrupulous collectors, who in turn exploited the people mercilessly. This nefarious commerce in the forgiveness of sins aroused John Hus's most determined opposition. He repudiated Cossa's bulls, He published two treatises which condemned the inciting of Christians against their brethren: in a fratricidal war and the trafficking in forgiveness of sins which omitted to demand the basic requirement of repentance. He denied the right of any pope to make war, He proclaimed that only God forgives sins and does so of his free grace to such as are of contrite heart. `Problem people like this Hus are never solved,' Cossa said to me. `If I agreed with everything he said today, he would be back tomorrow with new objections. God save us from the theologians.'

Such political encounters apart, Cossa avoided the sacred side of his responsibilities as pope, to a point where he almost stirred up a mutiny among cardinals, the clergy and the people of. Bologna – for, to them, the visible rituals of the papacy were what mattered beyond all else. He was forced to celebrate mass on Sunday and on Holy Days, but he refused to do more. He confessed to no one. His audiences were confined to soldiers and bankers. He slept through; the day, as had his master, Boniface IX, and worked at night (rumour said with a, woman) until the ripples of outrage became high waves battering at the spirituality of Europe. It was as though he had decided to show his contempt for the papacy, which had (somehow) cost him Catherine Visconti, and into which ignoble office; as the vicar of Christ he had been tricked and cheated. He would not attempt to understand his situation. I tried to explain it to him. `What does it matter to you whether you do these things? It comes with the job. It matters to the people who hired you – I mean, to the Italian people and the pilgrims from across the world, the people, the ones who contribute the money to support the Church which pays you so well. When you were a soldier, you had to do a lot of things you didn't like to do. When you were a law student,., you had to do a lot of things you didn't agree with, What is the difference if you don't believe in the things that they expect you to do? It is a part of the job and you must do it.'

He refused to listen to me.

`You are the pope, Cossa,' the marchesa drilled into him. 'You are the shepherd of the people. As the differences between the classes grow, when there is less social mobility and greater growth of violent unrest in the cities, there is a decline in the moral-values. People are even losing their faith in the Church. Look at the public immorality. Let that continue and the, revenues of the Church will dwindle even more. It is you who keep saying that the Church is a business and I am trying to tell you what is happening to businesses in the fifteenth century. Get it all straight, for heaven's sake. You are going to have to call a real council, as ordered at Pisa. You have to set France against Ladislas: You are going to need Sigismund and the princes. So say mass every day. Confess everyday. Walk through the streets in holy processions. Hold daily audiences with the people, because you are going to need them too:’

Cossa was unable to lure Catherine Visconti's son to Bologna. Whenever there was a pause in the problems he had created for himself, he would write to the young Duke of Milan in cordial, even warm terms, and tell him how he hoped the young man could join him on this holiday or be with him for the commemoration of that feast day, but the young man replied describing the kind of court intrigues which he was fighting, how he would be many more months in weeding out his enemies, but that when his authority was safe and undisputed he would most happily go to Bologna to visit his pope.

35

Cossa went on with what he considered to be the work of the papacy, keeping voluminous records of all financial transactions, no matter how small. He held regular auction sales of benefices to the highest bidders; there was no concession which he would not sell. The plenary indulgence field was extremely profitable, particularly in Germany. In fact, he was even able to squeeze gold out of the Italians.' He appointed the marchesa as the Church's land agent in Rome, where she handled the sale of eight churches, their contents and the land on which they stood to Cosimo di Medici for capital sums. The churches were razed and their contents sold to provide for high-cost housing. His masterstroke of cash leverage was the mortgaging of the income of the Church to the Medici bank, to meet the current running expenses during periods of inadequate cash receipts. The fees for bulls alone in the first year of Cossa's reign as Pope John XXIII amounted to 47,000 florins.

He perpetuated force. War among the, cities of Italy became the first ritual of the Church because, as he saw it, in Italy power was temporal and naked. Even Italian wars became business propositions. The city-states hired weapons and condottieri through generals who were no more than labour contractors. Elsewhere, throughout Europe, society was able to organize stable states on, national scales, but Italy would not consider doing that because of the example of the Church. Pope John XXIII was the tallest giant on the Italian, peninsula, but he was a pygmy beside the rulers beyond the Alps.