The Memory and Motivation of Jan Hus, Medieval Priest and Martyr (Europa Sacra, 11) 9782503544427, 2503544428

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The Memory and Motivation of Jan Hus, Medieval Priest and Martyr

EUROPA SACRA Editorial Board under the auspices of Monash University General Editor Peter Howard, Monash University Editorial Board Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monash University David Garrioch, Monash University Thomas Izbicki, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Carolyn James, Monash University Constant J. Mews, Monash University M. Michèle Mulchahey, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto Adriano Prosperi, Scuola Normale di Pisa

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Volume 11

The Memory and Motivation of Jan Hus, Medieval Priest and Martyr

by

Thomas A. Fudge

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Fudge, Thomas A. author. The memory and motivation of Jan Hus, medieval priest and martyr. -- (Europa sacra ; 11) 1. Hus, Jan, 1369?-1415--Influence. 2. Hus, Jan, 1369?-1415--Psychology. 3. Hus, Jan, 1369?-1415--Ethics. 4. Bohemia (Czech Republic)--Church history. 5. Reformation--Early movements. 6. Priests--Czech Republic--Bohemia--Historiography. I. Title II. Series 284.3'092-dc23 ISBN-13: 9782503544427

© 2013, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2013/0095/137 ISBN: 978-2-503-54442-7 Printed on acid-free paper

For my son

Jakoub Luther Fudge in remembrance of Dead Horse, Wind Mt, Ft Rock, Canterbury, Jump Creek, Hewitt, Welsford, junior curry, St Martins, and Armidale

Contents Preface and Acknowledgements

ix

Chapter One Who Was the Martyred Priest?

1

Chapter Two What Did Jan Hus Think He Was Doing?

17

Chapter Three ‘One-Eyed’ Hus and the Challenge of Ethics as Reform

51

Chapter Four Enemies of the Gospel: Answering the Priest in the Kitchen

81

Chapter Five Michael de Causis and the Politics of Heresy Hunting

109

Chapter Six Hus in Popular Songs and Hymnody

135

Chapter Seven The Medieval ‘Lives’ of the Priest and the Martyr

185

Chapter Eight The Spirit of Hussite Religion

211

Epilogue The Priest and the Martyr Defined and Confined

247

Bibliography 255 Index

279

Preface and Acknowledgements

J

an Hus (1371–1415) was not the morning star of the European Reformations. He was not the forerunner of Martin Luther. He should not be characterized as a proto-Protestant. In fact, Hus should not be approached at all, in so far as possible, through the prism of Protestantism or the turbulent world of the sixteenth century. It seems more prudent to take Hus on his own terms, which we can do given the bulk of his authentic surviving writings. He was a medieval priest committed to the Latin church and completely devoted to its reform. That unswerving devotion eventually led Hus to a rather precipitous downfall. As a reformer, Hus also embraced the sharp tools of polemic. He did not spare corrupt priests or prelates. Even popes came under his withering rhetoric. He cultivated no toleration for lukewarm faith or apathetic religious practice. His sermons and various writings, including his valuable correspondence, reveal strength of character and conviction, fervent zeal, eloquence, and even flashes of brilliance. But for all of these virtues he was politically naive and went about his duties as a priest and polemicist seemingly blind to the fractious climate he helped create in Prague and elsewhere. He was either blissfully unaware of the dangerous enemies his sermons and statements created, or he underestimated the virulence which began to mount against him. One might even find evidence to support a theory that within this popular priest there was an unformed holy innocence. That he engendered a movement of considerable durability and diversity cannot be denied. But it would be too ambitious to claim Jan Hus as the first Hussite. Like so many other reformers, he harboured no secret desire to found a new church or give his name to an alternative form of the Christian faith and religious practice. The thought of thousands of Hussite Christians would surely have galled him. Not once did he celebrate the eucharist by giving the chalice to the laity as his followers did. Regardless of the seeds germinating in his unguarded thoughts or latent between the sentences of his considered prose, Jan Hus gives us no indication he anticipated the Táborite or Orphan

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brotherhoods yet to come. He may well have conversed with Jan Žižka at Bethlehem Chapel, but we know nothing to suggest he either contemplated or would have agreed with the policies and strategies of that most famous Hussite who marshalled the warriors of God in defence of the faith against all intruders. Wars of religion, doctrinal debates such as those we find at provincial synods in Bohemia from the 1420s to the 1440s, or the innovations in law, social structures, and religious practice in some Hussite communities were not exigencies Hus foresaw. Such chapters of religious history properly belong to the story of the Hussites after he died. Instead, Jan Hus took careful aim at what it meant to be a Christian. He was less concerned with the minimal requirements for inclusion in the community of faith, focusing instead on the fullness of what it meant to imitate Christ, follow the law of God and find salvation. He was especially keen to find the men of the priesthood living lives of model Christian behaviour and displaying conduct expected of the true disciples of Christ. While ecclesiastical tradition was important to Hus, it becomes quite apparent he considered scripture the foundation for belief, faith, and religious practice. He was no doctrinal innovator or theological entrepreneur. He was interested in the renewal of the church and the purification of the faith in all of its manifestations, beginning with the correction of wayward priests. As salutary as all of this may seem, his programme created havoc, stirred up ongoing controversy, and led him into conflict with his ordinary as well as with the prelates of the church. Issues of authority and obedience began to dominate an increasingly acrimonious discourse. Jan Hus’s awareness of himself, together with a commitment to ethics and unremitting condemnation of those who opposed him, like the anonymous ‘cookmaster’ and the Prague priests, unavoidably took him into the dangerous precincts of late medieval life where heresy hunters lurked. Here he encountered Michael de Causis, a man as single-minded as himself, but a more formidable foe he could scarcely imagine. Whatever specific conclusions are drawn, Jan Hus is an important figure in later medieval European history. He gave his name to a social and religious revolution which captured the attention of the Latin world at the end of what we historians call the Middle Ages. His career was spent in Prague, and he must be regarded as the central figure in what became a social revolution and a movement of religious reformation. He died a condemned heretic. His martyrdom made him famous and his name has carried religious, social, and nationalistic significance ever since. His essential identity, however, has always been a point of controversy. Who was Jan Hus? The crucial questions in this study have to do with ‘motivation’ and ‘memory’. I have explored questions of what prompted Hus to act, behave, live, and die as

Preface and Acknowledgements

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he did. I have also attempted to look carefully at how Hus was remembered and in what manner and by what means that cult of remembrance was constructed and maintained. His enemies who sought to eradicate every trace of Jan Hus from the face of the earth failed. Though he was destroyed and ended his life violently and prematurely, he continued to live on vicariously in the doctrines and practices of his various disciples. The memoria of Hus in later generations down to the imposition of Roman Catholic orthodoxy at the time of Jesuit ascendance must be ranked among the most vibrant and prolific in Czech history, or indeed in the annals of Christianity. This memory of the martyred priest is preserved in the popular songs, hymns, hagiographic ‘lives’, and graphic images of Jan Hus. The unyielding priest of Prague who pursued reform relentlessly with all intensity and devotion became a martyr patterned on historic figures like John the Baptist. Much of the motivation which spurred Hus to action and the memory of his deeds passed into the spirit of Hussite religion, which can be seen most astutely in the burning light of Jan Hus’s life. Here the martyr is both symbol and inspiration. In this way, Hus and his most fervent and faithful followers are revealed as medieval reformers, defined by their times and properly situated in the world of the fifteenth century. Trapped in that world, Jan Hus yearned neither for glory nor recognition, but strove for the renewal of the faith once delivered to the saints. I am grateful for the stimulation and encouragement of a number of scholarly colleagues including Norman Housley, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Leicester, Paul Knoll, Emeritus Professor at the University of Southern California, Stephen Lahey, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska, and Cary J. Nederman, a scholar of medieval political thought at Texas A&M University. I remain indebted to the late Bob Scribner for his valuable influence on my earlier work during the years we were together at Cambridge. In these latter days I have enjoyed some useful and constructive interaction with Howard Kaminsky, whose work on Hussite history still remains the gold standard for the rest of us who work in that field. My father, the Reverend James G. Fudge, continues to take a keen interest in my work on Hus. My longtime colleague in New Zealand, Lubomír Mlčoch, has ever been a faithful source of advice on questions and problems concerning the Czech language. My most important colleague among the Czech scholars over the years has been Jiří Kejř, who has answered many questions, supplied offprints, offered encouragement, and at our regular meetings in Prague over the course of more than two decades has shared with me the rich harvest of his own lifetime of ruminations on Jan Hus and Hussite history. Beyond this, I have found

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his own work stimulating and suggestive. I am grateful to Peter Morée, at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University, and Pavel Soukup, at the Centre for Medieval Studies, for assistance in tracking down elusive sources and references. Over the years, when in Prague, I have always looked forward to seeing friends and colleagues like Blanka Šmídlová, Tomáš and Eve Votava, David Holeton, and František Šmahel. I received good feedback from a small but enthusiastic audience in Tábor when I spoke there on the subject of the ethics of Hus, especially comments from Zdeněk David and Jakub Smrčka. On the memory of Hus I benefitted from audience response in Prague, especially insights offered by Phillip Haberkern, Professor of History at Boston University, whose own work on Hus will contribute in meaningful ways to our understanding of later Hussite history. It also seems right to acknowledge feedback and comments offered by students and colleagues at various lecture venues in the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and New Zealand. Some of my friends, especially April Purtell, Sousou Cosette, and Mary Tipton, from time to time have saved me from my single minded focus on this dead Bohemian priest by now and again coaxing me away from my desk into other imaginative and stimulating diversions. Jakoub, to whom this book is dedicated, continues to hear about Hus and bears the regular updates with patience and good nature. He has contributed to the completion of this volume by assisting with the index. Constant Mews, Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology at the School of Historical Studies at Monash University in Australia, put me in touch with the editorial board for the Europa Sacra monograph series for Brepols and I am grateful to Peter Howard, chairman of that board, its constituent members as well as the anonymous readers, who decided to publish this book. Inasmuch as this volume grew out of a larger research project which yielded my Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia (2010), the general conventions adopted in that study on sources, interpretation of Hus, and the rendering of Czech proper names have continued. My position on nomenclature, especially on controversial historiographical constructs such as ‘heresy’ and ‘Hussites’, has not only remained unchanged but has been strengthened. The same repositories and archives which have served me well since the 1980s were used once more. The most important include those in Prague, especially the reading rooms at the National Library, the National Museum Library, and the Prague Castle Archive (Cathedral Chapter Library), in Vienna the Austrian National Library, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Rooms at Cambridge University Library, the University of Washington Library in Seattle, and the Patristics and Latin Christian Literature Collection Room at the Benedictine Abbey Library in Mount Angel, Oregon.

Preface and Acknowledgements

xiii

Due to the magnanimous gesture of a certain American university (which humbly prefers to remain unnamed), I have had the good fortune of spending several fully-funded years devoted to the study of Jan Hus. That rich generosity has permitted me leave from almost all teaching and normal academic responsibilities, allowing me unfettered time for research. The result of this unexpected and generous grant has provided me all of the time and necessary resources for international travel, extensive work in archives, and the concentrated research required to write a trilogy on Jan Hus. This is the second monograph. The third volume, devoted exclusively to the legal process and trial of Hus, will appear in advance of the sexcentennial of his death in 2015. I only wish I could say more about my considerate benefactor, but I am constrained by the terms of this most unusual agreement, which has enabled me the luxury of working as an independent scholar. Cistercian Abbey Lafayette, Oregon

Chapter One

Who Was the Martyred Priest?

H

e was born in obscurity and raised by nameless parents, in places most of the later medieval world had no reason to ever hear of. A prominent bishop of the day claimed he was a common worthless man of unknown origins.1 He went off to one of the more exciting cities in Central Europe and disappeared into the ranks of typical medieval university students. Whilst pursuing academic qualifications he did not distinguish himself either as a scholar or original thinker and no one seems to have thought of him as an extraordinary human being. From the halls of learning he passed into a typical medieval occupation in which he continued for the remainder of his life. As a young priest in the Latin church of the later Middle Ages he was unremarkable. He exhibited no promise of episcopal advancement. He seems not to have had patrons among the higher echelons of society that may have allowed him to advance in status to the head of a priory or religious house, to say nothing of the Curial or papal offices. He was instead the sort of man who might otherwise have been destined for a career as a rather pedestrian parish priest save for one attribute. He seems to have taken quite literally and quite seriously his obligations as a priest. He was never an absentee cleric, never held multiple parishes or religious appointments, and his conduct as a priest in the execution of his office was never the subject of speculation or denunciation. These characteristics, coupled with a near-puritanical obsession with morals and ethical 1 

Both Hus and his colleague Jerome of Prague were described as ‘homines viles, plebei, infimi ortuque ignoti’ by Jacob Balardi Arrigoni, Bishop of Lodi, in a sermon on 30 May 1416 before the Council of Constance. The text appears in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 494–500 (at p. 497).

Chapter One

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conduct, thrust him into the unenviable position of becoming a critic of the institution he had vowed to defend and uphold. A decade before his elevation to holy orders, two leading citizens in the city of Prague funded the building of a new chapel dedicated to the Holy Innocents for the chief and central purpose of providing preaching in the vernacular. The foundation charter made this intentional provision legal and public.2 In the early spring of 1402, this relatively unknown cleric was appointed to Bethlehem Chapel as the preacher and priest.3 His incumbency lasted more than a decade. This medieval priest slowly emerged from the shadows of Czech society until at length he stood centre stage not only in Prague but before an international audience. Motivated by a deep commitment to restore a perceived apostolic purity in the church, he became a fixture in the religious memory of Europe for his steadfast adherence to that ideal. In an age of criminal churchmen and sanctified scandals, unshakeable allegiance to principles of holiness often spelled disaster. A nameless chronicler characterized his meteoric rise and fall in a brief but descriptive narrative: In the year 1410 there arose a man named Master Jan Hus. He preached, denouncing the people for their wicked lives. The clerics spoke well of him and said that God’s spirit spoke through him. He began to preach about the sins of the priests, from the pope to the lowest cleric, about their concubinage, simony, arrogance, and greed, saying they ought not to have either secular power or civil estates. He likewise preached that holy communion should be given to the people in both kinds of the body and blood of Christ. Then the clerics raged against him and asserted that the devil had taken possession of him and that now he was a heretic. All of this came about in the Czech kingdom when Václav, the son of Emperor Charles, was king and a priest named Zbyněk was Archbishop of Prague. Then in the year 1415 a council of the higher clergy requested Master Jan Hus to come under safe conduct to Constance. He went there along with Master Jerome [of Prague] under the protection of the Hungarian king, Sigismund. But when he arrived in Constance with some of the barons of Bohemia, he was arrested and degraded from the priesthood. Some of the higher clergy caused him to be condemned to death. When he was sentenced, King Sigismund was in attendance, and it was this man who had given safe conduct to Master Hus. Thus he 2 

The two men behind this foundation were Hanuš of Milheim and Václav Kříž. The charter is dated 24 May 1391 and appears in Monumenta historica universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae Pragensis, ed. by Dittrich and others, ii: Codex diplomaticus (1834), pp. 308–10. 3  On the chapel see Odložilík, ‘The Chapel of Bethlehem in Prague’, pp. 125–41, and Fudge, ‘“Ansellus dei” and the Bethlehem Chapel’, pp. 127–61.

Who Was the Martyred Priest?

3

was commanded to be burned at the stake, as was Master Jerome about a year thereafter. These things happened when Konrad of Vechta was Archbishop of Prague.4 This account, called the ‘very fine chronicle of Jan Žižka’, written about two decades after Hus’s demise, is not entirely accurate. He did not ascend to prominence in 1410. The selection of that year is rather arbitrary on the part of the anonymous chronicler and some of the events alluded to transpired before 1410. He did not argue for the eucharistic practice of Utraquism, that both elements of bread and wine be granted to the laity, inasmuch as the renewed tradition of that sacramental observance commenced only once he had departed Prague forever. Technically he did not travel to Constance with his colleague Jerome, who only went there independently some months thereafter. But these are quibbles, for the portrait presented is substantially accurate. The brevity of the narrative suited the purposes of a chronicle in which Hus was an ancillary component. It therefore lacks depth of perception and all semblance of analysis. Nevertheless, a useful portrait emerges. This medieval priest did assail practically everything he considered amiss in the lives and conduct of all who came to his attention. He was praised, admired, and rewarded by his colleagues and superiors until he also began to draw them into his orbit of accountability. Other sources corroborate ‘the very fine chronicle’ by pointing out that, once he began to admonish those under holy orders, the priesthood objected saying Hus obviously had descended from the devil and was a heretic to be shunned.5 Suddenly the favourable light which hitherto had shone upon Hus was dimmed and a dark shadow of opposition began to cloud the skies over Bethlehem Chapel. It is impossible to assert conclusions too firmly but, had the priest not acquired a large and enthusiastic following, or had not for a time enjoyed the benevolent patronage of the royal house, especially in the person of Queen Žofie, he may well have been disposed of rather more speedily by his powerful enemies, who could be found among the priests of Prague and traced all the way to the papacy. Rather than dismissal, banishment, or confinement, a rancorous legal suit followed which spanned more than four years and accomplished little more than a series of excommunications levelled against Hus with the full authority of bell, book, and candle, and the unparalleled power of the medieval church.6 Despite 4 

Listy Bratra Jana a Kronika velmi pěkná a Janu Žižkovi, ed. by Bartoš, p. 36. According to an old Czech chronicle. Staré letopisy české z vratislavského rukopisu novo­ českým pravopisem, ed. by Šimek, p. 4. 6  Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus, pp. 116–237; Kejř, Husův proces, pp. 19–136. 5 

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these adversities, he continued more or less as before, though eventually he felt compelled to abandon Bethlehem and turn his preaching and reform mission to the hills of southern Bohemia. This means that, as things turned out, Jan Hus continued his programme of reform for several years after raising the ire of his offended colleagues. As for his time away from Prague, we read stories of Hus preaching and celebrating Mass in a barn near Kozí Hrádek, and how many people from the neighbouring village of Sezimovo Ústí attended divine liturgy in these unusual venues. We are also told he remained extremely popular with the rural populace on account of the fact that he continued to preach against the pope, the bishops, the church canons, and further because he regularly censured the spiritual order.7 By his own testimony, Hus preached in towns and marketplaces, among hedges, in small villages, at castles, in the open fields, in forests, and notes specifically that he delivered homilies under linden trees at the castle of Kozí Hrádek.8 At length, he was summoned to the ecumenical Council of Constance where he erroneously assumed he might have opportunity to present his views in an open forum of dialogue not unlike the annual academic Quodlibet sponsored each January by the university in Prague. He seems not to have realized that the synod on German soil was a resumption of the court process which had been essentially moribund for two years, mired in legal red tape and stalemated by the papal schism, internecine political turmoil, royal ineptitude in Prague, and the unwillingness or inability of authorities to seize Hus by way of formal arrest and detention. The preacher went to Constance, was arrested, imprisoned, formally tried on heresy charges, convicted of capital crimes, and relinquished to the secular powers under the provisions of the death penalty in accordance with medieval canon law. He died on 6 July 1415 in the flames of the pyre. Church officials considered him a scoundrel, a great offence to God and the Catholic faith.9 His followers proclaimed him a martyr. What were his high crimes and misdemeanors which provoked the medieval church to such extreme measures as to condemn one of their own to death? It had to be more than his strident critique of the irregular lives of many priests.10 7 

These fifteenth-century tracts possibly written by Prokop the Notary appear in Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 157. 8  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 728–29. 9  Hus is described in this manner by Pope John XXIII in a letter to the Bishop of Litomyšl. ‘Z Geschichte der husitischen Bewegung’, ed. by Krofta, pp. 598–610. 10  Of note are two sermons he preached before the Prague Synod in 1405 and 1407. Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, ii, 39–56.

Who Was the Martyred Priest?

5

It had to be considerably more than his refusal to obey his ordinary.11 The matter surely involved much more than his alleged theological deviations.12 The alarm caused by this priest was more than his redoubtable commitment to reform in areas of religious practice. None of these elements made Hus extraordinary and there were men and women before him and after him who engaged in similar sorts of activities without being made an heresiarch and suffering shameful punishment at the stake. It is a relatively easy task to ferret out of Hus’s works ideas and doctrinal formulations which appear to stand at odds with the official teachings of the medieval church. Many of these in isolation did not constitute a serious threat to the identity and integrity of the church. Admittedly, some of Hus’s ideas did go to the bone of the foundation of Christianity as conceived by the Latin church.13 Perhaps at the heart of his work as a medieval priest and that which caused his reform initiative to be most dangerous was his growing assault on the importance of the institutional church in terms of the nature and significance of history itself. Hus argued that since popes could err, and indeed had erred, papal power was neither absolute nor obligatory.14 This conviction called into question a number of aspects of medieval Christianity and the role of the church in the world and in human history. Hus did not go as far as some of his colleagues in characterizing the papacy as the manifestation of Antichrist.15 However, he had pointedly declared that popes may err and this fallibility extended into matters of faith.16 His detractors correctly saw this posture as the thin end of the wedge. By consequence, Hus understood immorality as disqualification from any legitimate exercise of the priestly office. This conviction applied to the higher clergy as well as the papacy.17 By consequence, Jan Hus denied the medieval conception of papal authority and in this sense was able to assert that obedience to the pope was quite unnecessary for salvation. 11 

As declared in a sermon on 20 December 1410 in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, i, 102. 12  As enumerated in more than a dozen lists of formal complaints. Fudge, ‘“O Cursed Judas”’. 13  Especially his persistent disobedience to his superiors and his conviction that the papacy was not essential. On the latter point see De Vooght, Hussiana, pp. 186–208 and also De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, pp. vi and 501 and passim. 14  Questio de Indulgentiis, sive de Cruciata Papae Joanne XXIII, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 215–37. 15  For example, Jakoubek Stříbro in his Quaestio de Antichristo, Praha, Národní Knihovna, MS xi D 5, fols 168r–179r. See also De Vooght, Jacobellus de Stříbro, pp. 3–7 and 32–6. 16  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 607. 17  Hus, Knížky o svatokupectví, ed. by Molnár, pp. 205–06.

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Papal authority in the Middle Ages was derived from several sources but the fact that the pontiff was the guardian of the relics of St Peter caused many to make the pilgrimage to Rome where they listened to the vicar of Peter and in this transaction granted him exceptional authority.18 Separating the functions of the papal office from the doctrine of salvation overturned theories promulgated by popes from Gregory VII on, culminating in the blunt declarations of Boniface VIII, who in 1302 published the claim that without the Roman pontiff no one could seriously entertain the hope of salvation. The result was heresy.19 Still, this was neither extraordinary nor unique. After all, there were others espousing similar points of view.20 So what made Hus’s views of ecclesiastical authority so alarming to the late medieval church? Precisely because the seeds of his thinking, once planted in the unsettled soil of Czech Christianity in Bohemia, had the potential to produce a crop which well nigh threatened the existence not only of the church as it was known and accepted but also posed a grave challenge to the nature of medieval civilization as it was then understood. These implications were not lost on his detractors, who properly evaluated the ramifications of Hus’s reform agenda and sounded the alarm. To some extent Jan Hus, and certainly Hussite religion which followed, strove to emulate the principles of apostolic Christianity. The self-identification of radical Hussites in the generation which followed Hus became a consciously promoted form of the apostolic church at the end of the Middle Ages. Jan Hus and his colleagues and followers conceived of an unbroken line of continuity from the early church down through history to fifteenth-century Bohemia. Truth had been proclaimed by Christ and established by the apostles. By the time of Constantine in the fourth century, with ecclesiastical affairs being directed by an unbaptized non-Christian, poison entered the church and corrupted the law of God. This was apparent in several respects but especially in that the emperor made all clergy salaried members of the Roman Empire.21 The effects of the poison were fatal. Efforts at inoculation failed. Symptoms of the poison increased dramatically and the church drifted even farther from its origins in the teaching of Christ and practices of the apostles. Hus believed the thread of authentic faith had never been completely lost and increasingly saw himself standing in that august line of defenders of God seeking to more 18 

Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, p. 30. De Vooght, Hussiana, p. 59. 20  A brief overview of Hus’s thinking concerning the papacy can be found in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 36–38. 21  An important discussion is Dungan, Constantine’s Bible, pp. 94–125. 19 

Who Was the Martyred Priest?

7

fully realize the principles of apostolic Christianity. A conviction prevailed, expressed by some preachers, that the coming of Christ would be manifested initially in Bohemia with the intercessory prayer that the pious Christ might spare the faithful from tasting death before they witnessed the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, first in Bohemia and thereafter throughout the entire church.22 Some of Hus’s followers went even further, ostensibly representing themselves as the universal church while advancing the startling claim that the true community of Christians existed only in Bohemia.23 So far as the records show, Jan Hus did not actually say anything quite that direct but he did cultivate a form of eschatology in the sense of ethics, and the prevailing climate in his time caused him to enter into discourse on components of radical eschatological expectation.24 These important issues noted, there remained still more in the reform programme of Jan Hus which disturbed profoundly the institution of which he was a priest. No single theory or hypothesis about the meaning of Jan Hus or the concern he engendered can be regarded as permanently satisfactory, because none can truly offer an explanation which accounts for all nuances and possibilities. However, the thorny issue of authority as it came to bear on the nature and significance of the church itself must be numbered among the most salient of factors in the decision of the medieval church to suppress the activities of this troublesome priest. Hus had defiantly declared from his pulpit, ‘I am not willing to obey either the pope or the archbishop’.25 He dismissed his priestly opponents as ‘fat pigs’.26 Acerbic language provoked animosity. Hussite religion never wearied of pointing out the inconsistencies of papal rulings and the sometime divergence of law and custom from one generation to another and their incompatibility with the law of God.27 Hus thought that Christians in his time 22 

For example Jan Želivský’s sermon for Trinity Sunday (11 June 1419) in Dochovaná kázání Jana Želivského, ed. by Molnár, p. 184 23  At least this is the characterization presented by some contemporary critics. Jan Příbram, ‘O poslušenství’, Wien, ÖNB, MS 4314, fol. 149r, written around 1427. 24  Nechutová, ‘Hus a eschatologie’, pp. 179–87. 25  Letter of early December 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 157–58. 26  Sermon for Trinity IV in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, iv, 258–61. 27  Mikuláš Pelhřimov is a good example here with many references in his Latin postil on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fols 71r, 196v–197r, 203r, 265v and 293r; in his chronicle account of Hussite Tábor, and also in his exchanges with Aeneas Sylvius at Tábor in 1451. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, letter of 21 August 1451 to Cardinal Juan Carvajal. Text in ‘Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini’, ed. by Wolkan, pp. 40–41 and 50–51.

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should follow the early Christians carefully and literally. Clearly, the medieval church did not adjudicate Christian practice in this sense. Medieval society conceived of itself as consisting of what God ordained. The world had achieved its basic form because that was the way it was supposed to be. This was tied to the medieval vision of a Christian commonwealth in which the Christian world was designated theocratically as the corpus Christianum, to wit, that the church was regarded as the institution representing God and the kingdom of heaven on earth especially in political affairs. In this sense, the institutional church was understood as a guarantor of the medieval world as a sacred society. This implied a very close and organic relationship between church and state. That the creative force of the corpus Christianum was pretty well spent by the later Middle Ages did nothing to persuade secular and spiritual powers alike that the structure of society was anything but a true reflection of the will of God. The corpus Christianum was a symbol of security and stability in theory, but in practice was steadily eroded in the late medieval period until, by the time Jan Hus emerged among the priests of Prague, its viability might easily be called into question.28 The medieval priest Jan Hus created an alarming disturbance within the religious world of the later Middle Ages because he persuasively challenged some of the pillars of the corpus Christianum principle. It is far too ambitious to try and prove that Hus rejected the social estates comprising the corpus Christianum. Compelling evidence has already been advanced to the contrary.29 It would be left to later Hussites like Petr Chelčický to argue for an end to feudalism and a purely secular form of government. The church throughout history had laboured in many ways to achieve a workable and balanced relation between the multiple worlds of faith and religious practice on one hand, and the secular and material realms on the other. Canon law, ecclesiastical custom, papal prerogative, and the will and means to adapt to the motion of history were key elements in the establishment of relative harmony between church and society. More than this, the medieval church was firmly rooted in the world of its time, and while it continued to profess superiority over practically every aspect of that world, there remained a delicate balance maintained by the hierarchical authorities of the church. The effects of the protracted papal schism were severe enough. Ecclesiastical unity was riven and conflict seemed to dog the faithful at every turn. The rise and proliferation of heresy and movements 28  29 

See for example Graus, ‘Das Spätmittelalter als Krisenzeit’. Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, ii.2, 361.

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of dissent opened another front on which the church had no recourse but to engage.30 The intractability of opposition in Bohemia represented by Jan Hus threatened to undermine not only this precarious balance but to endanger the essence of medieval civilization. The claim seems extravagant. Let us examine it from a single point of view. The notion espoused by Hus that reform initiatives should return the Christian faith and practice to the models and mores of the early church was considered both impossible and undesirable by the religious authorities of his time. To accede to this proposal would be to deny the unique place of the institutional church in the progression of history itself. Medieval ecclesiastical theory understood the function of the church both as an anchor which held history to certain parameters but also as an indispensable rudder which steered the very course of history. The decisions of the church were not arbitrary. Its representatives forcefully argued it was guided by the power of the Holy Spirit and under this supernatural aegis was not only able but required to formulate new laws, new customs, even new and preferred doctrinal understandings for the edification of the body of Christ and the enrichment of human civilization. For Jan Hus, reform was predicated upon theological obligations which exceeded blind conformity. In practice, he adhered to the idea that it was insufficient to simply believe whatever was thought to be right and true. One was obligated to strive to understand what one believed.31 On this point, the crucial distinction between the faith which one believed and the faith by which one believed comes into focus. The difference between Jan Hus and the mainstream church was acute and unmistakable: Hus believed the problems of fifteenth-century church and society should be addressed and solved by recourse to the practices, doctrines, and standards of the early church. Many of his colleagues, certainly his ordinary as well as the higher clergy and the Curia, believed the challenges of the present could not and should not be solved by recourse to the past. Instead, the solution lay with the official church as it had evolved, for it was still an instrument, indeed the primary instrument, of the Holy Spirit in the world of the later Middle Ages. Despite Hus’s consistent call for reference to the apostolic principle, he did not escape criticism from within the Hussite ranks. He was faulted in certain respects for failing to escape completely the web of the corpus Christianum mentality. ‘Hus and all the others drink long draughts of human blood in exalting what is contrary to the truth of 30 

A good survey is Lambert, Medieval Heresy. Richard of St Victor, De trinitate, prologue, in Patrologia Latina, cxcvi, col. 889. Prior of an Augustinian house in Paris, Richard, died in 1173. 31 

Chapter One

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the primitive holy church’.32 Thus, in his lifetime and during the battle for his memory, Jan Hus faced a variety of adversaries in his monumental struggle to see the principles of the kingdom of God and the law of Christ made normative in the religious world of medieval Bohemia. The intellectual battle lines were drawn. Powerful political intrigue shaped the contours of the Hus struggle and that agenda determined the outcome of the conflict as well as the recorded memories which followed. Had Hus been a singular voice without a following, the matter might have been ignored. But Hus was powerful, popular, and pertinacious. His enemies were equally powerful and persistent. The outcome promised to be a turning point for religious history in the Czech lands. Hus held court from his pulpit in Bethlehem Chapel, which, like other pulpits in the medieval world, was an effective medium and means of disseminating information.33 But behind the scenes in Prague there were closed-door meetings in the archbishop’s court and in the Theology Faculty. Murmurings of discontent coalesced. Forces began to muster against the priest who had emerged as a major voice and influence in Prague. The clash of these implacable foes was exacerbated by the strain of the papal schism and also by clear indication that among sectors of Hus’s devotees the prospect of violence was possible. As early as 1412 we have firm evidence that stirring eschatological fervour had become amalgamated to the reform initiative. We find injunctions to stand in battle lines with the designated captains Master Jan Hus and Master Jerome of Prague. Whoever would be a Christian should stand in this fashion. Everyone is admonished to gird on a sword. Brothers should not spare brothers, fathers should not spare sons, sons must not spare fathers, neighbours are encouraged not to spare neighbours, so that the German heretics collect themselves and be eliminated from this world, like the usurers and the avaricious priesthood. There is expectation that those thus standing would fulfil the seventh commandment, according to the words of St Paul: covetousness is idolatry, and the idol and the worshippers of idolatry shall be killed, so that the hands of the faithful might be sanctified in the blood of the accursed.34 What significance should we attach to this colourful language of battle lines, swords, violence, and bloodshed? It is difficult to essay a judgement of absolute precision. Perhaps the bishops and abbots in Bohemia 32 

Chelčický, Replika proti Rokycanovi, ed. by Černý, p. 394. Šmahel, Idea národa v husitských Čechách, p. 55. 34  Vyšší Brod, Cistercian Monastery Libr., MS 123, fols 278r–279v. An edition with useful commentary is ‘Hus a jeho strana v osvětlení nepřátelského pamfletu’, ed. by Bartoš. The word ‘hus’ in Czech means goose. 33 

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were equally unsure. Regardless of whether such texts were to be understood literally or as a literary trope, the potency of the challenge presented by Jan Hus was simply too dangerous for the church to ignore. Were he to succeed, the church and medieval civilization as known in the fifteenth century would cease to exist. By 1412, Hus had publicly and repeatedly defied the authority of his archbishop as well as directives from the Curial and papal offices. Enthusiasm for the Hus model of reform had grown exponentially in Prague. Multitudes thronged Bethlehem Chapel. Critics claimed that ‘even if an angel came to teach them, they would prefer Hus’.35 The unreliability or ineffective intervention by the royal house made matters all the more urgent. By 1417, the song of an anonymous writer in Prague underscored a growing concern that King Václav IV was tolerating the heresy of Jan Hus in his realm on account of the evil influence of certain women [Queen Žofie among them?], who thwarted his good and proper intention, and also by the malignant advice of his councillors.36 Negligence was as nefarious as malfeasance. It was high time to stem the tide of dissent roiling in Bohemia. So the medieval church took intentional action in the interests of self-preservation and in defence of history and the whole of civilization. It was as simple as that. It was as complex as that. Jan Hus had either to submit or be destroyed. As a medieval priest, Jan Hus lived most of the last half-dozen years of his life in the borderland between orthodox doctrine and overt rebellion. His motivation was intensely religious in nature, as any careful assessment of his writings confirm. Interpretations of Hus which decide he favoured the promotion of Czech interests over reform or underestimate his role as a religious figure are fundamentally flawed.37 Ultimately his work came to manifest itself outside the official context of late medieval Christianity. Religious beliefs at the heart of medieval church authority and the meaning of history were dramatically challenged in the outgrowth and development of the practice of Hussite religion. This can be seen most vividly in the theories of Petr Chelčický and in the practices of the radical community at Tábor. 38 It was Jan Hus who initially sought to re-establish a renewed faith in the law of God while affirming aspects of traditional doctrine. His commitment to concepts like truth and the 35 

Chelčický, Replika proti Rokycanovi, ed. by Černý, pp. 384–404. Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 690–92. 37  Useful historiographical surveys can be found in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 209–25 and De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, pp. v–xvii. 38  On Chelčický see Wagner, Petr Chelčický, and Kaminsky, ‘Peter Chelčický’. For Tábor, Šmahel, Dějiny Tábora, and Fudge, ‘“Neither Mine Nor Thine”’. 36 

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law of God went beyond theory and intellectual discourse. These ideas took on inchoate form in concerns centring on social renewal and the improvement of humanity.39 The effort and experiment ultimately was unsuccessful, for it came too close to the heart of the institutional church and, for the sake of the vine, the ‘diseased’ branch had to be cut off and thrown into the fire. The Bohemian policy was not anomalous. In January 1401, the English Parliament passed the statute De haeretico combruendo against the ‘divers false and perverse persons of a certain new sect, thinking in a damnable way of the said faith’ who ‘wickedly instruct and inform people, and […] stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people’. Such offenders shall be ‘burnt before the people, in a conspicuous place; that such punishment may strike fear into the minds of others, so that no such wicked doctrines […] or their supporters […] may be in any way tolerated’.40 A few weeks later, William Sawtry became the first Lollard victim of the new statute. In his case, he denied the central notion concerning the Mass and went ‘unrepentant and defiant’ to his death.41 New statutes were unnecessary on the Continent. Inquisitorial procedure, ruthless suppression of dissenters, and a forest of stakes had long been part of the fabric of religious history. In Bohemia, one might say that the work of inquisitors helped to create a permanent climate of terror. 42 It cannot be said that the process against Jan Hus was a model of precision and discrimination, but in the end it was effective inasmuch as he was silenced. But for this triumph the church was made to pay a high price. The dead priest became a martyr. What followed in his wake was an explosion of such devastating magnitude that it is doubtful anyone connected to the Hus case had any inkling whatever of the forces which his reform and subsequent martyrdom were about to unleash. Insurrection, violence, religious war, crusade, murder, bloodshed, indiscriminate iconoclasm, and the fires of hatred soon blackened the skies in the Czech lands and the reforms of Jan Hus gave way to the Hussite Revolution. But that is another story. It must be sufficient to say that the followers of Hus placed the blame for the conflagration squarely on what they considered the 39 

On this see Kalivoda, Husitské myšlení, pp. 28–73. English Historical Documents, ed. by Douglas, iv: 1327–1485, ed. by A. R. Myers (1969), pp. 850–51. 41  On Sawtry and early Lollard persecution see McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV, pp. 81–92. 42  The work of Alexander Patschovsky is especially pertinent: Quellen zur Böhmischen Inquisition im 14. Jahrhundert, ed. by Patschovsky, pp. 19–23, and Die Anfänge einer Ständigen Inquisition in Böhmen, ed. by Patschovsky, pp. 130–32. 40 

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judicial murder of Hus. Ecclesiastical authorities identified the root cause as the perniciously vile ‘Hussite blasphemy against the Roman church’.43 The history of the fifteenth century in Prague and Bohemia is intimately connected to Jan Hus. The imprint of his life and its several implications can be located deeply embedded in the spirit of the times which characterize these Central European later Middle Ages. Memory and Motivation has two aims. The first is to explore the question of motivation in the life and work of this medieval priest as he moved from obscurity to prominence; from the sheltered life of a pastor to the vulnerability of a publicly accused heretic and the disgraceful prelude to martyrdom. The question ‘what did Jan Hus think he was doing’ is a necessary investigation for only in coming to terms with his thinking, in so far as possible, can the separation of six centuries be narrowed and the gulf between worlds so unlike as to be practicably incompatible be bridged. This is the focus of Chapter Two. What motivated Jan Hus? Once the mentality of the man has been examined, through a close reading of his most personal writings and expressions, and its salient features identified, it becomes clear that an abiding preoccupation with ethics emerges. Chapter Three suggests that ethics became the mandate for reform in Hussite Bohemia. Hus’s commitment to this course of action and applied theology generated fierce and abiding opposition. Hus considered his detractors enemies of the gospel and he determined to withstand them unto death if necessary. Chapter Four continues the inquiry into the motivational forces within Hus and takes as its point of departure and reference a polemical exchange between the priest of Prague and a cleric who abandoned holy orders and took up secular occupation, but who nonetheless lambasted Hus for his unconscionable disobedience, perilous threat to the institutional church, and presumed association with the devil. Hus’s motivation was spurred by a conviction that the purity of the gospel had been diluted by compromise and inconsistency and that the only true expression of the faith existed in a church which was willing to engage ecclesia semper reformanda. So far as Hus was concerned, only the church which was amenable to being continuously reformed had any legitimate claim to being called the body of Christ. To his distress, the ambitious and idealistic priest discovered himself within a church that found most varieties of reform odious. The nature of reform which Hus laboured for was chiefly in the area of morals. Chapters Three and Four summarize the central motivating aspects of his career, to wit ethics and moral reform, especially among the priesthood. 43 

The general characterization of a 1417 anonymous tract ‘Incipiunt responsiones ad obiecciones et picturas Huss’ Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS O 50, fol. 132v.

Chapter One

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In a letter written to his Bethlehem Chapel parishioners upon his departure from Bohemia to the Council of Constance, Hus somewhat bombastically announced he had begun his perilous journey surrounded by numerous and powerful enemies. The worst of these, he affirmed, were men of his own country. He went on to declare that he expected he would ultimately face even more opponents than the number Christ had to contend with in the hour of his tribulation.44 Hyperbole notwithstanding, Hus did have a number of both powerful and influential foes, some of whom were noted more for their malevolent nature and tactics than as defenders of the church in the proper sense. Arrayed against Hus were Prague university masters Štěpán Páleč and Stanislav of Znojmo, the Dominican Petr of Uničov, the royal official and Prague canon Jan Náz, Bishop Jan Železný ‘the Iron’ of Litomyšl, the indulgences seller Wenceslas Tiem, the conciliarists Pierre d’Ailly and Jean Gerson, the theology faculty of Paris, Pope John XXIII and many others. Together they constituted a formidable lot. Chapter Five looks at the nature of the opposition to the reforms of Hus and identifies one heresy hunter and persecutor of Jan Hus as perhaps the most effective and dangerous opponent with whom Hus had to contend. This was Michael de Causis, a shadowy figure and lawyer by training, who was appointed to the papal court in Rome and thereafter strove with all his energy and resources to bring Hus alive to the stake and see him reduced to ashes. Chapter Five is a segue from the first focus of the book, the motivation in the life and work of Hus, to the second theme of the study which is the construction and facilitation of Hus’s memory. Rather than engaging in a pedantic traditional outline of Hus’s detractors and the general nature of opposition he encountered, I have elected to deal with a particular figure largely unstudied and unknown in English-language historiography. I have chosen to emphasize his motivation in opposing Hus and also to consider his memory among those who applauded his opposition to the villainous Hus. This approach is in keeping with the two central themes of the study. Having previously dealt elsewhere with aspects of Hus’s memory, namely that in liturgical commemoration and iconography, the present focus undertakes a close examination of the memory of Jan Hus in other important dimensions.45 Chapter Six explores the rich tradition of popular songs and hymnody wherein Hus appears. Songs about Hus persisted from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The role of song in formulating memory and propagating that message as it relates to Jan Hus can be identified as a powerful component 44  45 

Letter of 19 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 206–09 (at p. 207). Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 175–208.

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in the social and religious history of Bohemia from the second decade of the fifteenth century until the period of the Thirty Years’ War. Along with liturgy, iconography, sermons, songs, and official records, the other main source for the establishment and codification of the memory of Hus lies in the hagiographic literature, especially that which sprang up in the fifteenth century. Chapter Seven looks at three examples of this writing and determines that, in addition to preserving memories of the martyred priest, these texts are part of the earliest historiography surrounding Jan Hus. Which is more important, Hus’s historical life or his remembered life? Historical ‘facts’ are often compelling, but these postulations cannot be approached apart from the manner and process in which those events are remembered. Chapter Seven explores that issue and concludes that the memory of Hus continued to inspire and shape the spirit of Hussite religion in profound and meaningful ways. Hus cannot be approached in any meaningful sense apart from a careful consideration of his immediate context. The individual exists only in society, in a specific context. Therefore it is not anachronistic to delve into the spirit of Hussite religion, for that ethos was created in part by Hus and other elements of its nature were stimulated by the medieval priest made martyr, so much so that its fabric becomes inextricably linked to the man who emerges in consequence as its hero. The principles undergirding the history are fundamentally important for coming to terms with the events. Chapter Eight outlines the contours of those principles, situates Hus within that matrix, and argues that its more precise formulation must be located within the sometimes acrimonious world of theological discourse. The spirit of the Hussite movement is another example of the reformer’s memoria wherein the martyr is both symbol and inspiration. The Hussite religious movement was propelled into the forefront of the world of late medieval Europe by the work of Jan Hus and his colleagues. This revival stirred a majority of the Czech people to follow. In its essence, the ideas generated by Hus endeavoured to reform the church and cultivate a more meaningful interest in Christian doctrine and faith. It also strove to encourage a greater commitment to renewed religious practice. Jan Hus worked to correct vices and irregularities which characterized the medieval priesthood. Above all this, the minds of common people under the influence of reformed religion in Bohemia were dominated by devotion to the practice of holy communion in both kinds of bread and wine, which they fervently believed was the teaching of Christ and the apostles as well as the practice of the early church.46 46 

This paragraph takes its outline from a succinct summary in Tomek, Dějepis města Prahy, iv, 664.

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The twin considerations of memory and motivation illuminate the life and work of the medieval priest and martyr who rose from obscurity to national hero and popular saint on the platform of a unique and renewed practice of the Christian faith. Hus reminded those who listened to him that the essential dynamic between humanity and divinity existed in history, and therefore the renewal of church and society was the intentional eschatological purpose of God to be realized ethically and morally in the Czech world at the end of the Middle Ages.47 This was his motivation. This constituted the essence of his memory. So profound were his challenges to the church and so bellicose were the reactions to his untimely demise that the name Jan Hus was destined never to fade into oblivion.

47 

The theoretical underpinnings are outlined in Matula, ‘The Understanding of Time and Eternity’.

Chapter Two

What Did Jan Hus Think He Was Doing?

T

he larger ethos of religious practice and reform in Bohemia forms the immediate context within which Jan Hus discovered the motivation for his tumultuous life. Preoccupation with theology and its applications, reform of the church and religious practice, the improvement of life at the end of the Middle Ages, and fidelity to the gospel of Jesus Christ in its myriad forms shaped that Zeitgeist. Hus found within that matrix a place for personal involvement and action. It led him to martyrdom. His execution placed his name permanently in the annals of history. But what does the inner person of Jan Hus look like? What did he imagine his work was all about? Many important clues can be found in the documents from his legal ordeal.1 On the face of it, the question ‘what did Jan Hus think he was doing?’ might suggest a sense of dismissive judgement about his life, work, or the decisions of the medieval priest, but the query does not imply such concerns at all. Instead, the burden of inquiry is an attempt to penetrate the manner in which Hus approached the critical decisions in his life. The effort is to try to identify what he was thinking and to understand how his thinking informed his actions. Several preliminary questions inform this task. What were Hus’s motivations? What did he think? What did he feel? What does he reveal about himself ? Learning about historical figures occurs in a variety of ways. We learn about Hus by listening to what he said, by considering what he said about himself, by reading what others who knew him said about him, and by taking into account his actions and the records thereof. Hus did not write an autobiography. Most medieval people did not. We are fortunate to have these sorts of personal reflections from Augustine, 1 

Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus, pp. 1–29, 116–87, 238–340.

18

Chapter Two

Guibert of Nogent, Abelard, Emperor Charles IV, and a handful of others. The principal basis for understanding the thinking and psychology of Hus must be rooted in his most personal writings. This means his letters will form a critical mass of evidence to this end. In these pages of sometimes unguarded, private correspondence we find reflections which reveal his humanity, hopes, fears, dreams (real and nocturnally-induced), mood, emotions, and so on. Within the pages of his correspondence we find the distinguishing qualities of the medieval priest and martyr. In prison, Hus had time to think. He had opportunity for reflection. It is inconceivable that he did not examine his conscience, ponder his motivation, perhaps even question his ideas and actions, and above all scrutinize very carefully what he was doing in Constance and the great meaning of his own life. If these assumptions be true then the words he wrote down in his prison cell, sometimes on little more than scraps of paper, are surely the considered thoughts of a human mind revealing elements of passion and personality. Inasmuch as many of his prison letters are addressed to an individual, Hus probably did not imagine they might later become public documents. It is fair to assume that in such letters there are unguarded moments or expressions which he may not otherwise have committed to print for publication or uttered in a sermon. What seems clear is that letters written by Hus, especially those from prison, tend to justify and defend his life. The letters, therefore, constitute a source of inestimable value in helping to assess the personality of Jan Hus and arrive at some understanding of what he thought he was doing. We can only regret the prison letters confiscated, destroyed, lost, or otherwise no longer extant. We must also acknowledge with considerable regret that during his incarceration in the Gottlieben Tower between 24 March and 3 June 1415 not a single letter has survived. We must be content with those which were surreptitiously preserved from the Dominican prison from 6 December 1414 to 24 March 1415 and those smuggled out of the Franciscan prison during the final month of his life (3 June–5 July 1415). Some of the prison guards obviously were complicit, and we read of letters under meal trays secreted in and out of Hus’s cell.2 We have about one hundred extant letters from the pen of Hus as well as about thirty-five additional documents which might qualify as personal papers, such as letters to him and his appeal to Christ at the height of his legal ordeal.3 These provide important insights into Hus’s thinking, emo2  Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 332–33. 3  The best edition is Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný. Novotný includes 165 docu-

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tions, and motivations. Efforts to psychologize historical figures six hundred years removed is a precarious undertaking with limited useful outcomes. This of course has not prevented such investigations, with one of the more famous being Erikson’s study of Martin Luther.4 The lack of reliable biographical details makes it impossible to reach rigid or certain conclusions about Hus’s personality. We do not, for example, even know what he looked like. Depictions of him wearing a beard are almost certainly contrived, since medieval priests of the Latin church were clean-shaven until the sixteenth century.5 There were exceptions. There are manuscript sources describing some of Hus’s followers as the ‘bearded priests’ (sacerdotes barbati) at Tábor.6 Aside from appearance, we also have insufficient information about Hus’s relationship to either of his parents to permit any type of Eriksonian hypothesis. The same is true of his early life before he came to prominence at about age thirty. In seeking to understand Jan Hus we have first to make every effort to dismiss modern preconceptions, which are both intellectually and heuristically useless, and instead try to come to terms with medieval attitudes and medieval assumptions and deal with evidence from medieval sources. This means paying close attention to Hus’s own words and, in so far as possible, to the documents which emerge from the context of his life. While the construct cannot be left unchallenged in its details, Jan Hus’s life ended under the cloud of a heresy indictment and conviction. Along with Jews, lepers, homosexuals, and other disenfranchised groups, heretics were considered enemies of Christian society.7 The answer to the question of what Hus thought he was doing begins with the matter of heresy. Regardless of how serious Hus thought his preaching, teaching, writing, and religious reforms were, it is difficult to essay a judgement on him that avoids his propensity for provocative questions and dangerous answers. That proclivity drove him ments in his edition but thirty of these are no longer extant and we know about them from references found elsewhere. The best edition of the Hus letters in English is Hus, Letters, trans. by Spinka. Spinka includes ninety-nine letters written by Hus. The Spinka edition erroneously claims on the dust jacket flyleaf ‘this is the first time that the letters […] have appeared in English translation’. Two previous editions include Hus, Letters, trans. by MacKenzie, and Hus, Letters, ed. by Workman and Pope. References are to the Novotný edition. 4  Erikson, Young Man Luther. 5  Fudge, ‘Picturing the Death and Life of Jan Hus’, pp. 3–4. 6  Jan Příbram, ‘De conditionibus iusti belli’, Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 47, fols 78r–93v. 7  Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society, pp. 6–99.

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into treacherous territory where he soon became a moving target. While not eccentric or reckless theologically, Hus did not seem particularly anxious to be orthodox. At the height of his popular appeal in Prague he did not shrink from the moniker of ‘heretic’.8 By and by Hus came to Constance to appear before all the sage men of Christian Europe and was treated, somewhat surprisingly, relatively well, especially when compared with other accused heretics. This might be attributed to the fact that he came voluntarily, held an imperial safe conduct, had recommendations from his ordinary and the incumbent inquisitor in Prague, and there were no moral charges pending against him. Once procedural events encompassed an examination of his alleged doctrinal heresies, concerns were magnified. During the third public hearing on 8 June 1415, one of the judges, Pierre d’Ailly, noted no fewer than four times that Hus’s books were ever more troubling than the articles extracted from them.9 This was an ominous observation. What did Hus think he was doing? As early as June 1410, Hus displayed a somewhat liberal attitude in his thinking when he asserted that ‘one must read the books of heretics and not burn them’.10 Such comments did more than raise the eyebrow of the archbishop. Canon law defined heresy in its basic form as choice because the heretic chooses a singular discipline which deviates from mainstream consensus. Hus did not find this definition repulsive. 11 But he argued that the real heretics (etymologically) were those who forbid the books of heretics. The faithful are obligated to peruse these writings.12 Hus goes further. ‘One is permitted to read and to have in one’s home the books of authors some containing, in spite of certain false or heretical opinions, much truth useful to the church.’13 What was Hus thinking? He would later argue that it was possible to have peace with heretics, with whom he seems not to have harboured undue alarm.14 Clearly his opinions became troublesome to Zbyněk, Archbishop of Prague, and the result was a massive book-burning exercise in the summer of 1410, though this was no deterrent to Hus and seems 8 

See Hus, Contra Palecz, xxii, 237, written in the spring of 1413. According to the trial record of Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 83, 89, 91, and 108. 10  Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, p. 21. 11  Sermon for Trinity XIV, 4 September 1412, in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, v, 31. 12  Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, pp. 30, 36. 13  Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, p. 31. 14  Noted in a sermon he prepared in 1414 to deliver at the Council of Constance. Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, pp. 76–78. 9 

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not to have exerted any ameliorating affect on his opinion. ‘It is permitted’, Hus wrote, ‘in the communities to dispute on the Christian faith not in order to sow discord, but in order to refute error and shed light on the truth of the faith’.15 This approach was unsettling to the defenders of traditional church authority and would form aspects of the formal accusations brought against Hus with the force of law. But Hus had already written his answer: ‘one should not invoke imperial laws in ecclesiastical controversies’.16 Already we can detect important formative streams of consciousness. Hus’s ruminations on this issue reveal but one aspect of his thinking, one which carried with it lasting implications. While exploring the question of Hus’s thinking there is an important caveat. ‘While searching for the essence of a heresiarch’s thought, it must always be kept in mind that the personal conviction of individual heretics was only one pole of their heresy.’17 Indeed, the thinking of a man must be understood through the prism of his world. Aware of his reputation Hus wrote to a group of monks in Moravia (May 1412) telling them to believe nothing they might hear about him.18 The admonition seems extravagant. Hus is immune to the possibility that he might have trespassed into areas of heterodoxy. Two hundred years before Hus, medieval writers asserted that heretics were unreasonable and tended to follow their own inclinations. They were characterized by pride and a firm personal conviction they were reliable guides in matters of faith. They likewise tended to cobble together their teachings (read heresies!) from ideas they had collected from disparate sources.19 All of these points were eventually advanced against Hus. At about the same time, writing against the Waldensians, a French Praemonstratensian abbot presented a psychological profile of the heretic which included such tendentious elements as inexperienced, innocent, simple, upright, and weak.20 From such perspectives emerges a caricature of the heretic who is routinely presented as deceptive, dangerous, irrational, foolish, immoral, absurd, perfidious, arrogant, excessive, stupid, and so on. The language is boilerplate vocabulary used to describe a 15  Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, pp. 34–35. After the book-burning, Hus once again went into print arguing books ought not to be destroyed. Hus, Defensio libri de Trinitate, pp. 49–50. 16  Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, p. 33. 17  Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages, pp. 230–31. 18  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 120–21. 19  Alain of Lille, De fide catholica contra hereticos, cols 307–08 (c. 1190). 20  Bernard de Fontcaude, Adversus Waldensium sectam, especially cols 821–36.

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variety of deviants in the Middle Ages.21 Hus refused to consider seriously that anyone could legitimately number him among the enemies of the church. The crucial element is contumacy. Heretics routinely were denounced on account of this characteristic. One example suffices. Bernard of Clairvaux said the trouble with Peter Abelard was that he was a heretic not so much because of theological errors but on account of his stubborn defence of those errors.22 The charge later would be applied to Hus. Contumacy was related integrally to issues of obedience because it was not only possible but sometimes it happened that leaders of movements of dissent were capable of garnering sufficient popular support to exercise de facto political power. The effective influence of Jan Hus’s pulpit on the population of Prague must not be minimized and this was not lost either on Archbishop Zbyněk or Curial officials. Against this background of authority, heresy, and reform, we must ask the question, ‘what did Jan Hus think he was doing?’. The personal writings reveal that in the first instance Hus believed he was a divine messenger sent to correct abuses in the church. This conviction can also be assessed across the spectrum of Hus’s corpus, public statements, and general conduct. Late in life Hus became convinced he had been persecuted and later tried specifically on account of his opposition to clerical irregularity. Of course the Prague priests denied this, countering with the claim that opposition to Hus could be boiled down to his own heresies and disobedience to his ordinary. An examination of Hus’s sermons, especially those after 1409, his polemical writings, as well as many letters, reveal provocative rhetoric about the unsavoury lives of the priests and the need for reform. His spirited discussion of ideas on both topics produced rather swift accusations of heresy, disobedience, and contumacy.23 To this extent the Prague priests were right about him. In his 1407 sermon before the diocesan synod in Prague, Hus used inflammatory language to drive his point home. Wicked priests were described as the ‘joint heirs of Antichrist’ who were manifest ‘adversaries of Christ’, in league with the ‘prince of darkness’ whose lives were ‘stained with the taint of sin’.24 One wonders about the prevailing mood in the congregation as the sermon was delivered. Hus believed it was his duty to speak the unvarnished truth. Thus convinced, he refused compromise and eschewed consequence in the exercise of that responsibility. The 21 

On this see Patschovsky, ‘Feindbilder der Kirche’. Bernard de Clairvaux, Opera, ed. by Leclercq and Rochais, viii (1977), p. 145. 23  I have dealt with this in Fudge, ‘“O Cursed Judas”’. 24  The text appears in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, ii, 47–56, at pp. 49–50. 22 

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instances of Hus’s attack on the wickedness of priests can be found with ease, but it is sufficient only to draw attention to a sermon he prepared in hopes of preaching before the Council of Constance. In that text, Hus intended to say that wicked priests avoid suffering for the cause of Christ. This is apparent because they are possessed by demons and Antichrist. They have become anti-heroes, ‘angels of light’, who function as villains and robbers, butchers of innocent sheep, and betrayers who convert houses of piety and prayer into dens of thieves.25 It is altogether astounding that Hus planned to say such things before a congregation of clerics including some of his most fervent detractors. This reveals another important dimension in his thinking. One of the earliest accounts of his passion noted that Hus was the ‘razor of vice’, and that sharp edge never dulled.26 Chief amongst Hus’s concern with priestly irregularity was the poison of simony which, as Hus told the Polish king Władysław Jagiełło of Poland, was so widespread it was difficult to find any place unaffected. 27 This was not an uncommon view. The twelfth-century prior, cardinal, and reformer Peter Damian considered simony to be the original heresy to ‘burst from the bowels of the devil’.28 Hus wrote a large treatise on the subject, and in his preparations for Constance he attacked the practice again, denouncing it with the vocabulary of Biblical condemnation as the wickedness of Gehazi, Judas, and Simon Magus, which destroys faith.29 He also believed it was right to oppose the sale of illicit indulgences. Popular songs reflected Hus’s own sentiments by accusing the promoters of robbing both the king and the common people throughout the Czech lands, identifying specific parish priests by name: Zubrník, Chochol, and Martin Adamas, who became profiteers from the scandal by their lies and energetic promotion of the papal indulgences in the region of Boleslav.30 In a twist of irony, after Hus had been roundly excoriated by the pope, the Bohemian king, and theologians, for his opposition to the indulgences campaign, the Council of Constance enacted a reform not unlike that proposed by Hus.31 As a herald of God to the late medieval church, Hus 25 

Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, pp. 76–78. Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 19. 27  Letter of 11 June 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 122. 28  Opusculum 30, in Patrologia Latina, cxlv, col. 523. 29  Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, p. 66. 30  ‘Antikrista tupiti’, Praha, NK, MS xix A 50, fols 195v–196r. 31  Stump, The Reforms of Council Constance, pp. 67–72. 26 

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maintained a striking preoccupation with sin. In a short work which he wrote in June 1414 on the heart of the Christian faith, a significant part of that exposition is devoted to sin.32 Did Hus see himself in some way as a gatekeeper, a watchman on the wall, the strict punisher of all sin, a Czech prophet in the manner of John the Baptist for the Kingdom of God? If his works are carefully considered, especially many of his sermons, his book on spiritual direction, Dcerka, his critique of eucharistic doctrine and practice, De sex erroribus, as well as his books on simony and especially his Zrcadlo hřiešníka (Mirror of a Sinner), one encounters an unmistakable emphasis on living without sin. The idea of Hus as a spiritual corrector is not improbable.33 Hus was a strict disciplinarian. He believed that he lived in the twilight of human history, that life was transitory, and that all things in this existence must be subordinated to the life of the world to come. Since this world had no eternal significance: We should not trespass the commandment of God, but we should adhere to it until our death, desiring to leave this world like sailors on a ship that is sinking, like a traveller leaving a foreign country, like an inhabitant leaving a collapsing house, like a prisoner leaving a cruel jail; because we are on the sea, on a journey, in a foreign country, in a collapsing world, imprisoned by the body which is a hard prison.34

Throughout his letters there is evidence suggesting Hus feared failure, human weakness, and the inevitable encroachment of sin. He encouraged vigilance. Hus thought about women but there is no suggestion he ever took a lover, struggled with issues of sexuality, or gave in to any expression of sexual desire. None of his enemies ever insinuated otherwise. But he warned others. In a single letter to his former pupil and assistant at Bethlehem Chapel, Martin Volyně, he issued five warnings about women: do not associate with them, take great care when hearing the confessions of women, beware of their hypocrisy, maintain a healthy suspicion of female claims of piety, and never hire a young woman as a housekeeper. Almost as an afterthought, Hus told young Martin he hoped he was still a virgin.35 To an unidentified priest Hus cautioned ‘avoid young women in every way’ and advised the cleric to never allow women to 32 

Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, pp. 330–33. For the sermons, see especially Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans; Hus, Dcerka, pp. 163–86; Hus, De sex erroribus, ed. by Ryba, pp. 41–63; the book on simony: Hus, O svatokupectví, pp. 187–270; and Hus, Zrcadlo hřiešníka, pp. 132–46 (in two recensions). 34  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 99. 35  Letter of October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 204–05. 33 

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enter his home for any reason.36 Three weeks before he died, Hus once again contacted Martin Volyně and warned him about talking to women and took this final opportunity to say ‘I hope you are still a virgin’.37 Elsewhere, we read of Hus encouraging a group of young women to lives of sexual abstinence.38 Dismissing royal and papal power, Hus urged the faithful to focus on the power by which one may become a child of God and to cast aside every concern about other forms of power, and above all to avoid sex.39 One of the brief theological treatises he wrote from prison in the winter of 1415 was titled On the Three Enemies of Humankind, which Hus enumerated as the world, the flesh and the devil. The writing expresses a severe morality and was dedicated to George, one of the prison guards.40 Hus thought he was a messenger of God and in this role had the responsibility to correctly interpret the scriptures for those who heard him. An examination of his correspondence reveals many allusions to scripture, though it was a fashionable literary device in the Middle Ages to cite biblical and theological authorities. We find language in the prefaces of no fewer than thirty-two letters resembling apostolic greetings in the New Testament.41 Hus considered the scriptures an unassailable court of appeal and insisted that whatever ostensible errors and heresies he might have held inadvertently be corrected by the witness of biblical texts. There are other examples of heresy trials wherein defendants argued to the same end.42 Critics of Hus, like Jean Gerson, argued that heretics fell into error mainly because they interpreted scripture often literally and woodenly without properly taking into account the nuances of metaphor and the unique manner by which scripture communicates its message.43 When 36 

Letter of November 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 216–17. Letter of 16 June 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 277. 38  Undated letter (after 1408) in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 27–28, and elsewhere wrote that young women ought to consider Jesus as a more desirable lover than a human partner. Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 179. 39  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 72. 40  Hus, De tribus hostibus hominis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 45. 41  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 1, 15, 18, 20, 54, 69, 72, 83, 86, 88, 90, 116, 122, 142, 159, 164, 169–70, 177, 184, 191, 207, 212, 215, 217, 220, 223, 243, 270, 282, 304, 317, and 330. 42  The trial of Walter Brute, 1391–93 indicates that Brute apparently said he was prepared to be instructed by anyone on the basis of scripture. Trevenant, Registrum, ed. by Capes, pp. 278–93, at pp. 285–86. 43  On this see Kaluza, ‘Le Chancelier Gerson et Jérôme de Prague’, especially pp. 108–115. 37 

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instructed to the contrary, stubbornness intruded and in Hus’s case he had no compunction about saying he had no intention of obeying either pope or archbishop when their demands seemed at odds with his calling.44 On this, in principle, Hus had the support of his opponent Gerson, who once wrote that it was quite unnecessary to obey those whose conduct was reprehensible.45 Hus concurred. In a series of letters to the Archbishop of Prague, Hus rebukes his ordinary in a condescending form of polite prose.46 The question can be raised about why reforming theologians like Jean Gerson and Pierre d’Ailly could combine reform with allegiance to the church and attain prominent ecclesiastical office, while Hus came under the ban of heresy. The answer must be found in issues of ecclesiological doctrine and models of authority. The doctrines of the church as espoused by conciliar thinkers like Gerson and d’Ailly, along with men such as Francesco Zabarella and Dietrich Niem, does not seem, at first blush, terribly different than Hus’s.47 Over against rigid, unyielding papalism, the current of conciliarism emerged with considerable force in the lifetime of Jan Hus. Gerson and d’Ailly were among its principal proponents. Conciliarism was a movement within the late medieval church which attempted to modify the direction and extent of papal power.48 Hus agreed with the shifting of emphasis away from popes to a general council. But here the patterns of divergence refused to go further. Hus belonged to one school of thought while men like Gerson and d’Ailly belonged to another. The stream of thought in which Hus stood subscribed to the notion that scripture constituted the highest source and most important criteria of faith. This cannot be presented as a doctrine of sola scriptura, but the emphasis is unambiguous. The second trajectory insisted that scripture, together with tradition and canon law, represented the highest court of authority. Tradition, canon law, and scripture were of equal importance.49 The implications were rather severe. This helps to explain why Gerson and d’Ailly were so sharply opposed to Hus. Pierre d’Ailly agreed with Hus when it came to the need for moral reform. Though he was a cardinal, he accepted the position that a general council might be convened in the absence of a pope, since the authority of a general council 44 

Letter of December 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 158. Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, i, col. 127. 46  Letters of summer and autumn 1408 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 28–44. 47  De Vooght, Hussiana, pp. 186–208, for an overview. 48  A classic study is Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory. 49  Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, pp. 361–412. 45 

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came from Christ and not the papal office. The fullness of power did reside in the papacy but might also be claimed by the council which represented the universal church. D’Ailly’s development of this theme can be regarded as a basic summary of conciliar theory.50 Gerson agreed with d’Ailly that all Christians were obligated to obey the decisions of a general council. Therefore church authority was guided by the Holy Spirit, a position Hus embraced, and the Council of Constance said so in its famous and controversial decree Haec sancta. Gerson argued that a council had the necessary authority to pass rulings on every matter of faith and morals. Under the aegis of the Holy Spirit, the council was also assigned the solemn responsibility of passing judgement on any case whatever which might be brought within its purview. Gerson claimed the council had authority from God to do just that even if it could not marshal specific support from scripture.51 Here we encounter the crux of the matter which shows the thickness of the line between Hus and reformers like Gerson and d’Ailly. Hus claimed that a general council held legitimate power only when there was a commensurate moral quality present. Gerson did not agree. In terms of the papacy, Gerson and d’Ailly were not anti-papal, but they were committed to limiting papal power if the latter threatened the integrity of the church. It is a great irony that Jan Hus was censured for declaring there was no incumbent requirement for a Christian to obey a sinful pope. His judges were conciliarists like Gerson and d’Ailly who had just taken part in the deposing of a pope for gross misconduct. The three were reformers, but the unresolved controversy over acceptable definitions of the church and the nature of spiritual authority remained acute. Jan Hus was unwilling to accept conciliar theology and remained opposed to her authority as ardently as he withstood strict papalism. He harboured doubts about the legislative authority of a general council and regarded the new paradigm as holding and practising an illegitimate form of coercive power. Jan Hus was not amenable to either of the dominant ecclesiastical forces in the later Middle Ages. Gerson and d’Ailly could not avoid seeing Hus as a disloyal son of the church. What did Hus think he was doing? He believed he was faithful to the law of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That was his ideal. In reality, he seemed absolutely certain that he alone understood truth. Convinced of this, he was utterly immune to reason and insisted on determining the criteria of truth for himself and everyone else. He could not be swayed by the force of counter argument. Gerson and d’Ailly considered 50 

d’Ailly, Propositiones utiles. Tractatus de potestate ecclesiastica in Jean de Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. by Du Pin, ii, cols 225–56, but see especially cols 247 and 249. 51 

