July 15, 1998

The Czech population immediately turned Hus into their national martyr and saint, and despite efforts on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy to thwart the reform movement, members of the Czech aristocracy started to implement Hus's reform ideas in spite of the thinking in Rome. Roman Catholic priests were thrown out of parishes and replaced by Hus's followers. Church assets and land were confiscated, as part of the secularisation process. Everything indicated that Hus's reform ideas would be achieved.

The Roman Curia followed the developments in the Czech lands with growing anxiety. The German king and Roman emperor, Sigismund of Luxembourg, threatened his brother, Czech King Wenceslas IV, with a crusade if the situation wasn't brought under control. The Czech king chose a compromise which satisfied neither the Catholics nor the Hussites. Only three churches in Prague were left to the Hussite priests and anti-reform officials were appointed to the New Town Hall administration.

The atmosphere in Bohemia, perceived by many as the approaching end of the world, accelerated the impetus of the revolution. Visionaries and heretic sects appeared on the stage, alongside true representatives of Hus's reform teaching. The radical Prague Hussites elected the preacher Jan Zelivsky as their leader, but the movement soon seized not only the capital, but the entire country. In some areas, people held processions to places, to which they gave biblical names. The most popular was Tabor Hill in Southern Bohemia, today's city of T bor, named after the mountain in Galilee where Christ appeared to the apostles.

The bubble finally burst on July 30, 1419, when the Hussites, led by Zelivsky, attacked the New Town Hall in Prague and hurled the much-hated anti-reform officials out of its windows. This became known as the first Prague defenestration. King Wenceslas IV didn't survive the shock of the rapid turn of events and died two weeks after the defenestration, his lawful hereditary successor becoming Sigismund of Luxembourg.

Vaclav's death and Sigismund's claim to the throne sparked an explosion of violence. In Prague, the radicals turned their hatred against beautiful churches and monasteries, destroying their rich architectural interiors in their quest for purity and simplicity of religion. At this point, the movement which the Bohemian aristocracy had had under control since 1414, got out of hand and was taken over by the masses.

In spring 1420, the official Hussite programme was adopted, the so-called Four Articles of Prague. These four principles were: equal rights to the priest and the laymen during the worship rite, so that they accepted both the body and blood of Christ - hence the Hussite symbol of the Chalice; free preaching of the word of God; the confiscation of land owned by the church and reduction of its political influence; and finally, the punishment of mortal sins. This programme was to be delivered not only to the population of Bohemia, but ultimately to that of the entire Christian world.

But different interpretations of the Four Articles of Prague divided the representatives of the Hussite movement into three main streams: the moderates, the centrists and the radicals. The Hussite nobility and intelligentsia, the lower class aristocracy and Hus's friends belonged to the moderates, while the majority of Prague's population were part of the centrist wing. The radicals came mainly from outside the capital, the most significant group being the Taborites with their own commune on Tabor Hill where they intended to live in accord with the word of the Bible. The various social classes with their different goals, as well as specific features of each individual geographical region in Bohemia, played an important role in the further split among the once-united Hussites, who now started to compete with each other over the dominant position in Bohemia, switching sides from Catholic to Chalice and back, creating temporary coalitions and generally producing a confused picture.

By refusing to accept Sigismund as their king, the Czechs assumed the right to make their own decision about the next head of the Czech lands, throwing out the entire legislative system introduced under Charles IV. Sigismund, of course, took it as an insult. It was a humiliation not only in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the whole of Europe, and thirteen years of fierce fighting between Sigismund and the Hussites began.

The first of the five crusades which Sigismund sent against Bohemia arrived in Prague at the end of June 1420. The Prague Hussites had known about the danger, and turned to the many groups of radicals out in the country, asking for their support. Knowing that their own fate depended on whether Prague fell into the hands of Sigismund or not, armed Hussite units from all parts of the country started arriving in Prague. Sigismund's thirty-thousand-strong army of crusaders, which stood outside Prague at the end of June 1420, didn't intend to destroy the city, but to starve it out. The plan was to take Vitkov Hill, today's Zizkov, and cut the city's supply of food. However, the determined defenders of the Vitkov fortress, with the help of reinforcements sent from Prague headed by the best-known Hussite commander, Jan Zizka of Trocnov, achieved the impossible: the defeat of Sigismund's crusaders.

Five crusades were sent to Bohemia between 1420 and 1431, none of them forcing the surrender of the Hussites and recognition of Sigismund as king of Bohemia. In 1423, the Bohemian and Moravian Hussites joined together, fearing that the integrity of the Czech lands was under threat, after Sigismund passed Moravia on to his son-in-law, Albrecht of Habsburg. And during 1425 and 1427, the Hussites' strategy turned from mere defence into an offensive, with several military expeditions to what is now Austria, Slovakia and Poland.

Many battles were fought before Sigismund realised he had no choice but to begin talks with the Hussites and consider their demands. In 1433, a Hussite delegation led by a radical Taborite, Prokop Holy, arrived in Basle, where a council was held to discuss the Four Articles of Prague. The Hussites hoped their programme would win recognition, but soon realised that the rest of Christian Europe wouldn't accept it. While the moderate Hussites wanted to end the long conflict and were prepared to discuss the issue, the radical Taborites and the centrist Prague Hussites demanded absolute adherence to the Four Articles, totally ignoring calls for peace coming from every part of the country. This led to an unexpected twist of events. A temporary coalition was formed between the Prague centrist Hussites, led by Jan of Rokycany, the moderate Hussites and the Czech Catholics, which, on May 30, 1434, defeated the radicals at the Battle of Lipany, finally opening the way to an agreement in Basle.

Two years later, in July 1436 in Jihlava, the so called 'Compacts' agreement was proclaimed, granting a limited victory for the Hussite programme. From then on, adults in Bohemia and Moravia could chose between the Hussite or the Catholic confession, and the Hussite church won autonomous status within the Roman Church. Sigismund was accepted as the king of Bohemia, although his powers were somewhat restricted, and by the year 1436, the movement, which had started more than twenty years earlier with the aim of reforming the weakened Catholic church in Europe, was over.

by Peter Casper