Hussite Wars
At the beginning of 15th century, Charles University fought German influences, and the King Václav IV issued an instruction that granted Bohemian teachers three voices in all university’s votings, while foreign teachers, including Germans, were entitled for only one voice (in the past the allocation of voices was the opposite: three voices for each German and one voice for each Bohemian). Consequently, in 1409 tens of thousands of German citizens emigrated abroad, while German teachers and students quited Charles University and founded their own University of Leipzig. Those developments significantly diminished the international importance of Prague and its University.
In November 1414, the general council was planned in Constance (Germany) in order to put an end to the papal schism. Jan Hus - Christian philosopher, theologian and a reformer - was invited to the council for investigation by Sigismund of Luxemburg, brother of Václav IV, and willingly agreed to cooperate. Sigismund promised Hus his protection and safety during the journey back home, while as a secular ruler he had no authority to promise that. Despite Sigismund’s promise, soon after his arrival at the Council, Hus was imprizoned, trialed and sentenced to death on the stake.
Between the years 1415-1419, Hussites movement had been organized, and its radical wing was strongly influenced by John Wyclif’s ideas, such as an abolishment of church hierarchy and secularization of ecclesiastical property. At 1419, Hussite protestors had broke into the city hall and defenestrate (threw out of a window) the 7 Catholic members of the Czech Town Council. This event marked the beginning of Hussite wars.
In April 1420, the moderate Hussite wing published their demandes, summarized in the four articles of Prague:
1. All believers are permitted to receive Communion in Czech as well as Latin.
2. All mortal and public sins are punished equally, regardless of the sinner’s status.
3. Word of God is freely preached.
4. The clergy will give up their material wealth.
The four articles of Prague were agreed upon in July, 1420.
After the death of Václav IV by a paralytic stroke in 1419, Sigismund became the fourth Bohemian king of the Luxembourg dynasty. The entire country was swept over the Hussites revolution, including destroying churches and monasteries and confiscation of ecclesiastical possessions. Meanwhile, the Hussites movement splite into separate wings: moderate Hussites (the Prague party), and radicals (Taborites), and founded a city named Tábor. At 1422, the Hussite attacks forced the Jews in Prague to leave the city.
During less than two decades, Hussites and their legendary one-eyed commander Jan Zizka managed to defeate five waves of crusaders (1420, 1421, 1422, 1427, 1437). Between the two last waves, a unique historical development took place: in 1434, the moderate Hussites agreed to obey Sigismund’s rule in return to his promise to grant everyone’s freedom of worship. The split between the moderate Hussites and Taborites went deeper, ended in 1434 at the Battle of Lipany, in which the Taborites were defeated.
In 1436 the Basel Compact has been signed, permitting the moderate Hussites to take Communion in Czech as well as Latin; to have their own church services in Czech; and to be exempt from paying dues to Pope. The Taborites refused to accept this agreement.
In 1458, Jiříz Poděbrad (George of Podebrady, or Podebrad), a Bohemian nobleman and Taborite also known as “the Hussite King”, became the King of Bohemia (1458-1471), the first who was freely elected by the estates of Bohemia. Podebrad promoted religious tolerance, and unsuccessfully attempted to carry out “Peace Plan” for all of Europe – a sort of agreement of cooperation and demilitarization.
Podebrad’s successor, King Vladislaus II, favored the Roman Catholics and opposed Hussites ideas, that were disappeared completely in the 16th century.