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him a dangerous subversive. It is not possible to conclude that fairly sketchy ties to John Wyclif were the main reason for his condemnation. Hus really was, despite his protests, a dissident of more significance than that. Like other reformers, Hus made an indelible mark on his society. Unlike Wyclif (and others), he lacked profound originality. His career is tied up explicitly with the manner of his dying. The irony is that while Hus died on German soil, he was destroyed by his own countrymen. In Prague he was hailed as a hero, but the enemies were those within his own household. Even the mention of the name Hus sent Páleč into a rage. Once he interfered in a conversation with loud shouts, hand waving, and his face contorted with anger. 52 Men like Štěpán Páleč and Michael de Causis were animated with particular zeal, so much so they ‘let no moment pass, nor left one stone unturned for his condemnation’.53 Hus admitted he had many enemies but the worst of them were from Bohemia.54 Their opinion of him was overwhelmingly negative. We must ponder why this was so. He was perceived as a turbulent troublemaker, who incited violence against the church, a despicable heresiarch, Judas, a man deserving of hell. The vitriol against Hus by Páleč cannot be considered any less than a list of characteristics equalling utter reproach: pride, disobedience, intolerance, wrath, insolence, egotism, contumacy, malice, dishonesty, indiscretion, arrogance, meanness, disloyalty, imprudence, stupidity, blindness, and hypocrisy.55 All of these attacks unavoidably shaped Hus’s thinking. Blustering as he sometimes did, Hus was not impervious to such unrelenting and withering assaults. He was especially upset by the greeting he heard from Páleč while lying in a Constance prison: there has never been a worst heretic than you save Wyclif.56 Michael de Causis expressed his desire to see Hus burned alive, since he had spent so much money already on prosecuting him, while the Prague Dominican Petr of Uničov went round Constance declaring he was Hus’s main enemy and greatest opponent. It is reported that Petr took great pleasure in the reputation.57 Some scholars suggest that Hus failed to allow for the varieties of perspectives which existed around the subject of church reform and 52 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 40. Lenfant, The History of Council of Constance, i, 58. 54  Letter of 19 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 207. 55  Summarized as such by De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 509. 56  Letters of late January, early March, 9 June and 22 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 245, 252, 264–65, and 298. 57  Letter of 23 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 300, and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 41. 53 

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his intransigence created unnecessary enemies, while others claim there was something excessive in his behaviour which angered many people, helped to create formidable foes, and lit a fire wherever he went.58 It is perilous to ignore such observations and difficult to refute them. These realities also shaped Hus’s outlook. Among the prominent themes in his thinking seem to be concerns of pastoral care and the cure of souls, and these also seem evident in his character. His later letters, especially, are documents of spiritual counsel, pastoral care, instruction in the faith, last words, encouragement, and concern for the integrity of faith and religious practice. In addition to his personal correspondence, Hus wrote a series of short prison treatises which likewise provide evidence of the nature of his thinking as he approached the end of his life.59 All of this remained supported by Hus’s concept of faith, which he conceived as the means by which an individual can rationally or intellectually believe in the faith.60 As much as all of this is foundational for coming to terms with the personality of the individual, we are still some distance from answering the central query. What did Jan Hus think he was doing? Probing further, it seems he believed he was faithfully defending the law of God. Indeed, a law-of-God consciousness pervades his thinking and is consistently the criterion for adjudication applied by Hus. The issue is less that of strict adherence to law or simple obedience and more about justice in a comprehensive sense.61 Failure to adhere to the law of God leads to a loss of divine presence wherein righteousness is curtailed and, in terms of religious practice, useful preaching is abandoned.62 Despite this conviction and commitment to the law of God, we find evidence that Hus feared violating the commands of God and thereby failing to defend the cause of Christ.63 It is possible to argue that Hus’s commitment to the ideal law of God prevented him from evaluating reality. Hus believed he lived a life of austerity which was necessary and pleasing to God. This included much hand-wringing over such extravagant offences as taking pleasure in fine clothing, playing chess, participating in carnivalesque events like the Feast of the Ass, and inordinate levity.64 58 

Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 36–37, and De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 510. Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 38–52. 60  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 66. 61  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 29–30. 62  Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, p. 54. 63  Letter of 9 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 265. 64  Letters of early October 1414 and 16 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 204–05, 277–78, and Hus, Menší výklad na páteř, pp. 342. 59 

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He wrote a lengthy letter to an anonymous noblewoman expressing concern that she permitted dancing and games on her estate. Hus regarded dancing as a gateway to mortal sin and considered the activity an invitation to sexual immorality.65 The theme of moralism and austerity permeates his thinking and personal reflections. Štěpán Páleč claimed Hus considered himself a crusader and was not bashful about giving himself the title ‘the servant of Jesus Christ and the zealous supporter of the gospel law’.66 Páleč argues that the title is inappropriate because his conduct contradicts it. This brings us to the riddle of his character. On 18 May 1415 a committee of Council representatives visited Hus in his cell at the Gottlieben. We have the record of one opinion from that embassy expressed by a delegate of Cologne University. The German academic concluded he had never before encountered a villain so capable of giving clever answers which obfuscated the truth.67 French canon lawyer and Patriarch of Antioch, Jean Mauroux, told the nobles of Moravia, on behalf of Council deputies, that Hus was the sort of man who could not be trusted under any conceivable circumstance.68 The comment seems excessively prejudicial. Hus was roundly criticized for being proud but it seems hard to ignore another convincing body of evidence suggesting he was in the main a practitioner of humility. Gerson claimed Hus erred in matters of the faith and in morals. The latter charge is notorious for its lack of support. The insinuation about morals is rather murky and can only be regarded as a throwaway comment. Beyond this, Gerson argued Hus was arrogant and possessed temerity in presumption.69 Boilerplate accusations aside, Hus was a man of unblemished character and personal life. He was upright, morally blameless, and honest, perhaps to a fault. He was not, in the end, a revolutionary, nor a full-blown reformer. At best, he was an astute critic, capable of diagnosing a problem or defect in any given circumstance, but not always capable of carrying out the necessary means of rectifying the problem. Beyond this, he seems to have lacked the required political polish necessary to avoid engendering ill will everywhere he went. Whatever it was that Hus thought he was doing must be evaluated in light of his calling and capacity as a priest of the late medieval church. ‘Because I am a priest sent by God in the hope to teach people to believe, to observe God’s 65 

Undated letter in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 15–18. Antihus in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, pp. 366–507 (at p. 366). 67  Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, ed. by Martène and Durand, ii, 1634–38. 68  The letter of 31 May 1415 is in Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 57. 69  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 186. 66 

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commandments and to pray to God, I wish to explain [these things] to ordinary people.’70 Hus opens his exposition of the faith in this fashion. At the centre of his thinking remains the conviction and commitment to his calling as a preacher. Hus esteemed the office of preaching so much so that, forty years after his death, a French prelate found it necessary to refute the claim ostensibly advanced by Hus that the church was connected to Christ through the means of preaching.71 This has some echo in Hus’s own list of responsibilities of a priest, wherein he places preaching as the first duty.72 The order is deliberate and significant. It would appear that the general ethos of religion in the late medieval West considered the Mass, not preaching, as the principal connection. While under aggravated excommunication and barred from his pulpit at Bethlehem Chapel we read of how distressed Hus was, wishing to preach but not knowing what to do. Elsewhere he expressed grief at the situation. Nevertheless, preaching continues to occupy his thoughts and even in absentia he exhorts the people of Prague to attend sermons.73 Hus regarded himself as a preacher and felt he had a moral duty to fulfil this obligation. Once, when he temporarily discontinued this function at the instruction of his king, Václav IV, he considered himself existing in a state of sin.74 His discontent was palpable. After he left Prague and went into exile, he ignored this counsel and immediately began to preach anywhere he could find an audience. In a sermon for the second Sunday in Trinity, Hus refers to the prohibition against preaching as an act of Antichrist and took the opportunity to denounce the priests who supported such initiatives as the ‘crew of Antichrist’. Hus tells us that while in exile he preached regularly, specifically mentioning his sermons delivered at Kozí Hrádek in southern Bohemia.75 We find evidence in his thinking and personal disclosures that he considered what he was doing at Constance to be a successful defence of his cause which 70 

Hus, Výklad víry, p. 63. Bishop of Châlons-sur-Saône, Jean Germain, Les deux pans de las tapisserie chrétienne, Lyon, BM, MS 1209, fol. 132v. I owe the reference to my former colleague, Thérèse Thouzellier, whose work in French archives not infrequently turned up references to Hus. 72  Hus, De quinque officiis sacerdotis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 191. 73  Letters of autumn and early December 1412 and late summer 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 137, 157, and 192. 74  Letter of June 1413 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 171. 75  Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 298–99, and elsewhere in his sermon for the fifth day after Trinity, p. 320. 71 

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would be pleasing to God. He went to Constance, so he tells us, because he believed God would not permit falsehood to triumph over truth. That was his solemn declaration to Václav and Žofie, the king and queen of Bohemia.76 He thought he was the representative of truth. Moreover, Hus was assured he could successfully defend himself and his point of view at the Council and in an open letter announced this to the entire Kingdom of Bohemia.77 Hus exhibited confidence in ultimate justice, which he believed would be achieved at Constance. He was convinced that an incorruptible judge would render a fair and just verdict.78 The conciliar fathers and his most vociferous enemies including Michael de Causis, Štěpán Páleč, Jan ‘the Iron’ Bishop, Petr of Uničov and, Wenceslas Tiem judged him succumbing beneath a great cloud of futility and failure in the face of the mighty wisdom and judgement of the synod. The stake notwithstanding, Hus considered his end a victory. Prior to the inevitable conclusion of his legal ordeal, Hus entertained unrealistic expectations and visions of divine intervention. These included the naive assumption he would preach before the Council or be allowed to sit near Emperor Sigismund so that the latter might hear clearly and understand completely his statements.79 He also spoke of his hope for supernatural deliverance. Prior to Constance, Hus expressed his view that God helped his attorney Jan Jesenice escape from the clutches of his enemies while incarcerated at a papal Curia prison in Rome. 80 When he himself was arrested and despaired of aid from Sigismund, Hus repeatedly wrote of his hopes that there might be deliverance from divine sources.81 Hus alludes to biblical miracle tales associated with the resuscitation of the deceased Lazarus, the amazing story of Jonah’s deliverance from the great fish, the rescue of Daniel from the den of lions, the salvation of the three young Hebrew boys from the fate of a furnace of fire, and the saving of Susanna while literally on her way to death. Hus thinks it entirely possible that he might be spared from his confinement just as St Peter was set free from prison. One week before execution, Hus continued to believe he might actually be returned to Prague.

76 

Letter of 26 August 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 196. Letter of 26 August 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 194. 78  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 82. 79  Letters of 5 and 19 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 240, and 246. 80  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 321. 81  Letters of 25, 26 and 29 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 313, 320, and 329. 77 

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As the inexorable legal process continued and the days of his life now became numbered, what did Jan Hus think he was doing? We continue to plumb the extent of his writings, especially those which reveal aspects of his inner life, but it is manifest that Hus rather firmly thought he was doing three things: first, he was standing firm in defence of truth. Second, he was practising the imitation of Christ. Third, he was preparing for martyrdom. These three elements form the most succinct elaboration of his thinking. These convictions dominate his thinking and inform his decisions and actions. From prison he wrote to his friend Jan Chlum declaring ‘I shall never retreat from truth’.82 At Nürnberg, Hus referred to his imperial escort, Jan Chlum and Václav Dubá, as ‘heralds’ and ‘defenders of truth’. As the history of the Hus case at Constance shows, this is particularly true of the former.83 Doubtlessly, his retinue was influenced by his spirit and resolve, but Hus had already declared himself a defender of truth. He had shared with the people of Prague his desire that God would place him in the battle at the greatest hour of need in order to defend God’s truth.84 This represents a critical element in Hus’s thinking. The battle was joined at Constance. The warriors were in the trenches battling in the ultimate struggle. Jan Hus thought God had brought him to this religious Waterloo for such a time as this. While Hus displays a consistent fidelity to the truth, it must be noted he did not always use the word with the same meaning.85 Nevertheless, whenever Hus employs the word or concept of truth he ‘always meant the ethical value expressed by respect for the scriptures and justice’.86 That seems to have been the general understanding, but in more specific terms it signified Christ, divine revelation and the law of God.87 Hus did not believe he possessed truth absolutely. It was an ideal, greater than any person or institution. It could not be grasped, only pursued. Hence, he was always prepared to change his current point of view when presented with more relevant information or cogent argument.88 Nevertheless, he went to Constance having prepared an essay in which 82 

Letter of 4 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 240. Letter of 20 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 214. 84  Letter of November 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 150. 85  On this see Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 24–25, and Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 28–29. 86  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 25. 87  Hus, Collecta, p. 373 (sermon for Trinity VII), Hus, Defensio articulorum Wyclif, p. 208, and Hus, Contra Stanislaum, pp. 295–96. 88  Hus, Defensio libri de Trinitate, p. 42. 83 

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he argued forcefully that the law of God alone was absolutely all that was necessary.89 Hus believed this trumped all other factors in a ‘legal culture filled with a variety of laws and jurisdictions, among them ecclesiastical (canon) law, royal law, customary law, urban law, and land law’.90 The law of God was paramount. Having some sort of idea about the challenges he would face in assuming and maintaining this stance, Hus was determined, by divine grace, to endure all suffering for the cause of perfection and in loyalty to truth even if that meant death. The commitment was unassailable, Hus said, in order that people might know he had not committed apostasy.91 What did Hus think he was doing? In a word, living and, if need be, dying as an example to the world. So strong was his allegiance to truth that often he voiced his horror at even the slightest prospect of perjury. His fear of that moral and mortal offence prohibited him from ever seriously considering the request of the Council that he abjure. The year after the traumatic events at Constance, a posthumous sermon about Hus was preached by Jakoubek Stříbro in Prague. Based on Matthew 5. 10, ‘blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’, Jakoubek went to some lengths stressing the purity of Hus’s life as a model of Christian behaviour. The courageous preacher is presented as both truthful and above reproach in word and deed. Jakoubek says Hus loved all people and did not even exclude those who hated him. With great endurance Hus laboured for the salvation of all and never faltered in this work. ‘He was pure, chaste, pious, did not indulge, and from the very beginning there was no arrogance, grudging, envy, or hypocrisy in him. He sacrificed everything, even himself, for the salvation of souls.’ This eulogy presents a rather stark contrast to the altogether depressing litany of unsavory attributes published by Štěpán Páleč, noted earlier. Because of his witness, Jakoubek continued, the gospel resonates throughout the Kingdom of Bohemia. Hus was a divine spokesman and in time was joined to Christ. To all he came into contact with he ministered to that person’s greatest need. Jakoubek expresses the hope that one day all faithful people might follow Hus into the fellowship of the angels. In his trials he was dishonoured in the same fashion as Christ. Despised by the wicked, he patiently endured persecution for the gospel of Christ and followed his lord to the end.92 One must query to what extent this panegyric 89 

Hus, De sufficientia legis Christi, ed. by Illyricus, pp. 55–60. Grant, ‘The Political Side of Hussitism’, p. 44. 91  Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 166 (sermon for Lent IV). 92  Sermon texts are preserved in Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS E 37, fols 134r–135v, 90 

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finds root in Hus’s own consciousness and whether this imitation of Christ is reflected in the thinking of Jan Hus. It can be admitted that Hus saw his principal mission as turning both priests and laity to the true imitation of Christ.93 More than this, Hus considered his voluntary exile in the fall of 1412 to be following the example of Christ, who told his disciples that when persecuted they ought simply to go somewhere else and carry on with their work. 94 Hus also thought that his journey to Constance was to fulfil his mission, which he understood had been undertaken ‘with the help of the Most High Lord’.95 Hus sought for the mind of Christ, persevering until he convinced himself he had attained it. This unity made it quite impossible for him to surrender himself to other visions promoted by lesser men. Imitating Christ was a higher calling than the priesthood and transcended all obligations to obey one’s ordinary if compliance meant even the slightest violation of the teachings and practices of Christ. For Hus, the church had the duty to facilitate the imitation of Christ, not the other way round. Neither popes nor bishops could be obeyed if their commands detracted from the pathway of imitatio Christi. The goal was the mind of Christ, and not even persecution at the hands of ecclesiastical authorities could derail the determined Hus. When persecution surrounded Hus, he believed he was reviled because he sought reform and on account of urging the imitation of Christ on all people.96 Such reviling, persecution, and torment led Hus to cultivate a Job-consciousness, not unlike that experienced by the mythic figure in the Hebrew Bible. Hus reveals in his personal letters his conviction that his afflictions are from God, who wishes to test his commitment and resolve.97 Along with Job, Hus remained stalwart, stoutly committed to his mission that even if God should slay him he would not falter. Enumerating his thinking behind this conviction, Hus specifically says that God sent Michael de Causis to publish evil accusations against him because Hus was a sinner. and fols 163r–168v, and Praha, NK, MS viii G 13, fols 174r–180v, and there is an edition in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 231–43. 93  Letter of 1 September 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 198. Hus wrote a very important guide in this respect for a community of women living near Bethlehem Chapel. Hus, Dcerka, pp. 163–86. Discussion in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 85–94. 94  Letter around Christmas 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 159–60. 95  Letter of 1 September 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 198. 96  Letter of 1 September 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 198. 97  Letters of 4 November 1414, 19 January, 7 June, 10 June, and 27 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 218, 243, 263, 272, and 325.

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Physical illnesses which befell Hus while in prison can also be attributed to God. Hus shares with his friends his struggle with toothache, nausea, headache, kidney stones, bowel problems requiring an enema, as well as grave illness, noting ‘these are punishments on account of sin as an indication of God’s love for me’. The theological convictions supporting such expressions may be questionable, even mistaken, but there is no doubt Hus firmly believed in a causal connection. Again, Hus reiterates that his enemies were permitted by God to attack him just as Yahweh allowed Satan to test Job with a myriad of physical, relational, and economic challenges. One week before his death, and with reference to his imprisoned colleague Jerome, Hus wrote at some length ruminating on the issues of pain, suffering, evil, and the role of God therein. The document is a brief but effective statement of theodicy. A pravím vám, že pán buoh vie, proč prodlévá mú smrtí. Dal nám pán bóh dlúhý čas, abychom lépe své hřiešník spamatovali a jich statečně želeli; dal nám čas, aby dlúhé a veliké pokušenie sňalo hřiechy veliké a přineslo utěšenie; dal nám čas, […] abychom pamatovali […] abychom pamatovali, že skrzě mnohá utrpení svétí sú vešli v nebeské královstvie: někteří po kusu řězáni, jiní vrtáni, jiní pečeni, jiní vařeni, jiní pečeni, jiní za živa dřěni, za živa po hrabáni, kamenováni, křižováni, mleni mezi žrnovy, vláčeni, topeni, páleni, věšeni, po kussu trháni a prve pohaněni, žalařováni, biti, okováni, a kto muož všěcky muky vypsati kterěž sú […] trpěli zvláště ti, jenž sú kněžskú zlost tresktali a proti nie kázali. A divná věc bude, ktož nynie neutrpí, bude-li státi statečně proti zlosti a zvláště proti kněžské, jenž sebe nedá dotknúti.98 The Lord God alone knows why my death has been postponed […] The Lord God has given to us a long time in order that we might better remember our sins and in good time express sorrow for them. God has granted us time so that this protracted and significant test might remove from us major sin and bring us comfort. God has given us time to remember […] to meditate […] and, for that reason, to suffer with even greater joy. Also that we may call to memory […] that the saints entered the kingdom of heaven by means of numerous sufferings. Some were cut up into pieces, others impaled, others boiled, others roasted, others skinned alive, buried alive, stoned, crucified, crushed between millstones, dragged, drowned, burned, hanged, torn into pieces, having been first reviled, put into prison, beaten and chained up. Who is able to describe all of the tortures which these saints […] suffered on account of the truth of God, especially those who corrected the wicked behaviour of priests and preached against it. It would be odd if in these times one would not suffer for taking a courageous stand against such wickedness, particularly that relating to priests, which does not permit itself to be touched.

98 

Letter of 27 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 325–26.

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It is telling that Hus concludes his narrative overview of the suffering of the saints by putting a very fine point on the misfortune of those who attempt to reform irregularities among the priests. One may also conclude that Hus believes his imitation of Christ and suffering ultimately includes him among the saints. There is no question Hus considered the most important element in authentic reform to be the holiness of the reformer. Somewhat astonishingly, Hus claims he will have more opponents and enemies than even Christ had.99 One can only wonder at the martyr-complex fostered by Hus in his quest to imitate his lord. Elsewhere he tells us that he relied upon faith and his trust in God in following the example of Christ.100 By faith Hus understands the means whereby one may hold to something without benefit of sensory perception.101 Writing to his friends in Bohemia, Hus said that those financially supporting him in coming to Constance were truly doing it for the cause of Christ.102 Here it seems Hus has linked his own cause with that of Christ to the extent that he can claim to have achieved in some measure the imitation of Christ. In the end, Hus achieved a Christ-consciousness and embraced the words of his lord: they have persecuted me and they will persecute you. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you ( John 15. 18–20). This conviction helps to explain why Hus affirmed individual conscience as more important than institutional authority.103 The imitation of Christ as a way of life was more cogent than the authorities of popes and councils. If Jan Hus thought he was a witness and defender of truth and that the most appropriate method was to imitate the way of Christ, then it is a natural corollary that he would also embrace the way of the martyr. No other theme comes through with such regularity in the letters of Hus, though it is manifest that evidence for personal martyrdom can be detected much earlier in his life. On the eve of his departure for the Council, Hus believed he suffered persecution because of his work of reform and this harassment ultimately would escalate and achieve his destruction.104 Latent within his thought was the certainty that it was preferable to suffer death for truth than to live and receive and enjoy the benefits of life, which are often mere rewards for dishonesty and lack of 99 

Letter of 19 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 207. Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 166 (sermon for Lent IV). 101  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 65. 102  Letter of 10 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 268–69. 103  De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 280. 104  Letter of 19 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 204. 100 

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integrity.105 Many physical deaths were preferred to spiritual death, and one ought rather to desire the death of the body before the death of the soul.106 In other words, there is nothing more praiseworthy than to die for the law of God.107 All of this suggests a martyrological sensibility and underscores a tradition in the life of Hus which embraces death for Christ as a magnificent undertaking.108 Hus seems never to have shrunk from the reality. Indeed, in his sermon prepared for delivery before the Council Hus expressed the view that faithful Christians who hold to the law of God are the true warriors of God, whose potential martyrdom is glorious and surpasses even those who suffered in the days of persecution in the early church.109 The rhetoric is staggering. However, it emphasizes quite nicely the depth of conviction and the centrality of the theme in the thinking of Jan Hus. Brave assertions wherein Hus says he would be happy to endure ‘vituperation, persecution, beating, and torturing to death’ for the cause of Christ cannot be dismissed as idle chatter.110 Instead, such sentiments express core values. Often in letters Hus time and again drew attention to his willingness, one might even say eagerness, to die rather than risk compromise. From exile in 1413, he wrote to his colleague Jan Kardinál Rejnštejn making the point three times.111 The principle was not merely a personal conviction. Every Christian should be prepared to give up his or her life for truth.112 Unless it is possible for him to call himself and others to perpetual penitence, Hus has no desire to live in the present evil age of fifteenth-century Europe. The pursuit, defence, and practice of truth was worth risking physical life.113 If one is unfaithful it is better to die physically than live on only to fall into the hands of the righteous Christ. There is advantage, Hus writes, in dying, rather than compromising in order to live only later to be sentenced dishonourably into everlasting fire.114 But the desire for swift death now is not 105 

Hus, O svatokupectví, p. 270. Hus, O hřieše, p. 335. 107  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 322. 108  Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 133–35, and Haberkern, ‘The Presence of the Past’, pp. 18–84. 109  Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, p. 42. 110  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 313. 111  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 169–71. 112  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 68. 113  Letter of late 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 154. 114  Letter of 20 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 282. 106 

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simply, according to Hus, a better option than protracted eternal death later; there is still the active, driving compulsion to sacrifice one’s life for the law of Christ. Hus would rather have his body consumed by fire than fail to speak truth.115 This was the one infallible proof indicating that a person truly obeyed the law of God, if they were prepared to die for the gospel.116 All of this is based on the fact that Christ provided the faithful with the archetypal example that one should not hesitate to die for righteousness’s sake. 117 Jan Hus consistently declared his willingness to follow Christ along the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha. Early accounts of his suffering equated him with Christ, going so far as to call his place of execution Calvary.118 None of this can be dismissed as pious posturing or empty rhetoric. On 28 November 1414, when the bishops came to get him at the Pfister House in St Paul Street in Constance, where he had taken lodging with the widow Fida, knowing he would not return to his house but would instead be arrested and imprisoned, he remarked that he would choose death before denying the truth. When he arrived, a bit later, at the place where the cardinals had assembled, he spoke virtually the same words to them.119 This testimony only makes good on his assertion to the people of Prague two years earlier when he assured them that whoever dies for Christ conquers all things, is liberated from the misery and bondage of earthly life, and is admitted into eternal joys.120 Moreover, his undelivered sermon prepared for the Council likewise expressed keen willingness to die in defence of truth. Incarcerated in a Dominican prison cell, these thoughts naturally intensified. From that venue he wrote: ‘I would much rather suffer the dire punishment of death than put forward anything in opposition to the holy faith’.121 Martyrdom, he argued, was desirable in such circumstances, and sometimes even necessary. There is more to martyrdom, Hus believed, than defending principle and truth. Dying for Christ is the culmination of 115 

Letters of 5 July (his last extant letter) and 10 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 337 and 268. 116  Hus, Dcerka, pp. 184–85. 117  Hus, Výklad víry, p. 97. 118  See for example Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, pp. 14–24. There is a translation with commentary in Fudge, ‘Jan Hus at Calvary’. 119  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 38. 120  Letter of 20 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 150–51. 121  Hus, De sacramento corporis et sanguinis domini, ed. by Illyricus, p. 47.

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imitation, but it also enables faithful pastors (like Hus) to bring the light to the world which produces life.122 The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Hence, Hus believed that his fate on the shores of Lake Constance was also redemptive, and like the death of Christ it contained within itself the seeds of transformation. It is therefore little wonder that we should find within his most personal reflections a consistent desire and readiness to lay down his life for the law of God, in hope of eternal life and divine favour, its salutary nature, along with a stout determination to stand resolute in his convictions right up to the bitter end. The repetition is indeed significant.123 Once the public hearings ended, Hus expected swift execution of sentence. For reasons not altogether clear, there was a postponement in the normal legal process. The judges in the Hus case delayed issuing a final verdict, which constitutes irregular legal procedure in medieval heresy trials. Why did an entire month pass? The answer to this question is hidden in the mists of the fifteenth century. We shall probably never know in complete detail why this inexplicable gap in judicial procedure occurred. But the unexpected interval proved fruitful for coming closer to an understanding of what Hus thought he was doing. Between 10 June and 5 July, Hus makes numerous allusions in his personal correspondence to his expectation of imminent death. We find no fewer than a dozen such references.124 Mindful that Hus also hoped for supernatural deliverance, it must be noted that his thinking was geared more fully to the probability and desirability of martyrdom. ‘However, if death comes […] blessed be the name of the Lord.’125 To his steadfast friend and defender Jan Chlum, Hus asked that he remain in Constance and begged the knight not to leave until he witnessed the culmination of Hus’s resolve. While fading hopes for exoneration or deliverance remained, Hus preferred that Chlum would see him led to the stake than silenced by evil or muzzled by fear, weakness, or compromise.126 Jan Hus believed there was no greater calling than to voluntarily die for the law of God, and he had now been presented with his opportunity.127 Thus a few days before 122 

Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár, p. 78. Letters of 1 September, 19 October, 16 November 1414, and mid-March 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 198, 208, 224, and 256. 124  Letters of 10, 13, 20, 23, 26, and 27 June, and 5 July 1415 (sometimes with multiple allusions in a single letter or in more than one letter with the same date) in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 272, 274–75, 279, 302, 316, 320, 322–23, 325–26, 336, and 337. 125  Letter of 8 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 242. 126  Letter of 10 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 268. 127  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 322. 123 

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his death, Hus wrote to his former university colleagues in Prague declaring his unwavering commitment. ‘Master Jan Hus, in chains and in prison, now standing on the shore of this present life, anticipating a terrible death on the morrow, which, I hope, will purge away my sins and by the grace of God find no heresy in me, for I declare with my whole heart every worthy truth’. 128 Jan Hus believed that what he was doing amounted to unequivocal faithfulness to truth, imitation of Christ, and martyrdom for God. ‘Let us remain on the cross, let us die at the cross’. For Hus, this was the calling for all faithful Christians.129 He was determined to exemplify the cost of true discipleship. The last temptation of Jan Hus was the urge to live, and he expressed gratitude to some of his friends for supporting him in resisting the will and impulse to save himself.130 Hus’s prison letters are an extended examination of conscience. We find language in the prefaces to a number of letters which are self-denigrating. For example, Hus characterizes himself as the ‘unworthy servant’ of God or of Christ, or simply as an ‘unprofitable priest’.131 The same kind of language turns up in the way Hus sometimes signs his letters. ‘Unprofitable priest’ or ‘weakling priest’, the ‘least priest’, or sometimes simply ‘sinner’ might serve as a benedictory phrase.132 Similar vocabulary can be found within the body of some letters.133 These features noted, there is something of an ethos of superiority in his letters, especially those written from exile, where Hus, although signing correspondence as an ‘unprofitable priest’ or referring to himself as inutilis (useless), clearly claims to be of more value for the kingdom of God than many priests.134 Less salutary aspects of a man later to become a popular saint should not be ignored, if we truly wish to gain insight into what Hus thought he was doing. A number of Hus’s enemies, especially Štěpán Páleč and Štěpán of Dolany, abbot of a Carthusian house in Moravia, accused him of pride and 128 

Letter of 27 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 323. Sermon for Easter Sunday, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 189–90. 130  Letter of 24 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 311. 131  Examples include letters of mid-March 1411, May 1412, autumn 1412 and Lent 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 54, 120, 151, and 184. 132  Some examples of this characteristic can be found in letters of 1409 (undated), 1 September 1411, 11 June 1412, early December 1412 and 13 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 28, 98, 123, 158, and 275. 133  Of many examples see letters of 1 September and 19 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 197–99, and 207–08. 134  Letter of late December 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 159–60. 129 

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arrogance. It is specious to dismiss these charges out of hand, for in his private correspondence Hus indicts himself and provides evidence to support the allegations of his detractors. Shortly after his arrival in Constance, Hus engaged in theological debate with Fra Andreas Didachus de Moxena, a Spanish Minorite friar and chaplain to King Ferdinand of Aragon, who masqueraded as an unlearned religious. Later, when Hus discovered the identity of his intellectual sparring partner, he expressed himself to the effect that he wished he had blown Didachus apart with a volley of scripture and went on to declare that if the rest of the opposition at the Council were like the Spaniard he felt rather confident he could simply overwhelm the lot with his superior command of the Bible.135 Some might call this gross impertinence or unmitigated arrogance. Hus could also be curt and dismissive. At the second public hearing (7 June 1415), Hus told an unidentified Englishman that his arguments were puerile, the sort of thing children talk about at school.136 Sometimes this personality trait manifested itself as sheer boldness. When he arrived at Sulzbach, on the way to Constance, Hus went into a pub, approached the civic officials, announced who he was, asserted it was likely they had already heard about him, and invited queries.137 The subject of truth has been broached already. Hus was absolutely certain he knew and understood truth and the law of God. Perhaps not absolutely, but clearly enough to understand the errors and corruption of the medieval church. Astonishingly, Hus declared that whenever he had been obliged to answer accusations he had prevailed and was invincible. ‘I have always proved myself innocent.’138 Commenting on his enemies, Hus said ‘I do not fear any of them and I am not terrified, for I hope that once the great struggle is over there will be a great victory and after that triumph an even greater reward’.139 While confined to the Franciscan prison at Constance, Hus had a letter smuggled out in which he wrote that the Council tried to frighten him but he repulsed that effort by the power of God within him and therefore the antagonists at the synod did not dare to oppose him on scriptural grounds, and in this way he demolished the arguments presented against him.140 To what is Hus referring? 135 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 39. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 75. 137  Letter of 20 October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 213. 138  Letter of 1 September 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 198. 139  Letter of 6 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 220. 140  Letter of 26 June and 5 July 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 319 and 338–39. 136 

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Extant trial records do not support the claim. Hus boasts of his performance before the conciliar fathers, saying he could not be defeated, and though he was threatened God stood with him.141 Indeed, Hus proclaimed that Antichrist snarled at him with barred teeth but he was unharmed; not so much as a single hair on his hair was damaged.142 Another aspect of Hus’s personality which emerges from his more personal and private communiques is defiance. This is evident in some of his sermons, in the polemical writings, and in statements he sometimes is reported to have made. In Nürnberg, Hus posted a public notice declaring his intention to go to Constance to defend the faith, which he would do until death.143 When ordered to surrender copies of his writings to the Council, otherwise they would be confiscated from other sources, on two occasions Hus was noncompliant. Late in the legal ordeal he declared he would not recant a single thing.144 Early on he had announced ‘persecution never causes me grief ’. 145 Implicit in these declarations one detects a sense of invincibility, as though Hus feels he is untouchable. He boasted that for several years Antichrist had been tearing away at him but without any success. While others have fallen prey to similar nefarious strategies, Hus has always escaped.146 Arrogance and defiance also produced an unwillingness to compromise. Hus was inflexible to the extent that he would only consider changing his point of view if instructed in a specific manner which he proscribed and dictated. There is nothing in Hus’s stance at Constance which bears the mark of compromise or toleration of the religious status quo. His demand for reform and apostolic redress to the abuses present in Latin Christendom remained consistent. He was an unfathomable presence for the priests of Prague and to some of the delegates at Constance. His actions in the cause of reform and in defending truth and the law of God cannot be assessed other than as a demonstration of principles which knew nothing about the constraint of compromise. Failure to consider accommodation produced a lack of discretion. During the third public hearing (8 June 1415), Hus rather indelicately told the assembled body of prelates and church administrators that the early church had been 141 

Letters of 26 and 27 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 320 and 322–23. Letter of 16 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 224. 143  Dated to October 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 211. 144  Letters of 1 and 5 July 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 333 and 334. 145  Letter of late 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 154. 146  Exile letters of autumn 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 140 and 149. 142 

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ruled better than the church of the fifteenth century. Not only did he countenance to say this once, he had the unmitigated temerity to repeat it.147 Hus was notoriously undiplomatic. He could have been more civil. He was awfully sure of his convictions. His vocabulary at times was little short of inflammatory. He might have tried some aspects of dialogue or conciliation while attempting to advance his reform agenda. This does not seem to have occurred to him. He indiscreetly commented on the lives and practices of his priestly colleagues and seems blissfully unaware that some of these same people possibly had good reason for not liking him. It has been noted that Hus was neither the eulogized superhero portrayed by Jakoubek nor the contemptible scoundrel excoriated by Štěpán Páleč. He was rather more nuanced than either of those extremes. The greatest shortcoming might well have been his abysmal sense of timing. Hus seems incapable of discriminating between the time to speak and the time to be silent.148 Perhaps the most egregious example is when he effectively told Sigismund to his face at the trial in Constance that kings with sin in their lives were unfit to wear the crown.149 It is rather difficult to understand this affront to the man who had offered Hus a safe conduct, wielded considerable power and influence, and also that the statement was completely unnecessary. Did Hus simply enjoy provocation? Unfortunately for him, Hus fostered a dangerous culture of naiveté in his thinking. He was grossly naive about the dependability of Sigismund. He was frightfully wrong about the nature of his appearance at Constance, assuming it was anything other than a formal heresy trial. His repeated requests for a scholastic disputation flies in the face of reality. Courts of law, whether modern or medieval, do not advise, provide discussion, nor enter into debate with a defendant. In a case of criminal proceedings, the court interrogates and makes rulings about guilt. Hus was on trial, not attending an academic conference.150 The reality did not even occur to Hus once he had been arrested and remanded to prison. Astoundingly, he seems to have had little awareness that he was going before a synod to be assessed and judged by a group of people he had consistently insulted for ten years.151 It was as though he would gently tie a knot in the lion’s tail, but when the beast roared he would pull back in total bewildered 147 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 102. De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, pp. 509–10. 149  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 95. 150  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 19–20. 151  De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 511. 148 

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innocence.152 Hus failed utterly to take seriously the robust animosity he had stirred up within men such as Štěpán Páleč, Michael de Causis, Petr of Uničov, Jan Náz, Bishop Jan ‘the Iron’ of Litomyšl, Wenceslas Tiem, and others. It would be specious to blame all of them for the hostility and not take into account the contributions Hus made to the volatile situation. His naiveté is nowhere more exposed than in the assumption that, should he be permitted to speak before the Council, his shouting detractors would simply fall silent at the sound of his voice.153 Jan Hus believed his opponents feared any public comment he might make, especially should he be permitted to preach.154 The presumption was as flawed as it was fatal. Hus’s remarkable resolve was offset by glimpses of inconsistency and either reluctance or inability to carry through in moments of crisis. Hus complained to Professor Johannes Sywort of Vienna University for attacking his colleague Jerome of Prague, yet his critique of Sywort appears to parallel his own attack of priests and prelates in general.155 As a man of faith who often spoke of his trust in God, Hus nevertheless worried that he would starve in his prison cell following the nocturnal flight of Pope John XXIII from the city when the guards were abandoning their posts.156 We also read anxious words in his letters about money and how, on more than one occasion, he asked colleagues in Prague to secure further financial support to underwrite his situation. More puzzling are instances wherein Hus seems to step back from the fray. At critical junctures he is nowhere to be found. In the aftermath of the murder of the three young men in Prague on 11 July 1412 during the anti-indulgences uprising (provoked in part by Hus), Hus is conspicuously absent. Where is he? He defies the church stridently but then disappears into the hills of south Bohemia. This seems peculiar for a man who has broken with the spirit of the medieval church, who might have been expected to simply take no note of the ban and threats of interdict.157 Hus’s reticence may be contrasted with the behaviour of Jerome of Prague, who seems to have openly agitated at every opportunity, rarely retreated from 152  Castellio, Concerning Heretics, ed. by Bainton, p.  38. Bainton’s statement refers to Erasmus but might fittingly be applied to Hus. 153  Letter of 5 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 262. The letter was written immediately after the first public hearing which had degenerated into chaos. 154  Letter of 6 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 220. 155  Letter of 1 July 1413 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 174–75. 156  Letter of 24 March 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 258. 157  De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 512.

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encouraging the implementation of ideas, and seldom shrunk from the implications.158 Hus does not always possess the ability to drive his agenda, no matter how firmly he believed it, to its fullest extent. We find few clues in his writings explicating this flummoxing query. Moreover, on the issue of heresy Hus was not uniform. The eleventh-century Wazo, Bishop of Liège, advised that weeds ought to be allowed to remain with the wheat until harvest. His was a voice for toleration and a rebuke to violent tendencies.159 Hus agreed to some extent. He was against the application of capital punishment and, as we have seen, favoured preserving and reading the books of heretics. But he was unwilling to allow the tares of the other heretics, popes, prelates, and wicked priests to remain unmolested among the wheat of true believers. Jan Hus did not write a tell-all autobiographical reflection outlining what he was thinking, how he was feeling, or yet explaining the shadows in his life which conceal from us so much of his character and motivation. The Confessions of Jan Hus (in the Augustinian sense) would be an enormous boon. Or The History of my Misfortunes by Hus (following the model of Peter Abelard) would be ever so useful. Even a tischreden of the musings of Hus collected from informal settings (like that produced from the life of Luther) would add another more human layer to the life of this remarkable man. The mad priest Opicinus de Canistris produced provocative map-based drawings and imaginative cartography in the fourteenth century and on one map wrote ‘the revelation of my motives’.160 Hus was never quite so explicit. Rarely did medieval people speak openly of their emotions. Hus was no exception. We turn mainly to narrative sources for a glimpse here and there. The first public hearing (5 June) was so raucous and verbally abusive to Hus that he simply lapsed into silence.161 We read of moments wherein he fell to his knees, or ignoring instructions to the contrary refused to be silent, or is heard speaking loudly, or at other times is recorded weeping. In every case there was an audience. Were these examples of emotional play-acting or expressions of a genuine feeling? Hus himself tells us that when officials came to his prison cell to take sworn statements from him and read aloud his 158 

In English, the best source on Jerome on this matter is still Betts, Essays in Czech History, pp. 195–235. 159  The letter appears in Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, i, 6–7. 160  Salomon, Opicinus de Canistris, p.  68. For discussion see Gurevich, The Origins of European Individualism, trans. by Judelson, pp. 212–27. 161  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 74.

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appeal to Christ, he smiled and was merry.162 During his final appearance, at the sentencing phase of the trial, eight times (including twice at the stake) Hus raised his voice, insisting that he be heard. Twice he refused the order of the court to maintain silence.163 In happier times, after leaving the hearing of 5 June and reaching the prison, Hus turned to those gathered, raised his hand, blessed the people, smiled, and was clearly happy and filled with joy.164 The evening before execution, the chronicler Petr Mladoňovice records that Hus wept during the final visit (delegation sent by Sigismund) at his prison.165 During the concluding stages of his trial on 6 July, we read that on three occasions Hus fell to his knees in the Cathedral and prayed for a long time. When the time came for Hus to be defrocked as a priest, we are told he wept.166 In assessing the question of what Hus thought he was doing one must ask if Jan Hus was aware of memory. Did he possess an historical consciousness? In other words, did he see himself as part of something larger and more permanent? The documents are too scanty to permit generalization yielding an absolute conclusion. But it appears from his letters that he perceived larger implications to his life and stand at Constance. He made comments about the future in Bohemia, though one must not be too quick to conclude Hus was prophetic. When the Council of Constance ruled against the lay chalice, Hus predicted (rightly as it turned out) there was likely to be great persecution of the faithful in Bohemia.167 Shortly thereafter, Hus warned the followers of reform they should prepare for suffering on account of their Utraquist practice.168 In a more mysterious passage, Hus tells his friends in Bohemia that the Council will attempt to take their books away (ostensibly the writings of Hus and treatises supporting Utraquism), but this enterprise will fail. ‘When the winter sets in, they will realize what they did during the summer.’169 Did Hus perceive that his impending death would unleash a maelstrom in the Czech lands? While there may be no iron-clad answer to that query, it is certain that Hus had some definitive awareness of historical consciousness. What prevented Hus from 162 

Letter of late January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 246. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 111–120. 164  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 74. 165  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 111. 166  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 111–116. 167  Letter of mid June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 289. 168  Letter of 21 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 295. 169  Letter of 24 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 305–06. 163 

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ever seriously considering recantation was a vivid and fervent remembrance of his work in Prague. Everything he had taught and laboured to establish he must have recalled. He never lost sight of what he had proclaimed as God’s truth. He remained attentive to the enthusiastic response of overflow crowds at Bethlehem Chapel. He surely was never incognizant of what he had repeatedly announced: the truth would liberate. One has only to add to this Hus’s own recollections of the letters written from prison, wherein he had placed accolades upon the virtue of constancy even to death. To stand down now would be in effect to discredit all of this. Moreover, it is possible that Hus thought that abjuration could render him a coward and a traitor in the eyes of his disciples, thereby inadvertently applying a toxin to his own aims of defending truth and imitating Christ. Had not his former colleagues Matěj Knín and Stanislav of Znojmo recanted when put to the test? All of these factors made the enticement to live impracticable and absolutely impossible. Hus could not hesitate now. He resisted that last temptation.170 We have noted that Hus generated profound and bitter enemies, but at the same time he inspired commitment. The best example is Jan Chlum who dared publicly to shake the hand of a heretic as a sign of solidarity in the face of many guards armed with swords, crossbows, and long axes who surrounded the courtroom at each hearing of the Hus trial.171 In terms of friendship, one might also mention Petr Mladoňovice, Jan Jesenice, Jakoubek, Jerome, and countless nameless men and women in Prague who considered Hus their master. During the hours of crisis and temptation while lying in a prison cell, Hus’s reluctance to recant and submit to the nonnegotiable will of the Council must be reckoned in part on his unwillingness to bring disrepute on the burgeoning reform movement in Prague, which had now passed under the guidance of Hus’s younger colleague Jakoubek Stříbro.172 It is not for modern scholars to postulate such conclusions. The rationale can be readily extracted from Hus’s own writings, for he asserted as much to an anonymous member of the Council.173 The Council was aware that Hus’s recantation had implications for the religious situation in Prague and that Hus was 170 

A similar argument has been made by Sedlák, M. Jan Hus, pp. 341–42. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 108–09 for the incident, Hus’s heartfelt gratitude expressed in a letter of 9 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 264, and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 110 for the comment about the heavily-guarded courtroom. 172  Seibt, Hussitenstudien, p. 170. 173  Letter of mid June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 282. 171 

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weighing this fact very carefully.174 This sheds further light on why the fathers went to such lengths to secure that recantation. Should Hus abjure, the popular reform movement in Bohemia might die a natural death. The Council was counting on that. Is this the reason for the pause in the execution of sentence? Was the delay part of a strategy? The weeks passed, but Hus conspired to outwit them by standing firm and sacrificing himself for a greater good. There can be no serious argument that Hus was historically aware, as least on this decision. Even before he left Bohemia, Hus told Sigismund that, if his legal ordeal came to a praiseworthy conclusion, it would bring glory to God.175 Either way the matter evolved, Hus was a winner. Well before he went into exile, Hus confirmed a central tenet in his thinking, which was that, if by his death he might be able to persuade some to salvation, then he counted it a worthy deed. His last recorded words before he sang in death were these: ‘I call God to witness […] that my sermons and other acts […] were exclusively that I might turn people from sin. In that truth […] I am happy and willing to die today’.176 Jan Hus sought to emulate the characteristics of the ideal Christian in his own ordeal. He strove to shape the memory of his life and death before it was eventually created by his followers, and in so doing presented himself deliberately as a faithful imitator of Christ.177 His martyrdom confirmed for his followers that he truly was, as the acronym of his name reveals, Hauriens Virtutes Sanctorum, the ‘one who imbibes the virtues of the saints’.178 The death of Jan Hus was tragic. He had come to Constance in the flush of holy innocence to engage in a dialogue with the leading theologians in western Christendom. They received him with considerable suspicion and hostile scepticism. The final thirty articles lodged against him were largely about ecclesiology, and none of the broad thrust remarkably unlike views held by many of the leading conciliarists such as Gerson, d’Ailly, Zabarella, Dietrich Niem, and many others. Páleč, De Causis, and the others created of him a monster of impiety and rebellion. The fathers fashioned him in the image of the long-dead heresiarch John Wyclif. Once he was reduced to ashes in the fire of the pyre, some 174 

Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iv, col. 432. Letter of 1 September 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 198–99. 176  Letter of May 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 121; and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 119. 177  Haberkern, ‘The Presence of the Past’, p. 62. 178  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 20. 175 

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of his followers, known as Hussites, went to war in part under his patronage. Chief among their aims was a defence of the lay chalice. The idea has no connection to Hus. Soon he became a historical personality of some distinction and notoriety: national hero, revolutionary, Wyclifite, Utraquist, and perhaps (though erroneously) the first martyr of the Protestant Reformation. Every last one of these portraits or characteristics was imposed upon him and attached, some rather tenaciously, to his memory. By contrast, he saw himself chiefly as a faithful priest, committed to the well-being of the church of God. The last words on his lips were not of revolt, heresy, or repudiation of the church. They were traditional, liturgical words of the Latin church.179 What did Jan Hus think he was doing? A messenger of God sent to correct abuses in the church, defending the law of Christ, remaining faithful to truth, imitating the mind and way of Christ, steadfast submission to martyrdom, preserving the continuity and integrity of a vibrant movement for reform of the faith and practices of the later medieval church: this is what Jan Hus thought he was doing.

179 

De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 516.

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rom a consideration of who Jan Hus was we turned aside to describe the nature of Hus’s thinking as the basis for his activity as a reformer. We now take up the consideration of ethics within the fabric of Hus’s motivation and the growth of his fidelity to the application of his ideas governing his activities. Among accused heretics in the Middle Ages, Jan Hus is one of those few defendants whose personal life was not impeached and whose conduct was not assailed by even his most vociferous opponents. Inasmuch as the canonical definition of heresy applied equally to beliefs as well as practices, it is remarkable that Jan Hus was not denounced on moral grounds. Associations between heresy and immoral conduct were well-established by the fifteenth century. For example, in south Germany the word ketzerei implied either heresy or sodomy.1 The history of the word bugger can be traced to medieval heretical denunciations.2 As early as the eleventh century, heretics were sometimes considered immoral or perverts almost by matter of course. Other interesting theories proposed the notion that heresy could be transmitted through semen.3 Cathars were reported to hold to the conviction that one could not sin below the waist.4 1 

Osenbrüggen, Das alamanische Strafrecht im Deutschen Mittelalter, pp.  289–90 and 375–76. 2  Primov, ‘Medieval Bulgaria and the Dualistic Heresies’, p. 100. 3  The notion goes back at least as far as Isidore, Bishop of Seville (c. 560–636) and figures into accusations against heretics in the twelfth century. See Moore, The Origins of European Dissent, p. 248. 4  Pierre des Vaux de Cernay, Historia Albigensis, ed. by Sibley and Sibley, 1. 17 (p. 14).

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Bishop Luke of Tuy, in thirteenth-century northwest Spain, said the licentiousness of heretics in his own time made Sodom and Gomorrah appear remarkably pure.5 The quality of Hus’s personal life precluded him from being swept into a politically-motivated stream of moral accusations. Not long before Jan Hus came to prominence in Prague, an official archiepiscopal visitation was conducted throughout the diocese. The lengthy report which survives summarizes a variety of irregularities among more than three hundred parishes. These concerns included concubinage, simony, nepotism, absenteeism, confessional abuses, various moral issues including soliciting prostitutes, charging fees for priestly services, luxury, drunkenness, a propensity towards worldliness, gambling, violence, and questionable business dealings, among other violations of normal and acceptable clerical conduct.6 This was part of the religious world in which Jan Hus was nurtured, yet none of these complaints were ever levelled against him. Bishop Epiphanius of Cyprus declared in the fourth century that heretics formed the gates of hell.7 Enemies of Hus like Michael de Causis and Štěpán Páleč certainly agreed. The former called Hus the ‘prince of heretics’, while the latter, as we have seen, declared that apart from Wyclif there had never been a more dangerous heretic in the history of Christianity.8 Strong denunciations indeed. Inflammatory language aside, neither man suggested Hus was immoral or unethical. That fact is important. Hus’s ethics must be seen principally in the moral conduct of his own life and in the myriad ways he attempted to encourage the same in others. Hence, Hus has rightly been interpreted as a moral reformer whose life was directed to saving men and women from the consequences of mortal sin. 9 Pastoral care and the cure of souls seems to be representative of Hus’s character and identity. He identified setting the example of good works as part of his duty as a priest along with prayer, the ministry of the sacraments, study of the scriptures, and preaching.10 His ethical convictions provide an explanatory matrix for coming to terms with the motivation for his reforming activities.

5 

Lucas de Tuy, De altera vita adversus Albigensium errores, 3. 15 (p. 283). Protocollum visitationis archidiaconatus Pragensis, ed. by Hlaváček and Hledíková. 7  Epiphanius, Panarion, trans. by Williams, ii, 490. 8  Shrovetide sermon, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 133. Also Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 298. 9  De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 492. 10  Hus, De quinque officiis sacerdotis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 191. 6 

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As noted earlier, in 1416 Hus’s colleague Jakoubek Stříbro delivered a sermon at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. In that address Jakoubek spoke about Hus’s life and noted that truthfulness characterized his actions. According to Jakoubek, Hus was ‘pure, chaste, pious, did not indulge, and from the very beginning there was no arrogance, grudging, envy, or hypocrisy in him’. The sermon is a litany of the virtues and salutary nature of Hus’s life and conduct.11 His ethics provide essential context for understanding his life, the critical decisions he made throughout his career, and ultimately his fate. Judging from extant letters written to Hus, it would seem that Hus laboured under the suspicion that his trials and legal ordeal were rooted in his concern over ethics and morals in the priesthood. Some of his contemporaries, namely Beneš of Ostroměř and Ondřej of Brod, disagreed. 12 Still, Hus complained about the propensity for violence and war in his day, sometimes over the pettiest of issues, while he pointed out that ‘adulterers, corrupt priests, gamblers, and other obvious sinners’ were seldom even reprimanded.13 A complete study of Hus’s ethics has yet to be undertaken and given a thorough scholarly treatment. But if Jakoubek’s perspective has validity, and I suspect it does, then the life of Jan Hus itself is the best place for a consideration of his ethics. Several related incidents in the later stages of his life serve to underscore that assumption. While imprisoned on heresy charges at Constance in 1415, his resolute refusal to surrender a confession, which may have relieved his legal ordeal but which Hus regarded as tantamount to perjury, must be seen as an important witness to his ethical integrity. When presented with a plethora of charges assembled by men like Michael de Causis, Hus refused to accept the validity of those complaints and accusations which ostensibly had been drawn from his corpus of writings. The conciliar commission dealing with the Hus case judged his refusal as truculent and prima facie evidence of a contumacious nature. But for Hus his position had no relation to stubbornness or pride. Feeling he was being boxed into a legal corner, he wrote from the Franciscan prison three weeks prior to his death, attempting to explain his position and rationale. His words reveal his thinking at this critical juncture. ‘To abjure means to confess that I have held errors’, but since Hus maintained he had never adhered to the articles 11 

The text of the sermon is preserved in Praha, NK, MS viii E 3, fols 163r–168v; and Praha, NK, MS viii G 13, fols 174r–180v. There is an edition in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 231–43. 12  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 176 and 189. 13  Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, p. 217.

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brought against him, to submit and undertake the required retraction would effectively be to lie.14 Hus has identified a moral conundrum. Among extant trial records we find Hus addressing the Council on this particular point: If I were to abjure all of the articles laid against me […] I would, by lying, set myself up for damnation. To ‘abjure’ […] is to renounce a previously held error. But inasmuch as many of these articles attributed to me have never been held or even been in my heart, it seems to me therefore that to abjure them would be against conscience and to lie.15

During his final appearance before all the sage men of Christendom, Hus addressed the large congregation which had assembled in the Cathedral of Constance (Münster Unserer Lieben Frau) to witness his condemnation. He told the audience he had been instructed to recant. He claimed he could not take that advice, for he feared that in so doing he would be exposed as a liar in the eyes of God. Further, such abjuration violated his conscience. Beyond this, he argued that declaring guilt would go against the truth of God. Despite being harangued as obdurate, Jan Hus refused to commit perjury to save his own life.16 This summed up Hus’s considered thinking on the matter. For Hus, the ultimate temptation was to save himself from a terrible death by recanting. It is possible that Hus recalled his former disciple Matěj Knín, who recanted positions of alleged heresy under duress when pressured by the vicar general Jan Kbel in 1408.17 We hear nothing further of Knín after 1409, and we must therefore assume he was dead, untimely deceased, by 1410. Jiří Kejř wonders if perhaps Hus advised the young master to submit to the pressure and recant, since Knín was a disciple of Hus, but who was now determined not to follow his own advice.18 We cannot know the answer. One hundred and six years after Constance, on 18  April 1521, Martin Luther stood before the imperial Diet of Worms to answer charges not dissimilar to those preferred against Hus. Famously, Luther declined to recant and made an impassioned appeal to conscience. On the basis of this claim to the integrity and autonomy of personal conscience, Luther has sometimes been hailed as the first modern man. I do not believe this accolade could be applied 14 

Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 292–93. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 103–04. 16  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 116. 17  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 338. 18  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 17. 15 

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to Hus, but it is noteworthy that Hus also appealed to conscience in defence of his stand before the Council, and this fact has too little been considered by subsequent scholarship and in the historiography. Hus’s stand on ethics, however, included considerations of reason, truth, will, and conscience. All of these reflected to some extent the wider spirit of Hussite religion. Falsehood, for whatever reason and directed to whatever end, could not be undertaken, and truth, however disconcerting, was preferable to Jan Hus than falsehood, however comforting. There are a number of prison letters from Hus’s hand which underscore quite vividly Hus’s concern that any forced recantation of alleged errors and heresies might bring him to the place of lying and thereby committing perjury: ‘Having preached for so many years about patience and faithfulness, how can I now fall into falsehood and perjury?’.19 There were several concerted efforts to persuade Hus to the contrary and to apply pressure to reconsider his position. These all failed. We know of additional letters to the same effect, personal appeals, and even a visit in camera to his prison cell by an anonymous member of the Council. This final effort was predicated upon the argument that, even if Hus had not actually held the propositions lodged against him by the various complainants, he was nevertheless advised that he should agree that he did hold them, even if such profession technically meant he might thereby commit perjury. The anonymous counsellor tried to convince Hus that, if he did perjure himself with such an admission, no blame could be ascribed to him, but would rather have to be assigned to the Council itself, which after all had declared itself convened under the aegis of the power of the Holy Spirit. Impervious to all such arguments, Hus refused to yield. In the end the prisoner was instructed to submit to a higher authority. In this case, that was the authority of the synod. The point was put rather bluntly to Hus that, if the Council determined something was black when in reality it was white, he was nonetheless obligated to agree with that higher authority and confess it was black. Furthermore, if that superior authority instructed Hus that he possessed only one eye when in fact he had two, he ought similarly to accept what he had been told and thereafter declare he only had one eye.20 The evening prior to his execution, Jan Hus received his friends Jan Chlum and Václav Dubá in his prison cell. The former humbly counselled Hus to follow his conscience and not deviate from that authority. In other words, Jan Chlum was telling Hus 19 

Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 286, 282, and 296–97. Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 283–84, and p. 313 ‘si concilium diceret, quod tu habes unum oculum tantum, quamvis habeas duos, deberes confiteri cum concilio, quod sic est’. 20 

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to do nothing against conscience. 21 As we have already seen, the concept of conscience plays a key role in Hus’s ethics and all the evidence in Hus’s corpus and in the contemporary witnesses of his life confirm that he took seriously the matter of conscience. From the Dominican prison, Hus wrote a brief account of ethics, doubtlessly spurred on by his own ordeal and framed by the decisions he had to make.22 An early witness reports that Hus told the Council he would rather suffer death than commit perjury.23 Right up to the stake, Hus remained resolute in his commitment to not surrender and thereby place himself knowingly in an unethical position. Thus persuaded, he did not confess to the assembled articles and refused to admit the veracity of the accusations lodged against him; he did not recant anything, and therefore he did not perjure himself. There was no one-eyed Hus at the Council of Constance. For Jan Hus there could be but one acceptable response to the question, ‘how shall I act?’. While the life of faith might be challenged by the life of the flesh, Hus saw that the only legitimate answer had to be informed by an understanding of the gospel, the ethics of Jesus, and an unswerving allegiance to the law of God. He seems to have taken the dominical Sermon on the Mount quite literally with complete seriousness. The discourse of Jesus presented Hus with a blueprint pathway to the kingdom of God, where ethics are normative and the detractions of temporal life have vanished. Hus writes that sin, pain, sadness, fear, death, temptation, hunger, and thirst have been banished and replaced by absolute freedom, immense pleasure, everlasting fulfilment, and eternal light. His conclusions were unimpeachably consistent. The immoral fail to find the kingdom, perish, and go to hell.24 Those who persist in the works of the flesh, the deeds of darkness, such as immorality, impiety, and unethical behaviour cannot be saved.25 The pilgrim walking in the Spirit does make progress in the struggle to find ethical footing against the propensities of fallen flesh, but the battle is unending in the physical life. Sin, which is the antithesis of ethics, cannot be eliminated prior to death. Regardless of cost, Hus determined that his ethical conduct had to be informed by scripture and theological tradition. 21 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 111. Hus, De peccato morali, ed. by Illyricus. 23  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16. 24  Hus, Dcerka, p. 183; and sermon for Lent I, Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 147. 25  Sermon ‘Abiciamus opera tenebrarum’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 103. 22 

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He consistently declared that ethical conduct, fidelity to the truth, and concern for the law of God had to take priority over all other considerations, including obedience to religious authorities and one’s own superiors. He advocated that Christian pilgrims should do whatever was required in order to deal with those issues which might deter one from ethics and, having done all one could, trust in the unlimited mercy of God.26 His struggle, enumerated in his own words, underscored the spiritual depth and dimension he cultivated while labouring in Prague.27 At the Council of Constance, Emperor Sigismund reproved Hus with the remark, ‘Jan Hus, no one lives without sin’.28 In theory, Hus surely agreed, but in practical terms was loathe to admit it. He had already declared his conviction that it was preferable to die well rather than live wickedly.29 It has been suggested that, because Hus’s theology was shaped by scholastic anthropology and a Platonic understanding of the soul, he was in consequence prevented from fully coming to terms with the problem of sin.30 It is both an inexpedient assertion and a dubious argument. The sin problem had simply to be addressed in terms of the law of God and remedied by ethics and morality. It was a matter of human choice. This idea became the focus of adjudication for everything legal, social, religious, economic, and ecclesiastical.31 The foundation for any exploration of the ethics of Jan Hus must be undertaken over against a consideration of the idea of truth in Hus’s world. Several scholars have applied themselves to this particular labour.32 Hus consistently pursued truth, and his philosophy of inquiry preferred truth over commitment to tradition or well-established modalities of thought. ‘From the very beginning of my studies I made it a rule that, whenever I encounter a sounder opinion, to happily and humbly surrender the one previously embraced. For I am quite certain […] that what we know is considerably less than what we do not know.’33 This posture of humility seems to have characterized his work, though 26 

Hus, Menší výklad na páteř, p. 335. Sermon for Easter II, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 220–21. 28  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 95. 29  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 170. 30  Smolik, ‘Truth in History’, p. 102. 31  Kejř, ‘Das Hussitentum und das kanonische Recht’, pp. 194. 32  Molnár, Na rozhraní věků, pp. 11–21; Werner, Jan Hus: Welt und Umwelt, pp. 148–52; Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’; and with a narrower focus Smolik, ‘Truth in History’, pp. 97–109. 33  Hus, Defensio libri de Trinitate, p. 42. 27 

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repetition is warranted in drawing attention to the fact that, once certain of his own standing and convinced that he could see truth, Hus became intransigent, one might even say overbearing, and utterly immune to reason as presented by his detractors. Though this seems obvious, Hus argued that truth is more than the sum of Christianity. The Christian faith must be adjudicated by the standard of truth, not the other way round. Should any article of faith be found inconsistent with truth, one is thereby obliged to reject error in whatever form and adhere to the truth. This is a principle Hus exemplified in his life right up to his determined stand before the Council of Constance. It is important to understand Hus’s commitment to truth in its accurate and proper sense. Truth as a category in Hus’s thought is less of an intellectual elaboration than an ethical stance and moral commitment anchored in Christ. We may conclude that Hus’s understanding of truth is fundamentally a religious concept linked to his commitment to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. 34 That does not mean there is neither intellectual nor theoretical component in Hus’s concept, or that reason is absent in his formulation. In the first question of the 1411 Quodlibet, Hus outlined three stages in the pursuit of truth.35 He had done likewise in his commentary on the Sentences. In this latter work, the three forms of truth had to do with the truth of scripture, the truth which comes from human experience, and the truth derived from reason.36 In other words, truth was not necessarily immediate. His Quodlibet address made quite clear that truth was not the province of reason. Instead, human reason and human will were to some extent held captive by truth. No amount of learning or human effort could bring truth within the scope of human control.37 It is no wonder Hus ultimately rejected the authority of the Latin church, which argued it was the repository of divine truth. One feature of the ethical life was a willingness to sacrifice one’s life in defence of truth.38 Regardless of the steps to knowledge, Hus was convinced that truth was intimately related to Christ, and sometimes Hus articulated his understanding of truth as a synonym for Christ. 39 Raising the stakes to 34 

Werner, Jan Hus: Welt und Umwelt, p. 152. Hus, Quodlibet, ed. by Ryba, p. 5. 36  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 10. 37  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 81. 38  Hus, Menší výklad na vieru, p. 68. 39  See for example Hus, Contra Stanislaum, pp. 278, 296–98; Hus, Defensio articulorum Wyclif, p. 208; Hus, Sermones de tempore, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 373; and his sermon on Mark 8 for Trinity VII, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 332. 35 

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the realm of philosophical theology, Hus also asserted the Godhead itself was ‘uncreated truth’.40 Regardless of how truth is articulated, in Hus it is consistently in agreement with Christ and the law of God. Truth, in whatever form, corroborates Christ and its broad thrust never contradicts Christ. The priority of Christ is a crucial component in Hus’s theology.41 That said, Hus draws and maintains that critical distinction between truth found in scripture and truth formulated by human reason.42 He had drawn that distinction several times in his writings, and failure to appreciate those lines of demarcation confuses the understanding of his theology of truth. The relationship between will and reason and human conscience is set forth in Hus as a symbiotic unity with relevance for conduct and ethics.43 The idea of truth in Hus does not remain ethereal or propositional. He insists upon applied theology or practical ethics. This is where the human will comes into play. A doctrinal understanding of truth is only comprehensible in ethical behaviour. In other words, any system of ethics according to Jan Hus must be pragmatic and concrete. Abstraction must be negated by action. The function and meaning of truth is that it liberates one and is therefore the basis for ethics inasmuch as it frees the pilgrim from all shackles which prevent or inure moral conduct.44 By its nature, Hus conceives of truth as assuming particular social and ethical functions. Moreover, ethics provide a pathway to spiritual knowledge.45 Spiritual knowledge without ethics cannot exist or be sustained. Hus developed a theory which argued that, if one wished to know Christ in the proper sense, then one had to live Christ. The knowledge of Christ, or a Christological consciousness, was only possible through experience or existential awareness. On the other hand, if one lived poorly or in a state of wickedness, one would not know Christ at all and might eventually perish eternally.46 By comparison, the incarnation of Christ is continual and practical. For example, Jesus is the best 40 

Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 456. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 320, 330, 356, 533, and elsewhere. 42  Hus, Contra Iohannem Stokes, p. 68. 43  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 300, 353, 355. 44  Hus, Menší výklad na vieru, pp. 66, 68. 45  For an assessment of his understanding of spirituality see Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 75–94. 46  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 6. ‘Live like Christ and you will know Christ very well’. Those who cannot or will not live in obedience to God will ultimately perish. Hus, Sermones de tempore, ed. by Schmidtová, vii, 178. 41 

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lover for young women, a steadfast husband for wives, as well as a reliable guide to heaven.47 Ranging beyond the knowledge of Christ, which Hus appears to suggest is best attained in the imitation of Christ, he presents ethics as the key to broader theological understanding. ‘If you wish to comprehend the incarnation then live well’. Once again, this suggests a continuing revelation of the incarnation. He likewise borrowed Augustine’s dictum that proper action enabled understanding. He quoted Bernard of Clairvaux to the effect that holiness facilitated spiritual illumination, and drew on Gregory the Great, who asserted that obedience to the law of God ‘opened the way for an understanding of the mysteries’.48 For Hus, truth functions as liberation within the faith. Christians must embrace truth and allow it to transform to the extent that truth becomes the primary motivation for ethics and morality.49 Perhaps the significance of Hus’s ethics is revealed in his association of human action with divine truth. It is possible to read in Hus the necessity of ethical action on the part of humans in order to enable divine truth to come to fullness in the world. Thus, proper obedience and response to the law of God is that, where possible, it be read, proclaimed, and heard.50 Of course, Hus hastened to point out that ethics are prompted by divine grace, which provides the impetus for men and women to conduct lives of moral and ethical value, which in turn is acceptable to God.51 That synergistic relation resulted in the good example before others, which according to Hus could aid in the salvation of men and women.52 In this sense, ethics transcended mores of personal behaviour and had meaning in the wider history of salvation. One might also say that it is truth alone which justifies faith as well as the Christian life.53 Part of the implication of this relation between ethics and the law of God is that it provoked an ascetic tendency. Jakoubek’s Bethlehem Chapel sermon drew attention to the manner of Hus’s living. Jakoubek characterized Hus’s devotion to the cure of souls as a virtual ‘tormenting of his own body’ with considerable endurance. Those familiar with his discipline were ‘convinced 47 

Sermons for New Year’s Day, 1411 in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 174–85. 48  All four statements appear in Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 407. 49  Hus, Menší výklad na vieru, passim. 50  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 19–20. 51  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 17, 19, and 311. 52  Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, pp. 236–37. 53  Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, p. 283.

