[5] Here he became a member of the Danube Society,[6] and lived on terms of close friendship with its founder, Conrad Celtes the Humanist, at that time professor and librarian at the University of Vienna.
On leaving Prague he withdrew to Hungary (Pécs), and remained in retirement for a period of fifteen years, during which time he changed his manner of life completely, and even took religious orders.
He became provost of the Cathedral Chapter in Waizen (Vácz, Vaciensis), 1513,[7] and then in 1515 also of that in Bratislava (Pressburg, Posoniensis),[8] and, for some years, held an important position at the Court of Hungary, where he was a tutor of the royal princes, and private secretary to the king, Ladislaus VI.
In 1521 Balbus appeared at the Diet of Worms as the ambassador of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, and attracted considerable attention by a discourse in which he protested against the innovations of Martin Luther, and urged upon the assembled princes the necessity of a joint undertaking against the Turks.
Shortly afterward he was in the service of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, who, in 1522, designated him Bishop of Gurk, and sent him to Rome on a congratulatory embassy to the newly elected pontiff, Adrian VI.
At Bologna he wrote his best-known work, De coronatione principum,[16] which, on account of the views it contains on the relation of Church and State, was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 23 July 1611.