The Life and Deeds of the Ever-Remembered Despot Stefan

came. He took that land with little fighting beneath certain cities; coming beneath Scutari (Skadar), he besieged it; the Venetians came (and) concluded peace (with the Despot). He sent the commander Vitko to Venice, and he himself returned, leaving part of the army to besiege the city, and came to his home.

79. From Prague came the report that (some) had risen against the king, their lord, and had separated the Czech land from the Hungarian; and the heresy called Hus¹³⁰ arose and grew strong; of them /the Hussites/ some say that they are close to Orthodoxy; and that this Hus had been in Jerusalem on pilgrimage to the holy places, that he came to (Mount) Sinai, on which the Lord spoke with Moses. There (on Sinai) he lived with the brethren in the monastery and from them learned of the Orthodox teaching. Here he also learned the Greek script and returned to his own land. Then Greek writings too were found in a great library, and he, being a rhetor,¹³¹ studied them all. They say that at the council before the pope, with whom he was in dispute (and where) he also disputed about the priestly order, he said this: "This law brings great misfortune. None of the saints, from the (very) beginning, forbade priests to marry. It happened, (namely), once, in a great village, that someone brought a widow from one side, and another from the other, and the one bore a son and the other a daughter. When the children grew up, the brother, not knowing, took his sister to wife. When he said this and much else to the fathers, they killed him and burned him (at the stake)." And this (Hus) had a multitude of disciples, who grew (very) powerful. While this was happening, the king asked the Despot to send him a small chosen army, and since it was the winter season, that they should frighten them (i.e., the Hussites) (merely) by the ordinary report (that the Despot's army was coming). And so it was. When they came, they drove back the Hussites who had been pursuing and plundering them. (The Hussites) had spread so far that they very nearly reached Buda itself. At that time there died in Belgrade the Tsar Konstantin, son of the Bulgarian tsar Stracimir, while the Despot was still among the Albanians. (Konstantin) had lived there, having come from Hungary. The most pious (Despot) lamented him as a brother born (and) gave away much for (the repose of) his soul. This was in the year 6930 (1422).

80. Something must be said again also of the eastern (rulers) and how (everything with them) came to an end. When the sultan died in Adrianople, as we said earlier, and when all the grandees and