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that his effort exceeded the scope of human and physical capability’. Jakoubek told his hearers that Hus did not permit himself to rest but ‘heard confessions, converted sinners, brought joy to the sad, preached, and wrote’. In the end, his commitment to a proper response to the law of God meant that ‘he sacrificed everything’. Clearly, Hus did not believe that any ascetic or ethical discipline could be regulated by religious laws or statutes. Each individual had to decide how an ethical life could and should be lived. That did not prevent him from encouraging others to particular lifestyles. For example, we find him suggesting the spiritual life as well as celibacy to a group of young women residing in the Bohemian countryside, admonishing others to actively resist carnal pleasures, while elsewhere insisting that social entertainments such as dancing constituted a ‘grave and mortal sin’.54 He considered his own parsimonious life a model. There is no evidence Hus regarded as salutary the ascetic lives of Simeon Stylites and the other men and women of the late antique period in the deserts of Egypt and Syria. It might be argued that such lives were not ethical in the sense of ascetic discipline in the service of others. While there were ascetics during his lifetime, and mystics who practised lives of austerity and even self-abuse, Hus evidently knew of none he felt compelled to chastise. Instead, his concern with ethics appears to have centred at the other extreme, with licentious priests and religious and with an apathetic laity in the environs of Prague. Hus envisioned a hierarchy of responsibility in his programme of ethical reform. The moral obligation to truth and its evidential manifestation in ethics and moral conduct was ever more incumbent upon the priesthood and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The responsibility was more acute for the priests and the prelates, given their rank and positions of influence and authority. This helps to explain why Hus condemned clerical wickedness so vociferously and why he insisted on reform among the priesthood. In his theological system and practice, truth has ethical value with foundations in scripture, in Christ, in justice, and in morality. Truth claims are often fraught with arbitrariness, and in Hus this challenge is not relieved and overcome. The apparent subjectivity can be attributed to the fact that, ultimately, it was Hus’s own understanding of truth which created the definition, a crucial fact pointed out by Kejř.55 So integral was the relation of ethics to truth in Hus’s thought that he implored Christ to assist him in perseverance, in order that he 54  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 27–28; sermon for Lent I, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 141; and, Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 15–18. 55  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 25.

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might ultimately not lapse from the truth. 56 Abandonment of truth implied jettisoning ethics. The idea was unthinkable to Hus. Elsewhere Hus speaks of truth in relation to law. Here he suggests that law itself is the guiding truth (veritas directiva) given in the natural world to sustain proper behaviour and to encourage moral conduct.57 Given his regard for the inherent symbiotic relation between truth and law, Hus nevertheless did not shrink from castigating lawyers as frequently operating in opposition to the law of God.58 Regardless of the value of prevailing law and legal custom, it is clear Hus elevated ethics above law. That included canon law, which Hus considered a human creation.59 He did not resist the implications. Writing to the burghers of the town of Louny in the spring of 1411, Hus emphasized the law of God as infinitely more important than human law.60 Elsewhere he argued that the law of God, the guiding principle for ethics, was often at odds with human law.61 The pilgrim who remained committed to Christ, truth, and the law of God knew intuitively the resolution to such problems. A theology of truth becomes in Hus the foundation or the moral imperative for all human activity, including thought, word, and deed. In 1413, Hus referred to the law of God as natural, sensible, most accessible, and the most useful form of law which God had designed for eternal use.62 Hus’s commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard reveal his probable theological influences. He cites Augustine about 130 times, Gratian about fifty times, Thomas Aquinas slightly less than that, and Gregory and Jerome about thirty times each. Even with a number of clear misattributions, these authorities cannot be dismissed. While repeated citations should not be understood as unanimity, it does suggest familiarity, which logically infers influence on some level. Nevertheless, it would be an error to see the principle influences on Hus arising from the late antique and medieval periods. Because Jan Hus was a theologian and a serious student of scripture, immersed in the Biblical context, it is likely his ethics were shaped by that world and formed to a significant extent by those same influences. There is no doubt whatever that Christ 56 

Sermon for Monday after Whitsun, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 266. Hus, Questiones, pp. 172–73. 58  Hus, Defensio articulorum Wyclif, p. 226; and Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, p. 300. 59  Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, p. 56. 60  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 54–56. 61  Hus, De sufficientia legis Christi, ed. by Illyricus, pp. 55–60. 62  Sermon for Trinity 18, Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 410; and Hus, Contra octo doctores, p. 448. 57 

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and the law of God, mediated through the mandates of scripture, represented a decisive imperative which required an absolute adherence regardless of conflict or controversy or resulting crisis. Hus exemplified that conviction.63 In the thought of Jan Hus, obedience to God emerges as the central issue for ethics. Because Hus was principally a pastor, the ethical contours of obedience implied to some extent Hus’s pastoral care and devotion to others. His ethics cannot be separated into theory or theology, divorced from praxis or application. It is altogether insufficient to see the notion of obedience in Hus as simple subordination to a higher authority. One does not ordinarily get the sense of legalism in his writings, though there were exceptions. He fulminated against what he considered illicit activities on Sundays. These were enumerated as manual labour, drinking, swearing, obscene behaviour, games, entertainment, dancing, buying and selling, sexual activity, or any worldly amusements.64 In his commentary on the Ten Commandments, Hus made clear that the law of God should be followed on the ground of love, not from fear of consequence or punishment. An examination of Hus’s obedience to the law of God implies much more than this. Practising the law of God is more than duty. In Hus it becomes a way of life. There is in Hus a clear affinity with ancient Hebrew culture and its much richer conception of obedience. In that world view, hearing, or response, together with a willingness to comply, followed by action, more fully encompasses the idea of obedience. There is no separation of hearing, willingness, and action as there is in English or even in the Czech poslušnost. Hebrew does not recognize these distinctions. The shema, to hear, implies response and action. Greek and Latin follow this pattern of hearing, responding, and acting.65 Hus was neither a Hebrew nor a Greek scholar in the proper sense, but he was au fait with Latin and the implications of oboedire. Moreover, he was fully immersed in the Biblical understanding of obedience. Hus perceived obedience to God as more than mental assent to particular ideas, doctrinal tenets, or statements of theology. Rather, it implied an active sense of responsibility. Obedient response to the law of God included proper conduct.66 Obedience 63 

Kejř, Husův proces, pp. 211–12. Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, pp. 168–92. In his prohibition of sex, Hus doubtlessly included physical union within matrimony. This would be consistent with the directives of medieval penitentials. 65  See the various articles in Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. by Bromiley, i, 210–24, and vi, 1–10. The Greek words for hearing and obeying demonstrate this inseparable relationship, while the Latin oboedire may be understand either as listening or actually doing something expected or commanded. 66  Christmas Eve sermon in Hus, Sermones de tempore, ed. by Schmidtová, vii, 65–66. 64 

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could not be understood or practised without a change in behaviour. It signified conformity to the will of God.67 One had first to listen to God, but this required the hearer to respond in a manner that answered the call, or the broad thrust of the divine communication, which finally required the hearer to take action in some definite manner. Thereby life itself became an exercise of faith and the fullest expression of ethics. This contrasts with the development in late Judaism, which tended to formalize obedience to the commandments of God solely because they had been commanded. That ethos indicated a departure from the idea of covenant and the earlier concept of relational response. From a soteriological perspective, Hus practised the medieval facere quod in se est doctrine, and was convinced of the relation between theology and ethics as expressed in the concept fides caritate formata. Doing the best one was capable of and practising a faith which was guided by compassion and love led Hus to boldly announce that good works contributed to salvation. 68 Prayer helps to mitigate pride. Fasting is a deterrent to fornication. Works of charity and mercy counter the human propensity to greed. All such good works help to combat sin.69 In his important sermon Dixit Martha ad Iesum (3 November 1411), Hus declared that God could not be regarded as just if the merits of humankind were not rewarded.70 It seems doubtful these convictions led him to practise a form of obedience in which his essential personhood was uninvolved. Moreover, it is quite obvious that, when it came to obedience, Hus adjudicated his response on the basis of whether or not the command or obligatory impetus was consistent with Christ. Time and again we find him stating that, if there appeared to be disagreement or discordance, then obedience could not be rendered.71 This allowed for behaviour to remain ethical while recognizing the right of men and women to refuse to obey the orders of superior powers. Ultimately, Jan Hus exercised the radical freedom of his own ethical convictions and practised wilful disobedience to those authorities which he concluded contravened the law of God. 67 

Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, pp. 149–50. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 19–20 and sermon ‘Vos estis sal terre’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 115. 69  Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, p. 333. Faith should also result in specific action. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 6. 70  Sermon ‘Dixit Martha ad Iesum’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 164. 71  Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, p. 164. 68 

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There is a theological implication. It appears that Hus could not accept a fully-orbed doctrine of predestination, for that would imply a curbing or curtailing of human freedom. Holding a profound view of human dignity along with freedom of conscience, a rigid view of predestination implied an unsolvable contradiction. Hus had to choose. It appears he cast his lot with freedom against the determinism of absolute election.72 In his commentary on the Sentences, Hus goes further. Human freedom does not detract from divine perfection, since God is free in an absolute sense. Should God act in some way to preclude or inhibit human freedom, Hus suggests two immediate consequences. The first would amount to the virtual destruction of human freedom, which had been the intentional creation of God. Since human freedom reflected to some extent the image of God, any interference in that liberty implied wilful tampering with the imago dei. The second issue constitutes a somewhat daring theological proposition. To wit, that if God destroyed the freedom of humanity, to that same commensurate degree God diminished the essence of divinity. This would change the nature of God, limit God’s freedom, and the actions of God would thereby be negated: Our freedom […] does not detract from [God’s] perfection. I concede. But if God were to act out of natural necessity and not freely […] I grant, in fact […] that God […] would remove God’s own freedom and the God of action would be taken away.73

This is one area in which Hus does not follow the predestinarian model implicit in Augustine. At the same time, he elects neither to follow Wyclif. Instead we find an echo of his predecessor, Matěj of Janov.74 From an ethical point of view, there is an absence of moral ambiguity in Hus. Instead, his life is characterized by clear decisions and specific action. The driving sense of moral imperative appears to be guided by obedience, fidelity to truth, and an abiding concern for the law of God. Hus’s conduct suggests that he did not confuse or identify things temporal with things eternal. While there is no particularly acute sense of eschatology in Hus, unlike the Táborites who later came in his wake, his ethical consciousness is connected to the future, for 72 

Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, pp. 297–98. The evidence can be found in Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 110, 162, 165–66, and 168–69. 73  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p.  386, an important point noted by Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, p. 298. 74  Matěj z Janova, Regulae veteris, ed. by Kybal, Odložilík, and Nechutová, i, 22; ii, 10–11 and 171; iii, 150–51; and v, 69–70 and 247.

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Hus is confident that the future belongs to God. This conviction is borne out in his prison letters. However, it is clear that Hus considers truth as the essence of the eschatological moment, and when the time has fully come upon human history, truth will prevail.75 This conviction characterizes Hussite thinking in the generation following Hus’s demise. The ethical positions of Hus, exemplified so well in his legal ordeal at Constance, cannot be put down to purely arbitrary decisions Hus made on his own based upon what he alone determined was appropriate in any given moment. I do not mean to imply that Hus had no sense of what he ought to say and do; rather, I mean to argue that the imperatives behind his conduct were determined by his allegiance to the law of God, his commitment to truth, and his willingness to practise comprehensive obedience. That obedience was not dictated by naked conscience. Clearly, Hus did not wish to act against conscience. But his conscience had been shaped by a moral imperative outside of conscience. This is the salient factor in understanding the ethics of Jan Hus. Beyond this, the concept of human will prevails, and there can be no proper ethic apart from the cooperation of the human will.76 Unlike theologians before and after him, Hus did not develop a system of general ethics in terms of proposing a theory of how men and women should live and what they should or should not do. He did not undertake an explanation of the nature of ethics, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity, nor did he propose certain constants within humankind, which he assumed might be relied upon in any given circumstance. However, he did underscore repeatedly in his own life and conduct the moral obligations of obedience, truth, and the law of God. Submission to these considerations constituted for Hus the means to new life and faithful discipleship. The antithesis was pride, which creates an impediment to ethics.77 It is unsurprising to find that Hus was accused of superbia: the deadly sin of pride. His strict observance of the ethical obligations of obedience, truth, and the law of God led him to refuse allegiance or adherence to other authorities. Several of his most persistent detractors claimed his refusal to submit to ecclesiastical authority was predicated upon pride.78 One went so far as to assert that Hus was ‘worse 75 

Werner, Jan Hus: Welt und Umwelt, pp. 145–55. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 300. 77  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 224–25. 78  Štěpán Páleč, Antihus, in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, p. 375; and Štěpán z Dolan, Antihussus, in Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus seu veterum monumentorum, ed. by Pez, iv.2, col. 383. 76 

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than any devil’. Hus took considerable umbrage at the charge and in his reply referred at least twenty-five times to the phrase.79 If the notion of obedience in Hus is best understood through its Biblical sense, the same might be said about the ground or basis for Hus’s commitment to obedience. Once again, a more adequate understanding can be extracted from the Biblical idea of the heart, which encompasses that part of the human existence which contains intention, desire, affection, emotion, passion, and purpose.80 In the Greek sense, Jan Hus set his heart (kardia) on obedience, fidelity to truth, and the law of God, in order to determine a moral imperative and thereby attain salvation. Hus argued strenuously that any outward form of religion or ethical conduct without inner depth and commitment lacked significance. Likewise, prayer which did not come from the heart was meaningless.81 Elsewhere, Hus was quite clear that those who loved the world more than the things of God would ultimately perish, while salvation would be the reward of those who loved God. The pathway for pilgrims implied seeking for spiritual realities in God with one’s whole heart. 82 The ethics of Hus involve the heart, which is the centre of humanity in which religion, faith, and spirituality are rooted, and is also the place wherein God occupies the life of the pilgrim and whence moral conduct and ethical behaviour is conducted. The essence of faith in Hus is found in obedience. However, a distinction in principle should be drawn between obedience to ethical demands and the obedience of faith. The two are related but not synonymous, though the distinction is not clearly delineated in Hus. This is on account of his understanding of the human relationship to God, wherein he regards salvation as obedience to ethical demands, and the obedience of faith as so closely related they become practically indistinguishable. Here it would seem that Hus’s ethics are less Pauline and Augustinian than they are medieval. Nevertheless, the law of God remains for Hus the central criterion against which law, obedience, justice, and truth are measured and adjudicated.83

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A printing error attributed the initial attack to 1406. This is impossible. Hus wrote his rejoinder in 1414. The phrase is ‘horší než který ďábel’, Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, pp. 312–23. This treatise is taken up in some detail in Chapter Four. 80  Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. by Bromiley, iii, 605–13. 81  Hus, Výklad na Páteř, pp. 346–47. 82  Hus, Zrcadlo hřiešníka, pp. 132–46. 83  Hus, Contra octo doctores, p. 399.

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Our understanding of Hus is all the poorer on account of the paucity of personal reflection he committed to print. This has been noted in Chapter Two in the effort to determine the nature of Hus’s mental activity and arrive at some understanding of what Hus was thinking. While we have much more from his pen than we do from many other medieval personalities, we lack an autobiographical reflection which mirrors to any extent the ruminations of Augustine in his Confessions or St Paul in Romans 7. It is therefore specious to assume one way or the other about his own ethical or moral struggles, but in general Hus wrote enough, especially in his surviving prison letters, to convince the careful reader that he endured personal weakness, doubt, and temptation. His heroic death suggests that ultimately he overcame those distractions and remained firm in obedience up to the end. If Hus’s understanding of obedience and heart were shaped by the Biblical world view, the third aspect of his ethical imperative is conscience. Ethical action implies coming to terms with conscience. Hus believed that the essence of one’s life and personhood is stored in the soul and remains with one throughout the duration of their natural life. The human conscience plays an important role in terms of avoiding sin and bringing the pilgrim nearer to God and into conformity with God’s law. ‘The conscience is the prosecutor, memory the witness, and reason the judge.’84 In Hus’s thinking, the conscience becomes an intimate tutor who reveals sin and alerts the pilgrim to everything which might detract from ethical conduct, whereby disrupting one’s spiritual progress. At his trial, Hus’s ethics would not permit violating his conscience. Hus identified no fewer than five impediments to the proper operation of conscience. These were ignorance, carelessness, pride, lust, and fear. The buttress of conscience was the law of God as codified in scripture, and Hus argued that the written word of God should be consulted regularly with respect to all actions, whether those in the past, present, or future. Once again, the example of Christ should be considered paramount, and conscience was reliable to the extent that it was obedient to Christ. Hus warned that a conscience too broad or too narrow was unwise. In terms of ethics, the former was too permissive, allowing for practically any thought, word, or deed, while the latter had the propensity to lead the pilgrim into a lifestyle marked by an unremitting cycle of desperation or despair.85 In early Christianity, the idea of conscience implied an inner component of humankind suggesting self-awareness connected to a shared internal knowledge and commensurate response and action. Therefore, conscience is the 84  85 

Hus, Dcerka, p. 166. Hus, Dcerka, p. 167.

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amalgamation of act, being, and knowledge.86 That relationship is intentional in Hus and observable in his conduct. Therefore, his ethics cannot be construed as relative, but instead must be understood as formed by the law of truth, his understanding and commitment to truth, and by his obedience to the law of God. It is quite impossible to assess the extent of Hus’s self-knowledge, but it seems doubtful he would have equated self-knowledge with the knowledge of God. An implicit bifurcation is evident in Hus’s thought. An examination of his writings and sermons reveal evidence that Hus tended to place all values, criteria, and human claims under the law of God. There is of course the problem of determination, and the challenge in Hus is how one adequately separates self-knowledge from the knowledge of God. Hus does not argue that truth is to be found internally but accepts the necessity of revelation. Hus endorses the Augustinian understanding of fallen humanity, which precludes any reliable human sense of moral authority. Therefore a moral compass for ethics must be found outside of humankind, but how this is mediated to the Christian pilgrim is not entirely clear. If moral ambiguity is absent in Hus’s ethics, in what manner does one arrive at certainty and how can one know that? It might be argued that Hus relies to some extent on a simplistic understanding and acceptance of divine truth as mediated through scripture and the Christian traditions. Ultimately, obedience, fidelity to truth and the law of God did not enable Hus to escape his world of conflict, though it appears to have allowed him to deal with his challenges in a way which fostered progress for the pilgrim along the pathway to spirituality and a positive martyrological consciousness. The beginning of ethics is in obedience, and that response can only begin once one has made a change characterized by sorrow for what one has done and by no longer acting in the manner which caused the sorrow.87 That definition of repentance is consistent with the ethics of Jan Hus, for whom the practice of repentance and the value of the penitential life cannot be stressed too highly. He considered the proof of true repentance to be withdrawal from the world and its pleasures.88 ‘The true penitent is one who genuinely regrets prior sins and is firmly determined not to sin’, but, changing course of direction, ‘observes all the commandments of God’.89 This expression of godly sorrow and a radical change of 86 

Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. by Bromiley, vii, 898–919. ‘Poenitentiam quippe agere est et perpetrata mala plangere, et plangenda non perpetrare’. Gregory the Great, in Patrologia Latina, lxxvi, fol. 1256. 88  Hus, Dcerka, pp. 177–79; and Sermon for Lent I, Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 141. 89  Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, p. 333. For an excursus on Hus’s view of repentance see Kejř, ‘Teaching on Repentance and Confession’, pp. 89–94. 87 

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direction, which Hus insists upon within a model of true ethics, is consistent with the New Testament concept of repentance as μετάνοια (metanoia). We have seen previously how Hus cultivated a keen martyrological perspective. The realization of truth in history was revealed in ethics and moral conduct. But it did not remain there. Truth was best observed in the commitment of the individual to die in its defence. The human willingness to sacrifice life for truth constitutes ultimate freedom in Hus. The consequence of ethics led Hus to the pyre, and his unswerving commitment to truth enabled him to surrender the temporal for the eternal, the immediate for the important. The most significant treatment of ethics in the medieval West prior to the time of Hus include Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine, John Duns Scotus, Peter Abelard, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and in the fourteenth century William Ockham. Augustine, Lombard, and Thomas may be considered influential on Hus’s ethics. Peter Abelard was one theologian in the Middle Ages who tended to place emphasis on the role of human nature in ethics, and he did so in controversial fashion. There is no evidence that Hus’s ethics were influenced by Abelard who, along with Héloïse, had argued in the twelfth century that the main issue in ethics has to do with intention. Human actions are morally neutral, neither good nor bad, but may only be so regarded with respect to the intention behind the action. In other words, intentions determine whether something is moral or ethical. Hus did not understand ethics in this sense, though clearly he agreed with Abelard when the latter argued that intentions should be informed and shaped by the law of God.90 We do find Hus discussing intention in the context of ethics, and he did write that whenever one wished to punish a miscreant it was worthwhile to consider the accompanying motives.91 I can find no evidence that Hus would have agreed with Abelard, who said ‘it is not a sin to kill a man nor to lie with another’s wife; these sometimes can be committed without sin’.92 Hus seems not to have considered exceptions to the rule on some subjects. He enumerated and condemned sexual offences including fornication, lewd thoughts, and sodomy. It is important that, on the matter of violence, Hus distinguishes between illegal or unjust killing and the taking of life which comes from self-defence, accident, or by legal decree. The former is to be deplored while the latter does not constitute 90 

Abelard, Ethics, ed. and trans. by Luscombe, passim; and Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. by Monfrin, for Héloïse’s letters. 91  Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, pp. 174–75 and Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, p. 259. 92  Abelard, Ethics, ed. and trans. by Luscombe, p. 27.

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sin.93 Furthermore, if intention is what creates sin then only intention can be regarded as good or ethical. Abelard’s philosophy cannot be replicated in Hus. The latter cannot leave ethics in the realm of intentions. Indeed, the ethics of Hus requires hearing, willingness, and action, or specific response. Faith for ethics is required. But according to Hus, faith in God is essential before one can believe in oneself to live the good life. Faith is an act of the pilgrim’s intellect, an act based in hope and love, which the pilgrim endeavours to strengthen and in so doing increases his or her own faith.94 The pilgrim’s nemesis is sin. ‘Everyone who commits a mortal sin extinguishes in themselves the flame of divine love.’95 The flame of divine love is the basis for ethics. Therefore the phrase ‘avoid sin and love God’ became Hus’s guiding doctrine.96 This produced a principle in the thought of Hus which might be characterized as the purity of moral intention, which came to lie at the root of his ethics. Discussing heresy, Hus goes on the offensive by dealing with the topic explicitly in terms of ethics, enumerated in light of issues such as simony, apostasy, and blasphemy, rather than a traditionally-expected diatribe of doctrinal irregularities. He argues that such offences constitute different parts of the same problem. The worst heretics are those priests who, being guilty of simony, stand in judgement attempting to legislate those who might be permitted to say Mass.97 This is not to suggest that Hus was impervious to theological deviance, but it does support his greater concern with conduct and ethical behaviour. The greater condemnation must be reserved for hypocrites, who willingly and intentionally engage in blasphemous, apostate, and simoniacal practices while at the same time presume to adjudicate the rightness and wrongness of theology and religious practice. The contributions of Abelard noted, it seems ever more likely that Hus may have been influenced by Peter Lombard. In the thirteenth century, the Franciscan Alexander of Hales nominated the Four Books of Sentences by Lombard to function as the standard university text for the study of theology.98 Thereafter, it 93  Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, pp. 241–56 on sexual misconduct, pp. 210–35 on violence, and pp. 212–13 on the exceptions. 94  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 10 and 458–59. 95  Hus, Výklad delší na desatero přikázanie, p. 212. 96  Hus, Dcerka, p. 178. 97  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 587–88. Also his sermon for the Feast of St Bartholomew, 24 August 1411 in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, v, 6. 98  Petrus Lombardus, Sentences, ed. by Silano.

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became customary to deal specifically with the Sentences. Therefore, in the fall of 1407 Hus began a series of lectures on Lombard and produced a rather sturdy commentary on the Sentences between 1407 and 1409.99 Hus thought highly enough of Lombard to declare at the conclusion of his commentary that God had anointed Lombard to benefit the entire church.100 The subject of ethics was treated in the third book of his Libri sententiarum. It becomes immediately clear that virtue plays an essential part in salvation. Lombard sees ethics (or virtue) as that which enables the pilgrim sinner the ability to present his or herself for salvation. Hus’s definition of grace makes clear that this is the basis of ethical life, but he went on to write that every good action and every salutary desire is the result of the will of God.101 According to Lombard, hope and faith (dist. 23–26), together with love (dist. 27–32), along with kindness, prudence, fortitude, and temperance (dist. 33) and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, namely wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, steadfastness, and fear of God (dist. 34–35), are linked to the Ten Commandments (dist. 37–40) and should be seen as essential elements of ethics which present the pilgrim with the means of apprehending God and serving one’s neighbour. The love of God is the impetus for ethics and may be seen in Lombard as the Holy Spirit. The Ten Commandments are rightly perceived as requirements which moderate specific ethical conduct pointing out transgressions of the law of love as intended by God in human existence. All of this is mirrored rather adroitly in Hus as a basis for ethical conduct. He encouraged the discipline of the austere life, which he claimed resulted in the subtraction of sin and sinful desire and an increase in virtue. 102 Virtue brings perspective to the transitory life of the pilgrim. Salvation is the goal, which lies outside time. Adherence to the law of God remains permanent and transformative. Unity with God in faith, hope, and love is more important than all else, which in the end amounts to shifting sand. As Hus put it in his commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, one should keep in mind the example of the saints. The pilgrim should neither fear death nor transgress the commandments of God. Instead, one should be faithful until the end of life. After all, we have noted how Hus compared the world to a sailor on a sinking ship, a traveller leaving a foreign country, a resident vacating a collapsing house, and 99 

Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 3–744. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 744. 101  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 17 and 177. 102  Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 143–44. 100 

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an inmate being released from a cruel jail. He writes that this is the case because life takes the pilgrim on the sea, on journeys, into foreign lands, into situations rather like collapsing buildings, and the soul is imprisoned by the body, which is a difficult prison. For the faithful, ethical pilgrim, death is rather like release from prison, return from exile, the completion of a pilgrimage, and the setting down of a heavy burden. Indeed, the culmination of the ethical life is only realized in the life to come.103 Love and ethics remain united. God’s love and human response with the obedience of the entire heart and conscience leads to ethical conduct. This occurs because humans are able to access the merits of Christ through love, and those divine merits are then inculcated in humans through grace.104 Therefore, Hus makes clear that no one can attain moral virtue unless that person has been joined to Christ, for that union enables a moral imitatio Christi which produces the sole means to living the ethical life. 105 We have already observed that this conviction formed a central thesis in what Hus thought he was doing. At this juncture, Hus sets forth an important element of his theological matrix. The redemption of humankind by God through the incarnation also included a pedagogical component, wherein Christ taught men and women how to overcome evil, and in that process might evolve to a stage in their pilgrimage where they became passionate about ethics and proper conduct.106 In arguing for the redemption of humankind being predicated on love, Jan Hus was unconsciously echoing Peter Abelard, whose doctrine of redemption was one of the great new ideas of the twelfth century in its insistence that the incarnation was successful because it effectively taught the law of love. That law is manifested chiefly in the reign of God characterized by peace. Hus’s career and motivation as a reformer was a living testament to the dangers which imperilled the kingdom of God. Divine peace is hindered most of all by the presence of sin.107 In this connection, Hus’s imperative for moral reform 103 

Hus, Menší výklad na vieru, p. 99; sermon ‘Confirmate corda vestra’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 127; and Hus, Sermones de tempore, ed. by Schmidtová, vii, 180. 104  Sermon ‘Dixit Martha ad Iesum’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, pp. 158 and 165. 105  Sermon ‘Abiciamus opera tenebrarum’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 107; and Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 334. 106  Sermon ‘Confirmate corda vestra’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, pp. 119–28. 107  A theme noted in his Sermon de pace, ed. by Dobiáš and Molnár (this being the best edition).

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finds its most cogent motivation. The power of darkness prevents the total realization of the coming of God’s reign and causes the peaceable kingdom to languish. Hus argues that ethics and morals go some distance to resolving that conundrum. He devoted his life to that cause and urged without ceasing a reform of the church and society in head and in members. While incarcerated in the Dominican prison at Constance, Hus wrote a tract setting forth love as the basis for the Christian life.108 The last chapter in Dcerka, Hus’s great treatise on the spiritual life, presents his mature view on the subject of love. The pilgrim can only truly say that he or she loves God when they obey the law of God. Hus wonders how it is possible to know if one does fully observe the commandments of God. He answers his own query to the end that, if a person is utterly determined to die rather than violate the law of God and is resolute, then that constitutes the infallible sign they are in obedience to God’s law. Hus argues that it is quite impossible for humans to love anyone to a greater degree than to die for the beloved.109 During his legal ordeal, Hus refused to recant or modify his convictions. Metaphorically he declined to admit he had but one eye. At the end, his words were direct. He called God to witness. He asserted the charges against him were fatuous. He stated that his life’s intention had been to turn men and women from the perils of sin. He appealed to the truth of the gospel, which he had endeavoured to emulate, and declared that in those convictions he was prepared and willing to die.110 By that standard, Hus’s own final days might well be regarded as complete obedience to the law of God and therefore exemplary and proof of the ethical life. The idea of virtue as the foundation for ethics is evident in different ways in early scholasticism within the writings of Abelard and Lombard. Following Augustine, Abelard regarded virtue as that which enables humans to assume a moral stance and behave ethically.111 Lombard recounts the virtues in more carefully considered theological categories, but differs from Abelard in arguing that God nurtures virtue in humankind apart from human assistance. This means in essence that God creates virtue in men and women, but those same men and women are required to undertake ethical positions in life in order to 108 

De cognicione et dilectione dei, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 43–44. 109  Hus, Dcerka, pp. 184–86. Love of God implies observing the law of God. Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, p. 330. 110  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 119. 111  This is illustrated in his dialogue between a philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian. Patrologia Latina, clxxviii, cols 1651–52.

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display acts of virtue, which are contingent upon divine grace. Ultimately Hus was forced to concede that he could not resolve the difficulties in explicating a consistent line of demarcation between human responsibility and divine sovereignty.112 Of course the differences in the approaches to the question of virtue in the High Middle Ages persisted. Some scholars have assumed that Peter Lombard was implacably opposed to Peter Abelard on ethics as well as on theology in general. That represents one view, but it is sufficient here to note that the provocative insights of Abelard do not seem to have attracted Hus’s attention, while the more conservative and traditional approach of Lombard cannot be as easily dismissed. Indeed, Lombard’s Sentences and his theological proclivities may be regarded as a continuation of Augustinian thought, though this does not imply that Lombard was a slavish echo of that fifth-century African bishop. The importance of Lombard for understanding Hus lies in the fact that Lombard is considerably more than a mere compiler of theological perspectives, and a rather fulsome consideration of his role in the history of theology demonstrates his significance for the whole of twelfth-century scholasticism.113 Therefore, Hus’s extensive commentary on the Sentences of Lombard must be taken as a major source for understanding his theological perspectives, for it was customary and obligatory for medieval theological students and doctorands to take positions on the various doctrines outlined in the Sentences.114 In light of the significance of Hus’s commentary, several observations are necessary. In terms of understanding Jan Hus as a priest, martyr, reformer, and theologian, and no less so on the subject of ethics, it is necessary to underscore one puzzling feature of his commentary on the Sentences of Lombard, which has been cited several times already. In standard medieval form, each of the four chapters of the Sentences receives a commentary. Each of the four commentaries begins with an introduction, or an inceptio. In the Hus commentary, it is something of a curiosity that within each inceptio there is evidence of a distinctly Wyclifite realism which is absent in the body of the commentary. This is noticeable in the inceptio to each of the four books.115 In these introductions we find, for example, allusions to notional ideas of the exclusive authority of scripture as maintained by Wyclif but ordinarily not espoused by Hus.116 One 112 

Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 162 and 165. As demonstrated in Colish, Peter Lombard. 114  See Bartoš, ‘Hus’ Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard’. 115  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 3–29, 189–205, 373–89, and 501–21. 116  On this see Hurley, ‘“Scriptura Sola”’; and Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 47–49. 113 

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can also discern the concept of how dominant divine ideas are in comprehending issues of created action. One might expect to then find in the body of the commentary itself an elaboration of these themes, but one reaches the end of each book of commentary only to find no discussion whatever of issues alluded to the inceptio. It is generally impossible to detect any recognizable Wyclifism in Hus’s commentary. Instead, what one discovers is a mainstream Augustinian approach, which is consistent with the work of theologians like Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), Giles of Rome (d. 1316), and Thomas of Strasbourg (d. 1357). How can this be accounted for? Aside from an outright condemnation of the ideas of Wyclif on the eucharist, Hus does not commit himself one way or the other in terms of Wyclif ’s realism, trinitarian doctrine, sacramental theology, or the controversy concerning divine foreknowledge.117 It is possible that Hus deliberately held back from developing themes of controversy, which he knew all too well would accompany any overt adoption of Wyclifite thinking. Did Hus imagine that his commentary would come under sustained scrutiny but the inceptio to each book be ignored? It is impossible to say for certain. What is apparent is this. Hus was extremely wary in the prevailing climate of embracing any more of Wyclif ’s ideas than he thought necessary. Thus he cautiously marked out a middle way venturing only to declare he was unwilling to denounce Wyclif as a heretic.118 Moreover, the prevailing rules limited Hus to citing only recognizable authorities. Wyclif could not be so regarded by the later medieval theological establishment. By 1409, as Hus was finishing up his work on the Sentences, his own theology began to absorb a detectable measure of radicalization. The events behind this development caused Hus to abandon plans to proceed to the doctorate, and the rest of his life can be observed as a steady but firm movement away from the ethos and convictions of the university theology faculty at Prague. We are left either to assume Hus wrote the inceptio to each book intending either to incorporate the ideas into his commentary (which for reasons unknown he never undertook) or simply did so as a means of tacitly affirming his maturing theological convictions. It has been argued that the commentary represents Hus’s mature systematic articulation of theology.119 This is questionable. The crises of 1409 shaped profoundly Hus’s 117 

Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 571, 574, 576, and elsewhere reveal ideas which refute Wyclif. 118  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 621. 119  Spinka, John Hus: A Biography, p. 57. Elsewhere Spinka modifies his comment with the caveat ‘prior to the outbreak of the storm in 1409’. Spinka, John Hus’ Concept of the Church, p. 64.

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views, but it would be ambitious to say Hus’s theology was developed fully by the time he completed his commentary. His work between 1412 and 1414 suggests otherwise. It has been suggested that Hus was both a slavish disciple of John Wyclif and a man of inferior theological intellect. Both assumptions are flawed. In terms of the latter, the commentary on the Sentences indicates Hus’s acquaintance with all of the salient issues in medieval theology, even though there is practically no evidence Hus had any interest in related philosophical issues. Hus’s cleverness as a theological thinker can perhaps be gauged in part from the fact that Hus avoids affirming or denying in his commentary any aspect of the ontology found in the inceptio. This goes some distance in refuting claims advanced by Johann Loserth and his disciples that Hus was merely a Bohemian echo of the Oxford theologian. Even Loserth was forced to admit, after the modern publication of Hus’s commentary, that this work challenged previously held assumptions. ‘It can now be considered as certain that the former opinion of the literary work of Hus will be changed in many respects, and that it will be esteemed more highly than before.’120 Moreover, one can find within the commentary on the Sentences and elsewhere clear evidence to offset assumptions that Hus may have been a pedestrian theologian. Describing the contentious issue of Donatism, Hus points out that Lombard concluded heretical priests should not celebrate the sacraments while his detractors allege that Lombard was incorrect. Hus writes that he prefers to take the middle road and thereby avoid the obstructions on either side of the road which would impede his progress.121 This is a single but revealing example of Hus’s subtlety when dealing with the theologians. From the standpoint of ethics, what is consistently apparent in Hus’s commentary is an articulation of a series of principles based on the world of biblical morality, especially as reflected in the Decalogue and the teachings of Jesus. What can be argued is that, in his commentary on the Sentences, Jan Hus reveals himself as a shrewd thinker capable of avoiding the fish hooks of formal theology, while at the same time providing adequate indication of his desire to use his considerable intellect in the service of preaching the gospel, rather than in the hairsplitting subtleties of academic discourse. Nowhere is this better revealed than in his concern with ethics as the basis for reform, a priority which comes through very clearly in the commentary. The foundation for ethics and goodness in the 120 

Quoted in Lützow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus, p. 20. ‘Ego volo ire per medium, ne obruar lapidibus utriusque partis’. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 585. 121 

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material world is predicated upon the reality of God’s goodness.122 If humanity damages the goodness of God in the world, Hus asserts that it can be restored by divine grace. Here we discover the basis for ethics as reform.123 Conclusions to this consideration of ethics in the thought of Jan Hus can now be briefly summarized. First, there is no deliberate or particular distinction in Hus between doctrine (or theology) and ethics. In other words, Hus’s instructions on ethics cannot be assessed without reference to his religious and social world, and apart from strict attention to his theological context. This remains an essential factor. Second, Hus’s discussion of ethics generally avoids theory and is articulated in concrete terms through the persuasive pastoral voice concerned with the cure of souls. This underscores Hus’s commitment to the work of the priesthood. Third, his preoccupation with ethics can be found throughout his corpus and is not confined to any particular genre. Fourth, there is no evidence of systematic ethics in Hus or any complete development of thinking in this area. Fifth, there is no discernible development or change in Hus’s ethics, but rather there emerges consistent themes over the course of his life and throughout his writings. Sixth, the ethical ethos in Hus consists primarily of obedience, love, the priority of truth, and the law of God. Seventh, ethics are regulated by conscience, which is informed by divine love and grace and which requires the active participation of the human will. Eighth, ethics is a natural expression in the life of the pilgrim who truly follows Christ, and may be regarded as a proof of that commitment to Christ and the law of God. Ninth, the aim of ethics in Hus is not to restrict human life and its expressions; rather, it should be understood as a means to attain the fullness of life. Tenth, God is the moral ground of ethics and God does not impede human freedom in any way. Eleventh, the moral climate of the later Middle Ages provided direction for Hus’s thinking about ethics, and no interpretation of his ethics can ignore his context and the currents of influence which operated therein. Pursuant to this discussion of the ethics of Jan Hus, I find the force of argument irresistible in the suggestion that Hus’s decisive actions were a result of his own mental world, that is, his unshakeable conviction that his ideas and conduct were guided by and consistent with the law of God. That this ethos clashed seriously with the late medieval world does not seem to have been fully 122 

Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 43. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 588. This discussion of Hus’s commentary on the Sentences owes much to the stimulating exchange I have had on the matter with Stephen Lahey. His forthcoming contribution on Hus’s commentary in Šmahel, A Companion to Jan Hus, should add even more to the subject. 123 

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appreciated by Hus. The escalating incompatibility reached its inevitable and unavoidable Waterloo at Constance, where Hus’s behaviour absolutely confounded the Council and helped create an impasse which proved impossible to overcome. The point of conflict is revealed in an exchange Hus had with Pierre d’Ailly, one of the judges in his legal case during the second public hearing on 7 June 1415. Twenty witnesses were marshalled against Hus, and he was asked how he could possibly oppose them all and insinuate their testimony was flawed, perjured, or otherwise unreliable. Hus returned that his witnesses were God and his conscience, and these were more trustworthy than deponents for the prosecution. D’Ailly replied that it was impossible to pass judgement based on conscience and the court was obligated instead to believe the testimony of sworn witnesses.124 The argument produced a standoff with neither side persuaded. The ethical mores espoused by Jan Hus provided the basis for his unprecedented and unparalleled 1412 appeal to Christ in the midst of a legal battle. Indeed, much of his conflict with ecclesiastical authority can be traced to his sense of truth, the law of God, and ethics. ‘Hus created for himself an idealized reality that represented for him acting in accordance with the will of God without regard for the feelings and perception of the surrounding world.’125 Given the nature of his fifteenth-century environment and the microcosm of that world assembled at Constance, the outcome could not be other than fatal. He did write stirringly about truth and his words have frequently been quoted. ‘Therefore faithful Christian, seek truth, listen to truth, learn truth, love truth, speak truth, adhere to truth, and defend truth to the death. For truth will set you free.’126 The principle was noble, doubtlessly ideal, and perhaps even naive. In the life and thought of Jan Hus, ethics as an expression of the law of God is unavoidably subjective and ultimately a matter of individual judgement and conscience. Obedience to that norm could not be regulated by statutory obligations. It came down to individual interpretation. Hus assumed the non-negotiable prerogative of judgement in assessing the correctness of doctrine and policy based upon his reading and understanding of scripture and truth. His commitment to that principle blinded him to other possible and 124  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 76. This is consistent with the view of medieval canon lawyers and canon law which did not enter judgement on private crimes. D. 32.11 Erubescant impii, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, col. 120; X 5.3.33 Sicut nobis, in ii, cols 762–3; and X 5.3.34 Tua nos, in ii, col. 763. 125  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 35. See also Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, pp. 298–99, who makes a similar observation. 126  Hus, Menší výklad na vieru, p. 69.

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legitimate truths and points of view. One might even say that, in this posturing, Hus dramatically limited the content of truth.127 Hus does not appear to have appreciated the diversity his ethical assumptions implied. His refusal or inability to grasp the implications of a subjective ethical stance led him to become intolerant of those whose ideas failed to conform to his. That inevitable development caused him to arrive, perhaps unconsciously, as the intractable arbiter of what was true, correct, and proper. The resulting conundrum was unavoidable. As Kejř notes, Hus’s spiritual or ethical world was quite different from the real world of fifteenth-century Prague and Constance.128 The late medieval Latin church considered Hus a heretic and a dangerous perverter of the faith, essentially a ‘cursed Judas’.129 By comparison, Hus regarded the Roman church as ‘reprobate’, ‘malignant’, the ‘body of the devil’, a ‘diabolic city’, and the ‘congregation of the damned’.130 With inflexible categories like these, the available middle ground was quickly and steadily eroded. The possibility of dialogue dissipated. The ethics of Jan Hus unwittingly formed a two-edged sword. He kept both eyes at the Council, but lost his life at the stake.

127 

Seifert, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí’, p. 290. Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 36. 129  At his sentencing arraignment, seven bishops denounced Hus as ‘O Iuda maledicte’. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 116. Another ostensible eyewitness claimed Hus was denigrated as ‘Judas the traitor’. Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16. 130  Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, pp. 2, 40; and Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 36 and 733. 128 

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s a priest of the medieval church, and as we have seen, Jan Hus was motivated by ethics. This impulse was a formative factor in the establishment of Hussite religion. It also brought Hus to the epicentre of a particular form of ecclesiastical renewal. A particular urge to purge can be detected in his writing and especially in his sermons. During an eleven-month period, between December 1410 and October 1411, Jan Hus preached a number of sermons at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague wherein he revealed one of his main concerns: the varieties of vices apparent in the late medieval priesthood. The following is a mainly paraphrased outline of opinions expressed in those sermons: Rather than preaching, many priests use their position to line their pockets [28 October 1411]. They are sent by the devil, not by Christ. Since they have no concern for those in their care, and are greedy and desire only more money, they deserve to be hanged in hell [26 April 1411]. They wander like bulls in heat; they are not worthy of anything other than sitting in the kitchen and filling their bellies. Very few are qualified to fill the offices of God [24 June 1411]. Many priests receive a high salary but they do little to earn it [8 February 1411]. The voice of some of the spiritual ones is like the devil and they congratulate themselves for it, being immoral and opposed to preaching in Bethlehem Chapel. Egotistical preachers cry in high voices like wolves [2 June 1411]. These priests are parasites, whose work contributes nothing to the church. They are not true spiritual fathers [7 June 1411]. They celebrate Mass for the sake of money, and then gamble the money they take. They are money misers [26 December 1410]. They tell the laity to give them money and by so doing their sins will be forgiven [20 December 1410]. They have become fat pigs [5 July 1411]. Priests resemble swine in the mud, as long as husks fall for them, they

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roll in the dirt and eat them, but when the husks stop coming they raise their heads from the mud and look for more [6 September 1411]. They persistently punish people in a manner which financially benefits them [20 December 1410]. How often are members of the medieval priesthood guilty of ‘spiritual fornication’? [25 November 1410]. If a common man dares to admonish a priest who is immoral, he receives this answer from the priest: ‘What are you trying to proclaim to me? Did I tend the plough with you?’ [3 May 1411]. Some priests are so arrogant they will not even acknowledge their priestly colleagues [17 March 1411]. Others are inappropriately aligned with political office [2 June 1411]. There are those under holy orders who claim: ‘I am to serve in my office for the glory of God, serve Mass so that I can accumulate a large offering’. Those who say this and do so are corrupt. They are drunks whose stomachs growl with great drinking. They are gluttons whose stomachs are so engorged; their double chins hang down [3 December 1410]. Bishops who fail to correct offences and tolerate them are even more disgusting [24 August 1411]. Many parish priests and wicked prelates feed themselves but neglect those who have been entrusted to them. They are not true shepherds. They do not feed the flock but prefer to tend to themselves. They are greedy wolves [26 April 1411]. The devil and Antichrist deceive people through the great hypocrisy in prelates, who outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of iniquity [12 November 1410]. Few indeed are those clerics who might be compared to St Wenceslas, who imitated Christ in chastity, humility, patience, and devotion to Christ. He was poor, devoted to the needy, and disciplined. As a result his life displayed the radiance of the glory of God for all to see [28 September 1412].1

Sermons of this genre brought Jan Hus the admiration of the laity, but predictably swift rebuke from many Czech priests and prelates. Ostensibly, an opinion arose that Hus was both heretical and demon-possessed. Thus raged the priests of Prague.2 1  Extracts from Hus’s sermons in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, v, 131–34: Feast of Sts Simon and Jude on the parallel texts Matthew 10, Luke 9, and Mark 3; Easter II on John 10 in iv, 77–80; Feast of John Baptist on Luke 1 in iv, 220–24; Septuagesima on I Corinthians 9 in ii, 239–41; Tuesday after Whitsun on John 10 in iv, 163–72; Trinity Sunday on John 3 in iv, 177–83; Feast of St Stephen on Matthew 23 in ii, 142–53; Advent III in ii, 93–104; Trinity IV on Luke 6 in iv, 258–61; Trinity XIII on Luke 10 in v, 15–21; Advent III in ii, 93–104; Feast of St Katherine on Matthew 25, in i, 86–91; Easter III on I Peter 2 in iv, 104–08; Lent III on Matthew 18 in iii, 110–116; Tuesday after Whitsun on John 10 in iv, 163–72; Advent I in ii, 3–6; Feast of St Bartholomew on Luke 22, in v, 3; Easter II in iv, 78; Feast of the Five Brothers on Luke 12, in i, 52; and Feast of St Wenceslas on Matthew 16, in v, 140. This proclivity noted in Hus, Betlemské Poselství, ed. and trans. by CísařováKolářová, i, 66–67. 2  Kronika velmi pěckná a Janu Žižkovi, čeledínu krále Václava, in Listy Bratra Jana a Kronika velmi pěkná a Janu Žižkovi, ed. by Bartoš, p. 36.

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The radical preaching of that year touched repeatedly on a theme Hus considered at the heart of the reform impulse. On 27 December 1410, Jan Hus continued his unceasing tirade against obstacles to reform. Lurking in the precincts of late medieval churches in Bohemia, the preacher argued, were priests practising the hypocrisy of Judas, who was a thief and had the purse. Many priests in Prague, Hus charged, claim to follow Christ and assume the religious life, but for ulterior reasons. They want to take care of their own needs, feed themselves, and take a lot of money from the poor to fill their bags as Judas did. Such men are latter-day manifestations of Judas Iscariot, and they are enemies of the gospel.3 Continuing with the Judas theme, elsewhere Hus derided the fifteenth-century ‘heirs of Judas’ who sell both truth and Christ. All are traitors, and some of the modern-day Judases even surpass the wickedness of the original Judas Iscariot.4 It is fair to say that Jan Hus was a moralist and a critic of abuses, wherever he found them, both in society but more importantly in the church. From his earliest works, one can easily find reforming tendencies and moral comment.5 His rigid stance against irregularity and his insistence on reform within the priesthood engendered a great deal of hostility. This became so acute that Hus tells us people coming to Bethlehem Chapel to hear preaching were cursed in the name of Jesus by his detractors, who had been antagonized by the devil.6 Hus’s reform programme, and his refusal to adhere to the instructions of his ordinary, caused the Archbishop of Prague, Zbyněk, to take the extraordinary step of posting notices on the doors of churches naming Hus as a disobedient son and instructing that he be prevented from exercising any priestly function whatsoever anywhere in the diocese.7 In response to all this, a now-lost work of the early fifteenth century came to the defence of Archbishop Zbyněk, declaring that Jan Hus was a disobedient priest, a danger to the church, and ultimately worse than any demon. Hus rebutted the allegations. During the summer of 1414, he wrote a short treatise titled Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, which literally means Books against the Priest Cook or Kitchen Master. Though the writing is styled ‘books’, this is rather inaccurate because the treatise is less than 7000 words, and is really more a series of brief points aimed at refuting what apparently were the main points 3 

Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 154–62, but see especially p. 157. Hus, O svatokupectví, pp. 202–03. 5  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 29; and De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, pp. 55–56. 6  Sermon for Palm Sunday, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 183–84. 7  Letter of 1 September 1411 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 101. 4 

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of controversy raised by the ‘priest cookmaster’. We do not know the identity of this man and therefore we cannot know anything specific about his background. The libellum which Hus undertook to answer the attack constitutes a polemical, apologetic, explanatory, instructional treatise addressed to this unnamed individual whom Hus describes as a former priest and now curiously a ‘cookmaster’. This odd term might mean the individual in question was either a chef or a kitchen manager of some type, though Hus neither defines the term nor provides clues for more specific identification. This short text comes in specific reply to a previous attack upon Hus, wherein serious charges were laid against the reformer. Hus is especially reprimanded for having failed to obey the papal summons to appear at the proper ecclesiastical court to answer charges. This refers to a citation issued by Cardinal Odo Colonna in the autumn of 1410. However, Hus had preached all along that people had no moral obligation to obey unworthy priests who were demonstrably wicked.8 He was now practising what he had preached. Hus’s reply challenges the priest in the kitchen to sustain the charges of heresy and improper doctrine. The treatise also constitutes a polemical device aimed at undermining the attack in general and, by extension, the attacker specifically. Furthermore, Hus regards the priest in the kitchen as an enemy of the gospel. The polemical exchange sheds light on the politics of reform in the religious world at the end of the Middle Ages. Hus insists the anonymous author has neglected his spiritual calling and office and has become engaged in illegitimate secular pursuits. Hus is particularly keen to refute the charge that, since he has disobeyed a papal directive, he is worse than any devil. He goes to some lengths with considerable repetition to make that point. It is also curious, on the face of it, that a substantial period of time appears to have elapsed between the attack by the ‘cookmaster’ and Hus’s formal written reply. The initial attack is presented as having occurred well before Hus came to prominence in Prague, incurred the wrath of his ordinary (Archbishop Zbyněk), became the engine of a popular reform movement, or was the subject of numerous heresy accusations. Ostensibly Hus waits eight years before composing his reply. The gap is puzzling. However, upon closer inspection, this assumption is erroneous and can be explained. The earliest surviving copy of Hus’s tract is from 1509, having been printed at Litomyšl by Pavel Meziříčí, who was sometimes known as Olivetský. This printing press had been established in 1503 and from that time on might be seen as a main outlet 8 

See his early sermon ‘Vos estis sal terre’, in Hus, Positiones Recommendationes, Sermones, ed. by Schmidtová, p. 118.

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for writings by the Unity of Brethren, one of the traditions linked to the early Bohemian reform movement and Jan Hus. The press was located in a house on Olive Hill and was therefore known as the Mount Olive Press (in monte Olivete), with the publisher signing as Olivetský (or Olivecensis).9 There is some evidence suggesting the original version of Hus’s answer to the priest in the kitchen was altered by the printer, thereby creating a fundamental misapprehension with respect to the dating.10 An examination of the contents, which appears below, clarifies the puzzle. A single copy of the work survives.11 This suggests it was not considered particularly important. Perhaps because it was one of the last works Hus composed before his departure for the monumental Council of Constance, it has rather been overlooked by those dramatic events. Notwithstanding this, the work has been edited and published three times.12 The aforementioned and inexplicable printing error assigned the writing of the original tract written by the priest cookmaster to 1406. This is both improbable and impossible. The 1406 date is problematic since Hus’s reply suggests the content of the original attack refers to events after 1409. The 1406 date makes no sense whatever considering that so much of Hus’s response deals with episodes in 1410 and thereafter. Moreover, Hus says the cookmaster has knowledge of these post-1409 events. We are not sufficiently informed of how this can be. Happily, the solution of a basic printing error remedies the confusion. It is more likely the ‘priest cookmaster’ wrote against Hus in the spring or early summer of 1414, at the same time Hus was actually transferring to a new residence at the castle of Krakovec Rakovník. In July, Hus had been invited to take up residence at Krakovec, a few kilometres west of Prague. We are not particularly well informed of the reasons why Hus left Kozí Hrádek, but it may have been related to the death of Jan of Kozí, one of his benefactors. His brother Ctibor may have been reluctant to continue offering Hus protection, given the popularity of the excommunicated preacher and the gathering storm across western Christendom provoked by the papal schism and concern over heresy.13 9 

Horák, Pět století českého knihtisku, pp. 129–30. Suggested by Flajšhans, ‘Hus tvůrcem spisovné češtiny’, p. 20, and I think Flajšhans is correct. 11  Praha, NK, MS xxv E 16. 12  Hus, Sebrané spisy české, ed. by Erben, iii, 241–54; Hus, Sebrané spisy, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 61–71; and Hus, Drobné spisy české, ed. by Molnár. 13  On this question see Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, ii, 335, and Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, p. 378. 10 

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Hus’s rejoinder to the cookmaster is a skilfully written and vivid polemic. It is remarkable for its sincerity and cordial tone, which sets it apart from other examples of polemical writing authored by Hus in the last years of his life. 14 While he does not spare his adversary the brunt of uncompromising condemnation, there is little trace of the harshness which often characterizes such literature. The treatise appears either to end abruptly or the original ending has been lost. This treatise should be numbered among that important body of material composed by Hus while in self-imposed exile prior to departure for the Council of Constance in October 1414. It was written in the summer of that year either, while Hus was at Sezimovo Ústí in southern Bohemia (spring 1414) or, more likely, at Krakovec Castle ( July to October 1414), west of Prague from where Jan Hus departed from Bohemia to the synod from which he did not return.15 The text of Hus’s answer to the kitchen master is significant because it supports his main reform thesis and it underscores a number of issues Hus struggled to overcome during his career in Prague. Moreover, it has hitherto not been treated by scholars with any degree of meaningful analysis, especially in terms of assessing Hus’s motivation. Its survival in a single Czech-language manuscript has limited its general accessibility. Hus refers to his adversary as ‘brother’ twelve times. The writing makes significant appeal to scripture. Hus blusters that he is unmoved by the allegations against him, but the accusations must bother him. The rejoinder is sufficient proof. Hus expresses unwarranted optimism that, had Pope Alexander V not suddenly died, he would have responded favourably to Hus’s appeal and reversed the thrust of the December 1409 bull.16 This is once more evidence of Hus’s astonishing naiveté. Hus denounces as heretical the order of Alexander to cease preaching. The bull was extorted from the pope as a result of bribery. He refers to the imprisonment of his advocates at the papal curia (we know only about the incarceration of Jan Jesenice) but boldly declares that God assisted them in escaping. Twice, Hus refers to himself using the moniker ‘goose’. More significantly, Hus appears to identify his struggle with the cause of Christ, an association we have encountered elsewhere. At the end of the treatise, Hus refers to the indulgences bull of 1411 promulgated by Pope John XXIII, and characterizes it as an example of the political uses of ecclesiastical censure.17 14 

Hus, Sebrané spisy, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 61. Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, p. 378, says the tract was written after 26 June. 16  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 374–76. 17  Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 213–15. 15 

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Hus asserts that churchmen were forced by the pope to engage in bell, book, and candle against King Ladislas under threat of anathema, fine, and loss of their livings. Throughout, Hus refers to being under a papal anathema (no fewer than seven times) and says he has covered the walls of Bethlehem Chapel with writings concerning the anathema. He defines heresy in terms of contumacy.18 As already noted, what stirred Hus most profoundly was that the ‘priest cookmaster’ ostensibly said Hus was worse than any devil (‘horší než který ďábel’). Hus took exception to this and refers no less than twenty-five times to the phrase in arguing against its accuracy. The priest in the kitchen clearly had scored with that accusation. One of Hus’s arguments for why he cannot be worse than any devil is that is he not yet fifty years old, hence he has not had as much opportunity to engage in wickedness as demons. This helps to establish a frame for Hus’s birth, which must be later than 1364. Significant also are statements which suggest a martyr’s consciousness. The first is Hus’s resolve to die a cruel death rather than violate the law of God. The second is the declaration that there is nothing more praiseworthy than to die voluntarily for the law of God. Consistent with his sermons and other writings, Hus did not miss this opportunity to once again draw attention to the misdeeds of the priests: fornication, simony, failure to perform the acts of office, greed, devoting time to secular pursuits, and various other less salutary activities. He also asserts that the pope collects a gold coin from every prostitute in Rome. He admits he is disobedient to the pope but reveals the cause of his discontent by pointing out that the pope has no interest in truth. He refers to the pope as his enemy. He assumes that one day he will be captured and brought before the pontiff. The content of this energetic treatise is a defence against a particular kind of priest who engages in what Hus considers a notorious habit. Rather than working as a priest in a normal medieval religious setting, this priest has sought out work, likely more profitable, as the steward or master of a kitchen, in this case with a lord named Ctibor, probably the aforementioned Ctibor of Kozí.19 This seems to have been a common practice among many priests, especially in rural areas in Bohemia and elsewhere in late medieval Europe. This trend may be credited to the numbers of men seeking ordination to the priesthood. Between 1395 and 1416, more than six hundred candidates were presented for lower 18 

Elsewhere Hus said that contumacy was heresy. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 616. 19  Very likely his protector for the duration of the time he spent in exile at Kozí Hrádek and brother of the now-deceased Jan of Kozí. Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, ii, 334–35; and Bartoš, ‘Příspěvky k dějinám Václava IV’, pp. 104–05.

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orders in the archdiocese of Prague. 20 In what may be Hus’s earliest extant letter, the addressee is an anonymous ‘priest-judge’ who has taken up secular employment against the advice of Hus.21 Hus tells the ‘priest cookmaster’ that he has sinned in taking up secular occupation and that the man who hired him has also sinned. Evidently, Hus suggests there has been a larger movement in Bohemia to attract priests away from the spiritual calling to engage in secular occupations. This trend only confirms Hus’s suspicion that many clerics are corrupt.22 Hus uses a hunting analogy as an example of how to escape the fear tactics of the church, gain divine blessing and eternal life. The latter parts of the treatise provide useful information for understanding aspects of the legal process at the Curia. Written in Czech, this example of the polemical literature from the Hus corpus utilizes the gospel as confrontation in taking on the stranger priest, who left his holy vocations and became cookmaster, and in so doing positioned himself as an enemy of the gospel.23 Hus considers such clerics ‘fat oxen’ who have grown too lazy to work in the kingdom of God. Their end will be precipitous: ‘worms will eat their bodies and devils will seize their souls’. 24 In Prague Castle in the Cathedral of St Vitus appears a full-figure sandstone corbel on the north portal of the St Wenceslas Chapel. The carving dates to the 1370s. The corbel is a fearsome wild-eyed demon who seizes Judas Iscariot from behind and, with obvious violence, seizes his soul. This theologically inspired event is depicted by the demon tearing Judas’s tongue from his mouth. Since the carving was in place at the time Hus was in Prague, it is possible, though ultimately unprovable, that the image may have influenced him. As early as 1404, Hus had begun his campaign against irregularities and corruption in the priesthood. Expounding on the theme of ‘casting off the works of darkness’, Hus attacked those clerics who were so worldly their lives neither exemplified Christ nor were compatible with the gospel.25 A second sermon, in that same year, may have been preached by Hus before the Prague synod. 20 

Liber ordinationum cleri 1395–1416, ed. by Podlaha, p. x. Undated letter in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 1–2. 22  Commentary on I Corinthians, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, ii, 138. 23  The best edition of Hus’s text is Hus, Drobné spisy české, ed. by Molnár. 24  Sermon for Easter VI, Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 246–47. 25  Hus, Sebrané spisy, ed. by Flajšhans, i, 181–92. Flajšhans notes the sermon was delivered on 5 December 1404 in the archiepiscopal courtyard in the presence of a large number of priests and other guests. 21 

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It is the kind of summary indictment which Hus maintained until his death. The preacher asserted that many of the priests were stained with more shameful carousing and drunkenness than the laity. He claimed they tottered to the pubs with the aid of walking sticks, while lay people made their way to the altars. When the clerics returned, they could hardly walk, much less speak, being so drunk. At parties they misbehaved and gorged themselves on rich food and wine. Beyond this, there was evidence of fleshly lust, unwholesome interaction with women, and shameless sexual conversations. Later on, these same priests engage in leisure, games, shopping, and other ventures, to the neglect of Vespers, the canonical hours, and other duties. Even in the holy precincts during the solemnity of the Mass, there is inappropriate talking, arrogance, and greed exhibited in the choir stalls and throughout the church. When the priests do speak, they intone nonsense and gibberish. All of this is a stumbling block to the hearts of the simple laity.26 There is no reason to doubt the allegations against the Prague priests. In 1429, a provincial synod at Paris enacted a series of forty-one canons addressing similar concerns.27 Turning to the text of Hus’s answer to the priest in the kitchen, Hus tells us that he wrote these books against a priest who advanced the argument that the reformer should be considered worse than any devil. Hus immediately goes on the offensive, attacking the credibility of his accuser. ‘This man, abandoning the priesthood, was a chef with a master’. Hus declares that by using the principles of scripture he intends to demonstrate that the worst man is better than a devil. This subverts the thesis of the cookmaster’s polemic and also calls into question his legitimation in attacking Hus. ‘I, Master Jan Hus, have written this not to give this writing to the one who told me that I am worse than any devil, but to answer him and to enlighten him.’28 Hus suggests that Lord Ctibor would do well to retain the treatise. Here Hus suggests the priest in the kitchen is likely to suppress the work, thus rendering its effect null, and the truth would languish. Should this occur, falsehood would prevail. Hus had spent his priestly career to date in defence of truth and, though in exile, remained ever the defender of God’s law while developing a theology of truth. 26  Sermon to the Prague synod before the clergy on the words of Christ in John 15: ‘you shall be my witnesses’. Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, ii, 35–39. Attributed to Hus here and elsewhere, there is some manuscript evidence suggesting the sermon may have been preached by Stanislav of Znojmo. The themes are nevertheless consistent with the reforms of Jan Hus. See Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, i, 152. 27  von Hefele and Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vii.1, 650. 28  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 312.

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If the gospel is the good news of Christ and the truth of God for humankind, Hus characterizes the entire thesis of the cookmaster as contrary to these principles. Hus writes that his opponent has argued that he had been expelled from certain regions. Hus declares such rumours are false. The cookmaster is challenged on the basis of scripture which say that only truthfulness should be spoken. Hus counters with the claim that the priest cookmaster should know he is very much in demand throughout the regions in south Bohemia, where he has been preaching. This includes towns, villages, open fields, castles, and in those settlements around those castles, as well as in the forest under the linden trees near the castle of Kozí Hradec, where Hus had lived for close to a year and a half. His presence attracted loyal friends, especially Anežka Mochov, the wife of Jan Kaminence of Ústí, who was especially devoted to Hus, along with a community of noblewomen, and people in great numbers came to hear Hus preach and celebrate Mass.29 There are witnesses to Hus’s activities and their effects. One example comes from an anonymous pamphleteer in the second half of the fifteenth century: In the year of our Lord 1413 [sic], Master Jan Hus was denounced and driven from Prague. He celebrated Mass and preached in a barn in Kozí Hrádek. Many people from Ústí attended his Masses because he preached against the pope, bishops, and canons. He censured the spiritual order all the time.30

Our author may have been Prokop the Notary (c. 1390–1483). A hostile source in 1417 denounced the character and influence of Anežka Mochov. She is described as an ‘ignoble woman’, a ‘cruel witch’, a ‘fierce Jezebel’, a ‘treacherous little old woman’, and a worshipper of demons who encourages many to follow the ways of Hus. This ‘poor wretched woman’ will be punished by demons for all eternity.31 Hus argues that he proclaimed the truth of God to all of his hearers and only then departed to other places in order to preach there also and proclaim the truth. He goes on to inform the priest in the kitchen that, if God permits, 29 

See comment in Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, ii, 295 and 334–35. Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 157. Svejkovský discusses these verses in some detail including speculation on dating and authorship with reference to the relevant historiography, noting Palacký applied the designations ‘beginnings of Hussitism’ and ‘concerning the Táborite sect’ on pp. 40–43. 31  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 697. There is a good summary of Anežka’s activities in Klassen, ‘Women and Religious Reform’. On dating and authorship of the text see Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution, p. 247. 30 

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he intends to go to even more areas. Hus invokes the example and words of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. When efforts were made to prevent Jesus from going elsewhere, Christ announced he had to preach about the kingdom of God in other towns as well. Hus writes that, should he be expelled from any area, he would not be defeated, for Christ had told his disciples, ‘if they persecute you in one town, run away to another one’. So Hus takes heart in the fact that Christ was persecuted and in some cases was the target of attempted murder. Hus refers to the dramatic scene in Luke 4. Christ escaped. But later, Hus notes, they led him, together with convicted felons, out of Jerusalem and crucified him. Religious authorities, lawyers, priests, and soldiers blasphemed and ridiculed him: ‘Would it be any wonder if I, a sinner, should also be chased away from a town or region?’.32 Hus argues this is the expected pattern of persecution against reformers. This happened to Christ as well as to the apostles. Indeed, the true followers of Christ rejoice in their sufferings for the name of Jesus. Hus gladly joins himself to that noble army of apostles and martyrs. ‘I and all the servants of God should be pleased also by persecution of Christ and the apostles, and they should bear vituperation, persecution, beating, and torturing to death’.33 Priests who do not reflect Christ in their lives and conduct cannot be considered representative of Christ. Instead, they are ministers of Antichrist.34 Hus tells the priest in the kitchen that servants are not greater than lords and disciples are not superior to their masters. If they called the landlord Beelzebub, then it should be expected that his disciples would also be denounced in the same vociferous manner. Now ‘the priest cookmaster has called me worse than any devil and much worse than Beelzebub’. Hus retorts that the ex-priest is full of the devil himself. The whole argument set forth by his adversary, Hus insists, is exaggerated by the nonsensical claim ‘that Hus is worse than any devil’. Hus offers some firm advice to his opponent: What the priest cookmaster needs to do is abandon his job as a chef, live like a true priest, abandon heresy, repent of his sins, and love me as his fellow man, so that when he dies he may reside with God. May his holy grace grant this to him. Amen.35

32 

Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, pp. 312–13. Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 313. 34  Commentary on I Corinthians, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, ii, 147–48. 35  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 313. 33 

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It is specious, Hus argues, to assume holy orders makes one automatically superior. Elsewhere he dismisses the argument advanced by a preacher in Plzeň in western Bohemia, who claimed even the worst priest was better than the best layperson.36 Dealing with the cookmaster, despite the confrontation and polemical tone, it is still easy to detect the voice of a priest concerned with the cure of souls and the restitution of all things. Pious wishes said, Hus challenges his detractor to prove his case. Hus wonders about motivation: Dear brother, you let me know that I am worse than any devil, because I am under the anathema of the pope and of more than one hundred bishops. After appealing to the pope, I did not stand before him. Dear brother, first you should know that, if you profess that I am worse than any devil, you profess heresy and you are a heretic.37

However, Hus concedes that, if the priest in the kitchen made his statement out of ignorance or simply because he is a ‘hothead’ and susceptible to ‘lunatic exasperation’, then he would not be a heretic as such, but would still be guilty of mortal sin. Such allegations are contrary to scripture and against the commandment of God. Therefore, the priest cookmaster is an enemy of the gospel. Hus wonders what the ex-priest intends to do about it. Convinced of his righteous commitment to the law of God, and in dedication to the reform of the church, Hus finds the allegation of being worse than any demon unacceptable. He tells the ex-priest, ‘if you inflexibly profess that I am worse than any devil, then you profess heresy and you are a heretic’. The repetition underscores a central thesis. Hus’s reasoning follows that a heretic is the sort of person who professes a point of view contrary to scripture, maintains that opinion contumaciously, and refuses to concede even when presented with more cogent argument. Hus then offers a protracted argument from scripture to rebut the presumption that he is worse than any devil. God tells the snake in the Genesis narrative that, because Eve was deceived through his wiles, the serpent is thereby ‘confounded more than any other living thing’. That excludes Hus. In the book of Job, the devil is presented as the most powerful in all evil things, and ‘because he is the most powerful in evil things and a king over all sons of pride, how could I or any other person possibly be worse than him or than any devil from hell?’. Death entered the world through the devil. ‘Now, 36  Contra predicatorem Plznensem in Hus, Opera omnia, ed. by Ryšánek, xxii, 111 written at an indeterminate date while in exile between 1412 and 1414. 37  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 313.

