Some of the other modifications of principle seem more in accordance with ordinary conceptions of life. Trade might now be practised, but usury was to be avoided. Beer might be sold, if pure; but it was only to be sold in a public manner to travellers. Oaths, again, might be taken by witnesses if they were convinced of the justice of the cause in which they appeared.
But though such relaxations permitted the extension of membership to those who had hitherto been excluded from the Brotherhood, the bonds of the Society were drawn closer than ever round those members who had entered it. Strict arrangements were made for the visitation of the Brothers by their clergy, and for inquiry into the morals of each family; more rigid limitations than before were placed on the acquirement of property by the clergy themselves, while the appeals to worldly law-courts were more carefully guarded against by the provision of Courts of Appeal within the Brotherhood. Lastly, the exclusive position of the Brotherhood was strengthened by a most startling provision; if a husband or wife joined the Brotherhood without the sympathy of their partner, and were afterwards interfered with by him or her in matters of faith, the brother or sister so hampered might claim a divorce, and make a new marriage. Thus, then, the Brotherhood seemed to be strengthened and consolidated, both by the facilities of admission to those who had been repelled by its sterner rules, and by the stricter organisation which separated the enlarged Society more distinctly from the outer world.
But an additional source of strength was soon to be provided by the renewal of persecution. This persecution was due to three causes. Soon after the changes above mentioned, Lukas and some of the other Brothers had made an expedition to Italy to investigate the condition of the Waldensian Communities. It was the time of the struggle between Alexander VI. and Savonarola, and some of the Bohemian missionaries were actually present in Florence at the burning of the great Dominican. They returned to Bohemia, offended at the laxity of many of the Bohemian Communities, and more embittered than before against a Catholic Church which was ruled by Alexander Borgia. Alexander, on his side, had been roused by his struggle against Florence to a fervid zeal for the suppression of heresy, and his attention had evidently been called to these strange visitors to Italy. So in 1500 he despatched inquisitors to Moravia with orders to burn all heretical books, and especially those of Peter of Chelc̆ic. So effectively was this part of the work performed, that of the book which Peter had specially written against the Pope, only one copy is to be found at this day. The inquisitor, indeed, found it easier to burn books than to convert the Brothers, but his efforts in that direction were soon supported by men of a very different type.