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the scriptures say that, because of envy of the devil, death entered the world, but not because of envy of Jan called Hus’. Hus points out that Christ denounced the religious authorities as being of the devil, who was a murderer from the very beginning and did not stand on the side of the truth. Since Hus has not existed from the beginning, he cannot be worse than any devil. Sheer logic refutes the allegation of the kitchen master. Because the devil is the father of such wicked priests, who perpetrate evil things and killed the innocent Lord Jesus by a cruel and horrible death, the godless sons are not worse than the devil, so how could Hus himself be worse than any devil? Even in his refutation, Hus expresses hope in God with the declaration that he is ‘prepared to die a cruel death rather than break the commandment of Christ who was tortured to death’.38 Once again we see the motivation of martyrdom. Turning to the unpardonable sin, the offence of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3. 28–30), Hus adopts Augustine’s explanation that the unpardonable sin is that transgression which is never confessed, because the sinner refuses to do so in this life and is unable to do so in the next. So Hus inquires of the ex-priest: Therefore, dear brother, because the devil can not be forgiven his sins, because he can not repent any longer, and God has already sentenced him, and I, as you can not deny, can still repent, though I am, as you say, very bad, how then could I be worse than any devil?

Positing a strange mathematical formula, Hus argues that the devil was expelled from heaven on account of sin more than 600,000 years ago. But Hus points out that it has been less than fifty years since his baptism, ‘because I am not yet fifty years old’, pointing out that his sins, however grievous, cannot be as extensive as those of the devil’s. Hus juxtaposes his ministry and the devil’s agenda: Hus wishes for people to be saved, the devil desires damnation for all. The devil would like everyone to sin as much as possible, Hus desires all people to avoid sin as much as possible. Hus says he wishes that all priests would preach the word of God and live properly. Alternatively, the devil wants every priest to live wickedly and refrain from preaching. To further this desire, the devil leads the priesthood into fornication, into the practice of simony, and into the systemic failure to perform properly their clerical duties. Under this influence, they abandon preaching, praying, celebrating Mass, and other spiritual duties. They meddle with the offices of secular people and they occupy almost all offices 38 

Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 314.

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wherein they detect monetary profit. 39 Such men are religious mercenaries who enter the church seeking personal gain, unconcerned with the things of Christ.40 In this day and time, Hus points out that many of the ruling nobility (purkrabie) were former priests; there are priests at the register of the country, priests serving as judges, priests who are managers of real estate, priests working in kitchens, priests employed as scribes, and, if functioning as a bailiff was an occupation commanding a decent salary and was not too awful or required too much work, Hus writes sarcastically, then priests would also be working as bailiffs. ‘Unfortunately’, Hus writes, ‘the pope collects one gold coin from each loose woman of which are many hundreds in his town. Now, my brother, I did not bring these sins to the people, but the devil did’.41 Consistent with the preaching of reform, Hus reminds his adversary that Christ emphasized the priority of the kingdom of God, not worldly accoutrements. Those who forsake their holy calling and turn aside to secular pursuits in the interest of power and money are enemies of the gospel. Hus indicts the ex-priest cookmaster with his argument. Elsewhere he had written that unworthy priests were more concerned with animals and money than the cure of souls.42 The themes of this polemic shed further light on Hus’s self-identification as a moral reformer and underscore the driving motivation of his life. The greatest issue, so far as Hus is concerned, lies with the deplorable condition into which the priesthood has fallen. This was not simply a topic for academic discussion. Hus raised the matter in his preaching. In a sermon for the second Sunday in Advent, Hus poured on an acerbic critique of his priestly colleagues. The priests are evil. They fail to warn their hearers of impending judgement. They obscure the truth to the extent they talk more about the pope than Christ. They place greater emphasis on papal policy than on the law of Christ. Many faithful priests suffer oppression in Bohemia, Moravia, Meißen, England, and elsewhere. Good priests are murdered, tortured, and abused. There is no point lodging an appeal with Rome, Hus preaches, because that would only be to petition the place of greatest depravity, where Antichrist resides surrounded by pride, greed, simony, and fornication. It is from Rome itself, Hus declares, that simony and greed have poured into Bohemia. Hus points out that a bishopric might be bought or sold for an even higher price than the estate of a 39 

Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, pp. 315–16. Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, p. 162. 41  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 316. 42  Hus, O svatokupectví, p. 213. 40 

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baron. People are afraid to confess truth in the face of such error. God’s truth is slandered, those who hold to it are ridiculed as heretics, the laity are greatly confused. There is much raging and communities are tossed to and fro as if on a stormy sea. When opposition to such wickedness is raised, those fostering a Christian spirit are hated and despised. Interdict is proclaimed in order to curtail proper worship. Hus says this device was levelled against Prague because the order to prohibit preaching was not followed and the higher churchmen feared the effects of priests like Hus, who were informing the laity about the scandals and perversions which existed within the church. Hus tells his hearers that he has written of these matters in his books, and it is his considered opinion that such wickedness constitutes the most difficult and unacceptable for the true Christian to bear. However, nothing should prevent the faithful preacher from declaring the truth, including the imposition of false and illegitimate interdict or even the threat of death.43 Hus considers the repression brought against the reform initiative to be insufferable. In a sermon he declares that, should one draw attention to irregularities in the priesthood, that person is considered a ‘slanderer of the sacred priesthood’, or a ‘disturber of the holy church’, or a ‘heretic’, and in any event must be suppressed.44 Hus garnered supporters willing to accept the call. Reform morphed into revolt. Prokop the Notary pointed out that King Václav wanted to intervene and put an end to certain outcomes of Hus’s reform but he was unable. His efforts were too late, for the spark had already become coal and all was now in flames.45 Hus uses the opportunity in answering the charges advanced by the cookmaster to once again promote aspects of his reform ideas. The ex-priest has passed judgement and condemnation, which Hus considers a violation of the dominical injunctions in the Gospel of Matthew. The priest in the kitchen accuses Hus of inappropriate conduct, the proverbial speck in the eye of another person, but cannot appreciate the log in his own eye impairing his own vision: Therefore, dear brother, because you are judging me and you have condemned me as worse than any devil because I do not obey the pope, and because I am serving while under his anathema, you should realize that you could be under the greater anathema of God because […], while being a priest, you meddle with secular office, which is inappropriate for a priest.46 43 

Sermon for Advent II, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 66–71. Sermon for Easter II, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 223. 45  Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 157. 46  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, pp. 316–17. 44 

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There are serious implications to such behaviour. Hus wants to know how the cookmaster can possibly be qualified for the kingdom of God. Wicked priests were unworthy. Those who dare perform the functions of the holy office do so to their own damnation.47 Referring to ecclesiastical reform, Hus points out that Christ did not say to priests: ‘Go, become sub-chamberlains, burgraves, judges, chefs, or kitchen scribes’. Instead, Christ gave an altogether different directive: ‘Go and preach the gospel to all beings […], go and teach people everything I have commanded to you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’. Hus accuses his opponent of having abandoned this commandment in taking an office inappropriate for one under holy orders, which amounts to breaking the commandment of God and placing oneself under the anathema of God. Hus claims the attack by the priest cookmaster is a contradiction: You are judging me because I do not obey the pope, but you are not judging yourself because you do not obey God. You vituperate me and condemn me as worse than any devil, while you have abandoned the priesthood and have meddled with secular office, which is inappropriate for a priest. Even the simplest illiterate people, to whom God gave understanding, confirm this.

Hus insists he cannot obey and already publicly explained why: Somebody will say: ‘Nevertheless you, Hus, do not wish to be subject to your prelates. You do not listen to your elders, or the archbishop’. I answer, ‘I want to be Balaam’s ass’. The prelates of Balaam oppose me, being well pleased contrary to the precept of the Lord, wanting to force me so that I may not preach. I will suppress their dark desires and I will not pay any attention to them. In all things lawful and honest for God’s sake I want to be subject, because the angel of the Lord prevents me doing otherwise […]. I wish to obey God.48

Hus claims he is not bothered by the ex-priest’s ‘slandering, vilifying, judging and condemnations’. It neither makes him sad, nor has he lost sleep over it, but instead finds it all rather amusing. 49 That last comment is questionable. Hus expresses repeated chagrin at being called worse than all demons. It recalls the accusation made by Štěpán Páleč that no greater heretic, save John Wyclif,

47 

Hus, Contra Palecz, p. 238. Sermon of 20 December 1410 in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, ii, 102. 49  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, pp. 317–18. 48 

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had ever disturbed the church except Hus.50 Or the parallel charge levelled by Michael de Causis that the persecution of faithful Christians has never been worse at any time in the previous thousand years than on account of the harm caused by Jan Hus.51 However, Hus stresses the words of Jesus, who said, ‘how blessed are you when people curse you and say evil things about you’. Turning to his detractor Hus asked: What will you say then, brother, when the Lord God will announce to all the world that I am not worse than Lucifer, who is the beginning of all sins, head, king, master, prince, and god of all his lovers? Certainly, if you do not repent of this lunatic speaking, you will experience great defamation on the day of judgement. But if I bear it with pleasure, I will receive blessing; and you, because you now have anger in your soul against me, will experience both shame and eternal damnation. May our gracious God save you from this.52

Once again, Hus positions himself as a defender of the law of God against the enemies of the gospel. But his sincere tone of pastoral care is not obscured by polemical language. The enemies of the gospel are those who impede the advance of the kingdom of God through sin. In his Postil, Hus wonders how the wicked will give account for their lack of discipline, slander, treachery, lies, lechery, and anger.53 Hus implores the cookmaster as well as Lord Ctibor to abandon the sin they have perpetrated: What good will it mean for your master if he thinks that you will save him a lot of properties? And what good will it mean for you if you make money or if you come up to a small church while working for him, when both of you cause harm to your soul? He is wrong by employing you, and you are wrong by serving him.54

One can only wonder if perhaps this arrangement contributed to Hus leaving Kozí Hrádek. Perhaps Hus relocated in protest of the policy and practice of Ctibor. We cannot know for certain. However, Hus asserts it is treasonous for a prince or secular master to remove a priest from the work of the kingdom of God and from the care and the cure of souls. If a secular lord has qualms about 50 

Letters of late January, early March, 9 June and 22 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 245, 252, 264–65, and 298. 51  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 198. 52  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 318. 53  Sermon for Trinity XXII, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 425. 54  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 318.

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another authority interfering with his servants or employees, Hus advances the parallel how much more would God be troubled by worldly masters who solicit priests into secular occupations. God has ordained that the priesthood should not exercise political power in terms of ruling authority, legal judgement, and punishment. It is quite inappropriate for priests to abandon preaching and the service to God in order to look after villages, livestock, and kitchens: ‘How then can they be faithful servants of God?’. Beyond this, Hus accuses the Czech priesthood of often living in open fornication, practising concubinage, and keeping women in their rectories openly, all the while lying and hypocritically presenting them as sisters.55 Hus claims that monks, priests, and even prelates took meals at table in front of pictures of women displaying their breasts.56 These same sexually immoral fellows used parishioners’ money given to the church to pay whores.57 Jan Hus numbered all of them among the enemies of the gospel. Even defenders of the official church admitted Hus had a point: Among the clergy there was no discipline whatever. In the papal curia there was public simony. In the monastic state, if I may use the term, there was endless greed. In the end there was no vice among the laity which the clergy had not practised first and more notoriously. There is nothing else to say except that which the holy church reads and sings: ‘everything you have done to us, Lord, you have done in righteous judgement because we have sinned against you and have not obeyed your commandments’.58

So far as Hus is concerned, reform of the church has been imperilled because too many priests care about getting rich, but the Lord God will reward them for such evil, which has been carried out over a long period of time. Judas was a thief who stole what belonged to Christ and the poor. Secular masters steal from God when they employ priests. Both parties in such arrangements are unfaithful to Christ and become enemies of the gospel. Hus argues that secular occupations and the priesthood should not be mingled. ‘Priests should only serve altars and offerings and should occupy themselves with begging and prayers’.59 Priests who are faithful Christians and followers of Christ must preach relent55 

Hus, O svatokupectví, pp. 240–41. For the larger context of discussion see his Výklad desatero, chap. 36, in Hus, Opera omnia, ed. by Ryšánek, i, pp. 143–52. 57  Hus, O svatokupectví, p. 203. 58  Ondřej of Brod writing in 1426 in the so-called Tractatus de origine Hussitarum, in Traktát Mistra Ondřeje Brodu, ed. by Kadlec, pp. 28–29. 59  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 320. 56 

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lessly and vigorously.60 Advancing the decree of Pope Eugenius III (1145–53), Hus says that corruption in the faith began when priests started to assume secular power and responsibility.61 Therefore the cookmaster is in direct violation of God’s will. Early Christian texts exhort the priests to reject all worldly occupations. St Peter told Clement he was sinning by being unfaithful, because he had neglected the word of God, being preoccupied with secular matters.62 Amedeo Molnár points out that at this stage Hus has appropriated a complex argument from canon law.63 Hus acquits himself of the charge of being worse than any devil or fiend mainly on account of the fact that his adversary stands under condemnation for having forsaken the holy calling of God. Hus finds no validity in the argument of the cookmaster with respect to the formal aggravated excommunication declared against him in 1412 by Cardinal Peter degli Stephaneschi stemming from his refusal to appear at the Curia.64 He also dismisses the allegation advanced by the priest in the kitchen that more than one hundred bishops had execrated him. Hus challenges the cookmaster to the effect that such a charge was specious, commenting that he did not suppose the ex-priest could prove such an outrageous allegation if he had the rest of his life to work on it. Hus wonders how his adversary could possibly know that he has been cursed by one hundred bishops as a result of the major excommunication announced in Prague by Cardinal Stephaneschi: ‘Where did you find one hundred bishops?’. Hus says he is unmoved, declaring that, even if a thousand bishops could be found to condemn him because he refused to stop preaching and thereby abandon the truth of God, such denunciations caused little harm and he was willing to endure the condemnation which God would only turn into blessing.65 Hus’s response to the cookmaster does not deviate from his earlier proclamations. Christ was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness in order to set an example. The retreat to the desert implies prayer, preparation for defeating the devil, repentance, resisting temptation, and detachment from the ‘wild rat race [běhóv] of the world’.66 Alas, Hus bewails that quite the opposite prevails in Prague. Preaching on the parable of the tares, Hus refers to the pub60 

Sermon for Epiphany VII, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 110–11. X 3.50.2 Sacerdotibus autem, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, ii, col. 658. 62  C.11 q.1 c.29 Te quidem oportet, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, col. 634. 63  Hus, Opera omnia, ed. by Ryšánek, iv, 463. 64  The text appears in Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 461–64. 65  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 320. 66  Sermon for Lent I, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 141. 61 

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lic burning of Wyclif ’s books, efforts to prevent preaching, publication of the bull authorizing the sale of indulgences, the martyrdom of three young men who protested such abuses, characterizing such events as modern examples of sowing tares. He couples this with the wickedness of simony, pride, covetousness, and sexual immorality, concluding that such things constitute sins against Christ.67 The motivation of ethics and moral reform is again evident. Having systematically addressed the central theme of the cookmaster’s attack, Hus provides a valuable summary of his own legal process up to that time. The narrative is sufficiently important to merit extended summary, and it is telling that Hus links his efforts for moral reform with legal prosecution. Hus acknowledges that he appealed to Pope Alexander V who, succumbing to bribery, issued a bull in which he ordered that the word of God should not be preached anywhere, save in vicarages and monasteries, but not in any chapels, unless they had been especially approved by an archbishop or pope. Hus said the prohibition was heretical and contrary to God, who called for preaching everywhere. It has been suggested that Hus treated the bull with contempt. 68 The directive also was adverse to the practice of Christ, who taught by example, preaching in houses, on streets, in villages, in towns, in castles, in the desert, and on water, as the scripture witnesses. Four years earlier, Hus had addressed this matter in a sermon wherein he concluded that, since Christ has preached out-of-doors, it was proper to proclaim the gospel wherever people gathered.69 Hus also outlined the rationale behind his disobedience in his large book on the church written in exile.70 Hus declares his allegiance is to God, rather than church authorities, and for this reason appealed to the pope by sending him a letter, in order to provide better and more relevant information in hopes that the pontiff would not commit heresy against the holy scriptures.71 After all, it was only the ‘disciples of Antichrist’ who wished to keep the word of 67 

Sermon for Epiphany VII, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 114–16. Liber diurnus de gestis Bohemorum in Concilio Basileensi, in Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi Decimi Quinti, ed. by Palacký, i, 311, says Hus arranged for Alexander’s bull to be tied to the tail of a horse and dragged through the streets of Prague. 69  The sermon text appears in Sedlák, M. Jan Hus, pp. 159*–64*. 70  Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, pp. 164–65. 71  On 25 June 1410 Hus appealed the prohibition by Alexander to stop preaching. Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 387–96. In this appeal Hus protests against the seizure of Wyclif ’s books, the threat of burning them, claims the papal bull of 20 December by Alexander V was extracted by dishonest means, and is erroneous in that it assumes Bohemia is filled with heresy, etc. 68 

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God from faithful people. 72 But before the appeal reached the Curia, Pope Alexander died. Hus laments that, had Alexander been informed properly and in a timely fashion, doubtlessly he would have issued a corrective. Nevertheless, Hus announced from the pulpit of Bethlehem Chapel that the pope’s bull was irrelevant: God has ordered us to preach the word of God in the whole world, in all places even in the streets. Pope Alexander, who is dead, and our own prelates urged there be no preaching in the chapel. They are the adversaries of scripture, and should not be listened to, for they are false witnesses […]. It is better to obey God rather than men […]. Because God has ordered preaching everywhere, and I wish to be a faithful Christian, I must obey. Therefore, I will not stop preaching until death.73

Hus then refers to the dispute with ‘Archbishop Zbyněk of blessed memory’. Pope John XXIII did not grant Hus a hearing, even though he was advised that it was proper to do so and custom dictated that hearings ought to be granted even to heathens, Jews, heretics, or even to the devil should he request an audience. But Pope John turned his face away from the Hus case and gave orders to the cardinals to look after it, thus revealing himself to be an enemy of the gospel. However, the cardinals were also not interested in justice or the gospel, proving themselves unequal to the task. They were amenable to bribery and received gifts of fine horses, silver cups, and expensive rings from Hus’s enemies and professed adversaries, and in this manner did not fulfil their righteous calling. So the pope gave orders to others and the same thing happened. At length, Pope John decided he would judge the case himself, since he saw that everyone else had benefitted from the legal matter except him. Another call was made for a hearing, but John was reluctant to grant one because Hus did not engage in bribery or send money to the Curia.74 Hus complains that his legal representatives were imprisoned unjustly, on account of the unethical conduct of Michael de Causis, but God helped them to escape from the clutches of Pope John.

72 

Sermon for Lent I, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 147. Sermon of 23  April 1411 in Hus, Sermones in Capella Bethlehem, ed. by Flajšhans, iv, 70–71. 74  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 321, Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 571, Jan Jesenice, Repetitio pro defensione causae M. Ioannis Hus, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 418; and Štěpán Páleč, Antihus in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, p. 376. 73 

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After the death of Archbishop Zbyněk in the autumn of 1411, Hus’s enemies instigated negotiations with Cardinal Peter, who issued an anathema against Hus. Once this happened, Hus found himself in an unsolvable conundrum. His words to the priest in the kitchen explicate his thinking most adroitly at this stage: Seeing that the truth of God has no place with the pope, I appealed with my cause to the Lord God. Because to appeal means to ask for help from a greater judge. And because the Lord God is the greatest judge and the most just one who cannot err, I have entrusted the cause, I am not saying mine but his, to him. And therefore I did not stand before the pope because he does not hear the truth.75

Opposed to the truth and acting in opposition to the gospel, the pope had righteous men arrested and Hus’s representatives thrown into prison. He robbed Stanislav of Znojmo and Štěpán Páleč by taking from them two hundred and seven gold coins and horses. Hus goes further in his condemnation of Curial authorities. ‘I did not stand before the pope because I am conducting my cause against the pope, and I know that the pope will not sentence himself ’.76 Rather than hearing the cause of Jan Hus, Pope John XXIII issued a crusade bull against the King of Naples. Hus withstood this papal initiative and ‘stood up to his cheats who arrived [in Prague] with the bulls to rob people’. So far as Hus was concerned, he was giving preference to the cause of God. The will of wicked priests should be resisted always in deference to Christ.77 He did not wish to waste his life and to deprive the people of Prague from hearing the word of God, so he refused to go to the papal court. Beyond this, he tells the priest in the kitchen he was reluctant to spend the money of other people in vain. Hus considered it wiser to adhere to the will of God and to uphold the dictates of his calling and of scripture and withstand the devil and Antichrist. Hus appeals to the example of Christ, who, avoiding death, did not stand at the court before Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, until he had been arrested. Moreover, Hus points out that his enemy, the pope, was a great distance from Prague. Hus supposes that papal emissaries in due course will capture him and bring him before the pope. When this happens, Hus declares he will say the same thing as Christ when interrogated: ‘Ask those who have listened to my preaching. I have spoken publicly; I preached nothing surreptitiously’. Hus writes that, should it be the will of God that he be killed, he will not object. There is nothing more praise75 

Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 321. Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 321. 77  Sermon for Lent I, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 147. 76 

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worthy than to die voluntarily for the law of God.78 Again we catch a glimpse of his desire for martyrdom and of the central motivating impulse in his life. Hus then turns his attention to the censures against him, which had been secured through the efforts of men like Michael de Causis. ‘I should also write about the anathema, by which you are vilifying me, but it would take too long, and I have covered the walls of Bethlehem [Chapel] by writing about it’.79 But Hus does say that such an anathema by a superior causes no harm to any one who falls under its provisions, if he has no mortal sin and bears it willingly. Citing the admonitions of Sts Peter and Gregory as well as Christ, Hus sets forth his opinion of such penalties, noting that when one is cursed the ban can be a blessing. In other words, people should understand that an anathema proclaimed against one who is not in a state of mortal sin really means blessing and eternal life. Unscrupulous priests use such threats to cause fear among the faithful in order to advance their own nefarious agendas. Already Hus had inveighed against the political uses of ecclesiastical censure. He had written that, when inappropriate excommunications were used, they should neither be enforced nor adhered to by the faithful.80 Doubtlessly, Hus had in mind the work of his colleague Friedrich Eppinge, who the previous year had written a systematic examination of practically every aspect of an unjust excommunication.81 Advancing an argument based on canon law, Eppinge drew sharp distinctions between various forms of ecclesiastical censure, he underscored the caution a judge must exercise in proceeding to a writ of excommunication, and he went to some lengths to discuss the purpose behind the sanction. Controversially, Eppinge declared there could be no legitimate excommunication apart from the commission of mortal sin wherein repentance was refused and the perpetrator remained in a state of contumacy. Even this was not solid grounds, according to Eppinge, for the penalty of excommunication could only be valid if it was applied as a result of the sinner having already been sanctioned by God. This line of argument raised pertinent questions about the jurisdictional authority 78 

Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 133–35. Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 322. The reference is to the placing of parts of his De sex erroribus on the chapel walls calling attention to what he considered egregious errors. The Latin and Czech texts have been edited in Betlemské texty, ed. by Ryba, pp. 39–103. 80  Hus, De sex erroribus, ed. by Ryba, p. 50. 81  Chronicle of Prokop the Notary, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 26; Praha, KNM, MS xiv E 2, fols 295r–308v; and Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS C 116, fols 279r–291v. The treatise has been examined in Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 172–76, who notes a number of other manuscripts which I have not looked at. 79 

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of the church in such matters. Nevertheless, the censure of excommunication had no negative effect on the righteous and therefore need not be feared. Baldly put, Eppinge was suggesting that far too many sentences of excommunication were unjust and therefore need not be considered a detriment to the faith. Elements of these arguments can be found in Hus’s polemical literature, and he appears to have utilized the general thrust when writing against the renegade priest who had abandoned holy orders and assumed secular employment. In his answer to the cookmaster, Hus suggested the aforementioned hunting analogy to make his point. There is a common practice with hunters who distract birds with a hawk. The birds think the decoy, a wooden hawk, is real and on that account are afraid to fly off and by consequence are captured by the fowlers. But the goose, even though ‘a stupid bird’, realizes that the hawk is not real and is therefore not deterred by him. The goose flies away and in so doing provides an example to all of the other birds to do likewise.82 The hunting example reflects a motif Hus employed in a letter two years earlier in which he applied the idea to programmes of reform in Prague and the repression brought against efforts to correct abuses in the later medieval church. Ravening wolves cannot permit reform, for it is contrary to their own established and preferred patterns of pride, simony, fornication, and other acts of wicked behaviour. Under threat from the law of God and the example of faithful Christians, Hus refers to the bull proclaimed by Alexander V, which tried to limit preaching. Hus says Christ would not allow such plans to come to fruition. Undeterred, the enemies of the gospel attempted to destroy Bethlehem Chapel, an incident Hus noted elsewhere.83 In concert with these strategies of repression, the godless fowlers spread nets made up of various citations and writs of excommunication for Hus. In this manner, they captured many. The goose, however, escapes and those birds which follow his example tear holes in the net by the purity of their lives. Here we see the positive effect of reform as interpreted by Hus. Christ was condemned by his enemies on account of truth, and God has increased that same truth beyond the single goose, who is not very strong, and now Prague has received eagles and falcons, which are stronger with even keener sight, who, buoyed high by grace, render good and faithful service to Christ.84 Here we might reasonably assume that Hus has in mind his reform 82 

Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 322. Sermon for Lent IV, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 166–67. 84  Letter of November 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 142–46, but especially pp. 145–46. 83 

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colleagues like Jakoubek Stříbro and others. Hus’s stand and example not only brought abuse on his followers, who sometimes had to endure cursing in order to get into Bethlehem Chapel, but later witnesses claim that the preaching of reform galvanized common people. ‘Master Hus began to preach against the pope and against all priests, calling them misers, simoniacs, and fornicators. And the people began to hate the priests.’ 85 Hyperbole notwithstanding, Prokop the Notary’s observation contains merit. On the other hand, a legitimate and holy anathema, proclaimed by God, constitutes separation from God and from all relationship with the saints because of mortal sin. Hus defines mortal sin as a failure to observe the law of God, noting that those who fall into such situations do not love Christ, and those persisting in that fashion eventually will be damned. All mortal sinners remain under the anathema of God and all saints. Wicked priests may well execrate themselves by causing damage to the priesthood through practices like fornication, greed, and other sins. Those who will not accept freedom from the shackles of anathema by the atonement of Christ will be subject to the greatest damnation, proclaimed by the supreme and just bishop, namely the Lord Jesus, when he says to the wicked to depart into the eternal fire. Thus he will separate the wicked from him, from all of the saints and from all eternal consolation. Hus fervently tells the priest in the kitchen that he should pray that almighty God might protect him from such irrevocable anathema. Musing on the matter of ecclesiastical censure, Hus wonders why church officials, bishops, and parish priests are not under greater anathema than he is, but concludes that they obey the pope’s orders, even if they are wicked, while Hus has refused to violate his conscience. Hus cannot endorse blind obedience and finds it unacceptable. ‘I expressly said that priests who did not obey their bishops in lawful commands and spurning them in those things which belong to the law of God, profane, violate, and defile their souls.’86 Conversely, if the commands are unlawful, then faithful priests are duty bound to withstand their ordinary and adhere to the law of God. Hus’s detractor does not make the distinction. According to the priest in the kitchen, Hus’s greatest offence remains his refusal to obey his ordinary and by extension his unwillingness to submit to the commands of the pope. The kitchen master finds it appalling that Hus will not take orders from the Curia. But Hus did not recognize any member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy as a true representative of Christ, if that bishop 85  86 

Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 156. Hus, Contra occultum adversarium, pp. 95–96.

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or pope failed to fulfil proper moral obligations.87 Canon law, especially in the texts comprising Causa 24 of Gratian’s Decretum, mandates that it is the pope’s responsibility to define and defend true religion.88 Hus was not ignorant of this. In an ideal world that premise was valid. However, an even more dire situation has come, Hus writes, on account of the fact that the pope too has become an enemy of the gospel: Now this pope in his bull with a lead seal orders all cardinals, archbishops, patriarchs, bishops, parish priests, and all priests to execrate Ladislas, the king of Naples, ringing bells and extinguishing candles until such time when they are ordered some­ thing else. And they are forced to do it under the threat of anathema, loss of bene­ fice and priesthood, and a fine.89

The matter is intolerable. In severe situations like the one prevailing in fifteenthcentury Bohemia, Jan Hus questioned canon law and the judicial power of the later medieval church. The enemies of the gospel had encroached the body of Christ on earth. The books against the priest cookmaster abruptly end with that sentiment. ‘And this is the end of this writing, which Master Jan Hus has made against the priest cookmaster, who vituperated him in an un-Christian way in the year 1406’ [sic].90 Answering the priest in the kitchen reveals the spirit of Hussite religion, as well as the dimensions of Hus’s insistence on reform, and his opposition to the enemies of the gospel. Perhaps only a year later, he was lauded as a beacon of integrity with the accolade that Jan Hus ‘was himself the glory of kings, the scales of judges, the glory of the peaceful, the lamp of doctrine, the rule of virtue, the razor of vice’.91 If in theory Hus’s main concern was ethics, in practice there can be little doubt it was moral reform: the application of ethics.92 His life was a functional ‘razor of vice’. Did our anonymous priest ‘cookmaster’ pay any heed to the admonitions of Jan Hus? Did he forsake the kitchen and return to the religious life? We have no way of knowing. What we do know is this. 87 

De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 174. Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, cols 965–1006. 89  Hus, Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi, p. 323. 90  As previously noted, the date 1406 is incorrect and the writing of the priest in the kitchen cannot reasonably be assigned to a period other than the first half of 1414. Bartoš, Literární činnost M. Jana Husi, p. 116. 91  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 19. 92  Overview in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 108–16. 88 

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There were religious and social consequences to the reforms proposed by Hus. An expected backlash against the priests, including the divesting of property and wealth, followed. Not a few witnesses supported Prokop the Notary when the latter claimed ‘all of this was caused by the preaching of Master Jan Hus’.93

93 

Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 157.

Chapter Five

Michael de Causis and the Politics of Heresy Hunting

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an Hus considered his work a divinely appointed task. Convinced of this mandate, he pursued his agenda with unswerving devotion. His commitment to ethics and moral reform was conceived by his detractors as an unwarranted attack on the Latin church, its priesthood, and prevailing practices. If Jan Hus was motivated by his understanding of the gospel and thought he was advancing the Kingdom of God, Michael de  Causis considered it his duty to defend the church under siege and expose Hus, the seemingly benign pastor, as a dangerous wolf masquerading as a lamb preying upon the fears and gullibility of simple people. The collision of these motivations resulted in heresy charges and legal proceedings. These events brought Hus to the attention of Christian Europe. The most complete record of Hus’s legal process at the Council of Constance in 1414 and 1415 tells us that, when he was arrested and taken into custody, his enemies Štěpán Páleč and Michael de Causis were overjoyed. ‘They danced around the dining hall, gloating and saying: “Ha, ha, we have him now. He will not get away from us until he has paid in full.”’ 1 We know quite a bit about Štěpán Páleč on account of the fact that he wrote voluminously against Hus, and his treatises have special importance for understanding the charges laid against Hus, as well as various aspects of the reform movement in Prague.2 1 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 39. Among the more important see his Tractatus gloriosus ( June 1412): text in ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung’, ed. by Loserth, pp. 333–39; Replication contra Quidamistas (1412–13): text in ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung’, ed. by 2 

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More than this, several scholars have written insightful interpretations of Páleč, which have served to illuminate his character, motivation, and place in the late medieval history of Bohemia.3 Michael de Causis, on the other hand, has languished in historiographical obscurity. Had he not agitated against Hus, it is unlikely anyone would know his name. The arrest of Jan Hus at Constance brought De Causis to international prominence. On Wednesday, 28 November 1414, around dinner time, four men appeared at the Pfister House in St Paul Street. These were Friedrich, Bishop of Augsburg, George, Bishop of Trent, Hans von Ulm, mayor of Constance, and Frischhans von Bodman, captain of the town guard. The house in which Hus was residing was somewhat dramatically surrounded by the city garrison. The bishops asked Hus to accompany them to the papal palace. Outraged, Lord Jan Chlum rose to his feet, opposed the delegation, and stood his ground to defend Hus. He informed the contingency they must certainly be ignorant of the terms by which Hus had come to Constance and he took it upon himself to enlighten them. Chlum asserted that, while in Friuli in northeastern Italy, Emperor Sigismund had definitively instructed Chlum and his colleague Václav Dubá that Hus had a safe-conduct. On this basis, Chlum informed the group that they were in danger of violating the honour of the emperor. Chlum then told the mayor that even the devil had the right to be fairly heard. Chlum went further and informed the bishops that Sigismund had specifically warned Jan Hus not to enter into any discussion about heresy whatsoever until such time as the emperor himself was present.4 Despite these angry objections, Hus agreed to accompany the delegation without further protest. The arrest of Jan Hus was at the explicit order of Pope John XXIII.5 Hus was taken into the custody of William Challant, Bishop of Lausanne, and held for eight days in the cathedral precentor’s (choir master who was a canon) house. Clearly, the Council considered the matter of Loserth, pp. 344–61, the 42 articles against Hus (December 1414) in Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 204–24. Beyond these, the Sermo contra aliquos articulos Wiklef, in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, pp. 336–53; De aequivocatione nominis ecclesia, in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, pp. 356–63; Antihus, in Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, pp. 366–507; and Tractatus de ecclesia, excerpts in Sedlák, M. Jan Hus, pp. 202*–304*. 3  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 111–31; Miscellanea husitica Ioannis Sedlák, ed. by Klener, pp. 142–207; Nechutová, ‘M. Štěpán von Páleč und die Hus’; and Spunar, Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum, i (1985), pp. 326–40. 4  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 37–38. 5  Von Hefele and Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vii.1 200.

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Jan Hus a continuation or resumption of the Curial legal process and that the previous verdicts of censure handed down by ecclesiastical officials like Zbyněk (Archbishop of Prague), Cardinals Odo Colonna, Rainaldo Brancacci, and Peter degli Stephaneschi remained in effect. Pope John XXIII initially denied any role in the Hus arrest, claiming it had been the unauthorized doing of hostile cardinals. Later he admitted Hus had been arrested upon his orders. 6 The agitation of Štěpán Páleč and Michael de Causis contributed directly to Hus’s arrest, since it appears the cardinals who exercised the initial legal authority were motivated by them.7 Both men had warned the cardinals that Hus should be apprehended and in no case be released on his own recognizance. And so it came to pass that officials came to the house where Hus was living to serve the arrest warrant in order to prevent him from continuing ‘teaching the wicked doctrine of Wyclif ’.8 The case against Hus, which did not begin at Constance but rather culminated there, had been built upon accusations chiefly constructed by Štěpán Páleč and Michael de Causis.9 Jan Hus claimed Štěpán Páleč was his most formidable opponent. 10 We have already seen that Petr of Uničov, a Dominican monk at St Clement’s in Prague, boasted he was Hus’s main enemy.11 This Petr of Uničov appears much earlier than Constance in the historical records. It is altogether possible he should be identified as the Petr Mangold with whom Hus and Páleč studied the Sentences of Peter Lombard as early as 1407.12 This fellow was a member of the Dominican Order and following his studies served as doctor and lector at the Dominican monastery of St Clement’s in Prague. He accused Hus of preaching inflammatory sermons in which he encouraged violence, armed insurrection, and murder, including the killing of one’s own parents.13 His perspective on Hus and his followers may be regarded as entirely negative.14 Jakoubek Stříbro 6 

Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, ii, col. 255. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 37. 8  Journal of Giacomo Cerretano, in Acta concilii Constanciensis, ed. by Finke, ii, 188–89. 9  Anonymous fragment of a journal written by a supporter of Hus, Rajhrad, Benedictine Monastery library MS, printed in ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung’, ed. by Loserth, p. 373. 10  Letter dated 3 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 237. 11  Letter of 23 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 300; and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 41. 12  See Bartoš, ‘Hus a jeho učitelé a kolegové’; and Tříška, Životopisný slovník předhusitské, p. 454. 13  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 39–40. 14  There is a summary in Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution, p. 238. 7 

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tried to straighten Petr out in a persuasive argument nominated specifically for the information or instruction of the monk Petr, but all to no avail.15 While at Constance he got into a heated altercation with one of Hus’s supporters on the Preachers’ Bridge. Štěpán Páleč happened along and could not resist interfering and the argument escalated. Hus’s defender suggested the scriptures supported Hus while Páleč (and presumably Petr of Uničov) declared the Bible opposed Hus. Absolutely furious at the provocation, the two abruptly took their leave uttering dire threats against Hus.16 Following the Hus trial at Constance, Petr somewhat ill-advisedly returned to Prague to find the prevailing climate quite different than in Constance. There had been an ascendant strand of Hussite influence in the capital, and Petr was soon arrested and imprisoned in the Old Town Hall. Here he was possibly tortured and threatened with death. 17 On 13 March 1417, he was forced to recant his views, which included the humiliating statement that Hus was indeed honourable and that Petr no longer believed the martyred priest had proclaimed errors and heresies but instead had been a stalwart herald of the law of God.18 An anonymous scribal comment appended to one of the manuscripts of Petr’s recantation referred to the Dominican as a ‘little monk’ and suggested Petr should use his head before spreading lies about the Czechs.19 Emperor Sigismund expressed his displeasure to the Czech nobility in a letter dated 4 September 1417, complaining of the treatment Petr of Uničov had received.20 Despite all of this drama, Petr’s role in the prosecution of Jan Hus should not be minimized. The roles of Štěpán Páleč and Petr of Uničov noted, I suggest that the more shadowy figure of Michael de Causis represented Hus’s greatest liability throughout most of his legal ordeal, stretching from 1411 until the summer of 1415. Michael de Causis was Jan Hus’s bête noire and is frequently described in the historiography of Hussitism as an ‘unprincipled scoundrel’, a ‘despicable character’, and a ‘notorious priest’.21 What do we know about this man and what evidence suggests he may have been the 15 

Posicio pro informatione monachi M. Petri, Wien, ÖNB, MS 4488, fols 97r–101r. 16  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 39–40. 17  There are several accounts including a rhymed Czech polemic ‘Slyšte všickni staří i vy děti’; I refer to the edition Veršované Skladby doby Husitské, ed. by Svejkovský, p. 107. 18  Praha, NK, MS xi E 3, fols 96r–97v. 19  Praha, NK, MS iii G 16, fol. 73r. 20  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 659–63, especially pp. 660–61. 21  Lützow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus, p. 234; De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 180; and Spinka, Hus at the Council of Constance, p. 38, are representative.

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most dangerous persecutor of Jan Hus? Fifteenth-century Czech sources tell us De Causis was jealous of Hus and consumed with anger. These emotions provided motivation to fabricate misleading accusations against Hus, including the preposterous claim Hus wanted to abolish the priesthood.22 Modern scholars have interpreted De Causis as believing that Hus hated church authority.23 But prior to his engagement with Hus, Michael de Causis had an earlier career. We turn our attention first to the years of his life before the time of Prague reform under the aegis of Jan Hus and the spirit of Hussite religion. As with so many men and women of the later medieval period, we do not know the year of his birth or anything about his early life.24 Evidently he was of German extraction from the town of Německý Brod, about one hundred kilometres southeast of Prague, and sometimes in the sources is called Michael of Německý Brod. It seems his career began around 1393, when he secured employment as a public clerk or scribe.25 At that time, Jan Hus was a student at the university in Prague. Hus gained his undergraduate degree in 1393 and also came into close personal contact with the preaching and practice of buying indulgences, a subject which brought Hus to notoriety and later formed part of the clash with Michael de Causis.26 A year later, De Causis made considerable strides in the religious world of Bohemia, and we learn he obtained recommendations for the livings of no fewer than five ecclesiastical positions.27 These included the deanship of St Giles in Prague’s Old Town as well as a canonry with a prebend at Sts Cosmas and Damian in the diocese of Prague, a perpetual vicarage in Olomouc, the parish church at Chlum near Nalžovice, and a similar position at Prien (in the Bavarian diocese of Chiemsee).28 In addition to 22 

Vavřinec of Březová, Hussite Chronicle, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 332. 23  Pekař, Žižka a jeho doba, i, 16–17. 24  Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, i.1, provides an incomplete biographical sketch which I have taken into account. 25  Soudní akta konsistoře pražské, ed. by Tadra, iii, 124, 141. 26  An important incident is noted in the Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 568 and discussed in Bartoš, ‘Husův učitel Dr Jan Štěkna a kaple Betlemská’. Michael de Causis charged Hus with irregular views on indulgences in his list of accusations twenty years later in Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 170. 27  Relevant document dated 30 September 1394 in Monumenta Vaticana res gestas Bohemicas illustrantia, ed. by Klicman and others, v, 470–71. 28  Sts Cosmas and Damian had been incorporated into the Slavonic rite Benedictine monastery in the New Town around 1348. Mengel, ‘Bones, Stones, and Brothels’, p. 385.

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this, De Causis became embroiled in a dispute the same year over the parish of St Adalbert near Zderaz. The parishioners did not want him as their priest, but their wishes were ignored and the Archdeacon of Prague installed Michael de Causis. A sort of lawsuit ensued, which reached the courts of Archbishop Jan Jenštejn and the Curia. Ostensibly, the provisions of local law and custom gave the parish to the other candidate, but the Curia ruled in favour of De Causis. The dispute dragged on for several years until 1397, when, on the strength of the ruling by the Curial court, the matter finally was settled in favour of De Causis.29 Functioning as an absentee priest, more troubles arose this time in late September 1395 with his parish in Chlum. Evidently, when he secured the living at St Adalbert’s, he was required to relinquish Chlum. He refused. By means of personal appeal and intervention at the papal court, De Causis was able to hold onto Chlum for a further two years. He was fortunate enough to get the pope’s personal consent to the arrangement.30 The agreement notwithstanding, De Causis managed to hang onto the Chlum church until 1401, when he effectively traded it for the more lucrative Church of St Nicholas in the Old Town of Prague. There is no record of official approval.31 Somewhat ostentatiously, he appointed himself assistant archdeacon of Kouřim in 1405.32 All of this jockeying aside, his main ecclesiastical appointment seems to have been at the Church of St Adalbert in the Jircháře district in the New Town of Prague. There were various industries in this area, which caused a disagreeable odour, and De Causis was sometimes called Michael Smradař, from the Czech word meaning stink or stench.33 It is difficult to avoid the assumption that his detractors (Hus among them) took considerable delight in referring to him as ‘Michael the stinker’. During this same period, Michael de Causis became involved in legal affairs, a preoccupation which attended him until the end of his life. There are traces of him at the consistory in various capacities, and it was here where he formed relationships with Kuneš of Zvole and Jiří Bor. These alliances became crucial in the Hus matter. Kuneš was a young Moravian who later served as Archbishop 29 

Soudní akta konsistoře pražské, ed. by Tadra, vii, 152–73 passim, and iii, 170–71 and 203–04. 30  Libri confirmationum ad beneficia ecclesiastica, ed. by Emler and Tingl, v, 232. 31  Libri confirmationum ad beneficia ecclesiastica, ed. by Emler and Tingl, vi, 48. 32  Libri confirmationum ad beneficia ecclesiastica, ed. by Emler and Tingl, vi, 139. 33  Staré letopisy české z vratislavského rukopisu novočeským pravopisem, ed. by Šimek, p. 16; and Staré letopisy české z rukopisu křižovnického, ed. by Šimek and Kaňak, p. 47.

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Zbyněk’s agent at the Curia in the process against Hus, and Jiří Bor also played a not inconsiderable role in affairs surrounding Hus, as we shall see. Some of the legal cases involving Michael de Causis were handled in disreputable ways, a foreshadowing of his preferred modus operandi in the Hus case yet to come. There are several examples. In 1401, he was drawn into a dispute with a certain Master Václav Kuře (Pullus) who at the time was principal of the school in Zderaz. During the proceedings, which may have been attended by students, we are told the litigants cursed each other openly, and at one stage resorted to violence with the exchange of fisticuffs. We have no way of knowing if Jan Hus knew about these events. He certainly would have disapproved of such conduct, especially by a priest. In 1407, De Causis instigated a lawsuit over funerals with the Dominicans of St Clement’s, and numerous conflicts over finances seem to have occupied him.34 As late as October 1409, we find him acting as a mediator in a dispute between the town burghers of Jílové and the nearby Cistercian monastery of Zbraslav.35 Scandal soon followed. At length, Michael de Causis wearied of the litigious life of an absentee priest and turned his attention to the possibilities of mining. There were some gold mines in the area of Jílové, about twenty-five kilometres south of Prague, lying in a state of disrepair. De Causis convinced King Václav to financially underwrite a gold mining initiative. Around 1409, financed with a budget from the royal coffers, De Causis became a secular businessman. Hus’s views on such issues have already been canvassed and are a matter of record. At any rate, the mining venture proved to be spectacularly unsuccessful. His best efforts insufficient, the mining operations floundered. At this stage Michael de Causis quit Bohemia, never again to be seen in the Czech Kingdom.36 With plenty of the king’s money still on hand, we find De Causis thereafter at the Papal Curia. Here he soon became an advocate in matters of faith (procurator de causis fidei), appointed to that post by the recently elected Pope John XXIII. It was from this time, and on this account, that he acquired the title which history best remembers him for: Michael de Causis, or Michael the Pleader. From the time he found favour with John XXIII, Michael de Causis worked 34 

Soudní akta konsistoře pražské, ed. by Tadra, iv, 27, 34–36, 63–64, 66, 237; v, 51, 194, 237, 283, 371; vi, 32–33, 35, 37, 136, and 276. 35  Tadra, Listy kláštera zbraslavského, pp. 217–18. 36  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 33; and Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, preface. For this period of his life there are fragments of information. See the sources listed in Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, i.1, 468, note 2.

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as a lawyer in the papal courts, and managed to gain access to the parlours of power at the Curia. This proved most beneficial for the remainder of his career. Apparently much later, in addition to his legal career, he assumed management of a Czech hostel in Rome.37 While all of this was going on, Jan Hus became a preacher and reformer of note, found himself at odds with his ordinary, got into trouble with popes and the Curia, initiated a legal process, and became a man to be reckoned with in Czech religious affairs. Fatefully, as it turned out, he came to the attention of Michael de Causis. In February 1411, Hus was declared an excommunicate on the authority of Cardinal Odo Colonna, who had been assigned the Hus case. The background of course was a papal bull forbidding Wyclifism in Prague, and preaching was restricted. The effort to stall the reform movement in Prague had been engineered by Archbishop Zbyněk and Jiří Bor. As already observed, Pope Alexander V issued the directive near the end of 1409. Hus appealed against the bull in June 1410, thus setting in motion a legal process which spanned five years. Hus tells us the excommunication was secured through the ex parte efforts of Michael de Causis.38 The comment is intriguing. Hus’s appeal did nothing to ameliorate the situation, and in the summer of 1410 Prague exploded in chaos. With the active assistance of Zdeněk of Chrást, Archdeacon of Žatec, Archbishop Zbyněk conducted the burning of Wyclifite books carried out on 16 July 1410, destroying approximately two hundred volumes.39 Chroniclers noted massive uproar in Prague over the book-burning, consisting of both serious and thoughtful protests along with plain and simple hooliganism. These outbreaks of violence included a mob invading the cathedral, chasing the priest from the altar, while six men with drawn swords entered the Church of St Stephen in the New Town and threatened the priest with death. These acts occurred on 22 July.40 The canon lawyer Dr Jiří Bor has been nominated as the main cause of all the troubles in Prague.41 Who was Jiří Bor? As it turns out, 37 

Mareš, ‘Český hospic v Římě’, p. 72. Hus, Tractatus de Ecclesia, ed. by Thomson, p. 231. 39  Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 571–72. Praha, NK, MS iii G 16, fol. 18r includes a popular song, ostensibly sung in the streets, ridiculing the immolation. 40  ‘Old Czech Annalists’, in Staři letopisové češti od r. 1378 do 1527, ed. by Palacký, vol. 3, pp. 12–13; and Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 572. 41  Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 571. 38 

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Bor was a canon law specialist and a man who had already written against Hus. He assailed the teachings of Hus as infamous.42 More importantly, he was a colleague of none other than Michael de Causis. We cannot find any evidence that De Causis was a direct influence on these events but a few months thereafter he came to the forefront in the Hus case. Shortly after these disturbing events convulsed Prague, Curial official Dietrich Niem published his Contra damnatos Wiclifitas Prage on 6 March 1411, arguing that legal procedure at the Curia was irregular for even having received Hus’s appeals. Niem urged the church to act decisively to eliminate heresy, with the use of crusade if necessary, and insisted all heretics should be imprisoned, degraded, and handed over to the secular arm. There is good reason to suspect Niem had been encouraged by Michael de Causis, since his treatise and the initiatives of De Causis seem remarkably compatible, and they also coincide in place and time.43 Some scholars studying the matter are prepared to go even farther and suggest De Causis actively incited Dietrich Niem to persuade the pope against Hus.44 Be that as it may, we are certain that at this time De Causis began to act independently against Hus. What happened next was that a series of articles of accusation were lodged by Michael de Causis, either in March 1411 or 1412.45 Having formerly been a priest in Prague, at the Church of St Adalbert’s (where he was succeeded by Jakoubek Stříbro), De Causis was well informed about the religious affairs of Bohemia. We have already noted Michael’s papal appointment to the role of advocate in matters of faith (procurator de causis fidei). This placed him rather well for bringing the controversies in Prague to the attention of the cardinals as well as the pope. Wishing to stymie the reform initiative, Archbishop Zbyněk of Prague could not have curried favour with a more suitable man at the Curia then De Causis, who tirelessly worked the corridors of the papal courts. The tenor of the articles advanced by Michael de Causis shifted Hus into a confrontation with church authorities. On many occasions, and especially in answering these particular charges, Hus defiantly called De Causis a ‘liar’ and the ‘manufacturer of lies’. 42 

Consilium cuiusdam inimici veritatis contra Hus, Praha, NK, MS iii G 6, fols 6r–7r and Replicacio contra Hus, Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv, MS A 16, fols 116r–117v. 43  Niem’s text has been edited in Studie a texty k životopisu Husovu, ed. by Sedlák, i, 45–55. Hus specialists concur on the division of labour between De Causis and Niem. See for example, Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, i.1, 469–70; and Sedlák, M. Jan Hus, p. 191. 44  Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, p. 351. 45  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 169–74.

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He ended his response by asserting ‘these are the most important articles mendaciously submitted against me in the accusations of Michael Smradař, lies for which Michael will be judged by the most just judge’.46 The articles included accusation that Hus was a ‘heretic’ and an ‘heresiarch’. The indefatigable lawyer continued to assail Hus as the ‘prince of heretics’ who corrupted good faithful Christians by means of heresy-filled sermons at Bethlehem Chapel.47 Hus took steps to defend himself. When he dispatched his lawyer Jan Jesenice to represent his cause at the Curia, Michael de Causis promptly took legal action to have Jesenice disqualified from the Hus case. He did this by filing a motion amounting to a complaint which included accusations of heresy against Jesenice. While all of this was occurring, sometime in late 1411, recalcitrant Prague canons hostile to Hus retained Michael de Causis as their advocate at the papal curia. Through his ex parte efforts, they managed eventually to secure the condemnation of Hus. While we can date the activity of De Causis in this respect to late 1411, it is altogether possible he was involved much earlier.48 The public denunciation of an excommunicate, in this case Hus, could be achieved by a prosecutor, De Causis, via legal and court procedures. There is little doubt De Causis was motivated by malice towards Hus, but canon law did not disqualify such witnesses in cases of crimen exceptum.49 Medieval canon law considered heresy a serious offence and an exceptional crime. Following the verdict handed down by Colonna, the case was placed into the hands of the canon lawyer Francesco Zabarella, who made some favourable rulings from Hus’s point of view. One year later, in February 1412, Pope John XXIII ordered the findings of the Hus inquiry submitted to Cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci, thereby effectively removing it from Zabarella.50 We do not know why this occurred, but the possibility of lobbying by Michael de Causis cannot be excluded and remains a likely probability. At any rate, the decisions made by Zabarella were effectively vacated. 46 

See Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 170–74, wherein Hus calls De Causis a liar no fewer than a dozen times and in one instance retorts that his accuser is a ‘coarse liar’. 47  Shrovetide sermon, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 133. 48  Letter of Hus to the Supreme Court of Bohemia, December 1412 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 157–58. But for an allusion to even earlier involvement by De Causis see Hus, sermon for Lent IV, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 166. 49  X 5.39.46 In praesentia, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, ii, col. 908; X 5.3.31 Licet heli, ii, cols 760–61;and X 5.3.32 Per tuas, ii, cols 761–62. 50  Ordo procedendi, in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 225–34 (at p. 229).

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During January and February 1412, Michael de  Causis continued with his attack on Jesenice’s involvement in the Hus case. The auditor in charge of this complaint, John Belli, did nothing, so De Causis lobbied for action and succeeded in having the matter transferred to the papal auditor Berthold Wildungen. Jesenice’s presence at the Curial courts and his legal acumen posed a threat to the agenda Michael de Causis was developing. It must have been fortuitous at this moment that De Causis chanced to meet an otherwise unremarkable Czech at the court. This was a cleric named Šimon Burda, who happened to have had prior legal disputes with Jesenice which had been moderated by Zdeněk of Chrást, Archdeacon of Žatec. 51 The collusion produced a drastic result which seriously impaired Hus’s chances for a fair hearing at the Curia. Jesenice was charged with heresy, removed from the case, and thrown into prison. Unsatisfied with that success, De Causis submitted an ex parte petition to the pope to replace the auditor Berthold of Wildungen. Once more, we do not know the reason. Clearly, De Causis was exerting considerable influence at the papal court. Somewhat surprisingly, the request was granted and George Fleckel was appointed replacing Berthold of Wildungen. Meanwhile, Jesenice escaped from prison and fled Rome. With the skilful Jesenice now unable to remain actively engaged in the legal affairs, Michael de Causis had scored a major point. Outraged that Jesenice had slipped through his hands, De Causis insisted the fugitive be anathematized. This occurred on 29 July 1412, and thereafter Jesenice was considered contumacious.52 It did not take long for further action. On 4 September 1412, Cardinal Peter degli Stephaneschi issued a writ of major excommunication against Hus. In practical terms, this meant that the aggravation of the previous excommunication, meaning the complete social and religious implications of the sanction, the aggravatio, were now put into effect upon arrival in Prague. This measure against Hus had been prompted by the initiative of Michael de Causis and former Prague inquisitor Mařik Rvačka. The latter likewise had migrated to Rome and began to collaborate actively against Hus.53 De Causis tried to have many of the key advisors to the king of Bohemia cited to the papal court, but it seems the pope was not especially eager to irritate the king.54 This particular matter would 51 

Kejř, Husův proces, pp. 65 and 74. Kejř, Husitský pravník: M. Jan z Jesenice, p. 61. 53  The text of the writ against Hus appears in Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 461–64. 54  A list of those cited appears in a manuscript in Prague Castle Archive. Noted in Kejř, 52 

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be prolonged until at least 1418, when the energetic De Causis succeeded in obtaining from John of Rupescissa (titular patriarch of Constantinople) the required warning mandated by canon law for those previously cited.55 These issues aside, by the autumn of 1412, Michael de Causis, assisted by Jiří Bor, Mařik Rvačka, and Dietrich Niem, had succeeded in completely nullifying all the efforts of representation and advocacy for Hus which had been advanced by Jan Jesenice.56 Hus refused to acknowledge the excommunication, claiming it was invalid. Once again we may surmise that the thorough arguments advanced by Friedrich Eppinge, based on a highly technical and complex legal analysis and supported by canon law, on the subject of irregular excommunications, informed at least part of the background of Hus’s thinking on the matter.57 He writes of how he hoped all faithful Christians would understand and sympathize with him in his sufferings caused by the censure. Hus identified the main source of his troubles. ‘I suffer mainly through the instigation of my rival and adversary Michael de Causis, formerly incumbent of the Church of St Adalbert in the New Town of Prague.’58 De Causis later testified that Hus preached a sermon in which he declared that such anathemas did the righteous no harm, but rather worked to bless the innocent.59 From a legal perspective, Eppinge had argued that an unjust excommunication did no harm whatever, predicated primarily on the distinction between the visible institutional church and the invisible community of the saints. Hus agreed. Without delay, on the heels of this ecclesiastical censure, a second bull (ostensibly procured by Michael de Causis) reached Prague in which Hus was ordered seized by the faithful, turned over either to the Archbishop of Prague or the Bishop of Litomyšl to be condemned and burned according to law. The Bethlehem Chapel (described as a ‘nest of heretics’) was ordered destroyed to prevent the continued congregation of heretics. Hus and his followers were to stand down and abjure forthwith. Otherwise they were ordered to appear at the Curia to answer charges of contumacy before appropriate judges, which predictably included Michael de Causis.60 Unsatisfied with this, by late 1412 De Causis initiated new charges Husitský pravník: M. Jan z Jesenice, p. 98. 55  Novotný, ‘Monitorium patriarchy Konstantinopolského’, p. 420. 56  Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution, ii, 881. 57  Eppinge, Posicio de excommunicatione, Praha, NK, MS xiii F 21, fols 118v–128v. 58  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 464. 59  Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iv, cols 426, 428. 60  Chronicle of the University of Prague, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and oth-

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against Hus, instigated by Prague canons. These new accusations denounced Hus as ‘a son of iniquity’, a ‘heretic’, a ‘Wyclifite’, and one who ‘despises the keys’. The charges claimed that ‘all heretics and schismatics deserve a place with the devil and his angels in the flames of eternal hell’.61 This was consistent with later medieval thinking and during the Council of Pisa, Peter Philarghi, Archbishop of Milan, argued that heretics belonged with the devil in hell fire unless they abjured and accepted church authority.62 At this stage, the legal process at the Curia came to a standstill. The case may have been designated as ‘pending’, but Michael de Causis continued to labour behind the scenes. Along with the Bishop of Litomyšl, Jan Železný, De Causis incited Pope John XXIII to apply pressure (via a letter to Bishop Jan ‘the Iron’ on 30 April 1413 or 1414) on Bohemian church officials, especially Konrad of Vechta, Archbishop of Prague, Václav Králík, Bishop of Olomouc, and the inquisitor of Prague, Nicholas of Nezero, to enforce the terms of the interdict against Hus under threat of punishment and sanction. This initiative was prompted by the fact that Hus continued to preach openly in the countryside and tried to do so occasionally in Prague, even though he remained under aggravated excommunication and interdict.63 Michael de Causis considered the named prelates somewhat negligent in the matter. The case involving Jan Hus shifted from Prague to the papal Curia, and from there to ‘one of the most magnificent church assemblies known to history’.64 It is well known that Hus went to Germany to appear before the Council of Constance in an effort to resolve his legal affairs. Štěpán Páleč and Michael de Causis also travelled to Constance and immediately joined forces. Hus’s other Czech enemy, Petr of Uničov, also arrived, as did the indulgence vendor Wenceslas Tiem, who had earlier locked horns with Hus on the policies and practices of indulgences held by the medieval church. Hus claimed he would have few enemies in Constance were it not for the Czech priests deceiving people, motivated by gain and personal advancement.65 Committed to continuers, v, 574–75; and the Chronicle of Prokop the Notary, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 26. 61  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 457–61. 62  Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. by Mansi, xxvii, col. 358. Philarghi was later elected as Pope Alexander V. 63  The text of the papal letter has been published in ‘Z Geschichte der husitischen Bewegung’, ed. by Krofta, pp. 605–06. 64  von Funk, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, p. 470. 65  Letter of 16 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 223–25.

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ous instigation, Michael de Causis immediately posted public notices against Hus, announcing the presumed indictment, repeatedly stating the trial was being conducted against a contumacious excommunicate, suspected of heresy. Hus arrived on 3 November. The next day the details of the lawsuit were nailed to the doors of the cathedral and plastered throughout the city. 66 The notices were intentionally inflammatory.67 The testimony of these two men, Michael de Causis and Štěpán Páleč, established the canonically required fama publica (belief by reputable persons that the defendant is guilty) in the mind of the Council. In medieval heresy trials, the inquisitor had to establish the mala fama (bad reputation) of the accused prior to legal proceedings. Hus claimed that Páleč was the ringleader, but De Causis was perhaps even more active and toxic in his determination to secure Hus’s condemnation. The persistent efforts noted, canon law allowed that it was not always essential to establish fama before actual proceedings.68 Clearly, the heresy hunter and persecutor of Jan Hus had no desire to leave any loophole through which Hus might escape his clutches. In the Hus case, his reputation was widespread in Bohemia by 1410 and throughout Europe by the time the Council convened. Both Páleč and De Causis continue to turn up even in later chronicles as inveterate enemies of Hus.69 Meanwhile, De Causis diligently persisted in reposting the notices against Hus throughout the city of Constance. Ostensibly, he was quite keen to keep the matter in the forefront of those in the city, and the placards helped him achieve that objective. Despite the numerous accusations already lodged against Hus, Michael de  Causis was responsible for a new list of charges presented against the defendant, either in November or December 1414. These included the utterly spurious charge that Hus taught Utraquism. Other sources say that ‘Michael de Causis with considerable racket worked zealously’ against Hus and hurried from place to place politicking with ecclesiastical officials.70 By December, a 66 

Vavřinec of Březová, Hussite Chronicle, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 338, Hrejsa, Dějiny křesťanství v Československu, ii, 48; and Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, p. 391. 67  Letters of 4 and 6 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 217–20. 68  Sext 5.1.2 Si is, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, ii, col. 1069. 69  Vavřinec of Březová, Hussite Chronicle, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 332. 70  Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 194–99, letter of 10 November 1414 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 222, and remarks throughout Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, but see p. 33.

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revised list of charges against Hus had been drawn up by the commissioners of the Council. This document, based largely upon the work of Michael de Causis, also constituted a summary of the procedures against Hus commencing with the 1409 bull of Alexander V, thereby familiarizing the Constance commission with the legal aspects of the case. This definitely suggests they understood their work as a continuation of the Curial process.71 Michael de Causis made certain all of the influential members of the Council had a copy of the newest allegations about Jan Hus. At the beginning of the new year, Hus was presented with formal charges.72 There was a second examination on the ‘forty-five articles’ of 1403 (a pastiche of Wyclifite tenets), and private examination on other charges. A bull was read to Hus which declared him a heresiarch and seducer of the people. There is some uncertainty about these charges. There is no extant official document or protocol for these interrogatories. But it has been convincingly argued that the basis for them lies in the work of Michael de Causis. 73 These accusations may have been the second edition of the De Causis charges, or the revised list drawn up by the commissioners of the Council. Pressing the case forward, De  Causis teamed up with Štěpán Páleč in extracting items from Hus’s book De ecclesia. The supposed errors were immediately turned over to the Hus commission, and this facilitated the prosecution of the legal case.74 The public activity of De Causis remained prominent, and we find him busy throughout the city, badgering potential witnesses reluctant to testify against Hus.75 Petr, former abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Ambrose in the New Town of Prague, desired to depart Constance but was detained by De Causis. The priest Jan Mišpule, also known as Navara, affirmed in a statement his willingness to testify to whatever was needed. He is reported to have declared ‘though I never heard him [Hus] preach, because I know he is a heretic, I will say anything’.76 One can only speculate on whether De Causis urged this sort of perjured testimony. From one of Hus’s letters, smuggled out of the Dominican prison, we learn that De Causis had tampered with Hus’s mail, and also that he acted centrally in some of the interrogations urging the 71 

Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 199–204. Letter of 4 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 239–41. 73  De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss, p. 393 and ‘Proces kostnický’, in Studie a texty k životopisu Husovu, ed. by Sedlák, ii, 23–27. 74  Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, pp. 409–10. 75  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 41. 76  Truhlář, ‘Paběrky 48. Husitský pranýř’. 72 

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presiding authorities to force Hus to reply to the interrogatories.77 Moreover, in the early days at the Council, he continued to function as the chief prosecutor of the Hus case. His enthusiastic diligence manifested itself in the public boast that he would be only too happy to testify against his own father, if the latter were a heresy suspect.78 Languishing in prison, Hus’s ordeal was temporarily relieved by a surprise visit from his friend Křišťan of Prachatice, who had come to Constance. At the instigation of Michael de Causis, Křišťan was arrested, thirty articles were levelled against him, he was examined by the Patriarch of Constantinople ( John of Rupescissa), released on his own recognizance, and subsequently fled Constance never to return. He was back in Prague by 19 March.79 It seemed as though anyone close to Hus was endangered by the malevolent presence of Michael de Causis. When Jerome of Prague arrived in Constance, Michael de Causis (referred to as the instigator against Jan Hus) was the one who posted the notarized citation concerning the newcomer and heresy suspect on 18 April at the Franciscan Monastery, and also at the Churches of St Stephen and St Mary in Constance. The same day, 18 April 1415, any doubts the Council may have continued to entertain about Hus’s guilt were addressed when the ‘honourable man’ Michael de Causis appeared before the Hus commission to give testimony concerning ‘that devil Jan Hus’.80 During the months of his imprisonment, we learn that Michael de Causis often came to the prison, but evidently never entered Hus’s cell. During these visits, De Causis openly told the guards he was very eager to see Hus condemned and burned.81 At the first public hearing in the Hus case on 5  June, the proceedings descended into chaos. Unable to contain himself, Michael de Causis shouted his conviction that Hus’s books should be burned.82 The call appears to constitute a breach of due process. As a practising lawyer of some years, this should 77 

Letter of 4 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 239–41. A letter from Jakoubek Stříbro fell into the hands of Michael de Causis. Hrejsa, Dějiny křesťanství v Československu, ii, 49. 78  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 41. 79  Letter of 5 March 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 248–50, an anonymous letter in Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 541–43, and information from the University of Vienna representative Peter Pulka in ‘Petrus de Pulka’, ed. by Firnhaber, p. 15. 80  Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. by Mansi, xxvii, col. 628. 81  Letters of late January and 23  June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 244–45 and p. 300. 82  Letter of 5 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 261–62.

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have been apparent to De Causis. At the second hearing on 7 June, Hus was accused of eucharistic heresy, principally by Michael de Causis, who advanced ‘proofs’ from several witnesses in Prague, especially priests, and among them specifically Ondřej of Brod.83 At the third hearing on 8  June, De  Causis declared his aim in prosecuting Hus had been motivated solely by a desire to defend truth and in fulfilment of his oath of office. Sometime before 23 June, De  Causis secured an official order forbidding anyone admittance to the prison, excepting presumably prison guards and officials and those connected to the Hus inquiry. Even wives of the guards were denied entry.84 Negotiations about Hus were conducted in camera by the Hus commission, but the proceedings and their details were no secret to Michael de Causis. He worked in every way imaginable to interfere and intimidate.85 Unwilling to leave any hostages to fortune, by late June Michael de Causis attempted to persuade the Council, via a formal submission, to pass a resolution forbidding all attempts to encourage Hus to recant.86 This fits rather well with his prohibition against prison visitors. Moreover, he had not forgotten the favourable rulings Cardinal Zabarella had handed down in the Curial segment of the Hus case in 1411, and in the later stages of the trial at Constance an anonymous member of the Council, known only as ‘pater’ (perhaps Zabarella himself ) secretly approached Hus with a strategy on how to resolve the legal process short of the death penalty. Such overtures were quite unacceptable to De Causis and he aimed to eliminate all such possibilities, which only served to threaten his own agenda. So far as he was concerned, Hus had terrorized the faith and rules of the church, he was heretical, ‘pertinacious, obstinate, and incorrigible’, and should be turned over to the secular authorities without delay for sentence. That was the broad thrust of his submission to the Council. One might read this document with the understanding that De Causis desperately wanted to head off any chance that Hus might not be sent to the pyre. He worked with enormous industry and zeal to anticipate all possibilities which might deprive him of the satisfaction of seeing a man burn alive. Beyond this, the submission to the Council is self-serving in so far as Michael de Causis consistently presented himself as the defender of the church, a warning against heresy, and a man prepared to undertake whatever might be necessary to further the agenda of the synod. In 83 

Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iii.3. Letter of 23 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 300–02. 85  Bartoš, Čechy v době Husově 1378–1415, pp. 440–41. 86  Olomouc, Knihovna Univerzity Palackého, MS ii 91, fol. 168r. 84 

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this sense, his activities might be interpreted as a sustained effort to ingratiate himself into the good favour of the leading men of the Council. A second anonymous submission around the same time may also have come from the pen of Michael de Causis. The unknown author warned the conciliar delegates about the undesirability of a recantation. Fearing the possibility that Hus’s sentence might be commuted from death to a life sentence, the writer suggested the commission not pass sentence but instead refer the verdict to the entire Council: Hus should be subjected to animadversione debita (a euphemism for the death penalty) on account of the fact that he was the most ‘notorious heretic on earth’, the disseminator of ‘many errors and heresies’, who had attempted to sway all of Christendom to his ideas. In view of the seriousness of his crimes, the legal penalty should be applied. Because Hus had been ‘rightly convicted’, he should be made to abjure. Imprisonment was not a good idea, for eventually he might escape and return to Bohemia where his errors and heresies would only multiply, with the end result worse than the beginning. For ‘taking seven spirits even more wicked’ than himself (Luke 11. 24–26), the church of God, and the priesthood would be more seriously attacked, the result would be ‘innumerable errors’ and ‘great scandals’ to the ‘destruction of the spiritual and secular estates’ with sedition among the clergy and the laity.87 To what extent these submissions had any effect on the thinking of the Hus commission is unknown. Perhaps it is more telling to observe little trace of the hand of Michael de Causis in the final charges against Hus. It may be naive to argue that the judges at Constance recognized the bile, venom, and hearsay in so many of the charges and accusations which Michael de Causis manufactured and then advanced against Jan Hus. This is not to say the judges ever considered Hus innocent. But men like Zabarella surely detected the lack of probity in the campaign engineered against Hus by the lawyer for matters of faith. On 6 July, Hus faced his accusers one last time. He refused to recant and was condemned to die. Certain sources refer to the work of Štěpán Páleč and Michael De Causis and credit them with a successful prosecution.88 There is no doubt that De Causis manufactured allegations and twisted facts to suit his purposes. Scholars for a long time have been aware of this.89 His appetite whetted 87 

This Avisamentum fiendum processus contra Io. Hus was likely authored either by De Causis or Jan Náz. I lean towards the former. The text has been published in Bartoš, ‘Z posledního zápasu o M. Jana’, pp. 58–59. 88  Vavřinec of Březová, Hussite Chronicle, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 338. 89  For example Novotný and Kybal, M. Jan Hus, i.1, p. 212.

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by the fate of Hus, De Causis turned his energy to the case of Jerome of Prague, and by autumn 1415 reported to the Council that he had cited four hundred and twenty-four individuals from Bohemia, mainly nobles and other distinguished persons, to appear before the bar of judgement at Constance to give account of their alleged Hussite beliefs.90 He likewise pursued others he considered deviant and persecuted the French Franciscan Guillaume Josseaume, who by consequence wound up incarcerated during the Council of Constance.91 On account of the hostility they generated within the Czech Kingdom, Hus’s main adversaries at the Council were never able to return to Bohemia. After delivering a speech on 9 May 1417, in which he argued that only a reformed church could defeat the movement engendered by Hus, Mařik Rvačka resigned from his eastern Bohemia parish at Solnice and went to France. Because he had forfeited a prebend in Bohemia as well as his parish in Kouřim, on account of standing for the truth against Hus, the Council rewarded Štěpán Páleč with the Archdeaconry of Kalis in Poland. Michael de Causis summarized the action of the Council against Hus and his followers and returned to Rome. Before closing the Council, newly elected Pope Martin V issued two bulls on 22 February 1418 which amounted to a resolution endorsing the Council against the Czechs. The Bohemians and Moravians were encouraged to return to the official church, while the disobedient were warned of an impending curse.92 It has been argued that, because of his relentless and biased persecution of Jan Hus, Michael de Causis became the most hated man in Bohemia.93 Once the Council of Constance had reduced to ashes both Hus and his disciple Jerome, solved the papal schism, and brought its deliberations to a close, we lose sight of Michael de Causis, though we know he returned to Rome. For fifteen long years, the crusades against the followers of Hus were preached and battles waged in Bohemia. We would like to know what De Causis was doing and what his thoughts were on the memory of Hus, which motivated Czech Christians to defy Rome. Unable to militarily force the Czechs to obey the demands of the Latin church, by the end of 1431 representatives of the various Hussite parties were invited to attend the Council of Basel. Unsurprisingly, the 90 

Richental, Chronik des Constanzer Concils, p. 144. Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution, iii, 1935. Josseaume was pursued by inquisitors for many years. Comment in Bartoš, Husitská revoluce, ii: Vladá bratrstev a její pád 1426–1437 (1966), p. 141. 92  Hrejsa, Dějiny křesťanství v Československu, ii, 88. 93  ‘Po stopách Husových odpůrců’, in Studie a texty k životopisu Husovu, ed. by Sedlák, i, 141. 91 

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old heresy hunter reappears on the stage of history once again, and we learn that Michael de Causis also made his way north from Rome to participate in yet another great conciliar gathering. There should be no doubt he relished the opportunity to once again stand on an international platform opposing the hated heretical Hussites and rebut the spirit of Hussite religion. That presumed goal was never realized. There is no record Michael de Causis played any role in the deliberations concerning Hussites. This may be put down to the fact that he died at Basel during the proceedings, before he had opportunity to once again argue, as a procurator in causes of the faith, before all the sage men of Christendom, about the dangers of the heresies espoused by the recalcitrant followers of the long-ago publicly condemned Jan Hus.94 The portrait of our heresy hunter has thus far been entirely negative. At the end of his factious but eventful life, we are presented with a quite different picture: Michael de Causis had his defenders too. Preserved in a manuscript in an Austrian archive, we possess what amounts to a funeral oration on the occasion of the death of Michael de Causis.95 We do not know the date of his death, nor any details of his funeral or committal. However, the sermon was delivered by the well-known German Dominican Heinrich Kalteisen (c. 1390–1465).96 In many respects he was not dissimilar to Michael de Causis. In 1424, Pope Martin V had appointed him general inquisitor for the German lands. He came to Basel as an active participant in the Council and debated the Hussites, having previously written a tract against them in 1430.97 He functioned as one of the principal respondents in the formal sessions, replying to the Hussite thesis on the church presented by the Hussite-Orphan priest Oldřich of Znojmo. Years later, on 28 February 1452, Pope Nicholas  V nominated him for the position of Archbishop of Trondheim. Kalteisen went to Norway in 1453 but was not consecrated in the See of Trondheim on the grounds that King Christian I regarded him as irreligious and insufficiently devoted to holiness. This is a rather damning 94 

Even the year of his death is uncertain but it was either 1432 or 1433. Bartoš, Husitská revoluce, ii, 141, gives the date of 1432. 95  ‘Collectio in exequiis Magistri Michaëlis de Praga procuratoris de causa fide’, in Wien, ÖNB, MS 4975, fols 49r–53v. 96  For his work at Basel see Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. by Mansi, xxix, cols 971–1104, and Haage-Naber, Heinrich Kalteisen OP. 97  The work in question is Kalteisen’s Tractatus quos collegit anno 1430 Nuremberge et in concilio Basiliensi contra hereticos, noted in Roth, ‘Mitteilungen aus lateinischen Handschriften’, p. 434; and Roth, ‘Heinrich Kalteisen ord. Praedicatorum’, p. 322.

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recommendation for a man associated with heresy hunting and inquisitorial procedures. The situation escalated and became acrimonious. Kalteisen made himself so unpopular he was in danger of physical violence and eventually was forced to withdraw.98 As a bit of a consolation prize, in 1458 Pope Pius II made him titular Archbishop of Caesarea. Given the information we have about what Jan Hus thought he was doing, and the nature of Hussite religion, it seems likely Hus would have regarded Kalteisen in the same fashion as the anonymous priest cookmaster. Kalteisen’s funeral sermon in Basel takes its point of departure from the theme ‘Michael, one of the chief princes’.99 The Latin phrase de principibus Michael unus primus comes from the Vulgate (Daniel 10. 13) and refers to archangel Michael, who turns up in Hebrew and early Christian literature as a patron angel, one of the most prominent of the archangels, the adversary of Satan, and the commander of the armies of God who confront the evils of the apocalyptic dragon. It would appear that Michael de Causis has been nominated as the fifteenth-century Archangel Michael. The eulogy praises Michael’s zeal and selflessness in the execution of his office and duties. The preacher speaks of how the decedent did not seek fame but instead sought to follow the ways of God. The humility and faith of De Causis is stressed. The sermon suggests that he eschewed wealth, notoriety, and supported himself through charitable donations and the work of his own hands.100 The preacher argues this brought Michael only hatred from the wicked here on earth, but the reward for his faithfulness has resulted in eternal rest in the presence of God. The following is a summary of the effusive eulogy delivered by Heinrich Kalteisen in praise of Michael de Causis.101 From the outset, the Dominican preacher justifies the theme of his sermon by stating emphatically that ‘our Michael’ should be considered the first among equals. This is so because he was a steadfast minister of the orthodox faith. De Causis was the servant of all the faithful. Further, the dead man had 98 

On the Norwegian situation, see Jensen, Denmark and the Crusades, pp. 70–73. Kalteisen had some interaction with the Hussite delegates at Basel. Liber diurnus de gestis Bohemorum in Concilio Basileensi, in Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi Decimi Quinti, ed. by Palacký, i, 320. 100  This is mitigated by the ecclesiastical and legal records of the Bohemian church noted earlier. However, our information on Michael de Causis during the last dozen years of his life are too scanty to refute Kalteisen. 101  Further comments on the sermon appear in Bartoš, ‘Basilejský revolucionář a husitské ohlasy’, pp. 141–42. 99 

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defended Christ against the threat of heretical wickedness. Michael de Causis had for many years, as everyone knew very well, devoted himself to uprooting every trace of heretical depravity. Though exiled, he gave his life in the pursuit of the faith, of proper Christian religion, and in defence of truth. He could not be praised too highly.102 The oration contains all of the essential components of a panegyric. Kalteisen praises De Causis as a man totally devoted to the work of being a soldier in defence of truth, who took no note of his own human frailty nor to the cost required by people of faith. Without fear he pursued all heretics and worked to root them out of the communities of faithful believers. In places where heresies flourished, De Causis sought to plant the seeds of truth. Having come together on the occasion of the funeral of Michael de Causis, the faithful are encouraged to take comfort in the excellent example of the dead man. De Causis is called saintly and the dearly departed; ‘our Michael’ lived a wonderful life, as many who knew him can attest. Heinrich Kalteisen then speaks of miracles, if not those of the body then certainly those which are spiritual, and by such those that are even greater, which mark the life and witness of Michael de Causis. Indeed, the old lawyer, by the grace of God, was a miracle; from infancy to old age he was transformed from brutish existence to spiritual heights. Kalteisen does not miss an opportunity to draw attention to the glory days of the life of De Causis at the momentous Council of Constance. Though Hus is not mentioned by name, the ‘friend’ Michael is presented as exercising an example to imitate. From the very day of his appointment to the office as pleader in matters pertaining to the faith, he was a ‘singular light’ and ‘source of virtue’ in the task of uprooting heresy. The reference is without doubt a direct allusion to the legal case against Jan Hus. Michael de Causis perfected his duties ‘with the strength of a lion’ and fearlessly opposed the heretics. As clever as a fox and with the understanding of a devout man, he withstood the wicked, avoided negligence, and worked tirelessly. Kalteisen testified that De Causis made specific confession at the end of his life: ‘In truth, and in the sight of God the strict judge before whose face I will appear, that as long as I have been an agent of the faith, I have not been negligent in my duty’. In other words, Michael de Causis swore on his deathbed that he had never committed any impropriety in his office as procurator de causis fidei. He likewise insisted he had not profited from his work as a prosecutor of heretics. Kalteisen represents De Causis as ‘wise as 102 

Wien, ÖNB, MS 4975, fol. 49v.

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a serpent and harmless as a dove’ to the glory of God.103 He never sought the praise of people. Kalteisen tells his congregation that he personally heard the pious confession of the righteous man Michael de Causis. ‘Our Michael, the man poor in spirit’ died in exile, since he had been driven out of Prague by heretics at the edge of the sword, but now for many years had been ‘content with the labour of his own hands’.104 A man of such goodness, though poor, will truly be blessed. ‘With full contrition of heart he rose up and confessed with the greatest devotion’, received the sacrament of the church, and therefore is blessed. His humility prevented him from receiving anything save the just recompense of faith. The eulogy comes to an end. Kalteisen again draws attention to the ‘most fervent zeal’ of the faithful and pious Michael, who devoted his life to destroying heresy, suffered persecution from many quarters, was abused and hated, and subjected to many maledictions, but through his experiences left behind a legacy of constructive teaching and example.105 ‘Therefore, rejoice, for the soul of Michael, your reward is very great in heaven, whither you go and come in like manner. Blessed be the fullness of the Trinity, which persists through the ages. Amen.’ 106 With these remarks, Heinrich Kalteisen buried Michael de Causis. There are two observations. First, it seems clear that the funeral oration goes to some lengths to present Michael de Causis as a man of faith and unswerving commitment to God. His activities before Constance as well as during the Council, in tandem with Štěpán Páleč, are characterized as duty to God undertaken without consideration for personal motive or gain. Instead, the prosecution of Jan Hus by Michael de Causis was nothing other than a concern 103  An allusion to Matthew 10. 16 where Jesus tells his disciples upon commissioning them to be careful. ‘Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves’. Heinrich Kalteisen considered Michael de Causis a lamb and the heretics, namely Jan Hus and later the Hussites, as ravening wolves. 104  The idea that Michael de Causis was exiled, or threatened with violence, or subjected to retaliation by heretics on account of his faithful conduct has no support whatever in the extant records. He may well have feared reprisals from King Václav because of the failed business venture in the Bohemian gold mines and the misappropriation of government funding. However, this constitutes an altogether different issue from that suggested in the funeral oration. 105  The eulogy is pro forma in many respects. In the immediate context one thinks of sermons preached on 6 July in commemoration of Jan Hus. A good example is the sermon delivered by Jakoubek Stříbro in Bethlehem Chapel in Prague discussed above. It has been preserved in Praha, NK, MS viii E 3, fols 134r–135v and fols 163r–168v; and Praha, NK, MS viii G 13, fols 174r–180v. 106  Wien, ÖNB, MS 4975, fol. 53v.

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for purity of doctrine and a desire to protect the church from the threat of the destructive virus of heresy.107 We must ask the question, what did Michael de Causis think he was doing? In a very real sense it appears he considered himself every much a defender of God and the true church as did Jan Hus. Two men. Two entirely different visions. Second, in the days before Jan Hus went to the stake to be burned alive, his old adversary Štěpán Páleč came to visit him in the Franciscan prison. Despite their unsolvable theological differences, as the two men sat in the cell we are told of much emotion, personal sharing, requests for forgiveness, and the two men saying goodbye to the other with tears. Hus says they ‘wept much’ (satis flevit), and, when pressed by Hus, Páleč confessed, ‘it is difficult’ and started to cry (‘Grave est, et cepit flere’).108 These were the last recorded words Hus made about Páleč. Whatever else consisted of the latter’s personality, one cannot deny his capacity for humanity and compassion. By contrast, the final thoughts Hus committed to paper about Michael de Causis consisted of a comment that the heresy hunter persisted in efforts to disadvantage Hus by interfering with his mail and by deliberate intervention to deprive the prisoner of any further visitors during his solitary confinement. At the same time, the persecutor of Jan Hus expressed to the guards his vicious desire that ‘by the grace of God we will now quickly burn this heretic’.109 Of Hus’s three great enemies, Petr of Uničov was forced to publicly recant his opposition to the dead Hus, and, after reading aloud his submission in the main university hall in Prague, he disappears from the historical records. Štěpán Páleč was forced to give up his living in Prague. He spent the remainder of his life at Kraków. Long before Hus’s death, Michael de Causis had quit the Czech lands. By comparison, his latter days in Rome were uneventful. Apart from his lists of heresies and articles of accusation against Jan Hus, Michael de Causis was not a writer in the sense that Štěpán Páleč was, or others among Hus’s adversaries including Štěpán of Dolany, the Moravian Carthusian abbot. This fact has given Páleč priority of place among the Hus polemicists. Štěpán Páleč was a significant and powerful opponent. Several attributes possessed by De Causis, however, must be considered in assessing his effectiveness in the case against Jan Hus. Unlike Páleč, he was a lawyer. This meant he had 107 

i, 143.

‘Po stopách Husových odpůrců’, in Studie a texty k životopisu Husovu, ed. by Sedlák,

108  Letters of 22 and 23 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 300–02, 296–99, and pp. 301–02. 109  Letter of 23 June 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 300.

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at his disposal a crucial acquaintance with medieval law and prevailing legal procedure. Unlike Páleč, he was active at the Curia on practically a full time basis. This provided him with regular opportunity to influence the thinking and opinions of the cardinals and key individuals long before they set foot in Constance. It has been demonstrated that he had access to the upper echelons of power for several years, in fact throughout almost all of the Hus process. It was Michael de Causis who personally formulated and filed many of the charges, effectively shaping the nature of the prosecution. As a pleader in matters of the faith, Michael de Causis was admirably positioned and sufficiently opportunistic to influence the equivalent of pre-trial motions, interlocutory orders, and in limiting and shaping the eventual legal proceedings both at the Curia and in Constance. There are few others who had such advantage over such a long period of time. In the course of the legal process, there were a number of people closely involved at different periods of time: Pope John XXIII, Archbishop Zbyněk (†1411), Cardinals Colonna, Brancacci, Zabarella, and Peter degli Stephaneschi, the papal auditors John de Tomariis, John Belli, Berthold Wildungen, and George Fleckel, while at Constance Jean Gerson and Pierre d’Ailly, and in Prague and at Constance, Štěpán Páleč, who did not became Hus’s enemy until 1412. The only one of these men active in the legal cause styled ‘medieval church versus Jan Hus’ from start to finish was Michael de Causis.110

110 

I have attempted to situate de Causis in proper context throughout the Hus legal process in Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus.

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he year after Jan Hus was executed, the Council of Constance sent an urgent letter to King Sigismund, drawing his attention to a deteriorating situation within Prague and throughout the kingdom. The letter claimed the Council was receiving daily complaints about atrocities being committed in the Bohemian province and, in much alarm, informed the king that matters were getting worse every day. Apparently, there were scandals, errors, and heresies, sedition, and all of this was firmly contrary to the sound faith of the church. The disturbances were directed towards the priesthood of the Lord and against all those who adhered to the true faith. The letter described a great destructive flame of fire burning throughout the country. This was on account of the fact that the disciples and followers of the devil were celebrating Jan Hus with considerable wickedness and perfidy. The letter advanced the argument that these people did not hesitate to proceed in this fashion, praising the memory of this heretic who had been condemned by the sacred synod. The Council urged upon Sigismund that a veritable cult was emerging. In the temples of God, images of Hus have been painted, his memory is held up in preaching, and the honour which should be ascribed to the saints is being directed towards Hus. Masses are being said for Hus, and songs were sung in his honour. The Council complained this was intolerably blasphemous and heretical, and amounted to an ‘unholy tradition’ in the ‘church of Satan’, and was widespread. The followers of Jan Hus, desiring to perpetuate his errors, were endangering the souls of simple people and had drawn them into the snares of eternal death. Even learned and enlightened men and women had been seduced by this grievous perfidy and fraud, and the faithful were being deceived and seduced. The Council called upon Sigismund to uphold the mandate of the church and of God, which required that this devotion to Hus be stopped. The true faith was

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under siege because the rebels strove mightily against the church of God. Their contumacy continued to increase, and the aggregate wickedness had become even worse in the pursuit of these detestable practices, now even more serious than it had been before. The errors were monstrous. Chief among those irregularities was the fact that certain ‘Wyclifites’ in the university in Prague had been infected with the errors of Jan Hus. The exalting of the memory of Hus included the nefarious practice of Utraquism, which was now being proclaimed as essential to salvation, and Hussite priests had taken over numerous parish churches. Some members of the Czech nobility were supporting all of this and the authority of the church was being defamed. The Council begged Sigismund to intercede.1 The problem was Jan Hus. One of the main concerns was song. The campaign for the memory of Jan Hus was never an argumentum a silentio before the Hussite tradition experienced suppression in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War. A late medieval Czech language song includes among its verse the admonition that ‘all Czechs should remember Master Jan of Husinec, who gave his life for his Christ’. 2 The acts of commemoration in Bohemia were both public and private. Sermons underscored the importance of Hus’s memory. ‘Dearly beloved! Today we celebrate the memory of our faith […], especially Master Jan Hus […], who in these dangerous and last days suffered many torments and a cruel death on account of the name of Jesus Christ, the evangelical law, and for truth.’ 3 This conviction expressed an ethos which spawned a regular annual liturgical feast for Hus, specific vernacular songs which were sung publicly in churches, pubs, houses, and schools, along with other songs which praised Hus and excoriated the Roman church and its hierarchy.4 So embedded was the memory of Jan Hus in the communities of late medieval Bohemia that another song declared how strange it would be if all faithful Czechs did not for all time engage in lamentation over the ‘virtuous and famous man’ Jan Hus. 5 Songs about Hus even alluded to the battle for 1 

Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, pp. 647–51, but especially pp. 647–48. ‘Pamatujmez radostně tento den’ [Let Us Remember This Day with Joy], Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 456. 3  Anonymous sermon preached on 6 July [after 1480] possibly delivered by Václav Koranda the Younger, ‘Sermo de martyribus Bohemis’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 368. 4  Chronicle of Prokop the Notary, 1476 in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 71. 5  ‘Proza o svatém Mistru Janovi z Husince svaté paměti’ [Prose about Holy Master Jan from Husinec of Blessed Memory], in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 466. 2 

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the memory of the martyr.6 It is doubtful many people in Bohemia did not know the name Jan Hus between 1415 and 1620. But what did they know about him? It is possible to argue that songs played a key role in sustaining the memory of the martyred priest for more than two centuries. Until the past generation, scholars of the later Middle Ages often overlooked the medium of song when assessing the construction of memory.7 This is curious inasmuch as we have on record the testimony of critics of sixteenth-century religious reform concluding, for example, that Luther’s hymns established that reformer’s doctrine throughout the German lands, and that his songs were a more virulent toxin destroying more souls than either his sermons or books.8 Might Martin Luther and the reformations at the end of the Middle Ages be considered anomalous? Hussite history suggests not. The memory of Jan Hus was established in several ways throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Sermons were preached exalting Hus and commending his faith and life to his followers.9 Liturgical innovation caused Hus to be celebrated in the Czech churches within a year of his death.10 Martyrologies and hagiographies shaped his posthumous life. Beyond this, his various appearances in iconographical expression provided further elements for his portrayal in historical consciousness.11 Hus has even been controversially found in the Ghent altarpiece wearing a heretics’ cap encrusted with precious stones.12 To all of this, one must add the important contribution of song, both hymnody and popular verse.13 6 

‘Martyres Bohemici’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 452. I first dealt with the medium of song at one of Bob Scribner’s fortnightly postgraduate seminars at Cambridge in 1991 and later worked with Scribner developing the idea for Hussite history. Some of that eventually appeared in Fudge, The Magnificent Ride, and in shorter form in Halverson, Contesting Christendom. 8  Brown, Singing the Gospel, p. 1, with references to the primary sources. 9  Ota Halama, professor of Church History at the Evangelical Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague is working on an analysis of all manuscript sources for sermons preached on 6 July in the period between 1415 and 1620. 10  Most recently see Holeton, ‘The Celebration of Jan Hus’. 11  Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 176–208, but also the im­ portant work of Bílková, ‘Ikonografie v utrakvistické teologii’, and Royt, ‘Ikonografie Mistra Jana Husa’, pp. 405–51. 12  Voorn, ‘The Ghent Alterpiece’, pp. 413–36. I remain sceptical. The best work on the Ghent altarpiece is that by Van der Velden, ‘The Quatrain of the Ghent Altarpiece’, the first offering of a larger work. I am grateful to my colleague at Sewanee Professor Gregory T. Clark for advice on this. 13  The connection between popular songs and propaganda has been examined in Fudge, 7 

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The problem of sources is acute when attempting to assess the nature of religion, the success of reform, or, in this case, the construction of memory. Visitation protocols, whether conducted in Bohemia around 1380 or throughout reformation lands in the sixteenth century, for example, cannot be detached from their political contexts. In other words, one must carefully consider the nature of the queries posed, the manner of the reports filed, as well as the agendas which drove the scripted body of literature resulting from these investigations. It is possible this body of evidence reveals more about the authorities who ordered and carried out the visitations than the nature of religious practice at the popular level. There is, moreover, the challenge of the interpretation of these documents and the extent to which modern scholars may have distorted social and religious realities of the later medieval period. The same must be said for songs. One must carefully delineate among the various levels of message and meaning in the songs about Jan Hus. Since these musical texts construct and advance intentional views and interpretations, it is necessary to see these songs as historiography. Some of these examples draw upon other known historical records, while elsewhere we encounter content which appears to be unique. One song asserts that a great deal of money was put up by Sigismund in order for Hus to be silenced.14 In another song we learn that the Czech king Václav IV warned Hus not to travel to the Council of Constance on account of the unpredictability of Sigismund, whom evidently Václav does not trust.15 Other songs suggest that Germans wanted to kill Hus and came to Bethlehem Chapel with that intention ostensibly going so far as to hurl axes at the unsettling preacher.16 Hus’s verifiable aversion to perjury at the height of his legal ordeal is underscored in these song texts. One author puts these words into Hus’s mouth: Nabádají mne k tomu mocně, abych odpřisáh se a odvolal v tomto čase bludů, kterýchž sem nekázal, nedržal, nepsal, nehásal. The Magnificent Ride, pp. 186–216, and more recently by Perett, ‘Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”’, with some keen insights. 14  ‘Slyšte všickni, staří i vy, děti’ [Listen All of You, Old, Young and Children], in Praha, NK, MS xx B 7, fols 37r–44v. 15  ‘Utěšená milost boží’ [Delightful Grace of God], in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 393. This is a detail for which we have corroborating evidence in a Czech chronicle. Staré letopisy české z vratislavského rukopisu novočeským pravopisem, ed. by Šimek, p. 13. 16  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 392.

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Odvolat nesmím ničeho, boje se boha živého, bych nebyl Ihářem učiněn, před tváří boží obviněn, činíc se vinen, čehož sem já nečinil v kázání svém, bych pravdy svědomí svého neurazil nižádného.17 They urge me strongly to renounce and to recant heresies which I did not preach, did not adhere to them, did not write them, did not promulgate them. I must not recant anything as I fear the living God not to be made a liar and to be accused before the face of God making myself guilty of what I have not done in my preaching not to insult the truth of my conscience.

Another song underscores Hus’s resistance to papally-appointed indulgence vendors with the comment the whole business was rather ‘strange to Master Hus’.18 Elsewhere we find the first of several efforts in the songs attempting to connect Hus to the eucharistic practice of Utraquism. Beřmež ku posilnění jeho svaté tělo, pijmež tu krev předrahú z kalicha přesvatého, na nevěrné nedbajme, pravda Páně zůstane, navěky nezhyne.19 Let us take for strengthening, his holy body, let us drink the very precious blood, from the holy chalice, let us not care about the faithless ones, the truth of the Lord will remain, it will never perish.

The assumption that Hus was part of early Utraquist practice is an example of revisionist history in the songs. There is no evidence Hus had interest in the matter whatever until he was in Constance and, even then, his interest cannot be characterized as other than lukewarm.

17 

‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 394. ‘Antikrista tupiti’ [Vilify Antichrist], Praha, NK, MS xix A 50, fols 195v–196r. 19  ‘Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme’ [Faithful Czechs, Let Us Praise the Lord God], in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 131. 18 

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The specific events of Hus’s life and fate at Constance are well known from a number of reliable records, but these ‘facts’ are less significant than the manner in which those events were remembered, a feature astute historians have not failed to note.20 This is a critical observation. Another important query relates to how much significance should be assigned to songs in the spreading and establishing of the memory of Hus. The sheer number which have survived suggests the need for a closer evaluation. The incorporation of song texts into formal worship contexts and liturgy adds an additional dimension. An examination of Hussite hymnody, but especially popular verse, demonstrates that songs reflect the feelings espoused by Hus’s followers, particularly those who experienced the religious conflicts which convulsed Bohemia in the wake of Hus’s death, those who committed themselves to the law of God, and also by those who composed memory in song based upon personal experiences and recollections.21 The history of popular songs in late medieval Bohemia is extensive. Among the surviving repertoire of songs from the Hussite period there are many not specifically about Hus. Some songs actually oppose the religious reforms associated with him. Slyšte všickni, staří i vy, děti, co já vám chci pověděti: o novém zákoně dvorné položenie, jehožť k božiemu zákonu podobno nenie, neb mnozí dějí, byť byl zákon boží, an jedno zlost a vraždy množí.22 Listen all of you, old, young, and children, to what I want to tell you of the marvellous exposition of the new law which is unlike the law of God. For many say that although it is the law of God it promotes only wickedness and murder.

While Hus was lauded with many accolades, detractors of the movement condemned the confusion which the reform produced, calling it heresy which caused people to ‘blindly creep to hell’. The new ‘lawmongers’, these disciples of Wyclif and Hus, are dismissed as a ‘sinful brood’ and ‘villainous Hussites who adhere to heretical writings’, and their existence is calamity. 23 Hussite com20 

Haberkern, ‘The Presence of the Past’, p. 20. Vlček, Dějiny české historicky, i, 108–09. 22  ‘Slyšte všickni, staří i vy, děti’, Praha, NK, MS xx B 7, fol. 37r. 23  A song of woe against the followers of Jan Hus, in Výbor z literatury české, ed. by Jungmann, Palacký, and Erben, ii, 250–51. 21 

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munities responded by singing ‘he [Hus] did not have the heart of a heretic’.24 Some of the Hussite ideologues wrote songs in an effort to explicate and disseminate Hussite doctrine.25 Some groups of Hussites ostensibly would sing only songs which they had written.26 Other sources reveal that considerable agitation was created on account of Hussite songs in the second and third decades of the fifteenth century.27 The use of vernacular verse in Hussite religious observance goes back to Hus, and was seized upon as a tool by the reform movement and its adherents. Complaints were raised about the vernacular use of hymns, popular songs, or inclusion of Hus in otherwise traditional song. In December 1416, a formal complaint by the cathedral chapter of Olomouc was sent to the Council of Constance in which the canons alleged that Hussites were holding church services for the ‘publicly condemned heretic’ Jan Hus in the presence of many people, representing him as a faithful Christian. Others were singing songs commending Hus as a martyr, comparing his sufferings to that of St Laurence, and esteeming Hus more than St Peter or other proper saints.28 Elsewhere we find evidence from a judicial citation dealing with practices in Písek in 1416, wherein more than thirty individuals, including several priests, were accused of a pastiche of charges including the celebration of Masses in the vernacular in unconsecrated places like barns, wherein Jan Hus was venerated as a saint.29 Already authorities in Prague endeavoured to put an end to new songs. Synods in 1408 and 1409 instituted a ban on using vernacular hymns in the liturgy.30 In 1412, King Václav forbade the singing of songs which disparaged official church doctrine. In 1418, the Council of Constance issued a decree in which Hussite songs were outlawed in the cities, towns, and villages, and it was forbidden to sing songs written by heretics, songs which placed the Roman church or the Council in a poor light, or songs which referred favour24  ‘Národe český, chvaliž boha’ [Czech Nation, Praise God], in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 113. 25  Bartoš, ‘Kněz Jan Čapek’. 26  Jan z Příbramě, ed. by Boubín, p. 54. 27  Anonymous anti-Hussite polemic (1432) in Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 51, fols 305r–310v. 28  The text has been edited in ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung’, ed. by Loserth, pp. 386–91. 29  The extant text in Prague Castle Archive has been published in Macek, ‘K počátkům táborství v Písek’. 30  ‘Synods of Prague and their Statutes’, ed. by Kadlec, pp. 269 and 275.

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ably to the ‘condemned heretic’ Jan Hus. Severe penalties were mandated for disobedience.31 Preachers complained of these strictures.32 Such prohibitions were urged upon the Czech king by the papal legate Fantino de Valle as late as 1462.33 It is doubtful they had any real force. In 1408, the monk and former university master, Jan Rakovník, wrote a lengthy letter to Hus in which he detailed the overt disobedience in regard to new songs by referring to a man who came to Prague and gave a public discourse in which he declared ‘we have refused to listen to the archbishop, who wanted to remove certain verses of a song’. When rebuffed by supporters of Archbishop Zbyněk for his gross impertinence, the fellow retorted he would not be deterred from praising God, and went on to say that, if singing were stopped, the stones would rise up.34 More than forty years later, Aeneas Sylvius complained that common songs continued to be mixed into Divine Offices.35 Moreover, efforts by delegates of the Council of Basel to correct the abuses of the Hussite reforms, including the problem of vernacular singing, continued to encounter opposition. Philibertus, episcopus Constantiensis, natione Gallicus, et collegae sui ex Basilea missi ecclesiasticos introducere ritus, sacerdotes instituere, ex missarum solemnibus vulgaria verba cantilenasque detrahere, sanctorum imagines reducere, aquam benedictam in aedibus sacris reponere, baptismatis fontes sacrare, altaria ornare, spurcitias omnis abolere. Paruere complurimi, quibus mens sanior fuit, Rochezanae complices resistere, obloqui, blasphemare, plebem modis omnibus avertere. Ipse quoque incentor malorum ex parrochia sanctae Mariae ante Laetam curiam, quam propria temeritate invaserat, amoveri minime potuit neque laniare sermonibus suis inter praedicandum Romanam curiam praetermisit legatisque saepe necem per insidias machinatus est.36 Philibert, the Bishop of Coutances, the French nation, and his companions sent from Basel, began to introduce the rituals of the church, to appoint priests, to 31 

For the royal decree see Štěpán of Dolany, Antihus in Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus seu veterum monumentorum, ed. by Pez, iv, col. 380. The Constance ruling (article 17) from session 44 in 1418 appears in Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. by Mansi, xxvii, col. 1197. 32  Jan Želivský, sermon for the Sunday after the Ascension [28 May 1419] in Dochovaná kázání Jana Želivského, ed. by Molnár, p. 140. 33  See Scriptores rerum Silesiacarum, viii, ed. by Hermann Markgraf (1873), pp. 107–11. 34  Letter in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 44–52 (at p. 51). 35  Letter to Juan Carvajal, 21  August 1451, in ‘Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini’, ed. by Wolkan, p. 31. 36  Aeneas Silvius, Historia Bohemica, ed. by Martínková, Hadravová, and Matl, p. 168.

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remove words and songs in the national language, to return pictures of the saints, to put holy water into the churches, to bless baptismal fonts, to decorate altars and to remove all nuisances. Most of the people, who were more reasonable, obeyed. The followers of [the Hussite Archbishop Jan] Rokycana resisted, contradicted, blasphemed, and discouraged people from it by all means. Not even he, the originator of the evil, could by any means be removed from the vicarage of the Virgin Mary before Týn, which he, with flagrant boldness, had seized. During his sermons he did not fail to denounce by his preaching the Roman Curia, and he was often setting snares for the legates in order to kill them.

Obviously, the Council of Basel had a number of religious irregularities in mind, but the opposition to the correction of Bishop Philibert included Rokycana’s encouragement to the people of Prague to resist curbing their singing. Of chief importance in all of this, known both to Philibert and Rokycana, is that ‘the oral circulation of songs was a practically untraceable way to spread news and opposition’.37 The news in Hussite Bohemia was that of Hus’s memory, his approval by God, his righteous martyrdom, and his elevation as a popular saint. The idea of opposition can be linked to all forms of detraction or animosity to Hus and these evolving tenets. From an official church point of view, Hus was partly responsible for the troubles in Bohemia, and this sentiment is reflected in popular verse.38 Another anti-Hussite song classifies John Wyclif as the ‘lord of hell’ and ‘patron of Bohemia’, and categorizes Hus as ‘the only begotten son’ of the English heretic. Wyclif is presented as the ‘forerunner of Antichrist’, who was received enthusiastically in Bohemia and ‘worshipped as divine’. Ostensibly, Jan Hus must be Antichrist personified. The song continues by asserting Wyclif, Hus, and their disciples constitute the ‘seven-headed red dragon’ of the Apocalypse and the ‘serpent who seduces’.39 Songs supporting the Roman church were not uncommon, and those which paid close attention to Hus deserve special attention. From the second quarter of the fifteenth century comes a lengthy polemical song ‘Již se raduj, cierkev svatá’ [Now Rejoice Holy Church] against Hussite religion, which lays the blame for all conflict and calamity upon Hus.40 37 

Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, p. 137. See for example the ‘song of woe’ against the followers of Hus in Výbor z literatury české, ed. by Jungmann, Palacký, and Erben, ii, 250–51. 39  ‘Wyclifite Mass’, Wien, ÖNB, MS 4941, fols 262r–263v. 40  Olomouc, Státní okresní arch., MS 348, fols 103r–104r. Nothing is known of authorship or origin and cannot be dated with more precision than to the period between 1426 and 1450. 38 

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Již se raduj, cierkev svatá, protivíť se sběř proklatá. Tvój křesťanský řád nemine, než kacierský kút ten zhyne. Chvála bohu! Než že zlost dobrotu dusí, toť se stalo vše od Husi. Tohoť jest Viklef urodil, Český zemi zle se hodil. Běda tobě, Hus! Ohyzdil ji světu všemu k ztracení najviec svému. Věčný bude miet zámutky pro své nešlechetné skutky. Běda tobě, Hus! Nebs tak někdy prorokoval, co by ty byl kdy zameškal, tvé by húsky osrdily, že tě, kacieře, spálil. Běda tobě, Hus! Húsko, Húsko, zles se tázal, žes tak purně mnoho kázal. Viz, žeť tvá húsátka nynie mord, vši zlost i lúpež činie. Běda tobě, Hus! Tak-li naplnijí božie desatero přikázanie? Od modly, jenž slóve Dagon, kujete zlý nový zákon. Běda tobě, Hus! Křesťanského řádu zrádci, poslúchajte, svatokrádci! Oběti vaše neslané, horší ste vy než pohané. Běda tobě, Hus! Potvory sviné, ne lidé, horšieť se vámi i židé, že se od křesťan dvojíte, kláštery, fary, lúpíte. Běda tobě, Hus!

Hus in Popular Songs and Hymnody A pro lakomstvie boříte, húsky pekelně búříte, věrné křesťany hubíte, k svému neřádu nutíte. Běda tobě, Hus! Sezřiž s nebe, Jesukriste, žeť tvé choti, panny čisté, z klášteróv sú vystrkali a tvé méno porúhali. Běda tobě, Hus! Hanějíce panenskú čest, slyšte, věrni, ďabelskú lest, jakť sú k nečistotě lítí, hanebno jest vypraviti. Běda tobě, Hus! Hřiví ste jakžto býkové, krávy, myši, muřínové, lúpež, mord, lest, ne křesťanstvie, toť jest vaše náboženstvie. Běda tobě, Hus! Ukrutníci, slyštež dále! Klášter cného Jana krále kartúský ste obořili, vylúpili, vypálili. Běda tobě, Hus! Toť ste pohany pobili, rytierskú věc učinili, na vzdóru to boží chvále vyhnavše kartúsy dále. Běda tobě, Hus! Bojte se s nebe těžkéj ruky, rubajíce božie muky a obrazy po vši Praze! Radujte se, blaze, blaze! Běda tobě, Hus! Činiec dětinské ponutky, zajisté bláznové skutky. A pak na Tábor, tej huoře, co činíte? Buoh vie, hoře! Běda tobě, Hus!

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Přesto lstivě, črtozradú zmordovavše praskú radu, cných konšel Města Nového, s tiem čekajte konce zlého! Běda tobě, Hus! Mistry máte a chválíte, nesnadně se polepšíte, nebť vás tvrdie jako kámen. Buoh ny miluj, rcetež. Amen. Chvála bohu! Now rejoice Holy Church, damned scum puts up resistance to you, your Christian order will not perish, but this heretical place will die, thank God! The fact that the devil is suffocating the good was caused by Hus, all this originated with Wyclif, he caused harm to the Czech lands, woe to you, Hus! You made her [Bohemia] hateful to the whole world, but did it mostly to your own damnation; you will be forever sorrowful because of your despicable deeds, woe to you, Hus! Sometimes you have foretold what you would miss, your Hussites would explode with anger because you have been burned to death as a heretic, woe to you, Hus! Hus, Hus, you got your wings singed because you have preached so defiantly; you should see that your Hussites are now involved in murder, evil, and robberies, woe to you, Hus! Is this how they carry out the Ten Commandments? You are making new laws according to the idol called Dagon,41 woe to you, Hus! Traitors of the Christian order, listen you sacrilegious people! Those unsalted sacrifices of yours, you are worse than heathens, woe to you, Hus! Bastards, swine, not human, even Jews take offence at you because you are separating from Christians and are robbing monasteries and vicarages, woe to you, Hus! On account of greed you are destroying, you are fiendishly inciting Hussites, you are killing faithful Christians, you are forcing them to your abuse, woe to you, Hus! Look down from heaven Jesus Christ, you will see that they have driven from convents your spouses, pure virgins, and blasphemed your name, woe to you, Hus! Dishonouring the reputation of virgins, listen, faithful, the trick of the devil, it is shameful to explain how they are devoted to impurities, woe to you, Hus! You are noisy like bulls, cows, mice, Moors, robbery, murder, unchristian trickery, this is your religion, woe to you, Hus! Cruel men, listen more! You have demolished, robbed, reduced to ashes the Carthusian monastery of the virtuous King John,42 woe to you, Hus! You have massacred heathens, what a chivalrous

41  A reference to the Philistine deity Dagon, defeated by Yahweh in I  Samuel 5.  2–7, with additional references in the Hebrew Bible: Joshua 19. 27, Judges 16. 23, and I Chronicles 10. 8–10. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. by Van der Toorn, pp. 216–19. 42  A reference to the great chapter house of the Carthusian cloister at Smíchov, just south

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deed against the praise of God, chasing away the Carthusian monks, woe to you, Hus! Fear the punishing hand from heaven while destroying wayside shrines and pictures all over Prague! Rejoice, blissfully, blissfully! Woe to you, Hus! Foolishly encouraging certain crazy acts and then, what are you doing in Tábor on that mountain, God knows, sorrow! Woe to you, Hus! In spite of this, by diabolic treachery murdering the council of Prague, virtuous aldermen of the New Town of Prague,43 because of this you can expect a bad end! Woe to you, Hus! You have masters and you praise them; it will be difficult for you to improve because they are reinforcing your opinion like a rock;44 say, let the Lord have mercy upon us. Amen. Thank God!

The song narrative of ‘Již se raduj, cierkev svatá’ comprehensively creates a specific reality. Songs are significant as a bridge between oral and written culture, and may be regarded as a means for disseminating ideas.45 In this case, Hus stands in judgement as the root cause of all troubles caused by his followers as well as those called by his name. The fact that Jan Hus turns up in many songs, it must be asked to what extent hymns and popular songs can be considered a prominent and distinctive feature of Hussite communities in Prague and throughout Bohemia. The evidence which follows tends to suggest music and song were part of the fabric of daily life for people in late medieval Bohemia. The Roman poet Horace wrote ‘Mors ultima linea rerum est’ (‘death is the final limit of everything’), but the posthumous celebration of Hus in song means the poet must surrender to an important caveat.46 Indeed, religious communities such as those in Hussite Bohemia cannot fully be understood from creeds and sermons, but one must of the Lesser Town of Prague. It had been founded in 1342 by King John of Luxembourg. It was demolished on 17 August 1419 by Hussites under the direction of Jan Žižka after the mainly German monks had been evacuated. Chronicle of Bartošek of Drahonice, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 591. Elsewhere, in a rhymed chronicle from 1419 or 1420 we find this comment: ‘They burned down the Carthusian monastery, dragged out the monks saying: look at these silent ones, lying like pigs in the sty’. Třeboň, Státní oblastní arch., MS A 16, fol. 223r-v. 43  A reference to the defenestration in Prague on 30 July 1419 led by the priest Jan Želivský. The best account remains Kaminsky, ‘The Prague Insurrection of 30 July 1419’. 44  Kejř, Mistři pražské univerzity, explores the relationship between the Hussite-inclined university masters and radical priests in Bohemia. Also instructive is Kaminsky, ‘The University of Prague in the Hussite Revolution’. 45  Scribner, ‘Flugblatt und Analphabetentum’. 46  Epistulae 1. 16. 79, in Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, ed. by Fairclough, p. 356.

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also come to terms with the popular expressions of those communities, especially their songs.47 Hussite song declared that Hus came back to life again in the announcement of true teaching.48 This became a crucial assumption in the practice of Hussite religion. As a medium of communication, there are several advantages of song. There is no limitation on account of language; there are no particular literary or distribution problems. Unlike images or printed works, songs cannot be confiscated. Once songs have been learned, they cannot be destroyed. Songs may be transmitted without recourse to anything physical. There are no particular skills required in order to listen to a song or indeed to learn one. There are no costs involved. Pamphlets and images had to be purchased. Songs were free.49 These factors allowed songs to become a potent element in the construction and dissemination of the memory of Jan Hus. In medieval Prague, songs about Hus were a rich repository of information about a number of pertinent issues surrounding Hussite religion, and these same songs underscored topics and convictions which exercised aspects of Czech society. Commensurate with all of this, one should not underestimate the importance of hearing in the later Middle Ages.50 The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries essentially remained oral cultures. Sermons, debates, disputations, conversations, and songs were heard. The significance attached to visual images by scholars like Robert Scribner may be applied equally to oral communication and especially to songs. This pedagogical tool was eagerly seized upon by the priest Jan Čapek, as well as many other anonymous Hussite song writers.51 The medium of song is ideal for teaching, since it does not depend upon literacy, and already it was a functional part of popular culture. Moreover, song made whatever lesson at hand easier to retain, and sometimes both entertaining and enjoyable.52 Writing is unimportant to memory and plays no role in oral cultures. Songs may be written down and read but this is not essential for teaching or learning the song. Memorization becomes the functional literacy, and this might occur without much deliberation. Repetitiveness produces memorization. Short ditties or songs sung in pubs or in the streets might easily enter one’s 47 

Fudge, The Magnificent Ride, p. 208. ‘Jižť Babylon velmi klesá’ [Now Babylon Falls] in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 132. 49  Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, pp. 206–09. 50  Scribner, ‘Oral Culture and the Transmission of Reformation Ideas’, p. 84. 51  An example of Čapek’s work is the song ‘Ve jméno božie počněme’ [We Do in the Name of God] in Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, vi, 190–92. 52  Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, p. 61. 48 

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memory. But what of the longer and more complex songs? One cannot rule out that even these may well have been known by memory in whole or substantial part by people who heard them over and over. A parallel is the liturgy of the Latin church. Late medieval people attending Mass heard the same texts and songs week after week after week, until portions of that oral and aural experience became part of the rhythm of their lives. In this way, one can see the pedagogical value of song employed by the church, the school master, and also by the proponents of reform committed to the memory of the martyred Jan Hus. Religion in the Middle Ages was inculcated through preaching and formal instruction, but even more so through the hymns. This process caused medieval religious culture to be shaped, transformed, and transmitted. Adapted by popular movements, those elements which were deemed incompatible in the existing traditional repertoire were set aside or subjected to a process of reinterpretation, while other aspects which proved amenable to the new emphases were stressed and advanced even more pointedly.53 On the title page of a Hussite hymnal we find a depiction of Hus leading a group of people in singing.54 Too much may be made of Hus’s connection to music and liturgical innovation, and essential correctives must be made.55 Hus did emphasize congregational singing, but on the whole he remained liturgically orthodox.56 Hus’s conservatism might be contrasted to some of his followers, whom we are told made shameless and insolent changes to the liturgy in their congregations by disregarding some portions and introducing their own vernacular songs.57 We already have some clues about the nature of these new songs. An examination of the song texts relating to Hus reveal prominent marks of distinction. The martyr is presented with unvarnished importance. ‘The history of Jan Hus, major patron of Bohemia’ is representative. 58 53 

Brown, Singing the Gospel, pp. 89–90. The book in question is a kancionál which had been prepared by the Unity of Brethren bishop, Jan Roh (1487–1547): Roh, Písně chval božských. This book of ‘Songs for the Praise of God’ consists of 482 hymns and about three hundred melodies on 638 pages and survives in a single copy discovered in 1927. I have been unable to determine its provenance. 55  There is exaggeration in Molnár, ‘The Liturgical Reforms of John Hus’, but correctives are offered in Holeton, ‘Liturgická a svátostná teologie Mistra Jana Husa’. 56  ‘Liturgie u Husa a husitův’, in Studie a texty k životopisu Husovu, ed. by Sedlák, ii, 134. 57  Traktát Mistra Ondřeje Brodu, ed. by Kadlec, pp. 18–19. 58  Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS xi B.1, fols 1r–18r (at fol. 1r). For important comments on this text see Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, with the full text on pp. 167–84. All references or citations from the ‘Leipzig libellus’ are from this edition. 54 

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A liturgical text positions Hus in a place of national prominence. Numerous song texts reveal a not-unexpected strain of religious symbolism. These include biblical themes, allusions to biblical figures, significant personalities from the history of the church, references to God, Christ, and so on. These are not unimportant features. Especially when Hus is called Elijah and Emperor Sigismund is identified with Ahab, and thereafter Hus becomes John the Baptist while the treacherous monarch is referred to as Herod. This historiographical interpretation and application reinforces a fundamental conviction. Hus is presented as the defender of the law of God, motivated by the Holy Spirit to act as did these biblical prophets in withstanding the wickedness of God’s enemies.59 The same importance might be said about apocalyptic themes and eschatological elements in certain songs. The connection to biblical motifs is illustrated in a manuscript of Slovak origin now in the Kraków Cathedral Chapter archives and library in Poland, wherein Hussite songs from the 1430s are interspersed with biblical texts. The grouping is deliberate and reflects specific theological convictions, unique religious practices, and a propaganda agenda. 60 Between 1416 and 1434, the manuscript was owned by Jurík of Topoľciany, a Hussite priest of Slovak extraction. He added the Hussite songs to the text, and additional marginalia indicates he fostered reservations about monastic morality. We know that, when Hussite armies were in Slovak territory, Jurík preached to them. In 1434, he sold the manuscript to Jakub Crispa, notary of the anti-Hussite Polish prelate Andrej Kokorzynski.61 The oldest known song about Hus called ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’ [In Divine Hope, Master Jan Hus] dates as early as 1415. It proved immensely popular and resilient. There are versions which can be located as late as the seventeenth century.62 The words of the song text are intentionally historiographical in their presentation of the dead priest, whose memory is shaped by a propagandist agenda. V naději boží Mistr Hus Jan České zemi svatým vydán. Jenž jest upálen pro pravdu boží v Konstancí od roty biskupské léta božieho tissicieho čtyrstého patnáctého. 59 

‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 6r-v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 171. Corpus ewangelicum et nowum testamentum, Krákow, Archiwum i Biblioteka Krakowskiej Kapituły Katedralneg, MS 182. 61  Ratkoš, ‘K husitskej piesni na slovensku’. 62  ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 425–27. The dating has been suggested by Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 53. 60 

Hus in Popular Songs and Hymnody Ten jest kázal svaté čtenie, to dobřě Česká země vie; ale rota kněžská a mnišská, kanovnická, vydali svědectvie křivé do Konstancie na Mistra Jana ze zlosti, bez milosti. Mistr Hus živ byl v spravedlnosti, hyzdil hřiechy, chválil cnosti, učil přikázání, božiemu prorokování, svój život za to dal, do nebes sě dostal. Chceme-li my hřiešní tam býti, mosíme pro pravdu trpěti, pravdu velebiti, křivdu tupiti, živu býti v Boze bez pokrytstvie. Neb pán Buoh srdce vie všech zlých i dobrých jakožto bóh ot věčnosti. Pane Bože, náš stvořiteli, daj nám mieti dobrú vuoli, abychom plnili tvé přikázánie a čtenie v lásce a v milosti, sebe posilujíc tvým tělem svatým a tvú krví do skončenie. A ty, milá Husi, ještěť k tobě musí Čechové lásku mieti, nebť nevědí, kde vzieti kazatele tak ctného. Mistr Jan Hus upálen bez milosti, neb otevřel kněžské zlosti lidu obecnému, každému věrnému zbožnému. Kněží jeho život chválé, sami se od něho vzdálé, neb byl pokorný i chudý, trpělivý.

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Ne tolik upálen pro krev boží, ale viece pro kněžské zboží, aťby nepanovali, ofěr nebrali, nekupčili. Kristus z chrámu vymrskal svatokupce, ven vyhnal, z toho je trestal, lotry nazval. Proto trpěl. Po stu letech kázání tvě, Mistře Husi, i v Němcích tkve, kterés v zemi České, v kaple Betlemské i jinde v čisté pravdě kázal, i by div ukázal a v tom prospěch dal věčný král po všem světé, aby Krystus, pravda věčná, jenž jest sám cesta bezpečná, sám i věčný život, byl poznán, on, všech věřících sám prostředník a smírce, jistý přimluvce u votce z milosti své O dajž to, mistře nebeský, ať jest všecken lid křesťanský uveden v jednotu, v lásku, v dobrotu, slepotu rač od nás zahnati, daj se právě znáti. v pravdě tvé státi, setrvati do skončeni. Stajštěť se nám s nesnázemi, dajž nám pokoj svůj na zemi, rozmnož dobré zprávce, sám tvého stádce ochránce malého rač býti, od vlkův brániti, ať tebe můžem chváliti bez přestání. Rač nám víry přispořiti, v naději nás upevniti.

Hus in Popular Songs and Hymnody Ó votče nebeský, slyš svój lid zemský, křesťanský, v jménu syna tvého smiluj se pro ného, přijmiž v počet svých volených milostivě Chvále buď věčnému votci i jeho synu též moci i duchu svatému, v božství rovnému, dobrému, neb jest toho hoden vždycky na každý den, aby byl chválen na věky věkův Amen. In divine hope Master Jan Hus was given to the Czech land as a saint; he was burned to death for the truth of God in Constance by a gang of bishops in the year of God one thousand four hundred and fifteen. He was preaching the gospel, that is what the Czech land knows well, but the gang of priests, canons, and monks uttered false testimony in Constance about Master Jan out of anger without mercy. Master Hus lived in righteousness, he rebuked sins, he lauded virtues, he taught the commandments, he gave his life for the prophecies of God, he went to heaven in the hope of God with all the chosen. If we sinners wish to be there, we must suffer for the truth, praise the truth, reprove injustice, and live in God without hypocrisy, because the Lord God knows the hearts of all people evil and good as God is God for eternity. Lord God, our creator may we have good will so that we might observe your commandments and scriptures in love and in grace, strengthening ourselves by your holy body and your blood until our passing away. And you dear Hus, Czechs must still love you because they do not know where else to find such an honest preacher. Master Jan Hus has been burned to death without mercy, because he revealed the evils of the priests to common people and to all the faithful and pious. Priests laud his life, but they are far from him, because he was humble and poor and patient. He was burned not so much on account of the blood of God but because of clerical properties, because he wanted them to not rule, to not take offerings, to not sell. Christ drove them out of the temple, simoniacs, he chased them out, punished them and called them scoundrels. Therefore he suffered. After one hundred years your preaching, Master Hus is still rooted in Germany, which you have preached in pure truth in the Czech land in Bethlehem Chapel and also in other places, so that the eternal king would be miraculously revealed and by this would benefit the whole world, so that Christ, the eternal truth, who himself is the way of salvation, could be recognized, as well as eternal life, as the mediator and reconciler and intercessor with the father from his grace. Oh heavenly master, may it be that all

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Christian people are led to unity, love, and goodness, expel blindness from us, let us know you, let us be in your truth and remain in it until the end. […] Grant us your peace on earth, multiply good overseers, be the defender of your small folk, protect it from wolves, so that we may praise you without ceasing. Let faith increase in us, to strengthen us in hope. Oh heavenly father, listen to your earthly people, the Christian people. In the name of your son, show mercy because of him, accept in grace the number of the chosen ones to forever praise the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, equal in divinity, good, because he is worthy to be praised always and every day for ever. Amen.

The stage is set in this earliest song with references to nationalist fervour, strident criticism of the official church, and the piety evident in Hus’s life and character. The concluding lines reveal the heart of Hussite religious practice, and once more we see linkages between the martyr and Utraquism. Liturgical hymns and popular songs alike stressed the integrity of Hus’s life. One of the repeated themes is that of light. With his colleague Jerome of Prague, Hussite song remembered the martyrs as important sources of illumination. ‘Two lamps arose […] and through bitter martyrdom crossed over into heaven’. While the council of the wicked in Constance crowned Hus with flames, the army of heaven interceded to transport the righteous man to heaven. Notably, one finds the line in this song which implores God to ‘grant that their merits might benefit us by means of our heavenly songs’.63 Through the act of martyrdom, Hus achieved the reward of heaven and now shines as a ‘bright light’, illuminating truth, and is by divine grace the ‘light of the Czech people’.64 Recalling that Hus’s principal occupation was that of a priest assigned to Bethlehem Chapel, which featured vernacular sermons, song texts characterize Hus as ‘the brightest light of all preachers’.65 Combining the motifs of light and proclamation, Jan Hus is lauded as the ‘glittering doctor of truth’ and the ‘noble jewel of preachers’.66 This is based upon the narratives and beliefs that 63  Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi könyvtär, MS i. 313, pp. 501–11 which dates from the second half of the fifteenth century. The complete text of the liturgy for the feast of Jan Hus was printed nearly fifty years ago. Fišer, ‘Hodinkové oficium svátku Mistra Jana Husa’, pp. 81–98. Other relevant comments may be found in ‘The Office of Jan Hus: An Unrecorded Antiphonary’, ed. by Holeton, who apparently knew nothing of the Fišer edition. 64  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 2r and 4r-v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, pp. 167, 168. 65  ‘Proza o svatém Mistru Janovi z Husince svaté paměti’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 465. 66  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 4r and 3v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 168.

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Hus suffered for God, for the law of Christ, in defence of truth. That conviction formed the backbone of the songs about Hus sung by the Hussite communities. Zpívej, jazyk, toho rytěřování, nebť boj obdrželi Čechové věrní, pro pravdu Kristovu se zasadivše, na zlost složenou se neohlédavše. Dala nám země člověka ctnostného, mistra Jana v Husinci schovaného, užitečného, v víře zmužilého, do Konstanci na sněm vypravil ho. Pravdu Krista, již v Betlémě kázával, stálou myslí věrným Cechům vyznával, kněžskou zlost vůbec zjevně vypravoval, čistotu, jenž náleží, oslavoval. Bez viny kleli, na smrt odsoudili, vězením ukrutným sú ho ztížili. Potom jeho katům v ruce podali, bez milosti k upálení vydali. Tak rytíř věrný obdržel vítězství, vyzískal za to nebeské království. Slávou a cti vysoce jest darován, mučedlnickou korunou korunován. Bohu otci i synu budiž chvála, duchu svatému jednostejná sláva, jenž svým stálým rytířům odměňuje, k věčné radosti k sobě přivinuje.67 Sing, O tongue, about the battle; because the faithful Czechs received the fight, they stood up for the truth of Christ, not caring about the joined evil. The Czech land gave us a virtuous man, Master Jan, brought up in Husinec, useful, brave in the faith; she sent him to Constance to the council. He used to disclose to the faithful Czechs the truth of Christ, which he formerly preached in Bethlehem. He used to disclose the evilness of the priests and celebrated the proper purity. Without him being guilty, they condemned him and sentenced him to death; they put him into a cruel prison. Then they handed him over to the hands of the executioners; they handed him over without mercy to be burned. So the faithful knight received vic67 

The text of ‘Zpívej, jazyk, toho rytěřování’ [Sing, O Tongue, about the Battle] has been printed in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 119.

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tory and received the celestial kingdom; for this he received glory and honour as a gift and was crowned with the martyr’s crown. Praise be to God the Father and the Son and the same glory be to the Holy Spirit who rewards his faithful knights and embraces them with eternal joy.

Concisely put, these songs proclaim Jan Hus as virtuous, useful, and brave, and therefore God crowned him with glory and honour and the halo of the martyr. The martyred priest of Constance becomes the ‘little lamb of God’ and the ‘friend of God’.68 He has joined the noble army of apostles and martyrs. The execution of Hus provoked incendiary conflict, religious warfare, crusade, and a long period of violence. Therefore the image of a knight emerged. But there were other medieval knights: those who fought not with swords of iron. ‘Rise up soldier of Christ, rise up! Shake off the dust and get back into the fight. You will fight more courageously […] and will achieve a glorious triumph.’ The Latin phrase miles Christi had been used since late Antiquity, especially in monastic circles, and clearly did not carry connotations of physical combat until the twelfth century. After that, certain religious practised a military profession in the service of God. This is true especially of the military orders of the Temple, the Hospital, and the Teutonics. Bernard of Clairvaux utilized this phrase in the twelfth-century crusading hymn just noted, in which he appears to combine spiritual warfare with the by-then conventional notion of crusading for Christ in physical battle.69 In this mix of images, Hus is sung in terms of a ‘faithful knight’.70 Adopting the military motif, the ‘Leipzig libellus’, dating shortly after the death of Hus, assessed the dead priest’s performance on the battlefield and adjudicated him a ‘virtuous man, pure, godly, fruitful […], the holy man’. Accordingly, he is the ‘excellent master’, ‘pious’, ‘righteous’, ‘holy’, and ‘loved by God’. According to these liturgical hymns, Hus is a ‘glorious preacher’ and a ‘blessed martyr’.71 Along with his colleague Jerome of Prague, the Bohemian martyrs, especially Hus, are consistently represented in song as consummate holy men and women. 68 

‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 10r and 10v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Wit­ ness’, p. 174. 69  ‘Surge, miles Christi, surge’, in a letter written by Bernard around the year 1119 to Robert Châtillon in Bernard de Clairvaux, Opera Omnia, ed. by Mabillon, i, col. 109. 70  ‘Hymna O mistru Janovi Husi’ [Hymn about Master Jan Hus], in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 421. 71  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 5r, 7v, and 13v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, pp. 169, 173, and 177.

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Jichžto srdce nebylo zkaženo, pejchou, smilstvem, lakomstvím není porušeno, všecko to potupili, světa chvály nedbali, tak jako věrní vůdce za Kristem se brali.72 Their hearts were not spoiled, they were not tarnished with pride, fornication, or greed. They vilified everything. They did not care about worldly admiration. They followed Christ like faithful leaders.

Hussite songs intentionally aimed at declaring that the ‘glorious memory’ of Jan Hus should never be forgotten. The songs themselves did more than advance that declaration of conviction, the songs guaranteed the survival of his name. The priest of Prague, condemned as a heretic at Constance, was characterized in song as possessing the gift of the Holy Spirit, diligent in declaring truth, holy in all things, and leading a blameless life.73 These categories immediately set him apart from the general anticlericalism of Hussite songs. Using the word martyr with respect to Hus promptly elevated the deceased priest into the traditional taxonomy of sainthood. The evolving cult of Jan Hus aimed precisely at that identification. Written records, sermons, and songs facilitated that aim, and there were texts which were prepared with that purpose in mind. 74 The career of Hus, according to Hussite song, had been thus ordained of God, fulfilling the Pauline principle (Romans 8. 30) that those whom God predestined were called, then justified, and finally glorified. Mistra pražského, v Písmích učeného, památku ctíme, v naději svatého… Jan od milosti jméno jeho bylo… Rytíř statečný […] skrz mistra Jana, kterýž Krista pána erb i kříž nosil, jakž mu bůh uložil.75

72 

‘Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 130. 73  ‘Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, pp. 129–30. 74  For example, a martyr narrative by Jan Barbatus written shortly after events at Constance easily fits this category. See Fudge, ‘Jan Hus at Calvary’. 75  ‘Mistra pražského, v písmích učeného’ [The Master of Prague, Learned in the Scriptures], in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, pp. 126–28.

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We honour the memory of the martyr of Prague, learned in the scriptures, holy in hope […]; by grace his name was Jan […], a brave knight […]. Master Jan carried the shield and cross of the Lord Christ as ordained by God.

Clearly the martyr motif functioned as one of the principle aims of the songs composed and sung in memory of Hus. He shed his blood for the cause of Christ. Now, having passed through the gates of this life, he wears a halo along with all the other faithful martyrs, ‘the crown of heaven’.76 Song and iconography presented Hus consistently in this fashion, and often the two were combined.77 Christian martyrs were considered saints, and Hus’s identification with those men and women caused him on numerous occasions in song to be called a holy man.78 Previously we saw an expressed conviction in song that Hus had been given a divine mission to accomplish on earth. Other song texts explicated that purpose by asserting that God gave Jan Hus to the Czech people and all faithful Christians to act as a defender of the law of God.79 The crucial point is the conviction that Hus was chosen by God. Here we encounter textual evidence for the stories of Hus’s mother, who knelt seven times to pray when accompanying him as a young boy to school in Prachatice. As a result of this intercession, God blessed young Hus and eventually, by the grace of God, Jan Hus became a holy man.80 We also learn from some song texts that, in an early preoccupation with martyrdom, Hus ostensibly held a hot coal to his body to see if he were able to endure the pain of suffering unto death.81 One might argue that, years before his own martyrdom, Jan Hus experienced the ecstasy of the martyr. Such hagiographic images only reinforced the presumed piety of life, divine calling, and singleness of purpose in the life of Hus. Divine intervention in the course of Hus’s life can be located as an assumption in several of the song texts. For example, God gave Hus the Holy Spirit.82 76 

‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 12r, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 176. One example is the Malostanská Gradual, Praha, NK, MS xvii A 3, fol. 363r, on which the folio features the song and music for ‘O Swatem Mistru Janowi Husy’ [About the Holy Master Jan Hus] which is ‘Let us all in the Lord Jesus Christ always’ accompanied by a depiction of the burning at Constance. 78  ‘Martyres Bohemici’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 450, 451. 79  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 6r, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 171. 80  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 391. 81  Song texts ‘Pamatujmez radostně tento den’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 455 and ‘Utěšená milost boží’, p. 392. 82  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 392. 77 

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Here one thinks of the parallel anointed lives of John the Baptist and Christ. The associations are deliberate; the implications intentional. God raised Jan Hus up. God chose Hus. God’s spirit led Hus.83 The broad thrust of Hussite theology is evident. On account of this divine election, Hus is presented as an excellent example of the faith for everyone.84 That example for all Christians stems from Hus’s excellent performance as the brave knight.85 Trpělivě měl se, tiše, vzývaje Krysta Ježíše, prosil za své nepřátely, jenž ho zahubiti chtěli.86 He was patient and humble, invoking Christ Jesus; he begged for his enemies who wanted to destroy him.

Comparison with the life of Christ is difficult to avoid. We have clear evidence from unimpeachable historical record that such was the case, and that his vitriolic enemy Michael de Causis was one of those for whom Hus offered prayer while awaiting execution in his prison cell. Both popular and liturgical verse were clear: Jan Hus lived in righteousness, he fought sins, and praised all virtue. He taught the law of God and gave his life for this. This is the testimony of the songs. That witness made Hus admirable, and in the songs those who love Christ are admonished, as we have already seen, in devotion to Hus. And you dear Hus Czechs must still love you because they do not know where else to find such an honest preacher.87

Here we see the genesis of the cult-like devotion which grew up around the martyred priest. It was indeed his pastoral ministry in Bethlehem Chapel, his attention to the cure of souls, and his persuasive preaching which garnered him the extraordinary popular following he amassed. By extension, vernacular popular songs included Bethlehem Chapel. 83 

‘Národe český, chvaliž boha’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 112. ‘Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 131. 85  ‘Králi Kriste, bože věčný’ [Christ the King, Eternal God], in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 115. 86  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 393. 87  ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 426. 84 

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Chtie-liť Písmo uměti, musieť do Betlema jíti na stěnách sě učiti, ježto kázal napsati mistr Jan z Husince.88 If you want to know the scriptures, you have to go to Bethlehem, and learn it on the walls from what Master Jan of Husinec ordered written thereon.

The allusion of course is to specific texts which Hus had placed on the walls concerning the eucharist, and which were later expanded by his successor Jakoubek Stříbro.89 In this labour, Hus was diligent, and according to the songs he persisted in declaring the praises of God and, despite persecution, ‘hastened bravely towards the eternal prize’.90 As we have already discovered, in terms of his preaching career in Prague, Hus enjoyed success and the esteem of his colleagues, including the incumbent archbishop up until the time he began to reprove the priesthood for their irregular lives. According to contemporary sources, once Hus took this stance he was attacked by indignant priests. This is reflected in the songs.91 Like propaganda in all times, the songs about Hus argued towards definite conclusions while appropriating and adapting the historical record. Along with the sanctity of Hus himself, the message of some songs was unambiguous admonition to avoid papal teaching entirely.92 The reforming thrust sometimes yielded rather severe consequences. Quam insana hec cohors in hac vesania! nam impingit coronam plenam blasphemia, ponens in caput iusti complosis manibus.93 88 

Husitské písně, ed. by Daňhelka, p. 133; Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, iii, 351, and the anonymous ‘Invectiva contra Husitas’, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 622. 89  These have been printed in Betlemské texty, ed. by Ryba, pp. 39–103, with summary in Fudge, The Magnificent Ride, p. 229. 90  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 7v, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 172. 91  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 392. 92  ‘Zpívajmež všickni vesele’ [Let Us Sing Together Merrily], in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 469. 93  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 11v–12r, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 175.

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How mad this company in this insanity! For it thrusts a crown full of blasphemy placing it, with applause, on the head of the just man.

Once more, Hus is positioned in a posture of righteousness against a wicked Council of Constance. For the followers and sympathizers of Jan Hus, the evidence for the objective truth of his character and mission was so persuasive it appeared that any sane person could not be other than Hussite. Therefore, those who opposed and persecuted Hus must be insane. The language of insanity and its cognates is characteristic of medieval writing about heresy.94 Hussites predictably and persistently denied any connection to religious or theological deviance, and instead accused the Roman church of heresy. Hence, the taxonomy of insanity was applied in Hussite song to the alleged heretical depravity of the official Latin church. The songs formed elements of the construction of memory, its perpetuation, as well as motivation for protest and public demonstration. In one instance, one might argue that song facilitated dramaturgy. On a Sunday morning, the day after the celebration of Jan Hus, 7 July 1521, a group of Hussites gathered together and processed through the streets of Prague. According to a Czech chronicler, the procession was more than the usual commemoration of Jan Hus: The lovers and defenders of God’s truth gathered together and marched to the monastery of St James, and there they sang the song ‘God’s Hope Master Jan Hus’, and then the song ‘Faithful Christians Let us Hope Mightily’. From there they went to St Clement by the bridge, then to [the church of ] St Mary of the Snows, singing these pious songs.

It has been pointed out that the religious houses at which the procession passed are pregnant with significance. St James, the Minorite convent, had seen its inhabitants flee in 1420 and again in 1483 in the face of Hussite force. In the latter year, Hussites entered the hallowed precincts and celebrated Mass, with the eucharist offered to the faithful in both kinds of bread and wine. The stop at the Dominican monastery of St Clement may well be understood as an indication of defiance inasmuch as the mendicants were the staunchest defenders of Roman orthodoxy. Finally, the faithful adherents to the memory of Jan Hus approached the church of St Mary of the Snows. In Hussite history, there are 94  For example, Glaber, Les cinq livres de ses histoires, ed. by Prou. In its condemnation of Jan Hus the Council of Constance declared that Wyclif ’s ideas were ‘insane’. Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 501–03. Cathar heretical ideas at Cologne in the twelfth century were also regarded as examples of ‘madness’. Documents using this language have been translated in Allix and Maitland, Facts and Documents, pp. 350–62.

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few Prague churches more significant than this one. Here in 1419, Priest Jan Želivský had inflamed multitudes of hearers with his sermons, and one Sunday morning from this church galvanized a group to march through city streets and overthrow the civic government in a momentous coup d’etat; an event in which some historians locate the origins of the Hussite Revolution. The significance of the songs and the procession and the proscribed route through the city of Prague was not lost on the authorities, who took fright and ‘on this Sunday they shut all the gates in Prague, and on the bridge, and in the Lesser Town, fearing some sort of attacks on the monasteries’. Clearly, the city officials were alarmed at the prospect of another Hussite uprising like that generated by Želivský more than a century earlier. The procession featuring strident songs about Jan Hus suggested potent danger.95 After all, there were numerous witnesses in the fifteenth century testifying to the use of songs in religious processions and street demonstrations.96 Popular songs and processions like that of 1521 were rooted in the perceptions of what occurred at Constance in 1415. Those historical events became embedded in the verse of Hussite songs. An example might be the song ‘O svolánie konstanské’ [O Council of Constance], which dates as early as 1415.97 Ó svolánie Konstanské, jenž sě nazýváš svaté, kak si bez opatrnosti shladilo bez milosti člověka svatého! Zdali jě tiem zavinil, že mnohým hřiechy zevil z daru milosti božie aby právě pokánie činili beze isti? 95 

The narrative about the songs and the procession are found in the so-called ‘Old Czech Annalists’. I use the edition Staří letopisové čeští od roku 1378 do 1527 in Dílo Františka Palackého, ed. by Charvát, ii, 373–74. However, I follow the excellent outline of these events in Seltzer, ‘Framing Faith’, pp. 192–94. The translation of extracts from the Old Czech Annalists is Seltzer’s. 96  Aeneas Silvius, Historia Bohemica, ed. by Martínková, Hadravová, and Matl, p. 104 speaks of daily processions while Prokop the Notary’s chronicle mentions only feast days. Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 73–74. 97  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii,  422–24; and Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, pp. 100–01, with dating comment on p. 53. Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, iii, 355, places the date slightly later.

Hus in Popular Songs and Hymnody Pýchánie a smilstvo tvé i lakomstvie nesyté od tebe chtěl odvésti a tě na cestu zvésti dóstojenstvie tvého. A ty, sebe netbaje, božích daruov neznaje, zlé za dobré vracuješ, nevdečnost ukazuješ k spasiteli svému. Již všady na všě strany hlásaly vaše činy, že ste z řádu súzenie a božieho zpravenie zevně vystúpili. Nebo ste bez rozumu i pravého dóvodu křikem vaším nesmyslným obyčejem ž dovským pravdu potupili. Proč ste nepřěpatřili těch práv, kteráž ste dřév čtli, že to na vás neslušie, byste skrze skřekánie měli svítěziti? Daleko ste zblúdili a z pravdy vystúpili, svědectvie všěch dobrých s vaší hanbú i jiných davše u potupu. Nad ty sobě zvolivše, své vóli povolivše, svědky pravdě protivné, vieře nedostatečné, přijeli ste vzácně. Skrzě snažnost vaši zlú, bohu velmi protivnú, k libosti a k vóli svej již plné dokonanej co dobrého pójde?

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Zdali skrze smrt jeho, člověka nevinného, zlosti kněžské ohavné, světu všemu poznané, budú sě tajiti? Bohu mnohem vděčnějie i vám užitečnějie bylo by bez omyly, byste byli přijeli to, co on jest kázal. Již po takém, neřadu přijměte tuto radu, aby nedbajíc světské, potlačíc isti ďábelské, jmětež boží pramen. Činiec pokánie pravé, jenž jest hříšným vydané. A to vám ten rač dáti kterýžť má králevati všecky věky. Amen. O Council of Constance who call yourself holy, how did you without reservation and without regret kill the holy man? Is it his fault that he revealed the sins of many as he received the gift of divine grace so that they could repent without deceit? He wanted to turn you away from your pride and fornication and gluttonous greed, and wanted to guide you to the path of your dignity. And you not caring about yourself, not knowing the gifts of God, are giving evil for good, showing your ungratefulness to your Saviour. Always and everywhere your acts were showing that you have obviously abandoned the order of judging and the orders of God. Or without any reason and genuine cause you have vilified truth by your senseless shouting and Jewish habit. Why have you not noticed the rights that you earlier read, that it is not suitable for you to win by shouting? You have gone too far astray and abandoned truth and vilified the testimony of all the good with your shame and with that of others. And instead of those, you have chosen according to your will witnesses opposing the truth and with insufficient faith. Through your mean effort, very disagreeable to God, what good can come from what you have already done to satisfy your will? Does it mean that because he, the innocent man, is dead, the evilness of priests that all the world learned about will now be concealed? It would have been more pleasant to God and more useful for you, and there would have been no mistake made should you have accepted what he preached. After such a wicked act you should accept this advice: neglecting mundane things and sup-

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pressing the devil’s trick, accept the divine source. Genuinely repent, this is here for sinners. And let the one who rules for ever grant it to you. Amen.

Here we find the action of the Council excoriated and a call for repentance on the part of the perpetrators. Hus is holy, not the synod. He suffered because he called to account the treachery of the medieval priesthood. Endeavouring to correct a dangerous drift away from truth, the corrector was subjected to ingratitude and abused. Truth was abandoned at Constance and nothing good could be included in the outcome. The memory of Hus, however, according to this song, does not remain static and simply an artefact of the past. Rhetorically, the song wonders if the persecutors of Hus imagine that, since the ‘innocent man is dead’, the wicked deeds of priests can now be concealed and hidden from view. The history of the Hussite tradition suggested that the main thrust of Hus’s reform agenda was taken up by his followers, and the song serves as a reminder that what began in Hus is now being carried out by his followers. The song ‘Slýchal-li kto od počátka’ [If Anyone Has Heard From the Beginning] excoriates those who abandon truth and deceive the people. ‘They oppose God […]; they refuse to allow the gospel to be preached, read, or sung to simple people […], O Judas clergy’.98 Faithless priests betray Christ and the gospel. Emphatically the song ‘O svolánie konstanské’ also reinforces the idea of divine mission and special calling in the life of Hus as a deterrent to the ‘Judas clergy’. Songs sung in the streets like ‘In Divine Hope, Master Jan Hus’ are replicated in liturgical innovations which placed Hus in a place of prominence. In a parallel with Jesus, Jan Hus is characterized as the little lamb of God, who carries the sins of his country, and when the end comes Hus, like Jesus, is vindicated by God.99 In the liturgical texts for the feast of Jan Hus, there are three prosae which provide considerable information about Hus. These are the Clericalis turma, the O quam per contrarium, and Rex regum. The latter text represents Hus as drinking from the chalice of Christ, and thereby through his death achieving equality with the apostles Peter and Paul. Christe, tuum calicem tunc die sabbati in octava principium bibens Petri et Pauli ad eternum bravium cucurrit fortiter, Pie, iuste et sancte preclarus magister, deo et hominibus dilectus presbiter, doctrinis et moribus clarebat pariter. 98 

Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, vi, 181–83. Holeton, ‘“O felix Bohemia — O felix Constantia”’, p. 395; and Fudge, ‘Jan Hus at Calvary’, pp. 45–81. 99 

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O Christ, in drinking your chalice on the Sabbath day in the octave of the principle men Peter and Paul, he [Hus] hastened boldly to his eternal reward, the pious, righteous, and holy illustrious master, a priest loved by God and the people; he shone forth in equality in teaching and morals.

But the repeated theme throughout the songs is that ‘the agents of Antichrist’ conspired to murder this ‘lamb of God’. Hus as the righteous man offered up good gifts for the evildoers, knelt and prayed with lamentation before offering himself as ‘victim and sacrifice’.100 There is a conscious build-up of intentional belief in the sanctity of Hus, his legitimate place among the pantheon of faithful saints and martyrs of the faith, and how his ultimate sacrifice united the Czechs as one people dedicated to God and truth. Sangwine pro sangwine tuo suo fuso, optimo sancto fine taliter concluso, cum sanctis martiribus tenet aureolam, Ut cum iudex venerit in fine seculi, bonorumque malorum tunc cernent oculi, quod Iohannes sanctus Hus celi fert coronam. Esset nimis dolendum et valde mirandum Bohemis fidelibus, si non deplangendum ducerent continue tam virum preclarum. Candida scolarium tu universitas, doctorum, magistrorum consors societas, socium deplangite vestrum, pium, carum. Stola predicatorum sertaque virginum, merores viduarum fidesque coniugum totaque artificum sancta communitas, Glorie insigniis preclari domini, magnantes et proceres, milites strenui cunctaque Bohemica plangat nobilitas.101 His own blood [was shed] for your blood. The end of the saint was drawn to a close. He holds a crown with the holy martyrs so that, when the judge shall come at the end of the world, the eyes of the evil and the good will see that Jan called Hus bears the crown of heaven. May there be great sadness and wonder if there is no lamentation among faithful Czechs; they consider the celebrated man the brilliant company of the scholars. A harmonious society of teachers and masters grieve for 100  101 

Holeton, ‘“O felix Bohemia — O felix Constantia”’, p. 402. Holeton, ‘“O felix Bohemia — O felix Constantia”’, pp. 402–03.

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your pious and beloved ally. Schools of preachers and gathered virgins, sorrowful widows and faithful spouses, the whole community of the artisans, celebrated lords with the emblems of glory, princes and great men, courageous soldiers, may all the Czech barons grieve.

Here the historical identity of Hus and his constructed memory meet. Liturgy is altered to accommodate a new reality and an urgent message. Contrary to the limitations of written texts, such sentiment resounded in the Hussite churches and could be heard in the streets of towns and villages. In examining the songs about Hus, it becomes clear that examples of contrafacta can be found with relative ease. Contrafactum is the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music or tune. In other words, new texts are set to old melodies. 102 One example of contrafactum in the Hussite milieu is the famous processional song ‘Pange, lingua, gloriosi’ by the sixth-century poet Venantius Fortunatus, which was often used in ecclesiastical functions. In Hussite hands, it became a tool in the promulgation of the memory of Jan Hus, ‘a uniquely Czech adaptation’.103 Possibly dating to the 1420s, the song represents a significant turning point in the development of Hus’s memory within religious practices in late medieval Bohemian Christianity.104 Another example of contrafactum would be the previously mentioned ‘Wyclifite Mass’. Credo in Wykleph ducem inferni patronum Boemie et in Hus filium eius unicum nequam nostrum, qui conceptus est ex spiritu Luciperi, natus matre eius et factus incarnatus equalis Wikleph secundum malam voluntatem et maior secundum eius persecucionem, regnans tempore desolacionis studii Pragensis, tempore quo Boemia a fide apostotavit. Qui propter nos hereticos descendit ad inferna et non resurget a mortuis nec hebebit vitam eternam. Amen… Planctus, planctus, planctus, canimus: Wykleph Scarioth pleni sunt celi et terra heresi tua. O sedes in profundis, maledictus qui venit in nomine diaboli. O sedes in profundis.105 I believe in Wyclif, the lord of hell and patron of Bohemia, and in Hus his only begotten son, our nothing who was conceived by the spirit of Lucifer, born of his mother, and made incarnate and equal to Wyclif according to the evil will […], 102  Falk, ‘Parody and Contrafactum’. For the Hus songs see Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, pp. 57–59. 103  For relevant comments see Haberkern, ‘The Presence of the Past’, pp. 215–16. 104  On dating, see Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, pp. 69 and 90 and the editorial comments by Václav Novotný in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, p. cxx. 105  Wien, ÖNB, MS 4941, fols 262r–263v.

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ruling at the time of the desolation of the University of Prague, at the time when Bohemia apostatized from the faith, who for us heretics descended into hell and will not rise again from the dead nor have everlasting life. Amen […] Sing mourning, mourning, mourning Wyclif Scarioth [i.e. Judas Iscariot!], heaven and earth are full of your heresy. Oh, lowest stool, cursed is the one who comes in the name of the devil. Oh, lowest stool.

The credo and sanctus of the liturgy would have been familiar to medieval people in Prague and throughout Bohemia. The substitution of Wyclif and Hus for God and Jesus would have been an effective contrafactum and significant tool of propaganda. Early collections of Hus’s works sometimes included an oration placing Hus among the torchbearers of the faith and imploring all true followers of Christ to adhere to the songs of the martyred goose, Jan Hus. Epitaphium Joannis Hussi Apostoli ac Martyris Christi Iesu. Ille renascentis verbi sine labe fidelis Praeco, bonus vita, dogmatibusque bonus, Hussius aeterni servus sincerus Iesu, Nomine pastoris dignus Apostolici, Praeceptor, Pragae generati, Hieronymi, et idem Docto Wiclefi de grege discipulus, A Constantensi Synodo combustus, Olympum Mente adiit, cineres, ossaque Rhenus habet. Christe, Bohemorum genti concede, perenni Ut studio cantus anseris hujus amet.106 An epitaph for Jan Hus, the apostle and martyr of Christ Jesus: he, without blemish, is the faithful man of the revived word surpassing the good life; he taught the better way: Hus the sincere and eternal servant of Jesus, worthy of the name of apostolic shepherd, master of Prague, Jerome, and the same learned from the flock, a disciple of Wyclif burned by the Synod of Constance. In his mind he approached Olympus; the Rhine kept his bones and ashes. Christ, grant to the nation of the Bohemians, that they might always love the songs of the goose.

Naming Hus as the ‘apostle and martyr of Christ’ and a man worthy of the title ‘apostolic shepherd’ or pastor signifies the scope of his significance and the importance of his memory. 106 

Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, unpaginated introductory page.

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These motifs were of course taken up in the songs, and thereby achieved a wider circulation than the printed oration composed by Flacius 140 years after the death of Hus and buried in a Latin collection of documents read only by a select group. The ‘apostle of Christ’ had specific functions in the memoria of the Hussite communities. Oramus, sancte Johannes, ut victis cunctis hostibus celo reddamur abiles tuis beatis precibus.107 We pray, Saint Jan, that all the enemies having been defeated we may deliver to heaven those prepared by your blessed prayers.

Here we encounter the elevation of Hus to the status of intercessor, whose prayers are considered efficacious. Here he joins the traditional medieval Bohemian saints Wenceslas, Ludmila, Prokop, Anežka, and Vojtěch as spiritual figures and intercessors with God. It is significant that in the visual iconography of Hussite history, Hus is featured with several of these saints.108 This heavenly status of Jan Hus can be further evidenced in Hussite song. Everlasting lord, the pious Jesus Christ forgive our sins and give us the gifts of glory join us together in your own country with the glorious preacher Jan, the blessed martyr where there are no further complaints or discontent or anyone mourning and there are no rivals able to harm your holy ones rejoicing for all eternity. Amen.109

Significant is the expressed hope that the faithful might one day be united with Hus the preacher in heaven, where there will be no further concern about condemnation or another episode of the holocaust of Constance. Some of the fol107 

‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 6v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 171. Two examples suffice. Hus appears with Vojtěch on a retable for the Vlněves altarpiece now in the Nelahozves Castle, thirty-five kilometres north of Prague in the Czech Republic and elsewhere with several other saints, including Wenceslas and Prokop, on the predella of an altar originally in the Church of the Holy Cross in Chrudim in eastern Bohemia, now ensconced in the Regional Museum in the same town. For comments on both pieces see Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 193–95. 109  The song appears in Praha, NK, MS vi C 20a, fol. 98v. 108 

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lowers of Hus believed that in the coming kingdom of God, which was anticipated at any moment, they would ‘see Lord Břenek resurrected as well as Master Jan Hus and other known personalities chosen by God’, and they expected to ‘feast with them until the Day of Judgement’.110 Consequently, one also finds in the song texts the glorification of martyrdom. One of the antiphons for the feast of Jan Hus on 6 July connects the willingness of faithful Christians to die for the law of God with the example of Hus, and the result that such sacrifice leads to the promise of salvation and eternal life. Cristum, regem martirum, regnantem Dei Patris in gloria, laudamus hodie omnium Boemorum spe Cristi martirum in memoria, qui pro eius legis dileccione sacrique corporis ac sanguinis sumcione igne usti, ense cesi, fossis iacti, undis mersi, mire sunt oppressi viventes, eciam pueri innocentes. O fidei auctor, sis nostri roborator; ob eorum merita in tui lege agnita da digne tuum calicem bibere, ut possimus eciam fundere nostrum pro te sanguinem, timentes neminem. O veritatis tutor, esto nunc protector Boemice gregis ab emulis tue legis, ut cognoscant quia veritatis tua vincit, liberat suos et manet in eternum. Amen.111 Christ, the king of the martyrs reigning in the glory of the kingdom of God the Father, we praise them today, all of the Bohemian martyrs, in the hope of Christ and in the memory of all those who loved the law of God and consumed the holy body and blood, were harmed by fire, killed with the sword, thrown into the mines, drowned in the waves though alive, were overwhelmed; even children are innocent. O author of the faith, strengthen us on account of the merit of those who acknowledged your law; grant, so to drink worthily of your cup, that we might be able also to shed our blood for you fearing no one. O guardian of the truth, now protect the Czech flock from the enemies of your law, that they may know that the truth frees, overcomes, and remains forever. Amen.

110 

Jan z Příbramě, ed. by Boubín, p. 50. Lord Břeněk Švihovský of Skála, of the Risenberk family, was a colleague of Jan Žižka. He fell in battle at Sudoměř on 25 March 1420. 111  I cite the ‘Cristum regem martirum’ from Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi könyvtär, MS i. 313, pp. 503–05 as edited in Fišer, ‘Hodinkové oficium svátku Mistra Jana Husa’, p. 84, with music pp. 90–92.

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The text ‘In Honour of the Priest of the Holy Law’ proclaims that Hus was burned alive, his ashes thrown into the water of the River Rhine, and his enemies assumed he was gone forever, and his memory eradicated, irrevocably.112 Clearly, the assumption was mistaken and misguided, as the many songs commemorating Jan Hus demonstrate, including those which mention the sanctifying of the Hus day only in passing, and that according to his detractors his legacy was only one of continued disobedience. Jan Hus z Husince rodem i s svým proklatým plodem kázali, čím kněží lúpiti, obci od nich odstúpiti, řkúc: Netbajte na kuběnáře!113 Jan Hus was born in Husinec but the evil ones who followed him preached about how to steal from priests, how to take what belongs to them, while saying there is no need to consider the sexually immoral one.

The history of Hussite songs constitutes a significant aspect of late medieval Czech historiography.114 Its connection to Jan Hus remains a notable feature. Among the most important musical texts from the period is the kancionál from the village of Jistebnice, located about eighty kilometres south of Prague near Tábor.115 Scholars have argued that the hymnbook originated from the context of Prague’s Bethlehem Chapel.116 The book may have its beginnings as early as the second decade of the fifteenth century. While there is no obvious connection in the Jistebnický Kancionál with the cult of Hus, it can be pointed out that many Hussite manuscripts of later provenance also lack the feast of Hus.117 Nevertheless, the hymnbook from Jistebnice is witness of the importance of song in late medieval Bohemia.118 112  ‘Ad honerem sacerdotis sancte legis’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 438. 113  ‘Všichni poslůchajte’, [They All Obey], in Výbor z literatury české, ed. by Jungmann, Palacký, and Erben, ii, 239–41, which dates to 1417. 114  The seminal work here is Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý. 115  Praha, KNM, MS ii C 7; a text I first examined in 1991. A critical edition has begun to emerge: Kolár, Vidmanová, and Vlhová-Wörner, Jistebnický Kancionál. 116  See for example Kadlec, Přehled českých církevních dějin, pp. 99 and 266; and Kouba, ‘Od husitství do Bílé hory’, p. 107. 117  Vlhová-Wörner, ‘The Jistebnice Kancionál’, p. 111. 118  Brewer, ‘The Jistebnický Cantional and Corpus Christi’.

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Defining the memory of Jan Hus seems to have been accomplished partly by excoriating his detractors, condemning the official church, and denouncing the conduct of his enemies. Just as Hus is characterized as a Christ-figure, as the prophet Elijah, and the itinerant preacher John the Baptist, so his opponents are presented in less salutary roles like Ahab, whose wickedness prompted several Hebrew prophets to confront him, and Herod, whose paranoia about the baby Jesus led him to massacre all the infant boys in Bethlehem. In this sense traditional and biblical motifs are drawn upon in the songs in support of Hus and as a method of condemning those who opposed him. This juxtaposing of the righteous Hus with the unrighteous representatives of the Latin church go some distance to creating a useable memory of the martyr for the Hussite communities. The early song ‘Tvórče milý zžel sě tobě’ [Dear Creator Have Mercy], from 1417 or 1418, once again places Hus in contrast to the Council of Constance. The song paints a portrait of a time of troubles mired in great transgression. There is widespread resistance to the law, and society is steered by sinners rather than divine grace, and the activities of an ‘evil generation of snakes’ adheres to the outcome of the Council of Constance, which vilifies God. Priests ignore the law of God and continue to forsake ‘the glorious supper provided by the Lord God’, enumerated in terms of Utraquist doctrine. Withholding the chalice from the laity was declared in Hussite song as the work of Antichrist ‘incited by the devil’.119 Indeed, there was a backlash in Prague when the decision of the Council banning Utraquism became known.120 Unlike the song ‘Již se raduj, cierkev svatá’ [Now Rejoice Holy Church], which blamed the time of troubles squarely on the heretical priest of Prague, ‘woe to you, Hus’, this song reverses that conclusion and assigns total liability for the social and religious upheaval on an unworthy order of priests and popes. A řkúc sprostným: ‘Nejste hodni božie krve přijímati, ale kněží jsú duostojní té svátosti požívati.’

119 

‘Zpívajmež všickni vesele’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 467. 120  For example, Nicholas of Dresden, Apologia in Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iii, cols 591–647 (erroneously assigned to Jakoubek) argues for the necessity of the lay chalice. This text has recently been examined in Mutlová, ‘Mikuláše z Drážďan Apologie proti rozhodnuti kostnického sněmu’, passim, but pp. 58–73 for codicological analysis.

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Ach prokletí, zlí popové, proč se čtení protivíte, činiece zjevně hřichy své, však se nad jiné chválíte. Zdáli Ježíš svú krev prolil jedno pro kněžské spassenie? Milý kněže, zdas smysla zbyl, že sobě skládáš lži nové?121 [Priests] are telling common people: ‘You do not deserve to receive the blood of God; only priests are worthy to receive the sacrament’. O damned evil popes, why do you oppose scripture, committing obvious sins, considering yourselves superior to others? Did Jesus shed his blood only for the salvation of priests? Dear priests, did you lose your reason that you are creating new lies?

The song goes on to argue that scripture insists only those who partake of holy communion in both kinds would live in Christ and have eternal life. This conviction can be located in specific Hussite teachers such as Jakoubek Stříbro.122 The song asks rhetorically: is it better to believe God and the saints in the matter of salvation, or the Council of Constance? The song then examines the nature of that synod. Dvě létě tomu minule, jakž kněžstvo v Konstancí ležie, nic dobrého neučinili, než dva mistry zahubili: Mistra Jana, Jeronima […], Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, rcemež všichni Amen. Mistr Hus živ byl v spravedlnosti, hyzdil hřiechy, chválil cnosti, učil přikázánie božie a svuoj život za to dal.123

121 

Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 428–30 (at p. 428). Leipzig, UB, MS 766, fol. 208v, Wien, ÖNB, MS 4491, fols 1r–28r; Betlemské texty, ed. by Ryba, pp. 106–39; and Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iii, cols 416–585. 123  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 428–30 (at pp. 429–30). 122 

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Already two years have passed since the priests started the Council of Constance; they have accomplished nothing salutary, save that they killed two masters: Master Jan and Jerome […]. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, let all of us say Amen. Master Hus lived in justice, fought sins, and praised virtues, taught the commandments of God, and gave his life for this.

The song clearly defends Hussite doctrine, esteems Jan Hus, and dismisses the Council as an extraordinary violation of the law of God. The song text wonders, ‘why are you hesitating between two sides?’ when it is clear that Hus spoke truth and defended it, whereas the Council only ‘preached, wrote, and disseminated lies’. His persecutors, stubborn and unteachable, ‘remain in heresy until today’.124 One of the other repeated themes in the songs is the refrain that false witnesses were brought forward during the Hus trial to testify against the defendant.125 These false witnesses were characterized as ‘ravenous wolves’ among whom the ‘gentle lamb’ tried to defend himself.126 These false witnesses were mainly evil clergy, who conspired against the truth of God.127 The outcome on 6 July 1415 was nothing short of tragic. Potupen jakžto proklatý jsa, pravý od falešných, těžkými okovy spatý spravedlivý od scestných, upálen ohněm kněz svatý od katů přeukrutných.128 Vilified as if he were damned, the true by the false, put into heavy chains, the righteous by the devious, the holy priest is burned by fire by the cruel tyrants.

These evil men ‘commended Hus to demons […], gave him to wolves […], burned him with fire’.129 The tragedy of Jan Hus was twofold. First, he insisted upon dying, even though the Council made practically every effort to allow 124 

‘Králi Kriste, bože věčný’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 115. For example, ‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 2r, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 167. 126  ‘Proza o svatém Mistru Janovi z Husince svaté paměti’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 465. 127  ‘Králi Kriste, bože věčný’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 115. 128  ‘Hymna o Mistru Janovi Husi’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 421. 129  ‘Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 130. 125 

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him to escape the sentence of death. Of course, to take up that option Hus had to be willing to set aside his conscience and acquiesce in the authority of the Council. He determined the cost for life was too high. Second, the nature of his trial at Constance, according to Hussite interpretation, is revealed in the songs to have been not only a miscarriage of justice but an example of a demonically inspired assault by the Roman church upon a righteous priest. I zbouřil ďábel mnichy, kanovníky, biskupy, kardinály, papežské holomky, proti němu povstali, zkrvavě naň hleděli […]130 The devil incited monks, canons, bishops, cardinals, popes, scoundrels; they arose against him, looking at him with blood-thirsty eyes.

We have already seen that parallels between Jesus and Hus are common in the songs, and this text is even more so, although the subtlety is easy to miss. St Paul wrote of the secret and hidden wisdom of God, and went on to say that ‘none of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’.131 The term ‘rulers of this age’ does not refer either to Jewish or Roman authorities, as might be assumed at first blush. An examination of the Greek form of the phrase ‘archontes tou aiōnes toutou’ reveals a quite different connotation, suggesting that demonic powers instrumental in governing the world order were thus responsible for the death of Christ. In the Hus case, the same demonic rulers conspired to murder the servant of the Lord of glory.132 In other words, the case against Hus was unfair, unjust, motivated by demonic power, and rigged from the outset. It is clear why the authorities regarded such songs as dangerous. The sentiment was politically subversive and socially inflammatory. These popular verses elevated the case of Jan Hus into the Czech national consciousness and drew metahistorical significance out of his trial. This is especially true when the songs continuously accused hordes of bishops, priests, canons, and monks of bearing false witness against Jan Hus.133 130 

‘Hymna o Mistru Janovi Husi’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 421. 131  I Corinthians 2. 6–8, New Revised Standard Version. 132  For comments on the Corinthian phrase see Brandon, The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 14–15. 133  ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 425.

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The songs amounted to a concerted campaign of negative propaganda against the church, which called into question the viability and integrity of its officials and representatives, particularly when malice and evilness were identified as the driving motivation.134 As noted above, one of the earliest songs commemorating Hus (1416), ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’ [In Divine Hope, Master Jan Hus], referred to gangs of bishops and priests, deceitful canons and monks, who, filled with wrath, systematically and ruthlessly lied about Hus in a deliberate campaign to bring about his death. Similar themes can be found in sermons and we find, for example, the assertion that ‘canons, parish priests, monks, and nuns persecuted St Jan Hus’.135 In 1524, Martin Luther’s German song ‘Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour’ first appeared in four separate editions: a Wittenberg hymnal, two Erfurt Enchiridia, and on a broadsheet, no longer extant, published at Augsburg. In each of the four sources, the song bears the caption: ‘The Song of St Jan Hus Revised’. The song is Latin, consisting of nine stanzas known as Jesus Christus nostra salus, and has been ascribed to Hus partly on account of the acrostic, I-OH-A-N-N-E-S, evident in the first eight stanzas. The song is chiefly about holy communion, but the significance lies more in Luther’s identification with Hus and, more importantly, with the identification of Jan Hus as a saint.136 Notably, it is possible elsewhere to find Hus’s name skilfully woven into another song text as an acrostic.137 The Hussite tradition appears to have actively encouraged the proliferation of religious song, especially those extolling Hus. After all, thanks to Jan Hus ‘faithful people poisoned by papal teaching’ have been liberated from darkness.138 That conviction was thought worthy of proclaiming in song. Writing history and constructing memory is always and unavoidably political, inasmuch as these enterprises are driven by particular motivations. In other 134 

‘Hymna o Mistru Janovi Husi’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 420, 421. 135  Jan Želivský, sermon for 6 August 1419, Praha, NK, MS v G 3, fols 33r–42v (at fol. 39r). 136  The German text of the song Jhesus Christus unser Heyland is in D. Martin Luthers Werke, xxxv (1923), pp. 435–37, and the music on pp. 500–01. The Latin text and music ascribed to Hus is in Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, iii, 408–11, and the Czech version on p. 412. Nejedlý assigns authorship not to Hus but instead to his predecessor Jan of Jenštejn (1348–1400), former archbishop of Prague. For further information on this song in its Lutheran context see especially Leaver, Luther’s Liturgical Music, pp. 154–56. 137  Pointed out by Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 163, referencing the ‘Leipzig libellus’, fol. 1r. 138  ‘Mistra pražského, v písmích učeného’, in Fojtíková, ‘Hudební doklady Husova kultu’, p. 128.

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words, historical writing attempts to reconstruct the past, but this is informed by contemporary impulses and the prevailing climate in the immediate context.139 There is no way to completely avoid this subjectivity. From the Hussite point of view, songs consolidated the memory of Hus. In these texts, he becomes an icon of holiness, a saint in Hussite popular imagination. His defence of truth, honour, and integrity is consistently contrasted with the betrayal and injustice he encountered at Constance, or the reprehensible behaviour uncritically connected to the medieval priesthood. The comparison was often starkly put. A layman named Krampeř, who lived near Kozí Hrádek around 1415, claimed any priest who did not stand with Hus was evil.140 Perhaps Krampeř heard Hus preach in or around the castle. It is possible he met the exiled priest. We cannot know for certain. Notwithstanding, the memory of Hus was kept alive in liturgical and popular song. Neither could be considered more important than the other. By means of song, Czech men, women, and children, rich and poor, were exposed to and able to gain an understanding of Hus and the drama of his life, and be instructed in the memory of the martyr without a specific faith instructor. In this sense songs can be considered a form of proclamation. The instruction of the masses in an oral culture might best be achieved via iconography and song. The proclaimed message about Jan Hus constructed and facilitated memory. The memory of Hus in its liturgical dimensions represents the inversion of the medieval religious world. Popes and councils are thrown down to ignominy; the convicted heretic is lauded as holy and saintly. Some of these song texts, though historically liturgical in nature and intention, did not praise the Roman church or its tradition, but instead formed an indictment and called it to account at the bar of divine justice.141 The world has been turned upside down. The songs establish a pattern of the use of music and verse to express assumptions about Hus as well as history, and in the process reveals clues about constructing memory. It can be said without qualification that songs were an essential aspect of Jan Hus’s memory and a key component of Hussite identity. Song texts claimed that, more than one hundred years after his death, Hus’s preaching was still firmly rooted in the land, and that even foreign nations were learning the faith of Jan Hus.142 139 

Fasolt, The Limits of History, develops themes around this motif. Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 637. 141  Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 162. 142  ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 426; and ‘Martyres Bohemici’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 452. 140 

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As tools of propaganda it cannot be assumed that the addressees of popular songs were really the intended audience. Those priests or particular councils could not be expected to actually listen to the polemic or take seriously the admonitions therein. In the following ‘Song about Archbishop Zbyněk’, the prelate, who had become an implacable enemy of Hus, would have paid no heed to such songs. Slyšte rytieři boží, připravte se již k boji, chválu boží ku pokoji Statečně zpievajte. Aby čtenie nekázali, pány světa aby byli, apoštoly v smiech měli jimž pilně přikázal. Antikristus již chodí, zapálenú pěčí vodí, kněžstvo hrdé již plodí pro buoh znamenajte! I cožs se Zbyňku tak zpořil na kněží se tak obořil, pravdu Krista umořil, jenž tě v srdce hnětla? Antikristu aby dvořil, s kanovníky se svolil, pokorným se protivil, neb máš málo světla. Zajiec se dřiev zabýval a již se tak vzhóru zzpal, aby na lva nic nedbal, což jemu přikáže. Bože, raďlvu, ať vstane, zlosti kněžské roztrhne, zákon Kristóv navede, rci, ať Húsky kazí. Jest příslovie staré, dobré, plémě české poctivé, nelze, by bylo bludné, všecky zemé pějí.

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Tráva, kvietie i povětřé, plač hlúposti člověčie, zlato, kamenie drahé, poželejte s námi. Anjelé, archanjelé, vy Kristovi manželé, tróny, apoštolové, poželejte s námi. Ať trojice svatá toho skrze tělo Krista i svatých zaslúženie věrným nedá zahubenie. Amen.143 Listen you knights of God. Get ready for the battle. Sing bravely the praise of God for peace. He orders them not to preach the scriptures, so that they are masters of the world, so that they laugh at the apostles. Such is his instruction. Antichrist is already walking around carrying a lighted torch; he is already creating an arrogant clergy, for God’s sake! Zbyněk, why did you become so corrupted, to attack priests, and destroy the truth of Christ which, in your heart, irritated you? To court the Antichrist he took up with canons, resisted the humble ones, because you are not sufficiently enlightened. He used to be called Zajíc (hare). He forced his way upwards. He ignored what the lion ordered him. God, advise the lion to rise up, destroy the evils of the clergy, introduce the law of Christ, let Hus instruct you how.144 There is a good old proverb: it is not possible that the honest Czech race could be heretical; this is what all the countries are singing. Grass, flowers and air, cry you stupid man, gold, precious stones, commiserate with us. Angels, archangels, you spouses of Christ, thrones, apostles, lament with us. Let the Holy Trinity through the body of Christ and the work of the saints not allow the faithful to perish. Amen.

The songs tend to present all of Hus’s opponents as either benighted monks, belonging to cathedral chapters, or Germans suspected of possessing a priori bias who, therefore, could not understand the work of God among the Czechs.145 143 

Dějiny husitského zpěvu, ed. by Nejedlý, iii, 442–43. The references to the lion must be understood as an oblique synonym for King Václav IV with whom the archbishop engaged in a running conflict in 1410 and 1411, terminating only with the latter’s death. 145  ‘V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 425. 144 

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The contrast was clear in the songs: Hus was righteous, despised all transgression, taught the law of God, and gave his life in defence of these principles. The medieval priesthood was painted with the same dismissive brush as fornicators, greedy and addicted to simony.146 With accusations such as these, Archbishop Zbyněk and his colleagues took umbrage at the songs of the heretics, took no note of their admonition, and thus the invectives served to reinforce convictions already held by the reforming communities. The light of truth shed by Hus in life and death was sufficient to enlighten all of Bohemia. After all, he was the ‘light of the Czech people’ and the ‘glittering doctor of truth’.147 Therefore the faithful could sing: ‘Rejoice, happy Bohemia, in this final hour. The Lord will turn to look upon you with favour’.148 This is possible because Hus the intercessor, once the ‘warrior of Christ’, has risen into the presence of God, by divine grace received the inheritance of the martyr, and has been deemed the equal of all citizens of heaven.149 The crucial affirmation in the songs about Jan Hus is the conviction that he has been added to the historic and noble army of apostles and martyrs. Hus is intimately connected to other ‘warriors’ and ‘martyrs’, and when compared to the men and women who had previously laid down their lives in the cause of Christ, Jan Hus and Jerome are given the highest accolades. Qui constantes bellatores, legis Christi zelatores, sunt secuti usque mortem reproborum per cohortem dampnatos in Constancia. O felix Constancia, cui tam prestancia Bohemorum nacio. Dona celse gracie pro fructu ecclesie misit et solacio. 146 

‘Tvórče milý zžel sě tobě’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 429–30. 147  ‘Leipzig libellus’, fols 4r and 4v, in Holeton and Vlhová-Wörner, ‘A Remarkable Witness’, p. 168. 148  Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi könyvtär, MS i.313, pp.  502–03 as edited in Fišer, ‘Hodinkové oficium svátku Mistra Jana Husa’, p. 83, with music pp. 89–90. 149  Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi könyvtär, MS i.313, pp.  506–07 as edited in Fišer, ‘Hodinkové oficium svátku Mistra Jana Husa’, p. 85, with music pp. 93–94.

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Christi passi pro nomine, stolas laverunt sangwine eterne vite gaudia habent in celi curia.150 Steadfast warriors, firm adherents of the law of Christ, zealous until death, condemned by the reprobate court in Constance — O happy Constance to whom with excellent parts as well the Czech nation grant grace for the benefit of the church and for our comfort — having suffered many things for the name of Christ, having washed their robes in blood, they possess the joy of eternal life in the court of heaven.

The complaint lodged by the canons of the cathedral chapter in Olomouc in December 1416 specifically alleged (correctly) that the Gaudemus (an introit used in the Mass for All Saints Day) had been manipulated in a manner which scandalously joined Hus to the company of traditional martyrs. Once this assumption had been accepted by the practitioners of Utraquism and taken up as an element in the expression of popular religion, the ascendancy of the cult of St Jan Hus was unstoppable. The litany of songs, which supported that aspect of religious practice, must be considered among the most salient of features emerging from the Hussite tradition. Previously, I suggested that many of these songs sprang from popular sources and should not necessarily be assigned to the leaders of the reform movement.151 This position has recently been dismissed as a ‘grave misreading of the evidence’, with the suggestion that the anonymity of the sources presumably misled me into assuming an indefensible origin for these songs. The proponent of this thesis claims the songs had to have come from ‘literate, educated university men’.152 It is certainly true that we do not know the origin or authors of most of these songs. ‘Some of the compositions contain such a high level of theological argumentation that lay authorship can hardly be imagined.’153 The statement is intriguing but it need not be taken as compelling. There is plenty of evidence 150 

This segment of the liturgy can be found in a number of Hussite sources including the Smiškovský Kancionál, Wien, ÖNB, suppl. mus., MS 15492. For information on this codex see Graham, Bohemian and Moravian Graduals, pp. 561–68. The prosae has been collated in Holeton, ‘“O felix Bohemia — O felix Constantia”’, pp. 399–400 with reference to a number of liturgical sources. 151  Fudge, The Magnificent Ride, pp. 186–216. 152  Perett, ‘Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”’, pp. 389–90. 153  Perett, ‘Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”’, p. 390.

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for theological sophistication among the Hussite laity. A close reading of the sources reveals reference to old Hussite women with greater knowledge of the Bible than some bishops. We find allusion to women as preachers in Prague and elsewhere. We are told that treatises were written by the laity, including women. Anežka Mochov exerted enough influence to be named as a force to be reckoned with in facilitating the Hussite movement. Krampeř, the lay preacher in south Bohemia, disseminated theological points of view. In Prague, we learn that many Hussite priests were taught by a bartender named Václav in his pub, not the other way round.154 This is a pastiche of evidence suggesting it is not mandatory to find the sources of these songs only among ‘literate, educated university men’. In the end, it is difficult to distinguish precisely between popular songs and those used in liturgy principally as worship. Perhaps it is a false dichotomy without practical meaning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was a difference between songs sung in pubs and on the streets and those intoned solemnly during an ecclesiastical order of worship. But so far as the memory of Jan Hus was concerned, the proclamation of the Hussite message and the contours of this oral historiography remained unchanged. And of course not all of these song texts were new. Some of them certainly must be considered deliberate appropriations of traditional ideas and images rooted in the Middle Ages. They underscored the widespread attachment to the memory of Jan Hus, which deeply concerned representatives of the official church.155 Some who valued Hus’s memory were persecuted. For example, the priest Ulrich Grünsleder was prosecuted for translating Hus’s books and burned at the stake. 156 Marta of Poříčí seemed more a disciple of Hus than some of the Hussite theologians, whom she remonstrated for their ridiculous views on the papacy. Her views on theology were deemed heretical. Like Hus before her, she courageously 154 

Libros Antonii Panormitae poetae, de dictis et factis Alphonsi regis memorabilibus, commentarius, Bk II, in Aeneas Silvius, Piccolominei Opera, p. 480 on women and scripture; Štěpán of Dolany, Epistolae ad Hussitas in Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus seu veterum monumentorum, ed. by Pez, iv, col. 519 on female preachers; Klassen, ‘Women and Religious Reform’, p. 206 on treatises; Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus vitam, ed. by Palacký, p. 698 on Anežka, and p. 637 on Krampeř; and Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 413 on the bartender. 155  For example the Carthusian Abbot Štěpán of Dolany, Epistolae ad Hussitas in Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus seu veterum monumentorum, ed. by Pez, iv, cols 520–21. 156  This occurred at Regensburg in 1421 at the initiative of the Augustinian preacher Osvald Reinlein. See Andreas von Regensburg, Säamtliche Werke, ed. by Leidinger, pp. 350–62.

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mounted the pyre and was burned alive.157 Songs established Hus’s memory. Songs proclaimed his memory. Songs guaranteed his memory would survive. Ecclesiastical authorities tried in vain to curb the influence of singing. Priests and laity alike were prohibited at the order of the Council of Constance from singing unauthorized songs whether in churches, in public places, in shops or taverns.158 ‘Singing in Prague was always a provocative act.’ 159 Hyperbole notwithstanding, the memory of Jan Hus continued to be vibrant in Bohemia and elsewhere for over two hundred years, and the songs about him remained controversial well into the early modern period.

157 

Jednání a Dopisy Konsistoře Katolické i Utrakvistické, ed. by Borový, i, 32. This occurred on 4 December 1527. 158  See for example a ruling by the Council of Constance in Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, iii, col. 385. 159  Seltzer, ‘Framing Faith’, p. 192.

Chapter Seven

The Medieval ‘Lives’ of the Priest and the Martyr

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n terms of memory, the Relatio of Petr Mladoňovice quickly became the textus receptus of accounts of Jan Hus’s life and especially his death.1 Petr’s narrative has been subjected to considerable scholarly investigation and has played an enormous role in the construction of the memory of Hus. Without detracting from the importance of the Relatio, there are three other fifteenthcentury ‘lives’ which merit careful consideration for the way in which they present Hus, the role they play in the formation of his memory, and their value in terms of understanding the religious world of late medieval Bohemia. The term ‘lives’ in this context refers not to biographies or attempts at biographical analysis in the modern conventional sense, but to narratives which explore, assess, and create a concept of memory. With reference to Jan Hus, this implies a spiritual hero, the ideal Christian man, and the example of a popular saint. At the core of these ‘lives’ is a narrative which focuses on his passio. The creation of these texts transforms oral tradition into written text. The results constitute part of the earliest historiography of Jan Hus and should be regarded as a specific literary genre in Bohemia at the end of the Middle Ages. All observation is unavoidably selective, whether this be of an event or a text. Therefore these fifteenth-century ‘lives’ of Hus constitute selective observation driven and informed by specific motives. There is no single form of sanctity or sainthood in the Latin Middle Ages. One might come to the status of a saint in many different ways. Jan Hus represents one of those pathways. The significance of the study of these sources lies in the fact that hagiography can be an important source for social history 1 

Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 25–120.

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and, by extension, popular religion and medieval mentalities.2 What follows is an assessment of these ‘lives’ in an effort to evaluate the construction and meaning of the memory of Jan Hus. The first narrative is the Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum (The Passio according to John Barbatus the Square Hick).3 This is an eyewitness passio of events at Constance written in Latin before 1418 by Jan Bradatý ( Jan Bradáček), also called ‘Barbatus’ or Jan of Český Krumlov.4 The author was a friend of Jan Hus. One letter from Hus to him survives (1411), and he is referred to elsewhere several times in Hus’s extant letters. Hus refers to him as the ‘iron beard’.5 He asked for prayer from this man.6 He notes a personal visit in prison early in 1415.7 There is one further cryptic reference to a ‘Jan Železný’, whom Hus describes as ‘a faithful brother in Christ’.8 This cannot be a reference to the bishop of Litomyšl of the same name, and Hus certainly does not have this person in mind. It is more likely Jan Bradatý. It does not seem possible that he could have meant Jan of Jesenice, who was not in Constance. Given that Jesenice was under the strictures of interdict, it is highly questionable that he would have gone to Constance and left with Křišťan of Prachatice, or that he should be identified as the aforementioned ‘Jan Železný’, as Bartoš would have us believe.9 The argument is tenuous. An important chronicle refers to a mayor of the Old Town in Prague in 1419 with the name ‘Jan Bradatý’.10 We know that a certain Bradatý held a chaplaincy on the Rožmberk estates in southern Bohemia. Hus’s 1411 letter is addressed to Bradatý and the people of Český Krumlov. The point of view in the passio is entirely favourable to Hus. The moniker in the title of the passio is a later attribution and is derogatory, meaning that Jan Bradatý was a ‘country bumpkin’. The same phrase is used elsewhere to describe Hus who, along with Jerome of Prague, was called 2 

A classic stimulus along these lines can be found in Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger. 3  The text is in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 14–24. 4  I have prepared an edition of this text with commentary. Fudge, ‘Jan Hus at Calvary’, pp. 45–81. 5  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 89–92, and letter dated March 1415 on p. 256. 6  Letter of 3 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 237. 7  Letter dated 4 January 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 240. 8  Letter dated 5 March 1415 in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 249. 9  See the comments in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 249, 257. 10  Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 347.

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‘a square hick’ arising from among the lowest common rabble.11 The narrative is not entirely reliable, if measured against the text of Petr Mladoňovice, but it contains unique and perhaps useful information. Significantly, the author compares Hus to Christ and equates the place of martyrdom with Calvary.12 Hus is regarded as a holy man, and in this sense the text should be regarded as part of the narrative support for the evolving idea of St Jan Hus. There is a continuation or recension by a different hand (possibly Jakoubek Stříbro), which adds substantially to the passio and is about one third longer. The portrayal of Hus by both authors is one of high value, marked holiness, and innocent suffering. The text has no interest in Hus prior to Constance. The second text is an Account of the Death of Hus.13 This is an anonymous narrative of Hus’s passio written in Czech purporting to be a first-hand report. The writer opens his narrative with the complaint that certain unnamed writers and witnesses have omitted important aspects of Hus’s life, while others have added to the record with the implication that a certain spuriousness has been introduced and thereby attached to the memory and reputation of Hus. In distinction to these tactics, the Anonymous claims that he is about to set down what he had seen in 1415 and had been witness to.14 This is almost certainly false. The reader cannot be expected to accept that claim uncritically. The document may have been written as early as the 1430s but perhaps as late as the 1450s. A certain dependence on Petr Mladoňovice is evident. Perhaps helpful for dating is a reference to Jan Železný in the past tense.15 He died in 1430. He had previously been bishop of Litomyšl and later archbishop of Esztergom [Gran]. The author curiously does not seem to have any significant knowledge of Jakoubek Stříbro. Notably, there is emphasis on Hus’s role in the history of Utraquism and a clear underscoring of the cruelty of his judges at Constance. In terms of the former, we learn that Jan Kardinal of Rejnštejn, one of the Prague masters, had a conversation with Hus on the subject.16 The Anonymous is mak11 

The inference ‘rustici quadrati’ was made by Dietrich Niem in Magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium, ed. by von der Hardt, ii, col. 454. 12  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 17. 13  Roudnice, Lobkovic Library, MS vi F g 60. There is an edition in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 224–27. 14  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 222. 15  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 226. 16  Elsewhere, in a later resolution drawn up by the Council of Constance, we learn that this man was considered one of the main ‘heresiarchs and founders’ of the Hussite movement. The

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ing more of this than is warranted. Hus encouraged Utraquism in a letter to an unnamed priest shortly after he arrived in Constance and wrote a brief essay on the subject around the same time.17 However, it cannot be maintained that Hus contributed much to the practice, which soon came to symbolize reformed religion in Bohemia. With reference to the latter, the narrative alludes to the judgement of their deeds in one hundred years, pays close attention to the alleged details of Hus’s death, and presents a narrative which combines history and hagiography. In the narrative, Hus is shown to see his afflictions as gifts of God. Hus summons his persecutors to judgement before God within one hundred years. This is a reference to the alleged legend, which gained considerable currency in early modern Europe.18 There is a curious comment that Hus might recant through a little child, ostensibly suggesting that Hus might allow a child to speak the recantation on his behalf. The notion is unprecedented, unreliable, and rather bizarre. The reference can only be understood as a distortion or misunderstanding of some legend no longer extant.19 In support of an earlier date of composition, it is interesting to see that Hus predicts Sigismund will not inherit the crown of Bohemia. This seems critical for dating. Composition after 1436 would make Hus out to be a false prophet. The author has apparent knowledge of Prague, though this may have been taken from other sources and one should not rely too much on this apparent fact. When the ashes of the martyr were thrown into the river, his enemies mocked Hus, suggesting he swim to his God.20 The text ends with a warning issued at Constance by the anti-Hus faction and directed at those who might have been inclined to sympathize with heretics. Though some historical accuracy can be questioned, it seems likely that the report reflects a point of view valid among Hus’s followers in the generation after Constance. It is possible to regard this source in the genre of an historical novel.21 Like the passio of Jan Bradatý, the Anonymous shows no interest in Hus prior to the events at Constance. Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, ed. by Fudge, p. 19. 17  The letter is dated at the beginning of November 1414. Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, p. 216 and Utrum expediat laicis fidelibus sumere sanguinem Christi sub specie vini?, in Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis, ed. by Illyricus, i, 52–54. 18  Hauffen, ‘Husz eine Gans’. 19  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 227. 20  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 227. 21  A proposal put forth by Novotný in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, p. lxviii.

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The third text carries the somewhat cumbersome title Život, to jest šlechetné obcování ctného svatého kněze, Mistra Jana Husi, kazatele českého, od kněze Jiříka Heremity, věrného kazatele českého, sepsaný a nyní v nově vytištěný (The Life and Holy Conduct of the Honourable and Holy Priest Master Jan Hus, Czech Preacher, by the Priest George the Hermit, Faithful Czech Preacher, Written and Now Printed Again).22 Though precise dating is impossible, this Czech narrative was written probably in the 1470s. The author may have been Jiří Heremita (George the Hermit), a priest in the west Bohemian town of Stříbro, though the attribution is questionable and may well be an error. There is some obvious dependence on the Czech passio of Petr Mladoňovice, perhaps also on some of the traditions within the Old Czech annalists, and possibly the ‘very fine chronicle of Jan Žižka’.23 Unlike the previous texts, George the Hermit displays an interest in the life of Hus prior to his legal ordeal at Constance, and in that light seems to have attempted a short biography which is tendentious to the extreme. It presents Hus as a saint whose life can be understood mainly as fulfilling a divinely-initiated agenda. Novotný argues that this text is the earliest attempt at writing a biography of Hus which we have. 24 Even with the biographical details, which should not be summarily dismissed, it seems fairly obvious that this text is mainly a passio. George the Hermit constructs his narrative from the starting point that Hus was committed to the service of God by his mother. The narration suggests comparison with the Hebrew Bible story of Hannah presenting Samuel to God. Hus is portrayed as a reformer who tried to correct the abuses of the late medieval church, who resolutely withstood Antichrist and heresy. Hus is presented as a faithful man whom God exalted as a ‘burning candle in a golden chandelier’ to shine light in the darkness. Several tales of Hus’s youth are told. The eventual revolt by the Prague priests against him is likened to the Hebrew Bible’s conflict between Joseph and his brothers. The trial at Constance is compared with the treatment of Jesus. Apocalyptic imagery is used to draw a contrast between the innocence and holiness of Hus and the wickedness and culpability of his persecutors. The author argues that the deposition of Hus’s remains into the Rhine was ordained of God, so that Hus might be purified by fire and water so that the entire Hus might be 22 

There is an undated printed edition with the shelf-mark Praha, KNM, MS xxv E 17. The best edition is in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377–83. 23  The chronicle has been edited in Listy Bratra Jana a Kronika velmi pěkná a Janu Žižkovi, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 35–44. On the Old Czech Annalists see Seltzer, ‘Framing Faith’. 24  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, p. civ.

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translated to glory. The text is presented as an example of a godly life worthy of emulation. There is an overwhelmingly hagiographical element, with more interest in the memory than in the history of Hus. Legendary elements in Hus’s early life found in this text appear to be the earliest attributions. The passio of Jan Bradatý mentions no details of these years, remarking only that, from his earliest childhood, Hus had been utterly committed to God.25 The comment about a meeting in the house of Jan Rokycana is surely a reference to the vicarage of the Týn Church in Prague. Rokycana died in 1471. A useful internal reference to Zdeněk Konopiště of Šternberk, who appeared in the 1450s, assists in the debate over an appropriate dating for the text. Novotný’s argument, that since the text makes no reference to the death of the priest Michael Polák in 1480 it must have been written earlier, is not persuasive. There is not even mention of the burning of Jerome of Prague.26 Of further interest are indications pointing to the rise of interest in the cult of Hus. To these written sources one might add the important sermon preached in Bethlehem Chapel in Prague by Jakoubek Stříbro in 1416, which has been referred to previously.27 The sermon was based on Matthew 5. 10, ‘blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. The sermon is among the first in a long series of homilies on the theme of martyrdom, extolling the faithfulness, righteousness, and sacrifice of the steadfast martyrs, who laid down their lives in dungeons and in the fires of the stake.28 Hus features prominently in the first two-thirds of the sermon. Here he is presented as a second Elijah, a faithful preacher, a Christ-like figure, and a holy man who spoke on behalf of God. These themes are reflected in the medieval ‘lives’ of Jan Hus, are found in the narratives of Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous, and may be regarded as consistent themes in the memoria of the martyr. Influenced by the several chapters of his legal ordeal, these sources develop the hagiographical Hus in a tradition not unlike the lives of medieval saints.29 Hus is presented, from his youth, as a man, holy, virtuous, and moral, who was devoted to God and to holy occupations.30 His life is remembered as ‘noble 25 

Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 378 and 20. Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, cvii. 27  Praha, NK, MS viii E 3; and Praha, NK, MS viii G 13, with an edition in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 231–43. 28  Fudge, ‘Želivský’s Head: Memory and New Martyrs’. 29  Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus, pp. 116–87, 238–95. 30  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377–78; 26 

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conduct’, and a certain sanctity is consistently displayed. Not a word is spoken about fault, flaw, or foible. Instead, from his youth Hus is said to have lived piously, apart from sinners, separated from the advantages of the temporal world with preference for the rewards of the eternal kingdom.31 Here we encounter the basis for the ideal man motif which characterizes the ‘lives’ of Jan Hus. Historical sources (i.e. the Relatio) are used to varying degrees as a foundation. The last part of the Relatio was translated into Czech in the years between 1417 and 1420, possibly by Petr Mladoňovice himself. Commonly referred to as the ‘Passio of Master Jan Hus’, this version is important to the extent that occasionally there are additions to the text which do not appear in the original Latin.32 Moreover, this Czech passio was used on 6 July during the annual commemoration of Hus. First-hand points of view are claimed in these medieval ‘lives’, and the holiness of Hus is overtly assumed in order to invent a ‘new’ Hus. This new Hus is the creation of hagiography rather than a strictly historical character. In the hands of the writers of these ‘lives’, Hus is considerably less a critically adjudicated figure of history, and more an ideal man. For example, the accolades of these ‘lives’ contain no reproach, save for the quoted viciousness of Hus’s unjust judges. The martyr is praised, his memory lauded, his conduct considered exemplary. Having judged his life worthy of imitation, these writers granted Hus memory and achieved this goal in their ‘lives’. George the Hermit says that Hus was made a prince by God. Thereafter he became a proficient practitioner of the law of God. Then he was a preacher of righteousness and the punisher of sin.33 The passio of Jan Bradatý presents the martyr as a righteous man, the ‘innocent friend of God’, who was both pious and pure, a man filled with the virtues of all the saints, a ‘faithful and most Christian teacher’, and an ‘unvanquished fighter’ of God.34 The passio of Jan Bradatý may legitimately be considered a primary source, independent of the Relatio and even the nowunidentifiable oral sources, but the narratives of George the Hermit and the Anonymous cannot be regarded as such. The tragedy of Constance, coupled and Bartatus, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 20. 31  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377; and Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 23. 32  Pašije Mistra Jana Husi, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 121–49. 33  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377–78. 34  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 15–20.

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with the drama of the Hussite wars, provided a context for the elevation of Hus to the stature of a popular saint. An analysis of these sources may suggest only the extent of history in the creation of an ideal Hus. Each of these sources uses history to enable a point of view to be developed. The texts build upon a developing tradition while adding to it. That emerging tradition began the moment the pyre was set ablaze that Saturday summer morning in 1415. The Hus which emerges is sometimes based thinly in history and firmly in hagiography. This is particularly true of the texts of George the Hermit and the Anonymous. The heretical Hus is succeeded by the holy Hus; the man of Prague is eclipsed by a new Christian saint. These medieval ‘lives’ construct an image wherein the Holy Spirit speaks through Hus, and our texts combine to present a powerful argument for regarding Hus as a saint. Suffering at the stake at the hour of death, two stanzas of verse from the Stabat Mater are put into Hus’s mouth. ‘Who is the one who would not weep on witnessing his death in the burning fire? Blasphemed, crowned, slandered, cast away, in such agony.’35 If Jacobus de Voragine compiled the stories comprising his ‘golden legend’ out of pious motivations, the writers of the Hus narratives created theirs partly from historical sources and also from a desire to codify doctrine, and to disseminate the moral and spiritual significance of the martyr of Constance. The ‘golden legend’ has its overarching subject as the history of salvation, or God’s dealings with humankind.36 The three narratives developed by Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous provide a glimpse into the Jan Hus who plays a role in the legends, historiography, hagiography, literature, art, dramaturgy, and the religious history of the later Middle Ages and early modern period. It may be said that his memoria becomes a pillar for those traditions. It seems clear that the ideas of martyrdom, miracles, and theology play an important role in constructing portraits of a post-historical Hus. Elements of the Hus stories which appear in some of these narratives are clearly apocryphal, while others are preposterous. In one account we read of Hus praying during the night. Coming to the fireplace, he takes a glowing ember and holds 35  Based on the Stabat Mater (‘Quis est homo qui non fleret’). The Stabat Mater is a thirteenth-century liturgical sequence which has been attributed generally either to Innocent III (d. 1216) or Jacopone da Todi (d. 1306). The title is an abbreviation of the first line Stabat mater dolorosa, ‘the sorrowful mother stood’, and the words of the hymn form a meditation on the sufferings of Mary during the crucifixion of Jesus. It ranks among the most effective of medieval verses. Carpenter, ‘A History of the Stabat Mater and an Analysis’, especially pp. 1–9. 36  There is a critical Latin edition: Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, ed. by Maggioni; and an English translation: Iacopo da Varazze, The Golden Legend, ed. by Ryan.

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it to his naked flesh until he has been burned. He prays aloud that God might assist him in overcoming the weakness of the flesh in order to fulfil the will of God. Hus is observed in this act of asceticism and the witness apparently sees an angel standing in the fire.37 The story, as we have previous noted, also turns up in Hussite song.38 The main difference between these ‘lives’ of Hus and the narratives of medieval saints has to do with miracles. Hus performs no miracles, and there are no tales of divine intervention. Both are characteristic of the ‘golden legend’. It does not seem likely that much progress can be made in terms of arriving at any consensus about the audience for such narratives, nor for the specific motives which may have inspired their composition. Bradatý may well have been an eyewitness, and therefore wished to record his presence and impressions of Hus’s last stand at Constance. But George the Hermit and the Anonymous cannot make such claims and be convincing. This brings on the natural query of why the Relatio of Petr Mladoňovice was not sufficient for them? Regardless of the direct relation or dependence upon the Relatio, it must be said that Petr Mladoňovice set a precedent for historical writing in Bohemia, and there are several outstanding examples in the fifteenth century, including those under consideration here.39 It seems likely that, while the Relatio may have been viewed as a sui generis text, it lacked the flair the later sources inserted. Petr Mladoňovice compiled an accurate if tendentious account of Hus’s final months. Reliability aside, Petr’s organization of the account is somewhat confused, and clearly the assembled documents are not utilized to their fullest extent, leaving the end product appreciably tedious. Part five, the actual account of the passio, is an exception to that general observation. Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous have written briefer and more lively narratives. All three, together with Petr Mladoňovice, represent a strongly pro-Hus perspective, which forms the outlines of the medieval ‘lives’ of the Czech martyr. The use of the vernacular in the narratives written by George the Hermit and the Anonymous, along with the Czech passio of Petr Mladoňovice, might imply the intended audience was wider than clerics and scholars. But even if the use of the Czech language implies a larger audience, the challenges of literacy in fifteenth-century Bohemia would not suggest these tracts had wide 37 

George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 378. Song texts ‘Pamatujmez radostně tento den’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 455, and ‘Utěšená milost boží’, p. 392. 39  Especially the ‘Murder of Jan Želivský’ by Priest Vilém in Staři letopisové češti od r. 1378 do 1527, ed. by Palacký, iii, 480–85; and the ‘Very Fine Chronicle of Jan Žižka’, in Listy Bratra Jana a Kronika velmi pěkná a Janu Žižkovi, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 36–44. 38 

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readership. Indeed, there is little to no evidence to support an assumption they were widely disseminated or read. We do know that the commemoration of St Jan Hus annually on 6 July included readings from the last part of Petr Mladoňovice’s Relatio and from other historical documents. These materials and these public readings helped form and preserve the memory of Hus. Taken all together they present Hus as a hero of the faith and as a compellingly ideal man. The posthumous Hus became a Biblical figure of epic proportions, and this is reflected in the pages of these ‘lives’. Hus is a messiah. He delivers Bohemia from the heresies of Antichrist. He turns the faithful aside from the seducing tendencies of wayward clerics. Through all adversity he remains the ‘faithful man’. In the midst of darkness God raised up Jan Hus as ‘a burning candle in a gold chandelier’, whose glow sheds light on all in the household of faith who wish to know the truth.40 Hus is Samuel, brought by his own mother as the Biblical Hannah, to God for service. He is Joseph, betrayed once again by his brethren. The Prague clergy are presented as the new brothers of Joseph, who are every much as envious and malicious in the fifteenth century as they were in the Middle Bronze Age, 3400 years earlier. Hus is another Elijah who is carried off to heaven in a flaming chariot.41 Hus is consistently linked to the heroes of the faith spoken of in the Biblical traditions: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, Phineas, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elijah, Abel, the prophets, the Maccabees, Christ, Stephen, John the Baptist, and others.42 He is also seen as part of the great army of the apostles and martyrs and, coupled with St Laurence, is considered an ‘excellent martyr’.43 Elsewhere, we have noted the comparison of the Hus trial to the judicial ordeal of Jesus. In both venues, there are false witnesses, a general willingness to rely on the testimony of absentee witnesses, opportunity for cross-examination does not exist, unsupported or uncorroborated evidence is admitted, a mean-spiritedness pervades, and the result is the abuse of an innocent man. One of the ‘lives’ also introduces the parallel example of Susanna from the deutero-canonical ‘Daniel and Susanna’.44 The deliberate parallels in these ‘lives’ between Calvary and Constance are 40 

George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377. George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 377, 378– 79, and 383. 42  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 14 and 24. 43  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 22. 44  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 380. 41 

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unmistakable; the emerging portrait rather intentional. This impression of false witnesses plays an important role in the Hus case. The continuation of the passio of Hus excoriates the ‘mob of liars’ who attacked the holy man.45 George the Hermit refers to false witnesses and fabricated accusations. He also suggests these witnesses were not even present at the trial. 46 This is not entirely true, inasmuch as we know that vitriolic enemies of Hus, namely Michael de Causis, Štěpán Páleč, and Petr of Uničov were present at Constance. Some sources have claimed that the fabrications concocted by these men were the critical evidence in Hus’s condemnation.47 The ‘lives’ are remarkably silent on the identity of Hus’s main accusers. The passio is vague. George the Hermit identifies them as ‘Czech priests, monks, canons, masters, and others’. The Anonymous is a bit more specific in nominating two canons of Vyšehrad, two university masters, two members of the city council of the Old Town of Prague, and two canons at St Vitus Cathedral.48 No names are advanced. A consideration of these ‘lives’ of Jan Hus takes us deeper into the realm of the religious world of the later Middle Ages. The study of medieval hagiography has been carried on for some time by Roman Catholic scholars, but in the past generation has expanded to include Protestant scholars and those of no particular religious persuasion. Juxtaposing the Hus of history with the hagiographical Hus suggests the latter is an opprobrious category. The implication is unfortunate. Indeed, the word hagiography (holy writing) has come to function as a synonym for unreliable. In studying these sources the central question seems to be, what do such ‘lives’ have to tell us? Considered against a wider canvas, the point of saints’ lives in the Middle Ages is to present them without spot or wrinkle or any blemish in character. This principle remains intact in the ‘lives’ of Hus. He is consistently the ideal man, the perfect personification of the suffering servant. What seems preposterous to the modern scholar may not have appeared so strange to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century readers. Arguably, hagiography was perhaps the most widely used literary genre in the late antique and medieval periods. The authors of these ‘lives’ cannot have been unaware of this. 45 

Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16. 46  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 379–80. 47  Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 332 and 338. 48  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 379; and the Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 225.

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In considering those narratives which came after Petr Mladoňovice’s Relatio, one must wonder if there was a battle for the memory of Hus. The Council of Constance had tried to eradicate it. That aside, during his lifetime Hus had been a polarizing personality in Prague, and the politics of his life brought him to the attention of kings and popes and ultimately to the Council of Constance. There certainly were power struggles between various Hussite groups and the Roman church. The records of the Christian church in fifteenth-century Bohemia provide unimpeachable witness to those conflicts. In that context, did producing a ‘life’ or a ‘passio’ of Hus imply some type of authority or assert a doctrinal prerogative, or religious superiority? The possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. Based on the information we have, there can be no doubt that, once he had been burned, there was a battle for the memory of Jan Hus. George the Hermit tells us of a specific dispute which took place in the house of Jan Rokycana. The discussion centred on Hus. Some claimed he was a heretic; others argued he was holy. Ostensibly during this gathering, the anonymous witness to the incident noted earlier, involving a burning ember and Hus before the fireplace in the presence of an angel, shares that tale with those present, especially Zdeněk Konopiště of Šternberk.49 In the late-medieval battle for the memory of Hus, these ‘lives’ play an important role. With eyewitnesses passing from the scene and the diffusion of oral traditions, these ‘lives’ constructed and solidified the memory of Jan Hus among subsequent generations of faithful Czechs. This is an essential element in the cult of remembrance. Arguably, Jan Hus was a saint because he was a martyr. Few familiar with the sources of the early Bohemian reform movements would not agree that Jakoubek Stříbro was a more important theologian. But since he had the misfortune to live into old age and die of natural causes, no one thought to make him a saint. Our three sources appear to pay more attention to an intentional portrayal of Jan Hus as a virtuous follower of Christ than to constructing a strictly biographical record of his life and deeds. It is regrettable that no one seems to have considered the value of a fulsome biography of Hus in the fifteenth century. This is clearly the case in the passio of Jan Bradatý, and largely so in the text by the Anonymous. George the Hermit is something of an exception in this regard. But largely it must be said that an ulterior motive was at work in the writing of these narratives. This is not inconsistent with much of the writing about holy men and women in the European Middle Ages. The fifteenthcentury ‘lives’ of Hus were much like the mainstream of writing about holy people in so far as such narratives strove at ‘blurring the individual’s traits and 49 

George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 378.

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transforming his or her life time into a fragment of eternity’.50 There can be little doubt that many extant traditions and perspectives were frequently altered, expanded or developed to achieve that aim. This is apparent in the lives of the saints tradition. There were two principle means of venerating holy people in medieval Europe: liturgically and via relics. For Hus the former was 6 July. On the latter this was impossible inasmuch as the Council of Constance had taken considerable and deliberate effort to ensure that no relics remained. Petr Mladoňovice specifically refers to this activity, and there is corroboration for this in the passio of Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous. On the other hand, the liturgical celebration of Hus has considerable attestation. In terms of relics, it was also possible in the Middle Ages for this veneration to include places where the saint had been, with the idea that the continued presence of that holy person remained on earth. The life of Hus came to be regarded as an exemplar of the Christian life, a virtual template of Christian virtue, and an example worth imitating of a sure and certain path to salvation. ‘By his death [he] taught us to die and showed us the wings by which we should ascend to heaven.’51 As ‘the most Christian master’, Hus taught by personal example the safe passage to salvation.52 Indeed, the end of his own life is portrayed as the unambiguous gaining the crown of eternal life.53 Years before Constance, while praying to God before the fireplace as an angel stands in the flames, Hus prays ‘O Lord God, you know my weakness and you can see how fainthearted I am when suffering because I am a body. Unless you help me, I will be unable to overcome and do your holy work’. These words are identical with a stanza from a later fifteenth-century song about Hus.54 The texts become monuments. There is good reason to categorize Petr Mladoňovice’s Relatio and the work of Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous as literary martyria in place of the shrines sometimes built by Christians over the graves of the martyrs in the era of the early church. A physical shrine at Constance would have 50 

Vauchez, ‘The Saint’, p. 313. See also Vauchez, Sainthood in Middle Ages, trans. by Birrell, a classic study that examines the formal process which led to the canonization of saints between 1198 and 1431. 51  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 19. 52  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 22. 53  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 383. 54  ‘Utěšená milost boží’, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 391– 94 (at p. 392).

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been quite impossible. There were no actual relics to entomb, and the political and religious climate in the south German lands would not have tolerated a memorial in any event. It has been claimed that the soil around the stake was shovelled up and taken to Prague, but the remains of Hus could not be brought back into the community of the faithful in Bohemia, so ‘lives’ of Hus were written and he was celebrated liturgically as a saint. These ‘lives’ were written expressly to perpetuate the memory of Hus and his piety. That point is essential. The modern demand for historical detail and accuracy indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of these ‘lives’. A dominant purpose of this genre of writing is the formation of memory. The word itself also has a legal connotation (μαρτυρία) indicating testimony given by witnesses. Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous were witnesses to Jan Hus every bit as much as Petr Mladoňovice, and their testimonies must be considered part of the evolving memory of Hus. While the clear intention of these medieval ‘lives’ included preserving the memory of Hus, there were other motivations aimed at achieving the converse. Petr Mladoňovice pointed out that the Council of Constance greatly desired to the limit of their power and ability, to wipe out every trace of Jan Hus from the memory of faithful Christians.55 Other fifteenth-century ‘lives’ noted the same effort. The acts of the Council intended to erase all memory of Hus’s life and teaching. The burning of heretics, however, only produces martyrs, and the intention of the conciliar authorities backfired spectacularly. The effort to eradicate the memory of Hus failed because the grace of God intervened to spread his renown all the more, and that same grace acted to embed the memory of Hus even deeper in the hearts of the faithful forever.56 The idea that God spread the memory of Hus suggests an image George the Hermit almost makes, which turns up later in reflections on the burning of the bones of John Wyclif in 1428. The seventeenth-century English divine Thomas Fuller commented that Wyclif ’s remains were disinterred by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, who had come to the village of Lutterworth where Wyclif had spent the last years of his life and where he died. Fleming opened the grave and removed the remains: [He] burnt them to ashes and cast them into Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, then into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.57 55 

Pašije Mistra Jana Husi, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 147. George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 383. 57  Fuller, The Church History of Britain, ii, 424. 56 

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The ‘lives’ of Hus do not use this metaphor, but it is implicit in the argument that God rescued Hus from oblivion and undertook to preserve his memory among the faithful everywhere. Those in charge of Hus’s remains feared that any piece of his body or clothing in the hands of the Czechs might lead to idolatry, simony, or relics.58 There is little doubt that any fragment of his physical life would have been seized upon by his disciples and proclaimed a relic. Consistent with this assumption, we learn much later of a chair thought to have once belonged to Hus in Bethlehem Chapel and now kissed by those thinking it had healing power to cure the misery of toothache.59 It would seem that, in Bohemia at least, St Jan Hus replaced St Apollonia as the intercessory saint for those with dental challenges. The ‘lives’ of Hus tradition, which we have been examining from Petr Mladoňovice down to George the Hermit, are unanimous in opposition to the views of the Council, the decision of the Hus commission to execute, and they are also fairly uniform in representing the general attitude of the conciliar delegates. The Council believed that, in sending Hus to the stake, they were delivering the soul of a heretic to hell. Bohemian Christians loyal to Hus considered that an illegitimate use of ecclesiastical power. Introducing an eschatological symbol, one of the ‘lives’ equated the Council with the great whore of the Apocalypse. The fathers of the synod were therefore the ‘sons of Lucifer’, ruthless ‘attorneys of hell’, and, in the end, the ‘sons of death’. In other words, the Council was perceived as a latter-day manifestation of all the wicked characters of the Bible. Possessed by madness, intolerance, dementia, senselessness, and bewitchery, the Council sat in opposition to heaven and oppressed the innocent. Consistent with the record of Petr Mladoňovice, these testimonies noted that Hus was regarded by his enemies as the ‘traitor Judas’, the ‘damned Judas’, and one who is even worse than Judas. The latter betrayed Jesus, but Hus had betrayed not only Christ but the entire church (the body of Christ) by contaminating it with false teaching and heresy, toxic to salvation. Therefore, Hus should ‘die like a dog’.60 The faithful are warned by the Council not to be hood58 

Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 18; and George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 382. 59  Balbín, Epitome historica rerum bohemicarum, p. 414. 60  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 380–82; Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16, 19–21; and the Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 226–27.

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winked by the fact that Hus went cheerfully to the stake. A predictable rejoinder is recorded, to wit, that heretics always smile in the face of damnation! The opprobrious mitre depicting demonic avatars (mentioned in all of these ‘lives’) is considered by Hus’s persecutors an indication he perished outside the ark of safety and separated from the body of the faithful. The Anonymous records a warning issued by the church in the aftermath of the stake. ‘Whoever grieves on account of this heretic, or follows him, or adheres to him, shall be treated in like fashion or even worse’.61 The ‘lives’ of Hus written by Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous took no note of such threats. Rescued from the threat of total annihilation, Hus becomes a radical spiritual leader in his several ‘lives’, and in some sense comes to function as a protagonist for social change. The details of Hus’s life, and certainly his ordeal at Constance, were well known in Bohemia. So unlike the lives of medieval saints, which were often written by people who knew little or nothing about them, sometimes long after the fact, these writers, Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous wrote ‘lives’ of Hus soon after the principle event. Why? Two of our texts were written during the lifetimes of many who had known Hus and who had been intimately acquainted with him. The idea of setting down a strictly alternative ‘history’ of Jan Hus does not seem tenable or sensible. Therefore, these writers must have had other motivations. A principle intention of these ‘lives’ appears to be an invitation to discipleship, martyrdom, and direct imitation of Hus and Christ. That theme seems consistently apparent in the work of Jan Bradatý, the Anonymous, and George the Hermit. Since Hus faithfully imitated Christ, all of the faithful who remain on pilgrimage are called to witness. ‘Let us clothe ourselves with the spirit of that courageous man’.62 Autobiography as a literary genre is scarce in the Latin Middle Ages. We have the example of the Confessions of Augustine from the late antique period. We have the early twelfth-century Monodiae of Guibert, abbot of the Benedictine house at Nogent-sous-Coucy near Laon, and the partial autobiography of Peter Abelard, the Historia Calamitatum, also from the twelfth century. These are notable exceptions. Only brief reflections by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century and the Venerable Bede in the eighth century might be called autobiographical writing between Augustine and the twelfth century.63 By con61 

Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 227. Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 24. 63  Rubenstein, Guibert of Nogent, pp. 75–82. 62 

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trast, medieval biography was quite common. The ‘lives’ of the medieval saints constitute a prolific collection. Much of this, of course, falls into the genre of hagiography.64 Traditional negativity amongst scholars aside, the category is scarcely monolithic and is quite voluminous.65 In one sense, hagiography may be regarded as pious fictions, in other cases panegyric, and in still other ways examples of sacred biography. It appears that all three genres are present to greater and lesser degrees in these ‘lives’. The writers of the ‘lives’ of Jan Hus suggest that, if all the deeds done by the martyr were to be recorded, strength and ability would fail well before the conclusion of the task. This brings to remembrance the coda to the Johannine gospel. The accolades for Hus in these fifteenth-century ‘lives’ are consistent with those attached to many of the medieval saints. ‘[Hus] was himself the glory of kings, the scales of judges, the glory of the peaceful, the lamp of doctrine, the rule of virtue, the razor of vice’.66 Hus the martyr was clearly the ideal man. The texts written by Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous assume uniformly and across the board that Hus was holy and his life worthy of emulation. These texts tell us a fair amount about medieval mentalities. What is more difficult to ascertain is any definite articulation of what the factors were which led up to the composition of these texts. What were these authors attempting to communicate or teach through their narratives? What elements of the reports are set forth as paradigms for the community? These are difficult queries because we cannot identify communities which used these ‘lives’. It seems quite certain that our authors wrote both to confirm knowledge and codify the memory of Hus but also to expand it. They wrote, then, to edify, inform, and teach. But teach what? Principally that Hus was the ideal Christian man. This much seems certain. A careful analysis of the texts reveal the broad outlines of intention and pedagogy. All of this underscores the need to instruct a ‘reading’ community. Mindful of the caveat about literacy, we dare not suppose these texts were either widely read or known in Hussite communities. The aim of a text and use or practice of the same text may be quite different. We can find evidence that other texts on the life and passion of Hus were used publicly. It is intriguing to speculate on why the Relatio was not considered sufficient, but all conclusions are strictly guesswork. Committing a narrative or 64 

See for example the valuable collection in Head, Medieval Hagiography. The Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiqua et Mediae Aetatis, ed. by Fros, lists 8989 ‘lives’ in the second edition (1949). 66  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16, 19. 65 

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tradition or point of view to print guaranteed some level of control over history and memory. There is the eminent possibility that oral traditions about Hus led to the narratives of Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous, and that these texts utilized elements of existing oral and written traditions in order to formulate a new construct. We must further attempt to come to some conclusion as to what extent the creation of written texts alters the story. In Antiquity, Socrates tells a story to Phaedrus about Thamus, an Egyptian king, who appears to argue that writing damages memory and creates false wisdom, thereby making something which is at best partial, into something absolute.67 Certainly the oral histories and oral traditions about Hus find a form of codification in the written ‘lives’. What were the differences? We don’t know. The fifteenth century remained principally an oral culture. In oral traditions the past is understood through present circumstances, which essentially means that the past is constructed and reconstructed by the present. There is no reason to suppose that the history of Jan Hus was any different. The transition from oral story to written text is important. The transfer of authority from the viva voce to the printed text signifies in some way a handing on of authority. This does not happen immediately and rarely occurs without incorporating other elements or consolidating various ideas or interpretations. The literary burdens of these ‘lives’ of Hus seem to contribute to this evolution from orality to literacy, from the spoken stories to the printed word. The modern scholar looks for evidential support from the sources in order to establish a reliable outline for the life of Hus. This raises the important question: what are the ‘facts’ in Hus’s life? For example, can Petr Mladoňovice or our trio of later sources be relied upon for what Hus said at Constance in terms of ipsissima verba? It seems unlikely. Are these examples of mimesis? And what of piety, holiness, and faith? Are such issues ones of perception, interpretation, and authorial conclusion? And then of course what informs these assumptions? Moving from the Council chambers at Constance, one must wonder to what extent are these narratives anecdotal, repetitive, lacking in analysis, based on hearsay, or partial to the spectacular? It might be argued that Petr Mladoňovice, Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous were chiefly interpreters of Hus and not proper chroniclers of his deeds. In terms of the latter three sources this does seem altogether true. It is possible to interpret these ‘lives’ of Hus as referring to existing traditions of memory and narratives about Hus. By contrast, Petr Mladoňovice’s account obtained a semblance of official sanction and authorization because it was the 67 

Plato, Phaedrus and Letters vii and viii, trans. by Hamilton, p. 96.

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earliest of the accounts, it was based on definite, verifiable, first-hand knowledge, it incorporated the texts of written documents, it was read at Bethlehem Chapel early on, it was unfailingly sympathetic to Hus, and the narrative unambiguously validated the outlines of the early Hussite reform agenda. In short, Petr (and perhaps the others) reflect in their respective narratives a profound identification with their subject, i.e. Jan Hus. In modern terms, we might say that the concerns and views of the authors were embedded deeply in their texts, creating what Gadamer called Horizontverschmelzung, or a fusion of horizons.68 In fifteenth-century Bohemia that meant a portrait of St Jan Hus, faithful martyr of Christ, the ideal man. Petr Mladoňovice has been preferred as reliable. The narratives of George the Hermit and the Anonymous have been adjudicated as flawed, speculative, and ultimately of little value. Is it possible that these narratives are ‘truthful’ but not ‘factual’? This brings us back to authorial intention. What are the bases for knowing or adjudicating? The value of historical texts may be determined by more than close reporting of verifiable events or words. Context plays an important role in determining meaning. Therefore one must ask what the several traditions in fifteenth-century Bohemia believed about Hus. And the scholar must consider if the sources reflect a particular point of view or a prevailing mentality. The main concern of Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous does not appear to revolve around the creation of an intentional chronological biography in the critical Rankean wie es eigentlich gewesen ist sense. But the narratives do suggest an intention in explaining and presenting Jan Hus as a holy man, a saint, and a martyr, who was used by God to reform the late medieval Czech church. That portrait facilitates the general spirit of Hussite religion. The three ‘lives’ make clear that the specific goals were moral, devotional, educational, and theological. We must wonder about the consciousness on the part of the authors. Did they believe that what they wrote or were engaged in was essentially creating pious fiction? The idea seems more modern than medieval. There is no way to tell with absolute certainty. It seems more likely they sought to distil meaning, sacred significance, from the life of Hus and especially from the cauldron of his demise. But this raises a particular concern. Has the meaning of Hus been suffocated by the literary creations of our three writers, or have their efforts served to liberate the memory of Hus from its fossilized convention and purely legal and chronological shackles? Unless one is prepared to privilege Petr Mladoňovice, the challenge is a late medieval Gordian knot. It 68 

Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. by Weinsheimer and Marshall, pp. 299–306.

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cannot be gainsaid that Hus belongs to multiple contexts. For example, there is his actual life, his posthumous life, his remembered life, his theological life, his literary life, and his specific life as a saint. Which is more important? As medieval writers, Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous probably did not distinguish what we might consider fact from what we also might think of as fantasy. It is likely they regarded both as signs of truth and divine revelation. Perhaps these writers were concerned with the religious ideals of history and used Hus as a vehicle to express those ideals. Considered in this fashion, it must be said that Burkhardt was wrong.69 The Renaissance did not produce the concept of the individual. Our texts show that the ‘lives’ of Hus conformed to particular models already developed in history, and that the religious ideals of history were more salient than his specific acts and utterances. Principally this was imitatio Christi, to be sure, but also a deliberate effort to assimilate Hus into the noble army of martyrs and present him as representative of the vita apostolica. The verdict of Constance meant that Hus, having offended the sensibilities of western Christendom, would not be added to the panoply of medieval saints. Therefore his ‘lives’ had meaning only within the Hussite culture and to some extent in the world of late medieval reformers and heretics until the time of the European reformations. Then he was transformed into something else and made to be a herald of ideas he never conceived. But those sixteenth-century ‘lives’ are another subject.70 Once the legal ordeal of Jan Hus began in earnest and after he travelled to Constance, his death was not unexpected. After the initial shock wore off, his followers regarded the event as a significant historical occurrence wherein a new epoch began. Petr Mladoňovice concluded his narrative with the affirmation that he had provided witness to Hus in order that the memory of the martyr might persist into the future.71 The passio of Jan Bradatý presents Hus as the ultimate martyr.72 To some extent these three sources narrate not only the ‘facts’ but also the mind of Hus.73 This is more difficult terrain, but in these 69  Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by Middlemore, especially part 2, pp. 98–119. 70  Of particular note are the martyrologies produced by Rabus, Der Heyligen ausserwoehlten Gottes Zeugen; Illyricus, Catologus testium veritatis; Crespin, Le livre des martyrs; and Foxe, Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online. 71  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 120. 72  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 24. 73  Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, pp. 12–48.

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‘lives’ there is both history as well as an intentional religious explanation aimed at encouraging and stimulating the faithful. A consideration of holy history or salvation history (heilsgeschichte) is one which engages Jan Hus in Christian Bohemia at the end of the Middle Ages in a moment of kairos significance. The idea of ‘time’ is instructive. In Greek and Roman thought, time is circular and repetitive, while in Jewish and Christian theology it is linear. For the latter, it is a steady progression towards the parousia and the Last Judgement and the culmination of all things. In the ‘lives’ of Hus, there is a linear progression. He is the faithful pilgrim, he endures suffering for the cause of Christ, undergoes martyrdom, and his passio is entrance to eternal life. Beyond this, it functions both as martyria and motivation for others. These ‘lives’ of Hus stress the greatness of his life and passion in an heroic sense. As noted earlier, the principle function of the ‘lives’ of saints was to turn the hearts and minds of men and women to God. The ‘lives’ of Hus consistently follow that pattern. The Anonymous portrays Hus coming from the prison to face his accusers so frail from his maltreatment that his bones were visible through the skin.74 The suffering servant does not hesitate to condemn wickedness and point the way to righteousness. The Anonymous presents Hus confronting the men of Constance with the accusation that the character of the Council is revealed by the hundreds of prostitutes who accompanied it. Hus also pointed out the conundrum concerning the ex-Pope John XXIII, who had convened the synod but lay in a prison cell deposed as pope and facing multiple charges of gross misconduct, ranging from simony and perjury to sexual offences and murder.75 In this stance, Jan Hus as the holy man is more than human. He becomes a stranger who stands outside the usual familial and economic interests; he owes nothing, he eschews women and power, and more importantly his power comes from outside both himself and the world.76 In this sense, the manner of Hus’s living and especially his dying reflected a contemptus mundi commitment.77 We see this in his writings as well as in his resolute commitment to avoid perjury. Despite pressure to save his life by recantation, Hus refused to prevaricate, citing the unacceptable dilemma of perjury before God.78 Hus’s saintliness can be 74 

Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 224. Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 224–25. 76  See Brown, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man’, esp. pp. 91–92; and Brown, ‘The Saint as Exemplar’, pp. 1–25. 77  See especially Hus, Dcerka, pp. 163–86. 78  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 379; and 75 

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attributed principally to his unflinching commitment to truth. His suffering was on account of truth.79 Hus is consistently portrayed as a man of heroic virtue and character exhibiting humility, charity, purity, piety, and patience. These ‘lives’ present Hus as an individual who embodied the virtues of the saints, and whose holiness put evildoers to shame. The Anonymous has Sigismund hang his head with shame in Hus’s presence, and elsewhere the king is humiliated by Hus’s suggestion of duplicity so that his face flushes and he averts his gaze from the condemned man.80 There is no evidence to suggest that the writers of these ‘lives’ did not believe that everything they wrote was true and possessing historical value. Hus’s commitment to absolute personal renunciation is the essence of the medieval imitatio Christi. It is not a new idea. Instead, it can be traced as far back as Origen, and it seems that a consistent belief prevailed in Christianity that persecution and martyrdom led directly to union with Christ.81 Martyrdom has always been conceived as the highest achievement of the Christian pilgrim. But as the Middle Ages wore on those opportunities were relatively remote. Because Hus succeeded in this attainment, he becomes a figure to be admired and praised, and his life becomes a didactic model. The ‘lives’ of Hus exemplify a fusion of tradition and imagination. The construction of the memory of Hus enabled the writers and the readers to know the past, present, and future simultaneously. It seems obvious that, to a large extent, the ‘lives’ of Jan Hus as developed by Jan Bradatý, George the Hermit, and the Anonymous treat Hus as a martyrological figure characterized by goodness and holiness who was unjustly antagonized by evil priests intent upon his destruction. It is not altogether clear to what extent these ‘lives’ relied on Petr Mladoňovice, but it does not seem likely any of them were oblivious to the Relatio. The passio written by Jan Bradatý and continued by Jakoubek seems to have been an independent work. The texts of George the Hermit and the Anonymous definitely draw upon the Relatio, but it is also apparent they have other sources, perhaps both oral and written, within their purview. There are some political overtones in these ‘lives’. For Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 16. 79  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 22. 80  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 20; Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 225; and the Czech edition of Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 135. 81  Origen, Exhortatio ad Martyrium, in Patrologia Graeca, xi, cols 563–636.

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example, the efforts to erase the memory of Hus falter because of divine intervention. This produces war, death on a large scale, and the destruction of towns, castles, and monasteries.82 Further, we find in these ‘lives’ that the enemies of Hus are characterized as ‘faithless rivals of the Kingdom of Bohemia’.83 It is not unreasonable to assume that such comments are indicative of nationalistic elements embedded in these stories. It cannot be said, however, that these ‘lives’ cultivated a strident political or nationalist agenda, evident in the satirical complaints and accusations of the Czech crown levelled against Sigismund and the Council, written in 1420 by Vavřinec of Březová.84 The long arm of theology encompassed all of Hus’s life, and it is no different in these ‘lives’. The legal ordeal at Constance was a heresy trial; therefore, it addressed a number of areas of theology. The Anonymous attempts unsuccessfully to incorporate Utraquism into the narrative and thereby weave Hus more fully into theological developments and religious practices in Bohemia. Questions over Hus’s doctrines of the Virgin Mary, the eucharist, and the Trinity are recorded. These additions to the texts add nothing to what we already know from Petr Mladoňovice. One of the principle components in the history of ideas from the Hussite movement is the law of God. The Anonymous does not refer to this in any explicit fashion, but the passio of Jan Bradatý mentions it thrice and George the Hermit has four references. There is considerable evidence of emotion in the medieval ‘lives’ of Jan Hus. The sessions of the Council dealing with the case against Hus were unruly. The narrative of Jan Bradatý describes a mob of liars who testified wildly, proceedings which raged, and shouts which drowned out Hus’s voice.85 This is reflected also in Petr Mladoňovice, who at times is even more specific. For example, at the final session, the ‘cardinal of Florence’, Francesco Zabarella, is singled out for his shouts against Hus.86 There are many references to crying out or to tears. When accused of expressing errors concerning the Virgin Mary, and later when confronted with accusations of eucharistic heresy, Hus bursts into tears.87 In 82 

George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 383. Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 21. 84  The texts appear in Husitské skladby budyšínského rukopisu, ed. by Daňhelka. See also Klassen, ‘Images of Anti-Majesty’. 85  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 15–16. 86  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 114. 87  Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 225 83 

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response to the Council’s allegations, Hus cries out. He cries out to God, and on other occasions is recorded as weeping.88 George the Hermit claims Hus addressed the audience in the galleries during the trial with tears. 89 Both Jan Bradatý and Jakoubek Stříbro write that their own tears prohibited them from writing more.90 The various sources note instances of loud voices, especially Hus when praying or when protesting his innocence or his perception of injustice during the formal proceedings.91 We have already noted Sigismund’s infamous blush of shame. The only allusion to fear is not attributed to Hus but to the man who observed Hus before the fireplace in prayer and then holding the glowing ember to his body. We read that the man was afraid and later that he concealed the story for many years because he was fearful.92 Some of the traditions tell us that the crowd that had assembled at the place of execution mourned over the fate of Jan Hus.93 The other expression of emotion which is readily apparent in these ‘lives’ is that of joy. Hence we find language expressing laughter, smiles, rejoicing, and also singing. When the conciliar fathers resorted to a dispute over the proper way to disfigure his tonsure, Hus is recorded as smiling, perhaps ruefully, over the argument.94 On his way from the cathedral to the stake, Hus observes the book-burning pyre. Petr Mladoňovice says Hus smiled at the activity, while Jan Bradatý says it was the book burners who were laughing and rejoicing as they reduced the volumes to ashes. 95 Arriving at the stake, Hus smiled at the chains which were wrapped about his body. When the mitre, featuring the demons and the designation ‘heresiarch’, falls from his head to the ground, Hus again smiled.96 Now fastened to the instrument of death, 88 

George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 381; Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 18; and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 111, 116. 89  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 380. 90  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 19. 91  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 380, where Hus begs in a loud voice and prays loudly. Compare Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 113, 115, 116, and 117. 92  Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 378. 93  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 17. 94  Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 226. 95  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 117 and Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 17. 96  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 118, 119 and the Anonymous, in Fontes

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Hus spoke loudly and merrily.97 As the fire roared, all of the ‘lives’ note that Hus passed from this life singing.98 There is of course a rather surreal element in these lives, a detail which can easily be traced throughout the history of martyrdom from earliest Christianity through the stories collected in the ‘golden legend’ right on down through the martyrologies of the sixteenth century. Even in acute suffering, the heroes of the faith, the ideal men and women, endure the tortures of the enemies of God with amazing fortitude. In 1555, the martyr and bishop of Gloucester, John Hooper, endured the flames for more than three quarters of an hour before death mercifully relieved his torment. ‘Even as a lamb, patiently he abode the extremity thereof, neither moving forwards, backwards, nor to any side: but, having his nether parts burned, and his bowels fallen out, he died as quietly as a child in his bed.’99 Relying on Petr Mladoňovice it appears that Hus died quickly. John Hooper suffered forty-five minutes, fully conscious, without complaint or much apparent anguish, despite his lower body being severely burned, his upper body scorched, and one arm falling off. Those writing hostile accounts claim Hus died screaming.100 From that perspective, the agonies of dying have two causes: physical pain and psychological terror of eternal damnation. That image is altogether unpalatable when presenting the passion of a spiritual hero, the ideal Christian man or woman, or the example of a popular saint. Hence, our ‘lives’ are unanimous in recording Hus’s death at the stake as a study in courage, fortitude, and endurance. All said and done, it seems that these medieval ‘lives’ of Jan Hus are best regarded as examples of martyria written down and preserved as literary monuments to the memory of the ideal Christian man whom his followers deemed worthy of sainthood, which the Hussite tradition embraced, cultivated, and celebrated openly in their religious practices for more than two centuries.

rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 227. 97  George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 382. 98  Anonymous, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii,  227; George the Hermit, Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 382; Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 17; and Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p. 119. 99  Foxe, Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online, 1570 edition, book 11, p. 1723. 100  Richental, Chronik des Constanzer Concils, p. 134.

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The Spirit of Hussite Religion

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he Hus of art, popular song, hymnody, and narrative reveal important dimensions in the creation and perpetuation of memory. The roots were religious and theological. The most enthusiastic advocate for reform in the first decade of the fifteenth century in Bohemia was Jan Hus, incumbent priest at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. Hussite history as it unfolded would have been impossible without the work and death of this man. Early fifteenthcentury Czech history was aetas hussiana, the age of Hus. This is not to suggest there would not have been religious reform in Bohemia apart from Hus. Similarly, I do not mean to imply that Hussitism was simply an extension or continuation of the thought and activities of Hus. There is a long list of essential qualifications, but Hus and the reform movement bearing his name cannot be separated absolutely. Hus did not inaugurate reform in Prague. He inherited a movement which by the end of the fourteenth century was already forty years old. What he did do was die as a martyr to a cause. None of his predecessors had been executed. The capital punishment sentence imposed upon Hus infused considerable energy into a burgeoning reform movement and gave a largely hostile Latin church cause to label the dissenters ‘Hussites’, who appeared to assume a rigid stance of defiance after the conclusion of the Hus trial at the Council of Constance. In one sense, the moniker may have been no more legitimate than calling Hus a ‘Wyclifite’, but from a history of ideas perspective what happened next, after Hus was sent to the stake as an incorrigible heretic, was a commitment on the part of many Czechs to avenge his death by refusing to obey the orders of the Council and by defending (to the death if necessary) the principles of religious reform articulated by Hus and his colleagues. Language is important. The term ‘Hussite’ was not completely a foreign imposition. The adherents of reformed religious practice in Bohemia used the

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self-description ‘those who favoured Jan Hus and advocated the communion of the chalice’. It was an identifying phrase, not a proper name. Evidence for this nomenclature can be located in Hussite sources. One of the chroniclers in referring to some of the communities of the adherents of Jan Hus and religious reform asked: ‘Where does their name and their beginning come from?’. He then answers his own query by asserting that ‘adhering to the preaching of Master Jan Hus and to giving the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ […], they were then called Hussites’.1 Who were these ‘Hussites’? According to the chronicler, ‘those who were in favour of Utraquist communion and the teaching of Master Hus’. In different places in Bohemia the practice of Utraquism as well as the ‘cult of Hus’ was preached.2 There are numerous references to those favouring, adhering to or following the teaching of Hus, and there are about twenty uses of the phrase ‘communion of the chalice’ and its cognates in this one chronicle.3 Together these phrases form the most accurate identifying phrase within Hussite communities during the first generation. The term ‘Hussite’, then, is appropriate when referring to the followers of Hus, especially in the general period after his death up until the 1450s.4 As we have seen, Hus was a priest, never moving far from his medieval origins or identity until the memory of martyrdom transformed him into myth. By his death, Jan Hus became a rallying point, a figurehead, for his followers and sympathizers. If they could not be called disciples of Hus in the strict sense, or influenced directly by his preaching or writings, nonetheless they did share in the collective sense of umbrage expressed in Bohemia over his death, which many regarded as unjust, illegal, and an act of betrayal. That conviction made them Hussites. Continuation in that commitment defined a religious movement, which no longer could be considered synonymous with the mainstream of western Christianity. From the time the first accounts of his passio were committed to paper or disseminated orally, Hus entered the collective consciousness of reform-minded Christians throughout Bohemia. This can be evidenced among all factions of non-Roman religious practice for two and a half centuries. As we have seen, 1 

Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 344–46. 2  Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution, pp. 175, 206, and 249. 3  Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 330, 340, 341, 344, 344–45, 346 for references to the teaching of Hus, and pp. 352, 355, 360, 361, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 369, 384, 385, 427 for the chalice. 4  Haberkern, ‘What’s in a Name’.

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sermons, music, liturgy, art, and a variety of writings make reference to Hus, suggesting his memory was still alive and continued to play a role in the faith of some religious communities in Prague and elsewhere in Bohemia. The depth and nature of that role is controversial. But his presence in the history of religion in Bohemia cannot be disputed. The myth of Jan Hus contributed to the identity of reformed religious practice within the Czech Kingdom in quite extraordinary ways. From the second half of the fifteenth century, the Hussite faction known as the Czech Brethren did not venerate Hus, but there is suggestive evidence they read his writings. During the same period, the Utraquists, another more conservative group of Hussites, did venerate him, but there is less convincing evidence they actually made use of his various books and treatises. To what extent any religious teaching or practice in late medieval Bohemia may be said to have roots in Hus is arguable. It is possible to find explicit dependence on Hus in some quarters. For example, Nicholas of Dresden ‘went to a great deal of trouble in order to use Hus’s words’ from the former’s important sermon Dixit Martha ad Iesum, preached on 3 November 1411. This is an example of theological indebtedness to Hus that would have been recognizable at the time.5 Nicholas was an important thinker in the early reform movement and suffered martyrdom for his faith.6 In general, it may be observed that the desire for religious reform exhibited between the late fourteenth century and the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War among all Hussite parties, and Hus himself, is consistent. To refer to the movement associated with Hus as ‘Hussite’ both illumines the nature of an alternative form of the faith within late medieval Christianity while acknowledging the symbolic importance of Jan Hus as an inspiration from 1415 on. Nowhere in the religious history of late medieval Bohemia can the presence of Hus be more clearly observed than in the spirit of reform. Of course the spirit of a movement is different than the movement itself. It is another point of inquiry from the history of that movement. That distinction in mind, then, the pervading principles of Hussite history constitute a separate 5  Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution, pp. 214–17 outlines this in some detail. The emphasis is Kaminsky’s. This has been noted previously by Sedlák, Mikuláš z Drážďan, pp. 46–48, but Sedlák incorrectly assumed Hus had borrowed from Nicholas. 6  Details and circumstances are vague. We learn from one of his detractors, the canon Šimon of Litovel, simply that Nicholas was martyred. See his Errores Nicolai de Czerucz Theotonici contra purgatorium, quos receperunt et defenderunt Thaborite cum ceteris malis, in Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 52, fols 48r–88r with relevant comment on fol. 51v. A surviving sermon text (25 May 1419) tells us he was put to death in Meißen. Dochovaná kázání Jana Želivského, ed. by Molnár, pp. 126–27.

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consideration.7 These principles undergirding so much of what occurred in Bohemia in the later fourteenth through the early seventeenth centuries were both intellectual and emotional. The spirit of Hussite religion is the motivation and the method by which it states and practises its faith and the heart of that spirit is moral and a commitment to reform. The essential component of this spirit can best be apprehended in the particular way of understanding and practising theology within the Hussite-Bohemian Reformation. After all, however else Jan Hus and his followers are perceived and whatever dimensions Hussite history achieves, the basic and essential factor is one of theology. It is either improper or misleading to say ‘religion’ specifically, for it was theology and the spirit of that investigation which informed religion in Bohemia in its unique late medieval manifestations. It is difficult to isolate doctrinal reconstruction or innovation within Hussite history as an end in itself. Theological reflection consistently related to reform in the sense of moral and spiritual reflection. Theology and reform in Hussite Europe turned on the fulcrum of the church consciously readopting its biblical and historical principles. In this enterprise we must ask how the great luminaries of the Hussite movement understood their own theological reflection. Jan Milíč of Kroměříž and Matěj of Janov in the fourteenth century, Hus, Jakoubek Stříbro, Jan Želivský, Petr Chelčický, and Jan Rokycana in the fifteenth century, Václav Mitmánek, Lukáš of Prague, and Jan Augusta in the sixteenth century, and Jan Amos Komenský in the seventeenth century, together with many others were teachers, preachers, writers, and leaders, but what was it that caused these men to forge a movement unique in the history of the Christian church? A crisis of identity and a radical questioning of the religious status quo must figure into this esprit de corps. To omit or minimize theology is to misrepresent and misunderstand the entire history of the Hussite movement. Subordinating theology to social issues and concerns does not account for Hussitism, either its spirit or its history, and fails to explain Jan Hus. Too many of the portraits of Hus and the Hussites held up for admiration or ridicule were fashioned in the image of their creators and amounted to historical falsification.8 Of course, theology itself is a most peculiar discipline; one of the few which generally regards progress as vice. ‘Physicians embrace, lawyers value, and philosophers accept whatever leads to the renewal of their 7 

The early history has been explicated elsewhere. See Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution; Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution; Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution; Bartoš, The Hussite Revolution; and Fudge, The Magnificent Ride. 8  See for example the survey in Fudge, ‘“The Shouting Hus”’, supplemented by Holeton, ‘The Celebration of Jan Hus’, pp. 32–59.

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disciplines; we theologians alone stubbornly protest and hate what is good for us.’9 Within the Hussite movement there existed a dynamic which allowed its theologians, at least for a time, to embrace doctrinal challenge, to place value on constructive change, and to accept reforms in theology which contributed to the restructuring of the religious and social world in late medieval Bohemia. I refer to that impulse as the spirit of Hussitism. That spirit can be understood in terms of church renewal, revelation, eschatology, moral reform, the law of God, and sacramentally-centred religious practice. The spirit of the Hussite movement was generally formed during the period of Hus’s life and in the generation which followed him. This constitutes the classical Hussite period. Active within the spirit of the fifteenth-century reforming Czech church was a conscious commitment to both essential elements of Christianity: the spiritual pursuit as well as the message of social renewal. Championing both emphases proved challenging, as religious discipline and the freedom of theology came together. Classical Hussite theology was not Protestant and has little if any affinity with the salvation-oriented doctrines of the Protestants. Notional concepts of sola fide are foreign to the world of Hussite Christianity.10 A commitment to facere quod in se est means for Hus and his colleagues a gradual realization of divine truth and redemption. Hussite soteriology then is closer to Gabriel Biel and William of Ockham than to Luther or Calvin. The spirit of Hussitism was medieval and its theology medieval to the core. Theology itself in this Hussite world should be understood in both a social and religious context. This is evident in Milíč and Hus. Elements within Hussite history sought for Czech distinctives yet remained committed to the Roman church. Despite early personal associations with Hus, Prague University master and theologian Jan Příbram (d. 1448) might truly be regarded as barely Hussite in ideology.11 Though committed to the availability of the lay chalice, he appears enthusiastic about little else uniquely Hussite after 1420. He does not argue for the principle that God has ordained to reform the church through common people. It is also questionable to what extent Příbram supports the full implications of the reform programme codified in the ‘four articles of Prague’: the practice of Utraquism, free preaching, punishment of 9 

Erasmus, ‘Apologia in Novum Testamentum’, in Erasmus, Opera omnia, ed. by Clericus, vi, p.**2. I cite the translation from Bejczy, Erasmus and the Middle Ages, p. 116. 10  As argued in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 27–55. 11  See the excellent introduction in Jan z Příbramě, ed. by Boubín, pp. 7–30, but especially pp. 7–11.

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serious sins, and the divesting of excessive wealth from the church.12 Moreover, by 1430 he thought the writings of Jan Hus could only be accepted by faithful Christians to the extent they were in agreement with the official church.13 That implied surrendering the impulse of reform to the magisterium of the Latin church. Hus disapproved of such policy. On the other extreme were certain factions of radical Táborite religion, namely the Pikarts and the Adamites, so violently opposed to the mainstream of Latin Christianity it appeared their particular doctrinal proclivities represented a different understanding of the Christian faith altogether.14 It is difficult to discuss these polarizing and disruptive elements within the spirit of the Hussite faith. Hussite history, which is not the focus here, at times manifested multilateral tendencies to the point of apparent contradiction. Příbram and Tábor represent such divergence and contradiction. Their ongoing disputes and polemics spanned close to thirty years. Příbram characterized himself as the ‘ardent persecutor of the authors of all heresies, especially the Wyclifite and Pikart’, a direct reference to the Táborites. 15 The specifics surrounding the thorny issues of authority, scripture, sacerdotalism, and tradition presented difficulties. Příbram wanted reform and religion to remain within the purview of the state, broadly defined, while the Táborites argued the state was responsible neither for religion nor theology.16 Part of the problem centred on whether the Spirit had value over tradition or if tradition took precedence over Spirit. The dilemma has roots in earliest Christianity.17 Hus had been drawn into that debate in Prague and later before the theologians and lawyers at the Council of Constance. Authority in the medieval church revolved structurally around the concept of plenitudo potestatis, which by the later Middle Ages had evolved into 12  The articles are outlined in Vavřinec of Březová, Historia Hussitica in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, v, 391–95, but the date given in the chronicle should be amended to 1420. 13  Příbram’s work De professio fidei catholicae was first published in Cochlaeus, Historia Hussitarum, pp. 501–47, with comment on p. 540. 14  The problem has been recently reviewed in Fudge, ‘Heresy and the Question of Hussites’. 15  Jan Příbram, Apologia, Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 49, fols  333r–341r (on fol. 333r). This was written around 1427. 16  Advocates for reform like Příbram wanted to see religious reform guided by a magisterium of authority while groups like the Táborites eschewed the involvement of either the official church or the government. Jan Hus might be positioned between these perspectives. 17  See von Campenhausen, ‘Tradition und Geist im Urchristentum’, but also his von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power, trans. by Baker, passim.

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a doctrine of seamless obedience to the papacy and papal decrees. During the time of the Hussites, conciliarism sought to address this concentration of power, since it was a political axiom that all other powers whether imperial, episcopal, or conciliar were derived from the papal office and as such could not judge the office. Legally, at least in terms of medieval canon law, popes were not subject to judicial proceedings unless the alleged offence was against the faith. It is therefore obvious that the expanding of the concept of heresy in the conciliar period, especially at the Council of Constance, was a necessary development enabling the western church to cut the Gordian knot of the papal schism.18 Apart from heresy, broadly defined, in all other instances, popes had immunity from human judgement and possessed universal power.19 Medieval authorities on this point were substantial, building on the eleventh-century ‘dictates’ of Pope Gregory VII.20 Jan Hus repudiated this principle, and the Hussites were generally unpersuaded. While refraining for a long time from an overt condemnation of prevailing authority structures, Hus at length summed up his growing conviction by denouncing the papacy. In a lengthy letter to his colleague Křišťan of Prachatice in the spring of 1413, Hus asserted that the idea of the pope as the vicar of Christ was not a matter of the faith. If papal lives are contrary to Christ then they are thieves, ravening wolves, hypocrites, and Antichrist. Orders from the See of Peter can only be obeyed if they are consistent with the law of God. Hus argues that the Curia may often err in judging matters of truth. Rather than exempting popes from judgement, Hus presses the point that corruption in papal palaces constitute an ‘abomination of desolation’. The holy Christ is contrasted with the unholy pope. Instead of the ‘most holy, most pious, most gentle, most humble, poorest, most untiring, most patient, most chaste man, in that holy place, that is to say, in holiness, now resides a man, in name the most holy, but really the worst, most cruel, most vindictive, most arrogant, the world’s wealthiest, laziest, most impatient, and most unclean’.21 During a Palm 18 

On this see Provvidente, ‘Factum hereticale, representatio et ordo iuris’. D.40 c.6 Si papa, Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, col. 146, C.9 q.3 c.13 Nemo iudicabit, C.9 q.3 c.14 Aliorum hominum causas, C.9 q.3 c.15 Facta subditorum, and C.9 q.3 c.17 Cuncta per mundum, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, cols 610–11, D.99 c.3 Primae sedis, and D.99 c.5 Ecce in prefatione, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, i, cols 350–51. 20  Dictatus papae in Gregory  VII, Register, ed. by Caspar, pp. 201–08. Giles of Rome, De potestate ecclesiastica, ed. by Scholz, 1. 2; John of Turrecremata, Summa de ecclesia contra impugnatores potestatis summi pontificis, 2. 93; James of Viterbo, De regimine Christiano, ed. by Arquillière, 2. 5, among numerous commentators. 21  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 164–68 (at p. 167). 19 

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Sunday sermon, Hus described the lowly Christ riding a donkey while the pope sat astride a lavishly adorned stallion.22 Hussite period iconography depicted this antithesis in various ways.23 That assessment was not unique to Hus. Being familiar with an intellectual tradition which declined to grant the papacy unqualified power, Hussite theologians worked to widen the base of ecclesiastical authority and took little note of counter arguments.24 This posture can be evidenced from Jan Hus onwards throughout the history of the movement.25 It brought significant criticism to the extent that a man later elected pope wondered, ‘who seduced the Czechs if not theologians?’.26 Characteristic of the historical dimensions of Hussitism is its divisiveness manifested not only in the several different groupings of Hussites but alarmingly displayed in the internecine warfare which not infrequently broke out.27 A tendency towards disunity produced disintegration in late medieval Christianity in Bohemia. Divisions were often deep, and it is possible to conclude the Bohemian church had suffered decline, though an argument cannot be sustained which projects a general or thorough dissolution of Catholic Christianity.28 Still, Hus had been condemned and executed while those who 22 

Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 178. Jena Codex, Praha, KNM, MS iv B 24, fols 4v, 12v, and 34v show Christ carrying the cross and washing the feet of his friends, while fols 5r, 13r, and 28r feature the pope riding a horse and being crowned. Some of these motifs are replicated in Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staas- und Universitätabibliothek, MS Theol. 182, pp. 35, 38, 41, and 79, a source I studied in Göttingen in 1992. There is an anonymous tract, written around 1417 and sometimes ascribed to Štěpán Páleč, which describes many of these images. Incipiunt responsiones ad obiecciones et picturas Huss in Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS O 50, fols 133r–137v. Moreover, we have other evidence asserting that such pictures were displayed publicly in Prague in 1414. Chronicle of Prokop the Notary, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, i, 72. 24  John of Turrecremata wrote specifically with a view to the ideas of heretics like the Hussites. Being in attendance at both the councils of Constance and Basel provided him with an important first-hand perspective. A good evaluation can be found in Izbicki, Protector of the Faith. 25  Contra octo doctores, in Hus, Opera omnia, ed. by Ryšánek, xxii, 427. 26  Aeneas Sylvius, ‘Concerning the education of children’ (February 1450) in ‘Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini’, ed. by Wolkan, pp. 103–58 (at p. 139). 27  Squabbles characterized the movement throughout the 1420s and 30s and by the time Hussite representatives went to the Council of Basel in 1433 they practised social segregation. This is reflected in a pro-Czech diary in Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi Decimi Quinti, ed. by Palacký, i, 287–357. 28  Parish visitations in the Archdiocese of Prague in the late fourteenth century reveal systemic abuses and widespread irregularities throughout Bohemia. A relevant manuscript of the 23 

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insisted upon the eucharistic practice sub utraque specie, communion in both kinds of bread and wine, were deemed heretical on the strength of conciliar legislation. Despite these rather severe challenges the Hussite spirit prevailed. Catholic, Utraquist-Hussite, and Táborite-Jednota religion were major expressions of the Christian faith in fifteenth-century Bohemia.29 Differences between Rome and Czech reformed religion are easy to identify. It is likewise apparent the divergences between Prague and Tábor. Consistency was not the outstanding virtue of Czech Christianity. It is folly to propose a firm melding of reformed parties into a unified whole called Hussitism. These groups were united to the others in terms of some common practices, especially the practice of the lay chalice, and in their aim to reform the church and it is a fair assumption that the ‘four articles of Prague’ provided a common commitment to religious reform. Their ideological significance cannot be denied, and some Hussites went so far as to declare that, after the national assembly at the town of Čáslav in 1421, the ‘four articles’ became a legal endorsement of the spirit of the reform movement.30 Unity within diversity sharing the common values and attributes of the faith characterize Hussite religious practice. According to Hus, the centre of the Christian faith included unity. ‘In the holy church there is one food, which is the body of God, one drink, which is the blood of Christ, one common garment, which is love, one cleansing, [which is] baptism or repentance, one master and father, [who is] God; and so all saints are sons of God and of the holy church and are spiritual brothers and sisters, and utilize all spiritual things together, even if in different ways’.31 Historians are obliged to recognize the plurality of the so-called Hussite phenomenon and forego efforts to create a religious unity or coherent pattern. The spirit of this phenomenon is sufficiently broad as not to require synthesis. Some scholars argue the crisis visitation is Praha, KNM, MS xiv E 2, fols 1r–133r. There is an edition: Protocollum visitationis archidiaconatus Pragensis, ed. by Hlaváček and Hledíková. 29  The term Utraquist or Hussite indicates the church in the Czech lands finding their impetus for reform in the movements connected to Jan Milíč, Jan Hus and their followers. Derogatorily called ‘Hussite’ in the fifteenth century, their principle theological motif was the eucharist for all the baptized in both elements of bread and wine from the Latin sub utraque specie. But Hussitism cannot simply be reduced to Utraquism. The Czech Brethren (Jednota bratrská) were the spiritual descendants of the Táborites. Recent studies of the two main branches of the Hussite tradition in English include David, Finding the Middle Way; and Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethren. 30  Čáslav effectively made the ‘four articles’ law. See Molnár, ‘Martin Lupáč: Modus disputandi pro fide’. 31  Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, p. 331.

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of the Middle Ages has to do with security and its social symbols.32 This helps to explain part of the Hussite commitment to the sacrament of the altar.33 Jan Hus perceived the crisis of his time as theological and moral requiring reform. Jan Hus represents the essential elements of the Hussite spirit. Total rejection of Catholic Christendom cannot be described as authentic Hussitism. By contrast, the accommodating posture of Příbram likewise must be viewed at best as existing in the shadow of the Hussite spirit. By the mid 1430s, he was arguing true Christians were obligated to ‘firmly adhere and without wavering obey the holy Roman church’.34 We have observed already that Jan Hus and some of his closest intellectual colleagues like Jakoubek Stříbro disagreed. Hus and Jan Rokycana did not inveigh against Rome as an impediment to the progress of the faith. It is true they criticized deviation from perceived apostolic principles and denounced abuses of the organized cult often in strident terms. To the fiery end, Hus considered himself a son of the church and a faithful servant of God.35 It is not possible to represent Hus as an undisciplined scholar and priest, who launched a reckless attack upon the medieval church or its magisterium. Rokycana was appointed to archiepiscopal rank and functioned as Archbishop of Prague, though never officially consecrated.36 He too remained within the universal church. The spirit of the Hussite church was catholic, traditional, and rooted in the faith which stretched from the apostles to the fathers and down through the Middle Ages to the fifteenth century without serious breach or lasting corruption.37 Though some Hussites did repudiate the official Latin church, it was not the legacy of Hussitism to deny traditional Christian values.38 32 

Graus, ‘The Crisis of the Middle Ages and the Hussites’, pp. 76–103. The work of David  R. Holeton is instructive here. See especially Holeton, ‘The Communion of Infants: The Basel Years’; Holeton, La Communion des tout-petits enfants; and Holeton, ‘The Bohemian Eucharistic Movement’. 34  Jan Příbram, Cum ab inicio, Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 47, fols 1r–40r (at fol. 39v). 35  In this sense, Hus cannot be seen that far removed from Savonarola and even major Catholic scholars have concluded that Hus was barely a heretic. De Vooght, L’Hérésie de Jean Huss. Nevertheless, he was still heretical according to the standards of the later Middle Ages and being barely heretical is rather like being barely pregnant. 36  See Heymann, ‘John Rokycana — Church Reformer’. 37  The Byzantine and Latin churches separated in the eleventh century but the Christian faith itself remained undivided. 38  Such values might include spiritual authority (priesthood), sacraments, proclamation of the gospel, scripture, Christian views of history and codifications of theology such as the Apostles’ Creed. 33 

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The progress towards a reform of both church and society did not require a break with the past. Within the cradle of Latin Christendom, the Hussite faith was nourished and refined. The church remained the community of all those chosen for salvation.39 Without the Roman rule there could never have been a Hussite Reformation. Hus and many of his colleagues stood well within the Augustinian conviction that faith and the church remained integrally related, as the bishop of Hippo so famously phrased it, quipping he ‘would not believe the gospel unless the authority of the Catholic church compelled [him] to do so’.40 Hus did not understand Augustine as implying a metaphysical priority of the church, though it is apparent the later medieval church did evolve to that position. That evolution seems to have been facilitated by the assumption codified in the Commonitorium of the monastic presbyter Vincent of Lérins, who wrote in the fifth century that correct doctrine of catholic Christianity is that which has been believed everywhere, at all times, by everyone.41 The spirit of Hussitism implied that lex orandi was also lex credendi. In other words, the ‘law of prayer’ is also the ‘law of belief ’. Religious practice illuminates religious doctrine and that practice is decisive for determining the nature of theology itself. The Latin principle prevails within the history of Czech Utraquism.42 Prosper of Aquitaine established the lex orandi, lex credendi principle for liturgical theology. In application, the manner in which worship is accomplished produces a system of belief. The converse of that principle, correct doctrine leads to correct worship, more accurately characterizes the confessional approaches of some sixteenth-century Protestant churches. With all of this talk of lex orandi and lex credendi, one should also pose the query about the place of lex speculandi in determining the theological dimensions of faith and religious practice in the later Middle Ages. This third rule is not absent in Hussite religion. Latent within the spirit of Hussitism, one finds emphases neither on worship nor doctrine but on the oft-neglected concern with ethics, to which both worship and doctrine are subordinate. The nascent roots of this may be discovered in Hus 39 

Hus, Jádro učení křesťanského, p. 331. Augustine, Contra epistolam Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti, in Patrologia Latina, xlii, col. 176 (chap. 5); and in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latina, xxv.1, ed. by Joseph Zycha (Wien: Tempsky, 1891), p. 197. 41  ‘In ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est’. Commonitorium, ii. 3, ed. by Reginald S. Moxon (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1915), p. 10. 42  The maxim can be traced to the fifth-century Augustinian apologist Prosper of Aquitaine, in Patrologia Latina, li, cols 209–10. 40 

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and among the Czech Brethren, and that emphasis must be considered at the centre of Hussite religion.43 Part of the challenge in understanding the Bohemian reform movement is to determine to what extent Hussites were motivated by Hus and by the tradition of thought and influence he stood within. To what extent is Hus a pivotal figure in the religious history of Central Europe? 44 None can deny that his unfortunate, though hardly unpredictable, fate in 1415 while before the Council of Constance ignited an explosive element of revolution within the lands of the Czech Crown. Nevertheless, Hus clearly would neither have felt at home for long among the social radicals at Tábor nor alongside Žižka’s warriors of God, despite the claim of the Bishop of Tábor that his community was a direct result of Hus’s teaching.45 Conversely, it is difficult to imagine him content with the accommodating tendencies of Příbram or the status quo tolerated by the Utraquists. What of Hus’s doctrinal emphases and activities? Do these represent the spirit of the Hussite church, or is his name attached inappropriately to a dominating movement persisting over two hundred years? Hussites were divided on the matter, but it would appear Hus was less an object of faith and more a subject for historical and theological investigation. Nearly a century after his death, the memory of Jan Hus continued to regard him as a divine instrument. ‘We Czechs walked in darkness […] until God […] in his grace sent us Master Hus to direct us in the way of proper understanding and to enlighten our minds.’46 Elsewhere, Hus was characterized as a good, righteous, and ‘faithful champion’ of Christ.47 There is some merit to the observation, but ultimately Hus cannot be regarded as an influence upon the Hussites in the same manner as Thomas Aquinas was on the Thomists or Augustine was to the Augustinian 43 

See Chapter Three and Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethren, passim. Two major European conferences have debated the query, at Bayreuth in 1993 and in Rome in 1999. The Bayreuth papers appear in Lášek, Jan Hus mezi epochami; a German version in Seibt, Jan Hus, while the Rome papers have been published in Husitský tábor, supplement, 1 (2001). 45  Mikuláš Pelhřimov, Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschicht­ schreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 477–78. The chronicle was written between 1435 and 1444. The same argument appears in his sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 245v. 46  Introduction to the sermons of Luther in Czech translation either by Pavel Příbram or an anonymous Hussite. Kázání velebného a nábožného otce Martina Luthera na desatero přikázání Božích, pp. 2–3. 47  Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husi­ti­ schen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 477 and 568. 44 

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tradition. Is the connection and relation symbolic and spiritual, or is it organic and conceptual? Regardless of the conclusion, it is quite impossible to present Hus personally or individually as Hussitism. On the other hand, neither should he be excluded altogether from the forms of religious practice which developed bearing his name. In speaking of general theological principles, the acquisition of truth within the Hussite world was harvested from many sources, Roman, philosophical, heretical, and Biblical, and her theologians felt obliged to come to terms with the insights of truth ordained by divine will regardless of origin. This principle is true of Hus as any analysis of his writings reveals. Hus refused to disregard suspected books and material labelled heretical and insisted it was perilous to ignore such literature.48 Theoretically, the Hussite mantra ‘truth triumphs’ does not impose limitations upon the progress of theological investigation, and so Hus can draw equally upon the venerated Bernard of Clairvaux and the hereticated John Wyclif.49 An examination of Hus’s writings reveal copious citations from scripture, Augustine, Chrysostom, Gregory, Cyprian, Lombard, Ambrose, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, Anselm, Thomas, Bede, the pronouncements of general councils, canon law, and so on. In argument, Hus might often appeal to traditional ecclesiastical authorities. For example, he writes, ‘according to the opinion of St Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, Chrysostom, Remigius, and Gratian’.50 Such appeals were in no sense gratuitous or force of habit. It may have been a medieval commonplace that only the literal meaning of holy scripture can provide for theological assertions, but in practice scripture and tradition form the basis of theology, and this is clearly evident in Hus and within the Hussite tradition. Nowhere do we find Hus defending scripture against tradition or tradition against scripture. The Hussite spirit was organically connected to the evolving Christian church. One cannot find Hus claiming to have learned the gospel independently and exclusively from the very word of God or by special revelation. He made no assertion to being led by the inner word of knowledge and insight over against the outward word of God. His faith was not blind belief in authority or uncritical acceptance of established doctrine. He did not retreat to abstract believing to avoid thinking, and he remained open to argument and was not susceptible to blanket appeals to 48 

Hus, De libris hereticorum legendis, pp. 34–37. See Hus’s devotional tract Dcerka as an example. Text is Hus, Dcerka, pp. 163–186, and considered in some detail in Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 85–94. 50  Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 124–25. 49 

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authority. An abundant and continuous collection of documents and supporting evidence reveals this conviction during his trial at Constance, which illustrates the energetic and aggressive approach to faith exhibited by Hus. Clearly the Hussite spirit imbibed at the wells of the church and the Fathers. By consequence, the Hussite reform initiative was built upon ecclesiastical traditions which later attained acceptance as part of the essence of its spirit. It is impossible to sustain any assumption that Czech theologians engaged in arbitrary Biblical interpretation or of breaking with the spirit of ecclesiastical tradition. The traditions of the church and the ideas advanced by her exponents were not regarded as adiaphora within the mainstream of Hussitism any more than the practice of Utraquism for all the baptized.51 The preoccupation with the eucharist cannot be seen as a peculiar infatuation with one particular aspect of the Christian faith. Instead, Hussite religion perceived the eucharist as integrally related to the whole of Christianity. I would argue that the tradition bearing the name of Hus did not succumb to the tyranny of theological categories. The controversy over the chalice was chiefly a question of theological debate for the Council of Basel. It was also for the Hussites a matter of truth and correct theology, but more importantly the heart of religious practice and the hinge upon which the door of church reform turned. The path of Hus and Jakoubek Stříbro to a reformation of the church seems to have been determined principally by a careful study of scripture and theological reflection which led the theologians to revelation. Jakoubek’s momentous revelatio concerning the lay chalice came as a result of protracted research into scripture and the Fathers. 52 Ample evidence from the sources appear to support this suggestion. While Jakoubek’s arguments can be sustained, the Hussites may well have distorted the reality of eucharistic doctrine in the early church. In 1127, Abbot William of St Thierry pointed out the lack of consensus of understanding among the fathers on the sacrament and how this later created problems for medieval theology. 53 The matter of revelation remained a crucial component in Hussite religion. Prior to Jakoubek, Hus suggested that theology itself was concerned with revelation.54 Personal salva51 

Clearly this does not apply to Táborite religion or indeed among all Hussite parties and points of view. This underscores once more the severe difficulties associated with any effort to make universal statements about the Bohemian church in the fifteenth century. 52  De Vooght, Jacobellus de Stříbro, pp. 122–41. 53  De sacramento altaris, in Patrologia Latina, clxxx, col. 359. This is the earliest Cistercian text on sacramental theology. 54  See for example Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 14–16.

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tion cannot be known, argued Hus, apart from special revelation.55 Scripture of course is never alone. Jan Hus and Hussite theologians read scripture through particular spectacles, Augustinian, Wyclifite, and their Czech forebears especially, and their understanding of the text was informed in this way. Several streams of influence converging in the later Middle Ages likewise carried the Czech reformers along and the Hussite movement cannot be understood apart from a consideration of the devotio moderna, late medieval mysticism, the impulse of apocalyptic thinking, to say nothing of nominalism.56 Anchored to the church, the spirit of Hussitism likewise found inspiration in the theological and intellectual concerns of Catholic Christianity facing the challenges at the dawn of a new age. That new age motif is something apparent generally only in hindsight. It is not at all certain that people at the end of the Middle Ages were conscious of what they were living in. There were exceptions. Reflecting on what he considered the onset of a golden age, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote that it was a wonderful time to be alive with the world growing young again.57 There is no evidence Hus shared that outlook. Indeed, his perspective seems informed by life in eschatological time. The world hastens to its consummation. The lives, thoughts, hopes, and perspectives of Hussite Christians were medieval, though latent in their medieval world was crisis, the seeds of change, and the motion of history itself. Indeed, there is no such thing as motionless history.58 An eschatological awareness permeated early Hussite theology and provided the movement with its particular urge to establish the law of God and reform religious practice in Bohemia. This can be detected in Hus as well as among some of the Hussite communities.59 It proved more important than popes or councils. It was Hus’s motivation and that impulse helped to sustain his memoria. It is easily discernible that theologians of the stature of Thomas or Augustine cannot be found among the Hussites. Neither were there philosophers approaching the acumen of a Peter Abelard. Nevertheless, serious protracted theological and philosophical reflection dominate Hussite history. 55 

Hus, Výklad víry, i, 81–82. One might profitably find cogent argument for this claim in the work of Heiko Oberman, especially Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation; and Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology. 57  Letter to Wolfgang Capito (26 February 1517): in Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum, ed. by Allen, ii, 487–92. 58  Ladurie, ‘L’Histoire immobile’; reprinted in Ladurie, Le Territoire de l’historien, ii, 7–34. 59  Holeček, ‘“Ministri dei possunt in dampnacionem perpetuam papam”’; Molnár, ‘Escha­ to­logická naděje české reformace’; and Patschovsky and Šmahel, Eschatologie und Hussitismus. 56 

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Yet the conception of truth within the stream of thought known as Hussite does not appear to make the distinction between truths of reason and truths of revelation. All truth is divine in origin regardless of its worldly province. Jakoubek’s Utraquist revelatio and the reason inherent in the social principles of the Jednota Bratrská do not correspond to opposing worlds, for God is the sole cause and source of truth.60 Thus, the political, economic, social, religious, legal, and military dimensions of Hussite history remain conjoined to an idea of truth which is at once deeply rooted in theology. This intellectual climate proved to be useful for the new trend of reform, which can be called the Hussite alternative. Jan Hus represents the most significant hinge upon which reformed religious practice in Bohemia turned. The spirit of the Hussite movement regarded the official church as something essentially necessary, though it was neither totally acceptable in its late medieval form nor completely flawed beyond reform. Here the spirit of Hussitism presents both challenge and refutation to each position suggesting a possible religious and theological via media, embracing the strengths of each while avoiding the weaknesses inherent in all programmes of exclusion. The argument has been advanced with respect to the later period of Utraquist development, but it might equally be valid for application to the early Hussite time, when Hus, Jakoubek, and Rokycana held the reins of theological influence.61 Perhaps the spirit of the reforming movement clarified itself in the apogee of heresies and ecclesiastical excesses while simultaneously refusing to acquiesce in the complete rejection of holy mother church which often marked out the histories of the Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards, and other honest efforts to reform the western church in capite et in membris.62 Clearly, a Hussite reform of the church did not require the total destruction of medieval Christianity. It is an unhelpful caricature to suggest otherwise. The work of Jan Hus clearly refutes the abandonment of the church. Hus and his colleagues did demand, however, a purging of those elements which diluted the gospel. They called for thoroughgoing moral renewal. They urged an immediate withdrawal from the world in the pattern of Christ and the apostles. Medieval Christianity under 60 

Kejř, ‘Husova Pravda’; Seibt, ‘Die revelatio des Jacobellus von Mies’; Atwood, The Theo­logy of the Czech Brethren, pp. 16–18 and 403–08; and Říčan, The History of the Unity of Brethren, pp. 297–323. 61  Most appropriate here is David, Finding the Middle Way. 62  It has been pointed out that attempts at reform often become manifestations of heresy. Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 3–8.

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the implications of the regnum Christi had evolved to include political dimensions. One has only to recall the theories advanced by Giles of Rome and the early fourteenth-century declarations of Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam as evidence.63 This clearly enunciated reforming thrust permeates the events and actions of the Hussite period. The spirit of the Hussite age cannot be divorced from the focus on reform, and neither can it be understood apart from a consideration of that premise. The focal point for the lives and thought of the Bohemian reformers from Milíč to Komenský involved the well-being of God’s church. It is true that Christ came proclaiming the Kingdom of God, but what eventually emerged was the church.64 Jan Hus and his colleagues were aware of this dichotomy, even if they failed to articulate it quite as succinctly. But while they sought the establishment of the Kingdom of God in Central Europe, they did not perceive its rule as the abolition of the church. Grievances voiced by Hus and his followers were not against the essence of the church per se, but instead were directed towards components within the church which they concluded, based on theological reflection, had not been ordained of God.65 Hus was concerned with moral reform and thought the church should be purged of wickedness, especially that perpetuated by priests. Reforming the priesthood did not imply destroying the church. This is where Hus’s detractors either misunderstood Hus or wilfully distorted him. The abuses connected to indulgences, simony, crusade, relics, and pilgrimage, as well as political interference, constituted a blot on the mission of the church, and Hus wished to obliterate the stain. Hus advocated disobedience to one’s ordinary, if the matter was fidelity to the law of God as opposed to following trends which caused the Christian community to come into disrepute.66 The essence of the church remained inviolable, while contrary practices antithetical to the ordinates of God had to be uprooted and eliminated. The distinction was critical, and the clash between Hussites and Curial and conciliar authorities of the Latin church often took place along the 63 

Dyson, Giles of Rome’s On Ecclesiastical Power. The bull issued by Pope Boniface can be found in Extrav. 1.8.1 Unam sanctam, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, ii, cols 1245– 46, and is generally referred to by its incipit. 64  ‘Jésus annonçait le Royaume et c’est l’Église qui est venue’. Famously articulated by Loisy, L’Évangile et l’Église, p. 111. 65  See his Postil of 1413 where Hus underscores very clearly that his reform contentions are focused upon powers and customs invented by the devil in opposition to divine will. Sermon for Lent III, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 156–58. 66  See Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 108–16.

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contested line between the authority of scripture and the innovations of the church. Nowhere is this better illustrated than at the Council of Constance when representatives of the synod and Hus battled to a draw when agreement on issues of valid authority failed. Inherent in the impulse for reform of the church ‘in head and in members’ among the Hussites was the hope for the advancement of the reign of God first in Bohemia, across Europe, and throughout the world. 67 Preaching to overflow crowds at the church of Our Lady of the Snows in Prague’s New Town, the priest and former Praemonstratensian monk Jan Želivský was not a voice crying in the wilderness when he expressed this view. We learn elsewhere that the Táborites ostensibly claimed the true church existed only in Bohemia.68 Želivský may well have believed that Bohemia was the chosen vessel for the late medieval dawning of the Kingdom of God, but the desire for its appearance is evidenced across the spectrum of Hussite thought. Thus, the church remains paramount, since within that institution God has seen fit to work the redemption of humankind. While the radical agenda of the Táborites tended to deliberately veer around the institutional church and give much of ecclesiastical tradition a rather wide berth, the spirit of the Hussite reform cannot be characterized thus. From liturgy to sermons, from economics to law, the purpose of reform was to enable the church to realize through itself the Kingdom of God. Hence, the Czech reform was stimulated and achieved through frequent communion, which enabled the communicant to be in divine fellowship. Czech institutions went so far as to affirm the chalice as a ‘notable symbol on the road towards the promised land’.69 The sacramentally-centred religious practices of the Hussites were theologically, not socially, based, and the concern was with receiving divine grace not merely an exercise in social egalitarianism or policies of inclusion. All aspects of the religious life have some relation to theology and everything is therefore related to God. The spirit of the Hussite reform ideally was catholic rather than sectarian, inclusive as opposed to exclusive. The priesthood could not be dismissed and religious authority simply delegated to the masses to do as they pleased. The idea is foreign to Hus. Even this principle was upheld during the most radical phases of the religious and social experiment 67 

See Jan Želivský’s sermons for 11 June 1419, in Dochovaná kázání Jana Želivského, ed. by Molnár, p. 184, and 13 August 1419, Praha, NK, MS v G 3, fol. 46v. 68  Jan Příbram, O poslušenstvi, Wien, ÖNB, MS 4314, fols 139r–151v (at fol. 149r). 69  This was the declaration of Prague University in 1417: Archiv český čili staré písemné památky české i moravské, ed. by Palacký, iii, 203–05. See further the important article on this by Jiří Kejř, ‘Deklarace pražské university’.

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at Tábor. Spiritual authority was not delegated to anyone or everyone in the Bohemian reform movement. The special status of the priesthood remained, even at Tábor, in terms of teaching, discipline, and religious authority. Even episcopal authority was not set aside and was emphatically present at Tábor. The sacerdotal system of the medieval church was never in doubt in the spirit of the Hussite faith. The centrality of the Mass remained.70 The third-century Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, advanced an idea accepted as truth by the medieval church and held to be inviolable: ‘outside the church there is no salvation’.71 Hus agreed, save that he did not limit his understanding of the church to that institutionalized by popes and Curial authorities. Hus’s reform initiative strove to eliminate the worst abuses of a moral nature from the church in Bohemia. His attack on ecclesiastical abuses rampant in his day did not lead him to abandon the church. The redemptive activity of God in the world was truly accessed through the church. Of this the Hussites were assured. Scripture was not replaced with the books of Hus and Jakoubek. Nowhere within the Hussite world can evidence be adduced to suggest that fidelity to the Word of God was superseded by other demands.72 The proclamation of the word was only guaranteed a more central place in the spirit of the Czech reform. Reform did not imply altering the course of the medieval church; a consequence of commitment to mere change and innovation. It did insist upon correction of abuses, a return to apostolic principles, and the renewed application of a Kingdom consciousness. Fidelity to the law of God prevailed, and during the early years an acute eschatological awareness must be reckoned part of the spirit of Hussitism. 70 

Even in his critique of current eucharistic practice and in pointing out the ‘errors’ there­in, Hus did not suggest abandoning the sacrament. See for example Hus, De sex erroribus, ed. by Ryba, pp. 39–63 and the remainder of his eucharistic writings do not suggest otherwise. 71  Often cited erroneously as ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus’, it is accurately ‘salus extra ecclesiam non est’, in Cyprian, Epistle 73, ‘To Iubaianus, concerning the baptism of heretics’, 21. 2, in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, iii.2, ed. by William Hartel (Wien: Tempsky, 1871), p. 795. The idea can be found earlier in Origen, ‘Homiliae in librum Jesu Nave’, in Patrologia Graeca, xii, col. 841. Repeated frequently by Augustine, Chrysostom, Fulgentius, Bede, Innocent III, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and others. Later formally adopted by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. by Tanner, i, 230; by Pope Boniface VIII in his 1302 bull, Extrav. 1.8.1 Unam sanctam, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. by Friedberg, ii, cols 1245–46; and in the bull of union with Coptic Christians, ‘Decretum pro Jacobitis’, issued by the Council of Florence (1442), in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. by Tanner, i, 578. 72  Hus argued quite the opposite in his ‘Expositions of the Decalogue’, in Hus, Opera omnia, ed. by Ryšánek, i, 151.

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It is manifest in Milíč as well as in Hus.73 That eschatological awareness can be detected in many of the surviving Hussite sources, but none are more important than the cycle of sermons on the Apocalypse written in 1430 by Mikuláš Pelhřimov, the bishop of Tábor, which clarify rather succinctly the nature of this emphasis among certain Hussite communities.74 Fidelity to scripture, though not a position of sola scriptura, was often the front line of appeal in Hus and among his followers. Cardinal Nicholas Cusa was told rather firmly in 1452 that Hussites were unlikely to be persuaded by arguments grounded elsewhere. Whoever presumes to accuse the Hussites especially on matters of faith were warned to make no appeal to their own acumen or establish themselves as an arbiter. Instead, challenges to the Hussite agenda should properly be subsumed under the banner of scripture.75 That was effectively the only way, theologically, to get the attention of the Hussites. This was the same posture Hus assumed at Constance. The provisions of the so-called ‘Cheb Judge’ guiding discussions between Hussites and the Council of Basel in 1433 is indication of the Hussite resolve to favour the witness and authority of holy scripture. We find that Hus adopted this perspective, and right down to his final hours at Constance he continued to press for more relevant instruction based upon the witness of scripture. While not scripture alone, the theological reflection of the Czechs was anchored in scripture. Hussites thought scripture should be liberated from all forms of bondage which prevented common people from free access. We find preachers in Hussite Prague specifically condemning monks for keeping vernacular scripture locked and barred and hidden away in monasteries, thereby impeding knowledge of the law of God.76 Together with tradition and reason, scripture formed the foundation upon which Jan Hus took his stand. The spirit of Hussitism embraces all those active within late medieval Czech Christianity committed to reform, and who cultivated and disciplined a concept of the church according to apostolic principles and patterns as they perceived it. This placed the Bohemian reformers in a vulnerable position 73 

See Morée, Preaching in Fourteenth-Century Bohemia; and Nechutová, ‘Hus a eschatologie’. 74  Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, comprising some three hundred folios. 75  The author of the letter dated 14 July 1452 was Martin Lupáč. Text in Husitské manifesty, ed. by Molnár, p. 220. 76  Jan Želivský’s sermon for the Feast of Trinity (11 June 1419) in Dochovaná kázání Jana Želivského, ed. by Molnár, pp. 190–92 (at p. 191); and Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 11r.

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between the official church, which desired reform principally from the magisterium, and the excommunicate heresies, which existed beyond the pale of the corpus Christianum. Careful examination of mainstream Hussite theology reveals little which can be condemned specifically as dogmatically heretical. This is on account of the fact that reform within Czech Christianity strove for a renewal of the Christian faith in its medieval form. Where the spirit of Hussitism verges into the area of heresy is mainly in the sense of contumacy.77 Here it is quite impossible to exonerate the general Hussite tradition. Hus was rightly judged contumacious by the conciliar fathers at Constance.78 Rokycana and his colleagues were accused of a similar fault at Basel, and the irrepressible urge to purge the church of her shortcomings proved to be the undoing of the Hussites in terms of securing unity with Rome.79 The same refusal to conform to the authority of the Latin church characterized the Czech Brethren right up to the bitter end in the Thirty Years’ War and can also be found among the Utraquists to a lesser extent. The spirit of Hussitism included nonconformity. Jan Hus at Constance is representative. Tragically, that characteristic set Hussite against Hussite. Efforts later to hijack the Hussite movement into the engulfing orbit of Protestantism entailed a certain effort at relieving Hussitism from its assumed obligation to remain true to the spirit of its guiding principles. Many of the Protestant theologians and scholars who thus embraced their Czech brethren were fearful this attachment to the historic church amounted to a failure to fully embrace the meaning of reform and therefore constituted lethal objections to Hussitism as a proper reformation.80 Nothing could be further from the truth. Any detailed investigation of Hussite history reveals quite the opposite. The doctrine of Hus together with his colleagues and successors shows indubitably that a refusal to abandon the church and establish a shadow institution is rooted in their conviction that the church’s one foundation is Christ and the doctrines of the apostles. Hussite theologians never tired of making the point that the foundations of Hussite doctrine, broadly speaking, were the principles 77 

In the patristic age, contumacy meant deliberate opposition to church authority. By the High Middle Ages the term had come to imply disobedience. See Pierre Torquebiau, ‘Contumacia, Contumax’, in Naz, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, iv, cols 507–25. 78  Noted in the definitive sentence against Hus in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 501–03. 79  See Fudge, ‘Prokop in the Bath’; and Fudge, ‘Listening to Heretics’. 80  For one incident involving Moravian Utraquists and Lutherans see Fudge, ‘Luther and the “Hussite” Catechism’, p. 45.

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of Christ as practised by the early church.81 Thus the demand for reform was both a defence of Christ and a position aided by Christ.82 This accounts for the commitment to endure the rigours of the Council of Basel, the insistence upon proper ordination within the historic episcopate, the quest for unity, and the commitment to the principles of apostolic succession defended by some sectors of Bohemian Christianity. The spirit of the Hussite movement embraced reform of religious practice without rejection of the church. The crossroads of reform and the retention of history and tradition falls squarely upon the foundation of the integrity of the gospel. The central message proclaimed, defended, and practised by the Christian church throughout its development from Pentecost to the later Middle Ages had no cause to be separated from the institutional church, which had developed through the ages as the protector, preserver, and promoter of the Christian faith. The spirit of the Hussites had no quarrel with this conviction. Instead, its theologians insisted that any effort to wrest the message away from its historical context would doubtlessly damage irreparably the truth of the gospel itself. Mindful of the words of Christ, ‘upon this rock I will build my church’, the Hussites were unprepared to aid the gates of hell in assaulting that venerable institution in what could only prove to be a fruitless attempt to prevail. Instead, Hussitism was a major effort to preserve, protect, and enhance the historic Christian church in Bohemia through ecclesia semper reformanda and faithful observance of the values of the historic Christian faith. Hussites were convinced that the role of the church included withstanding trial and temptation and remaining firm in that commitment. 83 Once again, Jan Hus is a sterling example of this resolve. The long pilgrimage from the early Prague sermons of the Austrian Augustinian Konrad Waldhausen (d. 1369) to the exile of the last bishop of the Czech Brethren, Jan Amos Komenský (1627), might appear to some as kicking against the pricks, a protracted exercise in failure. That is one view and none can deny evidence of shortcomings. There is another perspective. The longue durée of Hussite history from the 1360s to the 1620s represent in those two and a half centuries a committed desire to reform and strengthen the church and to prepare for the coming fullness of the Kingdom of God. That view finds consistency in the spirit of the Hussite faith and embodies the theological 81 

Jakoubek Stříbro was firm on this point. See his statement with corroborating comment in Sedlák, ‘Počátkové kalicha’, pp. 406–07. 82  Articulated in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 156–58 (Lent III, of 1413). 83  Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 38r.

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principles of many of her leading proponents. We find evidence of this in Hus as priest and martyr. The last of the great Hussite thinkers in the face of the Counter Reformation and the anti-reform political agendas of the Habsburgs, together with the rising tide of Jesuits in Bohemia, certainly must have wondered if their efforts had all been for naught.84 There were instances when the overwhelming time of troubles caused some to look backwards and bless the days of Žižka.85 Elements of eschatological vengeance remained in some sectors of the Hussite movement and were expressed. ‘The murderers who shed the blood of Master Jan Hus […], the righteous man in Constance […]’ have been punished by the judgement of Almighty God who has allowed them to be killed, ‘slain in the land of Bohemia’, and others ‘have become fugitives.’ Their fate has already been determined. ‘The rest who have not yet been destroyed shall be consumed.’86 But the sword that Christ had promised to inaugurate was not the one wielded by the blind courageous captain Jan Žižka and his mighty warriors of God. The sword which divided truth from error, separating the wheat from the chaff, was rather more along the lines of that envisioned by the Hussite separatist Petr Chelcičký.87 That sword pointed not outwards in an offensive manner towards the enemies of God, but instead was directed inwards. It was a sword which brought the church to meet its obligations to its builder and maker, a spiritual sword of repentance, renewal, and reform. Taken in this way, it conformed to the indefatigable spirit of a movement which perhaps did, in the end, meet its objectives. That said, it is also possible to argue that the spirit of Hussitism, when put to the test in practice, encountered an unsolvable inability or unwillingness to extend its application to its logical conclusions so that, by consequence, the movement stopped in mid stride. I remain unpersuaded by suggestions that the Hussite spirit survived the catastrophic seventeenth century. 84  In light of events in the period between 1618 and 1627 during which time the Hussite religious tradition was suppressed or expelled from the Czech lands. See David, Finding the Middle Way, pp. 349–72. 85  For example, a Hussite manifesto from 1469 notes that when the enemies of God invaded Bohemia, Žižka, armed only with truth and peasant armies, rose up and defeated the invaders. Text in Husitské manifesty, ed. by Molnár, pp. 229–41 (at p. 236); and, more specifically with the revival of interest in Žižka as a deliverer in the seventeenth century, see Fudge, ‘Žižka’s Drum’, pp. 563–68. 86  Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c.  1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 248r. 87  See Kaminsky, ‘Peter Chelčický’; and Wagner, Petr Chelčický, passim.

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Prior to Hus, in the third quarter of the fourteenth century Jan Milíč, a Moravian priest from Kroměříž, practised reform, and his disciple Matěj of Janov systematized its spirit.88 Inherent in the principles laid down by Matěj lies the heart of the Hussite spirit, and this essence cannot be reduced to mere derivative principles of Wyclifite thought. It is both simplistic and uninformed to characterize the thought of Jan Hus as a Czech version of Wyclifite doctrine, though this has not prevented many historians from doing just that. This is not to ignore the influence of Wyclif in Bohemia. It is also true that the perceived influence of Wyclif upon the reform movement in Bohemia caused enormous difficulties for the Hussites.89 The late medieval church regarded Wyclif as the arsenal of heretics. Whether or not Hussite doctrine is theologically correct or acceptable within the orbit of Christian orthodoxy has been the subject of some debate since the fifteenth century. The validity of the Hussite movement is not dependent upon whether or not doctrinal flaws can be detected in its flanks. The spirit of the Hussite faith is at stake in terms of a determination to see the church of God prevail and sustain appropriate reform. The formulation is Thomist but the application is clearly Hussite: ‘grace does not destroy but rather perfects’.90 The paradox is clear. Divine grace sustains the spirit of the Hussite movement, which works to support the renovation and reformation of the church. Jan Hus at Constance clearly thought so. Put into practice in just one area, we can appreciate the insistence upon frequent communion, the lay chalice, and the availability of the sacrament for all the baptized. The operation of grace is realized in the reform of the church, and this is a reflection of the spirit of the Hussite movement. Hus made the point, declaring that once he perceived where reform was required he took a stand against everything that would prevent reform and maintained his posture with the aid of Christ. 91 In this way, the period of the early Bohemian reform represents a time in the history of medieval Christianity, during which a new phase in the appropriation of the heritage of Christian thought occurred. Once the corruption of the medieval church reached its nadir, God sent holy men like Jan Hus to preach 88 

Matěj z Janova, Regulae veteris, ed. by Kybal, Odložilík, and Nechutová. Part of the condemnation of Hus at the Council of Constance must be put down to the conviction shared by the conciliar fathers that Hus was a Czech Wyclifite. The trial record unequivocally reveals this. Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, pp. 23–120. Eighteen years later Wyclif remained at issue. See especially Christianson, ‘Wyclif ’s Ghost’. 90  Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i, 11 (1 q.1a.8). 91  Sermon for the third Sunday in Lent, in Postil of 1413: Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 156–58. 89 

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reform.92 The exercise of that reform gave rise to the spirit of Hussite religion. That ethos produced a remarkable chapter in the history of Christian thought and practice. The central truth of Hussitism is the all-encompassing commitment to religious reform broadly speaking within the limits of theology. The church cannot elevate itself to continual reformation on its own merits and through its own operation. That is why divine grace remains important. However, it was the Hussite argument that the church can be lifted to reform and sustained by theology and divine activity through the programme of Czech priests and theologians committed to the law of God. This conviction remains at the centre of the Hussite spirit. It is evident in Hus and the principle permeates his work as a motivating factor. The creative aspects of the Hussite reform movement depend upon the idea that divine grace can inspire and effect ecclesiastical reformation. Regardless of human depravity, even those forms ensconced within the church, the image of God is not destroyed and the image of God in humankind is neither infinitely removed from, nor different than, the nature of God. Moral objections noted, on principle Donatism could not prevail within Hussitism even though it is difficult to exonerate Hus from semi-Donatism.93 Hus very carefully differentiated between unworthy priests and the continued efficacy of the functions of the holy office. Ex opere operato remains a consistent point of view in mainstream Hussite theology and religious practice. The law of God supersedes all human institutions and directives. From Hus on down, the law of God was considered the only necessary rule for life and faith.94 That being said, Hus did not avoid declaring that excommunicates, schismatics, those under sentence of degradation, heretics, and those engaged in immoral lifestyles such as living openly with concubines, committed a serious sin by coming to the sacrament of the eucharist.95 The fathers of Hussite reform did not construct a doctrinal programme on the foundation of Augustinian theology or a social agenda on the basis of Wyclifite philosophy. Instead, Hus, Jakoubek and the rest concentrated on the idea of Christian reform conceived as the work of God aimed at the restoration of the church. Theology and philosophy are by no means excluded and both 92 

Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 245v. Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus, pp. 300–01. 94  Hus, De sufficientia legis Christi, ed. by Illyricus, pp. 55–60; and Fudge, ‘The “Law of God”: Reform and Religious Practice’. 95  Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, p. 585. 93 

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contribute to the spirit of the Hussite movement. Summarily, the essence of Hussitism lies in its conviction that reform is continual and necessarily aimed at a goal which cannot be achieved through the wisdom and power of human effort alone. The Hussites were committed to seeing the church in conformity to Christ. Hus was thus inclined to the point of martyrdom, professing at the pyre that he was prepared to die in defence of the truths which he had taught and to which he had dedicated his life. Still, not even martyrdom could achieve what grace required. The continuation of the church in renewal and reform constituted the end of Hussitism and fulfilled the prayer of Hus that, trusting in God, full restoration of Bohemian affairs might be realized by the faithful Czechs. The spirit of Hussitism focused on changing life for the better.96 Despite his willingness to lay down his life in the cause of truth, Hus was quite reluctant to suffer prematurely and wanted to make sure his death would serve for the salvation of others.97 Hence, he refused to go to the papal Curia when summoned, but later agreed to attend the Council of Constance. The world of Hussitism, bound by the constraints of fifteenth-century Central Europe yet anchored in the rich heritage of a long history of Christian tradition and thought, finds its raison d’être in the community of the saints ever being reformed. Ecclesia semper reformanda. The varieties of expression of this aim within Hussite Bohemia, be they Praguer, Táborite, Orebite, Chelciče Brethren, the Jednota Bratrská, or the late Utraquists, were authentically Hussite and truly within the spirit of Hussitism, to the extent this goal of reform remained at the forefront of all doctrine, practice, and expression. This does not imply that Hussitism contributed in any serious way to freedom of thought. It is specious to place unqualified stress upon later Hussite tolerance. The Utraquists actively persecuted the Czech Brethren and were unalterably opposed to any legal recognition of the Brethren, going so far as to actively lobby to have them excluded from edicts of toleration. 98 At least one man, Ondřej Polívka, was burned alive in 1511 for protesting idolatry at a Hussite Mass.99 The preacher at the Týn Church in Prague, Havel Cahera of Žatec, collaborated in the repression of the Brethren, and the sixteenth-­century Utraquist Consistory was sometimes a tool used by royal authorities to suppress and 96  ‘Hádání Prahy s Kutnou Horu z r. 1420’, in Husitské skladby budyšínského rukopisu, ed. by Daňhelka, p. 161. 97  Sermon for Lent IV, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 164–66; and a letter (May 1412) to Carthusian monks in Moravia in Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, pp. 116–18. 98  Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethren, pp. 186–88. 99  Noted in Říčan, The History of the Unity of Brethren, p. 100.

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persecute.100 Utraquist church leaders occasionally went so far as to denounce their Hussite colleagues in print as members of Antichrist.101 While many of the Hussite subgroups forbade certain forms of ideas and opinions within their sphere of influence and control, amid this general climate of repression arose new ideas and prevailing opinions, by virtue of what her enemies called dissent and heresy. This helps to explain in part the anxiety of the official church, her theologians, and especially the magisterium (conciliar and papal). To the extent that Hussitism may be regarded as heretical, to that same degree liberty flourished, for nowhere within the Kingdom of Bohemia during the Hussite age was one form or expression of the faith able to triumph absolutely.102 This remained a factor in Hussite history, even though Táborites wanted the conservatives suppressed and Utraquists repressed the Unity of Brethren, refusing to acknowledge their right to existence. The ideal of the Hussite spirit was achieved in some measure in the 1485 ‘Peace of Kutna Hora’, Europe’s first agreement on religious freedom. As limited as it was, it constituted a step away from the monolithic nature of the official church. Some Hussites went further than Kutná Hora, suggesting liberty for all people in matters of faith, not just those legally recognized.103 By 1427, when a formal office was established for punishing sins, in accordance with the ‘four articles of Prague’, it might be argued that such correction infringed upon the freedoms of others, for sins had to be defined, singled out, and punished.104 Moral enforcement fell under the purview of the theologians. Jan Hus judged it necessary. The freedom which can be observed must be understood as emerging as a result of the Hussite reform as opposed to existing by design. This also provides a further clue, albeit an uneasy one, into the nature of the Hussite spirit. Complete fidelity to the act and being of reform constitutes the parameters of Christian identity within the spirit of the Hussite reform movement. 100 

The chronicle of Bartoš Písař (the scribe), Bartošova kronika pražská, ed. by Erben, pp. 285–87. 101  For example, Václav Koranda the Younger, Proti jinému píkúsovi bez perie v Žaci in Manuálník M. Vácslava Korandy, ed. by Truhlář, p. 176. 102  The multiplicity of confessions and varieties of the Christian faith in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Bohemia are witness. See Štrupl, ‘Confessional Theology of the Unitas Fratrum’; and Fudge, ‘The Problem of Religious Liberty in Early Modern Bohemia’. 103  Prokop of Jindřichův Hradec argued that in matters of faith no one should be subjected to force or coercion. A hitherto neglected treatise, ‘Proč lidé k víře moci nuceni býti nemají’ has been edited in Molnár, ‘Neznamy spis Prokopa’, pp. 430–48. 104  Archiv český čili staré písemné památky české i moravské, ed. by Palacký, iii, 261–64, but especially p. 263.

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By natural consequence and inclination, Czech Christians in late medieval Bohemia undertook to reform the church as it existed in the Czech lands. By seizing the initiative, the spirit of the reformers produced faith in divine truth and in divine action, which manifested itself in the doctrinal revelations which characterized the Hussite church. Hus and his followers could see the fruits of their labour of reform, but they could not perceive clearly the truth of divine grace operating in that reformation. Nonetheless, the Word of God remained and was believed by the faithful. The process of church reform had its end not in the perfection of the Czech church nor yet in the monopoly of Hussite doctrine. Rather, the end of Hussitism could not be found short of eternal life, in which the full nature, perfection, and purpose of the church could be revealed. In this way, the apparent disasters of the seventeenth century are understood, and the importance of the eschatological element within Hussitism is revealed.105 It is also on this basis that ultimately Hus cheerfully went to the pyre declining all opportunities to avoid martyrdom. The history of the Hussite effort to reform the late medieval church became in some ways an ideal. Indeed, it was always an ideal, perhaps nothing more. This cannot be refuted. Early Hussite ideologues dismissed the notion that perfection could be achieved in this world wherein sin could be banished, suffering eliminated, while peace and joy prevailed.106 Notwithstanding, ideals espoused by reformers never fail to construct systems, and in such construction a certain systematization transpires. The Hussite system attracted considerable attention, and in some Hussite communities this system was taught in traditional fashion and students attempted to memorize by rote the principles and convictions of the Czech theologians.107 However, the spirit of Hussitism is not Hussitism. The ethos of the movement was. It could not be taught. It could not be learned through conventional pedagogy, even when Táborite zealots forced weary Christians from their beds on Sunday mornings to attend protracted sermons which sometimes amounted to harangues about truth and reform.108 Old women in rural Hussite communities may well have known scripture better than Italian bishops, but this was no indication they were au fait with the spirit 105 

Kaminsky, ‘Nicholas of Pelhřimov’s Tábor’, illumines this point. Asserted by Jakoubek Stříbro in his 1421 commentary on the Apocalypse: Jakoubek ze Stříbra, ed. by Šimek, i, 295–96. 107  See Fudge, ‘Luther and the “Hussite” Catechism’. 108  Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, letter of 21 August 1451, to Juan Carvajal the cardinal of San Angelo. Text in ‘Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini’, ed. by Wolkan, p. 25. 106 

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of the movement.109 The distinction is critical. Possessed by this spirit meant that church reform was not act but being. The church was not reformed by actions aimed at specific weaknesses or deficiencies, but the church of God was moved along by the power of the Holy Spirit through what Christian men and women were. This became the burden of Hussite ecclesiology revealed particularly in the Táborite community, among the Chelciče Brethren, and in the later practices of the Jednota. It underscores the differences between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. The former says nothing about doctrine or what one should believe. The latter says nothing about behaviour or ethics, but is devoted exclusively to required doctrine Christians are compelled to believe. While by no means eschewing theology, the spirit of Hussite religion put greater stress on the Sermon than on the Creed. Jan Hus certainly did. The Sermon had become an embarrassment to the medieval church and its implementation viewed as impracticable or impossible. The Creed became ascendant. Doctrine replaced ethics. Densely argued theology superseded morality. Hussite reform sought to address the growing imbalance. Jan Hus led the way. By consequence, this being of men and women caused the Hussite movement to develop as a popular phenomenon. If the reports about the responses to the execution of Hus and the pilgrimages to the Bohemian hilltops are true, then it is impossible to argue that Hussitism was a hegemonic imposition upon the Czech people either by religious zealots or political opportunists.110 Certainly these motivations can be detected, but the popular dimension of uncoerced religious practice is quite evident in the sources. The spirit of the Hussite faith prior to the wars of the 1420s constituted religious voluntarism and may be seen here and there in some sectors thereafter.111 Hence, an essential aspect of the Hussite spirit must be understood in the dimensions of popular religious practice in Bohemia. The widespread appeal of Jan Hus and his reform agenda may be calibrated by his successful career at Bethlehem Chapel. A measure of success achieved in the early Bohemian reform effort can be attributed to the fact that Hus and many of his colleagues presented no outlandish teachings to the Czech people, but instead pressed forward ideas inherent in traditional Christianity which had too little been understood, ideas which resonated with 109 

Libros Antonii Panormitae poetae, de dictis et factis Alphonsi regis memorabilibus commentarius, Book 2, in Aeneas Silvius, Piccolominei Opera, p. 480. 110  Even though we know of stories about forced conversions made under duress as well as band-wagon Hussites and mercenary allegiance, some of which may be seen as a direct result of military conflict, these exceptions noted, voluntarism generally characterized Hussite religion. 111  The argument is made in Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethren.

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the piety embraced by the Czechs even prior to the rise of the Hussites. This was possible, for many of the reform ideologues within the Hussite constellation were not scholars inhabiting ivory towers or chained to research desks within windowless cloister libraries. Instead, Hus and many of his colleagues (especially Jerome, Jakoubek, Želivský, Chelčický, Mikuláš Pelhřimov) were individuals surrounded by and responsive to the prevailing conditions around them with all the commensurate problems of the world of the later Middle Ages.112 This symbiotic relationship enabled the reform initiative in Bohemia to exert considerable influence on government and shape a national identity. Even the revolutionary ideas about law, social structure, property, and goods evident at Tábor cannot be interpreted as contrary to the law of God or fundamentally inconsistent with the ideas present in the Sermon on the Mount or the social practices of early Christians as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.113 All of this may also be situated within the broad implications of the memory of Jan Hus. The structure of the Hussite church helped control a functioning ecclesiastical and social polity at different times over the course of two and a half centuries. It is important to recognize that adherents of the Hussite reform were united by common doctrine and common social experience: a particular Hussite way of life. They gathered sometimes openly, at other times secretly, to study scripture and discuss theology. Some lived communally, at places like Tábor, Chelčice, or Oreb; others remained where they were before the upheavals of reform and repression absorbed in the social structures around them yet came together to hear sermons and receive the sacrament. Hussites were not a particular class of people in Bohemia. Their constituency was drawn from all corners of society from royalty to peasants. A consideration of those who gathered in Bethlehem Chapel to hear the sermons of Hus make this quite clear. There we find people from all social and economic stations of life, including members of the royal court, family related to kings, members of the nobility, doctors of divinity, wealthy burghers from Prague’s Old Town, poor people from the New Town, artisans, cobblers, tailors, and various tradesmen. Queen Žofie, whom Hus referred to as ‘my dear lady’, could be found from time to time in the congregation along with Petr Zmrzlik of Svojšín, the master of the mint of the Bohemian kingdom, along with his wife Anna of Frimburk. We also find Lord Jindřich Lefl of Lažany, advisor to King Václav, Jindřich Skopek of Dubá, Professor Matěj Chudý, along with the priests Křišťan of Prachatice, 112  This is the portrait of Martin Luther by Oberman, Werden und Wertung der Reformation, but can reasonably be applied to Hus. 113  Fudge, ‘“Neither Mine Nor Thine”’, draws this conclusion.

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Martin Volyně, Mikuláš Miličín, and Havlik (later Hus’s successor), as well as teachers and students, King Václav’s nephew Mikeš, and the royal chaplain Petr. We also know that Anna Zajicova of Hazmburk, the wife of the founder of Bethlehem chapel Hanuš Milheim and sister of the archbishop, also attended. There is further evidence that two of the most famous warriors engaged in the later Hussite crusades, Jan Žižka and Jan Roháč of Dubá, likewise heard Hus preach at Bethlehem Chapel. 114 The vast majority were the anonymous poor people of Prague. These enthusiasts of religious reform were at times shielded from their enemies by sympathetic nobles, while kings, bishops, regents, town councils, and university faculties defended their right to exist. They flourished on the basis of the principle that God had ordained the reform of the church through common people who had been raised up by God in order to bring many to the truth.115 Jan Hus endorsed that theme. ‘Christ reveals himself first to common humble people, rather than proud prelates. He does the same thing today, showing himself first and more fully to the poor, rather than the rich.’116 Theology, properly communicated to the common people, produced correct Christian living and reform. Hus also asserted that women were especially receptive and God had given them special gifts of revelation.117 This focus on common people can be found in Milíč as well as among the Táborites and other radical communities, and also in the sermons delivered in Prague’s New Town by the priest Jan Želivský. The common people were greatly attracted to Hus, and there is unimpeachable evidence to support the popular appeal of radical preachers in Prague and throughout the Czech kingdom. The radical communities both facilitated and hindered the spirit of the Hussite movement. Tábor was a cosmic explosion in the firmament of late medieval Czech Christianity. Its impact was terrific and the attention it garnered overwhelming. Its trajectory, however, was that of a shooting star through the savage years of the 1420s and 30s.118 Its essence can be determined from the 114 

Hus, Betlemské Poselství, ed. and trans. by Císařová-Kolářová, i, 12–13. Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 475–78. 116  Jan Hus, Sunday sermon in Epiphany (8 January 1413) on Luke 2. 42. In Praha, KNM, MS xv F 3, fol. 50v. 117  Easter Sunday sermon on Mark 16, in Hus, Česká nedělní postila, p. 188. 118  Lambert, Medieval Heresy, p. 13 has described my perspective as ‘pro-Táborite’. While not unreasonable in terms of my scholarly interests the Táborites cannot and do not encapsulate the complexity and totality of the spirit of Hussitism. Nevertheless, that they are contained within the Hussite spirit is for me beyond dispute. 115 

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writings of its most influential representative.119 The spirit of Hussitism and the success of the Hussite reform effort was strongest and ultimately most successful in areas where it altered the religious landscape of Bohemia and the Czech church least. But what does this mean? How is success measured? If longevity is the measure than surely the Táborites were washed up well before the regency of Jiří Poděbrady put a lock on the gate of their fortress city in 1452. If success is calculated in terms of the survival of ideas, in this case theological ideas, these would have to be identified and investigated to see if these were transmitted through the Unity of Brethren and transported into the Radical Reformation to survive the destruction of the Hussite tradition in the seventeenth century. But is the assumption even viable? What is certain is that, when the Táborites were excluded from religious dialogue and eliminated from the religious reform of Bohemian Christianity, the spirit of Hussitism was depreciated. Their methods may have seemed unacceptable to the more conservative sectors of the movement and unpalatable to the modern mind, but within Hussite Bohemia there was no more determined bloc of allegiance to the law of God than the radical communities who openly preferred defending that principle at all costs.120 Indeed, since the people were united in a common commitment to the ‘four articles’ and were unwilling to abandon the faith, they unanimously and with one mind defended the truth according to the law of God.121 Their detractors claimed they knew nothing of the law of God. One of the marginal Hussites complained ‘it is strange to think that the spider has contrived to spin an iron web’ which is but an illusion and in fact has no substance whatever.122 In the aftermath of his legal ordeal at Constance, Hus was dismissed as a pertinacious heretic. Instead of blunting the forward advance of reform, the remembrance of his death only further energized the Czech reform movement.123 Identifying and evaluating the most personal works of the movement draws out a sense of the spirit of Hussite religion. Three examples must suffice. First, there is the corpus of writings by Hus himself. The Daughter of Jan Hus is a 119 

For a detailed outline see Spunar, ‘Opera Nicolai Biskupec de Pilgram (Pelhřimov)’. See for example the Confessio Taboritarum, ed. by Molnár and Cegna, p. 290. 121  Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 481. 122  Jan Příbram, De ritibus misse (late 1420) was incorporated into Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 502–45, with the comment on p. 532. 123  Fudge, The Trial of Jan Hus, pp. 287–95. 120 

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deeply spiritual work focused on personal piety, a writing which unequivocally transmits the values of the Hussite faith: contempt of the world, spiritual pilgrimage, eschatological awareness, the fullness of eucharistic grace, and union with God.124 This writing has not been evaluated sufficiently by scholars and it deserves careful scrutiny in assessing Hus’s motivation and memory. The surviving letters of Hus, especially those written from prison, reflect humanity, hope, core values, steadfast commitment to the ideals of the faith, and perhaps the most personal of all literary examples of the Hussite spirit.125 Some of Hus’s sermons, especially those in the Czech Postil of 1413, contain personal anecdotes, an urgency in proclaiming the values of the reform movement, while at the same time reflecting a deep commitment to the law of God and the task of comprehensively renewing the Christian community.126 This is a characteristic of many postils from the Hussite period.127 A second example is the history of the Táborites written by their bishop Mikuláš Pelhřimov.128 This account presents the spirit of the Hussite movement as unalterably theological. Its history was the story of how God used common people to revitalize the Christian faith and the manner in which the priests of Tábor were the guardians of the essential teachings. The narrative demonstrates effectively that the essence of Hussitism can be understood neither from the wars which convulsed Bohemia nor the political events which captured European imagination. Rather, the sprawling ‘story containing the cause of the Táborite priests’ as set forth by Bishop Mikuláš concentrates on ideas and theology as the principle component in a complex phenomenon. In sum, the chief focus of the chronicle aimed to provide witness to the truth for posterity.129 This was a deliberate construction of memoria. The Táborite bishop considered Hus the direct inspiration for the radical communities. Many rejected that connection. Still, the roots extended back to Hus and beyond. A scribe, obviously unpersuaded by the appeal of 124 

Hus, Dcerka, pp. 163–86. Hus, Korespondence, ed. by Novotný, for the fullest edition. As noted earlier, the best English version is Hus, Letters, trans. by Spinka. 126  Hus, Česká nedělní postila, pp. 59–460. 127  Borne out by a comparative study of Hussite postils noting manuscripts and editions. See Hrubý, České postilly. 128  Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 475–820. 129  Chronicon causam sacerdotum thaboritorum continens, in Geschichtschreiber der Husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. by von Höfler, ii, 730. 125 

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Hussite religion, opined that the faith of the Táborites had been constructed upon the errors of Nicholas of Dresden.130 Whatever the foundations, the followers of Hus saw their experiment as a theological pursuit of truth. A third example is the diverse martyrological literature which engages in emotional representation and recreations of Hussite doctrine at the moment of ultimate conviction. The archetypal example is Hus himself. These several narratives both reflect and construct the memory of Hussite communities and each goes some length in explaining the vibrant spirit of a religious faith.131 The spirit of Hussite religion found central expression in reform. But reform is not simply and exclusively or even mainly about reform. It is rather concerned with the vitality and application of the gospel. This is the unavoidable burden of Jan Hus and his true followers. The spirit of Hussitism transcends Bohemian Christianity and is more than the sum of its constituent parts. The ongoing reform of the church then functions as the means for the propagation of the gospel, in the sense that medieval Europeans sometimes regarded philosophy as the handmaiden of theology. The world of the Hussites was vastly different from the world occupied by the first Christians, or even Augustine or Aquinas. Their conceptual world likewise bore little relation to those former worlds now lost in the mists of time compounded by the relentless motion of history. Epistemology and hermeneutics were different and unavoidably so. But not all was foreign and dark. Indeed, the light of Christian theology continued to burn in the later Middle Ages, and not even the most iconoclastic Táborite ever seriously thought about extinguishing that eternal flame which fed the movement from inception to decline, and which provided the canopy on which the spirit of the Hussites found repose. Following Hus, the spirit of Hussitism desired that the ancient teachings and customs of the church be preserved. The office of bishop continued to be recognized and in many quarters exercised with consistent resolution. Hussites at all levels sought for the truth and holiness of the apostolic church to prevail as a defining force. The faithful in Bohemia, committed to the law of God, waged war endlessly against all the enemies of God.132 We even find Hussites in municipal court appealing to the law of God.133 Perhaps this is the most eloquent and simple evidence of the 130 

We find this marginal comment in Praha, Arch. Pražského hradu, MS D 52, fol. 21v. Fudge, ‘Želivský’s Head: Memory and New Martyrs’; and more thoroughly in Haberkern, ‘The Presence of the Past’, passim. 132  Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 76v. 133  Kejř, ‘Das Hussitentum und das kanonische Recht’, p. 201. 131 

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memory of Jan Hus. Not a few considered Hus to be the most outstanding and laudable preacher in all of Bohemia and took inspiration from his example. 134 All of this noted, it is imperative to underscore that the early enthusiasm and optimism of the Bohemian reform movement did not prevail. We have seen already that leading ideologues like Jakoubek Stříbro and Mikuláš Pelhřimov went on record declaring their belief that a utopian kingdom of God on earth was unlikely anytime soon. Instead, the future was uncertain. 135 The outcome was less pessimistic than prophetic. Notwithstanding this, the Hussite reform movement had its own distinctive sacra doctrina, but these did not detract from the faith once delivered to the saints, and these core teachings were not derived from Hus, but instead were considered to be based in the gospel. In that sense, the doctrines of Hus and his followers were but later medieval manifestations of that original faith, ‘refreshed by spiritual gifts and heavenly things’, appearing once more for the perfecting of these latter day saints now called Hussites.136

134 

Oldřich of Znojmo speech at the Council of Basel. In Orationes, ed. by Bartoš, p. 97. Jakoubek ze Stříbra, ed. by Šimek, i, 295–96; and Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c. 1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 80r. 136  Mikuláš Pelhřimov, sermons on the Apocalypse (c.  1430), Wien, ÖNB, MS 4520, fol. 278r. I wish to acknowledge the financial support as a previous recipient of the Elizabeth Iliff Warren Research Fellowship at Cambridge University (1990–92), which allowed me opportunity to work in Prague and Vienna studying the manuscript sources cited in this chapter. 135 

Epilogue

The Priest and the Martyr Defined and Confined

A

s a medieval priest, Jan Hus deliberately committed himself to a selfnominated understanding of truth. He bound his conscience to truth and refused to deviate from the pathway of truth, regardless of cost or consequence, without regard for personal safety or ultimate destination.1 In this manner, he constructed the parameters of self-definition and, by the same token, confined himself to a particular form of life. He appears never to have questioned his choices in this respect. Hus was one of those heroes of the Middle Ages who sealed his work in the memory of humankind with his own blood. His last recorded words expressed his willingness to die in the faith he espoused, and he expired with the words of a traditional hymn, a Marian responsory, on his lips. Was he a ‘stiff-necked heretic’? That depends on the perspective.2 Was he a victim of naiveté and error, or a casualty of conviction and principle? Opinions from the fifteenth century onwards have been controversial. Regardless of conclusion, it must have been a bitter irony for him to suffer death at the hands of the institution he loved, served, and sought to improve. On the other hand, as we have seen, he whole-heartedly embraced the victory of martyrdom. A text without context is a pretext for a proof text. A careful distinction between history and memory forms an essential construct for understanding 1  On the matter of truth see Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 32–33; and Kejř, Z počátků české reformace, p. 24. For Hus’s comments on conscience see his Hus, Dcerka, pp. 166–67. 2  The question has been explored in Krzenck, ‘Johannes Hus — ein “halsstarriger Ketzer”?’.

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the life of the medieval priest and martyr Jan Hus. History and historical truths depend to some extent upon prevailing politics and social mores, and the memory of these impulses. Extant texts, like chronicles, songs, polemical tracts, and the like are evidence of memory, and these are driven by convictions which turn memory itself into history. Hussite and anti-Hussite writings codified memory and produced both ‘history’ and identity. Songs, images, and religious practices, like the liturgical celebration of Jan Hus, might be regarded as forms of keeping memory. The documents which later emerged about Hus cannot be regarded as historical records per se, but more accurately witnesses to memory. The memory and the telling of stories about Hus, both in prose and song, demonstrates the active nature of memory, which was called memoria from its important roots in the monastic Middle Ages, and practised in virtually all aspects of the medieval trivium.3 Memory and Motivation has been a study of the factors which caused Hus to conduct his life as he did. It is not possible to say with absolute certainty why he chose to pursue the nature of the reforms which he did, let alone to speculate on why he decided to be a reformer at all. Many of his colleagues among the Prague priests showed no interest whatever in the renewal of the church. They seemed satisfied to go about their duties as parish priests, canons, diocesan administrators, bishops, cathedral chapter members, professors of theology, monks, priors, and abbots. From his own testimony, Hus joined himself to the ranks of those in holy orders more or less because he desired a higher standard of living than he might otherwise acquire through secular employment, because he liked the idea of dressing well, and because he assumed the priesthood would garner him the respect of his peers.4 None of these motivations would suggest a man who might become an ardent reformer. Elsewhere, he reveals he experienced much timidity initially when confronted with sin, evil, and irregularities which he observed within the practice of religion in Prague.5 Once more, this does not reveal any latent proclivity in terms of reform. Hus does not tell us anything about a dramatic conversion or faith crisis. We do not read of any Damascus road experience, no long dark night of the soul, no paradigm-shifting turmerlebnis, not even a heart-warming Aldersgate moment which might help to explain his volte-face. Notwithstanding this, we may postulate that Hus experienced a revelation, not unlike that more famous revelatio which his colleague Jakoubek Stříbro announced in a sermon concerning the introduction 3 

See Carruthers and Ziolkowski, The Medieval Craft of Memory. Hus, O svatokupectví, p. 228. 5  Hus, Výklad kratší na desatera, p. 291. 4 

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of Utraquism into reformed religious practice in Prague in the autumn of 1414.6 This revelation, Jakoubek explained, was not the result of a mystical, other-worldly experience during which he received divine instruction on the correct nature of eucharistic observance. Instead, the revelation was rather a more prosaic result of research and consideration of sacramental practice in the history of the church.7 Jakoubek called it revelatio. Did Jan Hus have a similar experience? It would seem likely. Hus does not use the suggestive and intriguing language of his colleague, but he does comment that his thinking in general changed. We need not wonder too long about what he means, for Hus immediately tells us that ‘when the Lord God helped me understand the scriptures’ he began to pursue a different path.8 The priest of Bethlehem Chapel does not, anymore than Jakoubek, suggest there was anything extraordinary about his ‘revelation’. No hint of any sound, or rushing winds, or tongues of fire. Rather we get the sense that Hus’s study produced a conviction which he attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. He does not provide extensive detail nor does he date this insight. It must suffice to say that this brief comment is indicative of a larger shift in his thinking, one which propelled him from the simple tasks of a medieval priest to a bold and determined reformer who believed the church was not truly the body of Christ unless it practised an intentional ethic and pursued moral reform in head and in members. Memory and Motivation has also been a study of the content of the memory of Jan Hus as codified in the surviving records of his life and time. It is fair to say that this consideration of memory has been an analysis of historical propaganda. In other words, an evaluation of what was selected to be remembered and also the manner in which particular events were remembered.9 A thousand years before Hus, St Augustine imagined that memory was capable of recovering history and accurately formulating the past as it really was.10 The assumption 6 

See Fudge, Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution, pp. 157–58 for details with reference to the sources. 7  Main secondary sources on this include De Vooght, Jacobellus de Stříbro, pp. 122–41, Seibt, ‘Die revelatio des Jacobellus von Mies’, pp. 618–24; and on general dating Krmíčková, ‘Jakoubkova utrakvistická díla z roku 1414’. 8  Hus, Menší výklad na páteř, p. 342. 9  I have been instructed on this by a number of scholars especially Yates, The Art of Memory; Carruthers, The Book of Memory; Carruthers and Ziolkowski, The Medieval Craft of Memory, Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record; Stock, The Implications of Literacy; and latterly in the provocative book by Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance. 10  For the Augustinian concept, with reference to the sources, see Yates, The Art of Memory, pp. 46–49.

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is ambitious and impossible. What we know about Jan Hus is what the people of the fifteenth century wanted us to know, or what they thought worthy of remembrance, or what these same people, Hus included, considered important or relevant. This is what guided those who committed to paper certain items and insights while at the same time electing not to include other bits and pieces of information or opinion. Of course, as we have seen, the varieties of memory surrounding Jan Hus range from loyalty and admiration to contempt and scorn, from awe to utter loathing. Praised by some and reviled by others, his memory formed a lightning rod in the world of Czech Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages. It is also apparent that memory undergoes a transformation when it is written down, for the memory itself is then set into permanent form. It is clear from our investigations that written memory played a crucial role in the development of Hussite religion. Hymnody, popular song, and narratives of the life of Hus consolidated his memory and transmitted particular forms of remembrance, especially once those who had known him were no longer alive. Oral traditions, which are a form of memory, became written traditions, and these shaped the ethos of communities which continued to venerate Jan Hus. Memory functioned as an organizing principle in Hussite history specifically, but that principle may be applied to virtually every aspect of life in the Middle Ages.11 Memoria was at the heart of Hussite religion because the centre of that practice was the eucharist, which in turn arguably functioned as the core of the Christian faith. That ritual was mandated by the dominical instruction which called believers to ‘do this in remembrance of me’. That principle and conviction caused Jan Hus to ascribe to the eucharist a place at the heart of the Christian life.12 Prayer, piety, and the eucharist joined common people and the impulses for reform in late medieval Czech Christianity.13 The forces which motivated Hus’s life seem not to have waned in the passage of time. The simple fact that he would not permit any amelioration of the impulse for ethics and moral reform brought him from the role of medieval priest to the cul-de-sac of martyrdom. Once the flames consumed him, the work of memory began in earnest. Indeed, the memory was shaped by the event and the whole of Hus’s life, and work would be seen, evaluated, and appropriated through that singular prism. Before the year was out the martyr replaced the actual living man, and the medieval priest was eclipsed by what would become 11 

Carruthers, The Book of Memory, pp. 46–79, makes this argument. Hus, Super iv Sententiarum, ed. by Flajšhans, pp. 580–02. 13  Clifton-Everest, ‘The Eucharist in the Czech and German Prayers of Milíč z Kroměříže’. 12 

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a cultural icon. The function of memory was to specifically and intentionally commemorate the martyred Hus. Moreover, the practice of memoria caused him to be present in the community of the faithful by means of words spoken, written, and sung.14 Martyrdom, understood as ultimate suffering on account of a commitment to an idea or particular identity, requires two essential components: audience and interpretation.15 Both are evident in the case of Jan Hus. First, there was an audience. Contemporary chronicles say Hus was led out of the city accompanied by a thousand armed men and ‘dense crowds’ thronged about.16 Other accounts say that nearly the entire population of Constance, estimated at 7000, accompanied Hus to his death.17 A third independent source refers to a ‘crowd of onlookers’.18 There is no question that the martyrdom of Jan Hus was accomplished before an audience. The construction of the memory of Jan Hus and its public manifestations reveal how, in what form, and fashion his followers handled the past as a formative element in the constitution of the communities of faith and religious practice which were sustained in part by Hus as priest and martyr. This is where the interpretation of martyrdom begins to come into focus. No one has ever suggested that Hus was not tried and sentenced to die at Constance in 1415. The plethora of witnesses was simply too great for such creative mischief. Likewise, there has never been dispute that, on the morning of 6 July, the priest from Prague was led out of the cathedral and burned alive. We have just appealed to three separate contemporary sources whose authors witnessed the execution and who testified that a great number of people attended the event. That much is indisputable. What happened next became a matter of some controversy. Exactly what happened that Saturday morning? Who said what, when, and with what intention? Did Hus die screaming in agony or did he expire serenely singing the words of his faith? Was he a disreputable heretic or a saint of God? Was Jan Hus a martyr to the Christian faith or a seditious enemy of the church? Does his demise have any meaning for the church and the faith, or was this killing simply the legitimate exercise of law and legal procedure for the protection of the wider community? 14 

On this phenomenon see Oexle, ‘Memoria und Memorialüberlieferung’. On this Cormack, Sacrificing the Self. 16  Richental, Chronik des Constanzer Concils, p. 129. 17  Mladoňovice, Relatio, ed. by Novotný, p.  118. However, the population of the city swelled considerably during the time of the Council to a figure much higher than this. 18  Passio etc secundum Iohannem Barbatum, rusticum quadratum, in Fontes rerum bohemicarum, ed. by Goll and others, viii, 17. 15 

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Did he go to heaven or to hell? Was his soul taken by angels into the presence of God, or did his eternal essence fall victim to terrible demons who ushered him out into the waiting arms of eternity in the dreadful presence of the devil and Antichrist? Was the man at the stake innocent or guilty? And if guilty, of what? Did the flames degrade his life and reduce whatever good he may previously have accomplished to ashes of ruin? Or was his suffering an instrument of elevating Hus in meaning and stature? What was lost and what was gained that summer morning? Does it make any difference that this priest died around the age of forty-three, or if he had lived to be a very old man dying quietly in bed like Wyclif and Jakoubek? With questions and considerations such as these, the battle for the memory of Jan Hus was inaugurated, and the process of interpretation began to sift the facts of that July morning. In the process of interpreting the event, history was formed and made. The answers to queries such as these shaped the traditions which followed, formed the memories of Hus, and influenced the stories which his followers and detractors would tell in the generations to come after that momentous morning near Lake Constance. In this process of remembrance, he was posthumously defined once again, and that definition and interpretation confined his memory to particular categories. Thus Jan Hus passed from a medieval man into a myth created by those who wished to control who and what he would be as a subject for the ages. The formation of the memoria which attended his legacy was a direct outgrowth of the process of interpreting his martyrdom. To a commensurate degree, from the Hussite point of view, Hus’s real and lasting significance began post-mortem. Only after he died did the meaning of his life and work come into focus. Only after the holocaust of the stake could his motivation be fully understood. The man became a martyr and martyrdom made him compelling. Whatever world-changing importance he represented assumed concrete form in the communities which venerated his memory, once the audience witnessed the drama of his death and the process of interpretation had begun. Two decades later, the Orphan priest Oldřich Znojmo stood before the assembled Council of Basel and formulated the content of the Hussite memory of their late colleague. Oldřich declared that Jan Hus was hated by prelates and persecuted, suffering even unto death for the truth of the gospel. ‘But everyone in the Kingdom of Bohemia knows, especially those who were close to him, of the goodness of his life, his honourable character, and his renown’.19 19 

The entire speech appears in Orationes, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 86–113, but see p. 97 for the remarks about Hus.

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Memory and Motivation in the life of Jan Hus, medieval priest and martyr, has been a study in human choices. Hus made intentional choices about his life. He had options to consider when framing his work as a medieval priest. He chose the path of ethics and moral reform as the chief sources of motivation which determined so much of his preaching, writing and public activities. No one forced him to follow that road. Once his ashes were dumped from a cart into the River Rhine, the men and women who revered him also had choices about how they would remember him and how they would tell the stories of his life, suffering, and death. A good many of them chose to craft narratives of remembrance which characterized Hus as a Christ-figure or as the suffering servant of God. Employing the image of light, the memory of Jan Hus is presented as a lamp, the brightest light among the preachers, a glowing illumination for the Czechs, a candle set in a gold chandelier, the glittering doctor of truth. The memory of Hus transmuted him into the role of popular saint, an intercessor before Christ on behalf of the faithful, an example of the steadfast Christian, a larger-than-life personality who clung to chosen notions of truth and counted them more salutary than life itself. We have no evidence to suggest that the interpreters of the memory concerning Hus and his martyrdom were coerced or politically manipulated into framing one form of memoria as opposed to another. The cult of remembrance which sprang up in his wake became the story of this medieval priest and those same narratives became the history of the martyr.

Bibliography

The titles appearing below, divided into separate listings of the works of Jan Hus, manuscripts, printed primary sources, and secondary studies, are those deemed most important for the subject or those which I have relied upon in important ways. A fuller listing of sources for the study of Jan Hus appears in my Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia (London: Tauris, 2010), pp. 323–50. It seemed redundant to simply duplicate that listing here. The works of Hus which I have consulted for this book appear in alphabetical order. Those wishing to know the dates of these works should consult the aforementioned book, where Hus’s writings appear in what I have determined to be chronological order. I have also taken into account Hus’s various responses to the numerous formal charges and accusations lodged against him during his legal ordeal between 1410 and 1415. These have not been listed separately but are referred to in the footnotes. Much of this book relies upon the writings of Hus himself, and these have been drawn principally either from the modern critical editions in Iohannis Hus Opera omnia, where available, or from the older collections in the Historia et monumenta Ioannis Hus atque Hieronymi Pragensis.

Manuscripts and Archival Documents Esztergom, Főszékesegyházi könyvtär [Metropolitan Library], MS i. 313 Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staas- und Universitätabibliothek, MS Theol. 182 Krákow, Archiwum i Biblioteka Krakowskiej Kapituły Katedralneg [Kraków Cathedral Chapter Archives and Library], MS 182 Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska [ Jagiellonian University Library], MS 385 —— , MS 1628 —— , MS 2148

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Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 766 —— , MS xi B.1 Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1209 Olomouc, Knihovna Univerzity Palackého [Palacký University Library], MS ii 91 —— , M 1 34 —— , M 1 239 —— , M 1 288 —— , M 3 3 Olomouc, Státní okresní archiv [State District Archives], MS 348 Praha, Archiv Pražského hradu [Prague Castle Archive = Cathedral Chapter Library], MS A 37 —— , MS B 22.2 —— , MS B 48.2 —— , MS B 61 —— , MS C 39.4 —— , MS C 63 —— , MS C 66.1 —— , MS C 66.2 —— , MS C 106 —— , MS C 114 —— , MS C 116 —— , MS D 12 —— , MS D 47 —— , MS D 48 —— , MS D 49 —— , MS D 51 —— , MS D 52 —— , MS D 53 —— , MS D 54 —— , MS D 88 —— , MS D 106 —— , MS D 109 —— , MS D 112 —— , MS D 123 —— , MS E 37 —— , MS E 45 —— , MS F 29 —— , MS F 30 —— , MS K 7 —— , MS K 13 —— , MS O 7 —— , MS O 13 —— , MS O 27 —— , MS O 50

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—— , MS ii H 21 —— , MS iii B 11 —— , MS iii B 12 —— , MS iv B 9 —— , MS iv B 24 —— , MS iv H 30 —— , MS v C 42 —— , MS v E 89 —— , MS xii F 1 —— , MS xii F 2 —— , MS xii F 14 —— , MS xiii D 1 —— , MS xiii F 20 —— , MS xiv E 2 —— , MS xv E 15 —— , MS xv E 16 —— , MS xv F 3 —— , MS xvi F 4 —— , MS xxv E 17 —— , MS 54 C 25 —— , MS TR 1 27 Roudnice, Lobkovic Library, MS vi F g 60 Třeboň, Státní oblastní archiv [State Regional Archives], MS A 16 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 3044 —— , MS 3062 —— , MS 3914 —— , MS 4131 —— , MS 4314 —— , MS 4488 —— , MS 4491 —— , MS 4520 —— , MS 4524 —— , MS 4550 —— , MS 4673 —— , MS 4704 —— , MS 4890 —— , MS 4902 —— , MS 4941 —— , MS 4975 —— , MS 5113 —— , MS 13.975 —— , suppl. mus., MS 15492 Vyšší Brod, Cistercian Monastery Library, MS 123

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Salomon, Richard, Opicinus de Canistris: Weltbild und Bekenntnisse eines avignonesischen Klerikers des 14. Jahrhunderts (London: Warburg Institute, 1936) Schaff, David S., John Huss: His Life, Teachings and Death after Five Hundred Years (New York: Scribner, 1915) Scribner, R.  W., ‘Flugblatt und Analphabetentum: Wie kam der gemeine Mann zu reformatorischen Ideen?’, in Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit, ed. by Hans-Joachim Köhler (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), pp. 65–76 —— , ‘Oral Culture and the Transmission of Reformation Ideas’, in The Transmission of Ideas in the Lutheran Reformation, ed. by Helga Robinson-Hammerstein (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1989), pp. 83–104 Sedlák, Jan, Mikuláš z Drážďan (Brno: Benediktinske knihtiskárny, 1914) —— , M. Jan Hus (Praha: Dědictví sv. Prokopa, 1915) —— , ‘Počátkové kalicha’, Časopis katolického duchovenstva, 54 (1913), pp.  226–32, 275–78, 404–10, 465–70, 708–13 Seibt, Ferdinand, Hussitenstudien: Personen, Ereignisse, Ideen einer frühen Revolution (München: Oldenbourg, 1987) —— , ed., Jan Hus: Zwischen Zeiten, Völkern, Konfessionen: Vorträge des internationalen Symposions in Bayreuth vom 22. Bis 26.  September 1993 (München: Oldenbourg, 1997) —— , ‘Die revelatio des Jacobellus von Mies über die Kelchkommunion’, Deutsches archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 22 (1966), 618–24 Seifert, Joseph, ‘Pravda jako fundament svobody a svědomí (K etice Jana Husa)’, Husitský Tábor supplementum, 1 (2001), 281–99 Seltzer, Joel, ‘Framing Faith, Forging a Nation: Czech Vernacular Historiography and the Bohemian Reformation, 1430–1530’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 2004) Šmahel, František, Dějiny Tábora, 2 vols (České Budějovice: Jihočeské nakladatelství, 1988–90) —— , Husitská revoluce, 4 vols (Praha: Historický ústav, 1993) —— , Die Hussitische Revolution, 3 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 2002) —— , Idea národa v husitských Čechách (Praha: Argo, 2000) Šmahel, František, ed., A Companion to Jan Hus (Leiden: Brill, in preparation) Smolík, Josef, ‘Truth in History according to Hus’ Conception’, Communio viatorum, 15 (1972), 97–109 Southern, R. W., Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: Penguin, 1970) Spinka, Matthew, John Hus: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968) —— , John Hus and the Czech Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941) —— , John Hus’ Concept of the Church (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) Spunar, Pavel, ‘Opera Nicolai Biskupec de Pilgram (Pelhřimov)’, in Směřování, ed. by Noemi Rejchrtová (Praha: Kalich, 1983), pp. 104–16 —— , Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum provectum idearum post Úniversitatem Pragenses conditam illustrans, 2 vols (Wrocław: Institutum Ossolinianum, 1985, 1995), i (1985)

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Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983) Stump, Phillip H., The Reforms of the Council of Constance (1414–1418) (Leiden: Brill, 1994) Štrupl, Miloš, ‘Confessional Theology of the Unitas Fratrum’, Church History, 33 (1964), 279–93 Tadra, Ferdinand, Listy kláštera zbraslavského (Praha: Nákladem české akademie císaře Františka Josefa pro vědy, slovesnost a umění, 1904) Tierney, Brian, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Leiden: Brill, 1998) Tomek, Václav Vladivoj, Dějepis města Prahy, 2nd edn, 12 vols (Praha: Řivnáč, 1892–1906) Toorn, Karel van der, ed., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd edn (Leiden: Brill, 1999) Tříška, Josef, Životopisný slovník předhusitské pražské university 1348–1409 (Praha: Univerzita Karlova, 1981) Truhlář, Josef, ‘Paběrky 48. Husitský pranýř z r.  1416–17’, Věstník české akademie, 9 (1900), 566–67 Vauchez, André, ‘The Saint’, in Medieval Callings, ed. by Jacques Le Goff (Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1990) —— , Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. by Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Velden, Hugo van der, ‘The Quatrain of the Ghent Altarpiece’, Simiolus, 35 (2011), 5–39 Vlček, Jaroslav, Dějiny české historicky, 5th edn, 3 vols (Praha: Státní nakl. krásné literatury, hudby a umění, 1960) Vlhová-Wörner, Hana, ‘The Jistebnice Kancionál — Its Contents and Liturgy’, in Jistebnický Kancionál, ed. by Jaroslav Kolár, Anežka Vidmanová, and Hana Vlhová-Wörner, 2 vols to date (Brno: Marek, 2005–), i (2005), pp. 107–33 Voorn, Peter, ‘The Ghent Altarpiece and the Council of Constance’, Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellshaft, 11 (1999), 413–36 Wagner, Murray, Petr Chelčický: A Radical Separatist in Hussite Bohemia (Scottdale: Herald, 1983) Werner, Ernst, Jan Hus: Welt und Umwelt eines Prager Frühreformators (Weimar: Böhlaus, 1991) Yates, Frances A., The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966)

Index Entries for Jan Hus, Prague, Bohemia, the Council of Constance, the Latin Church, and heresy are selective since these subjects are very numerous. Popes, saints, councils of the church, and specific churches are listed alphabetically under those headings. Abbeys, convents, cloisters, monasteries, and priories are noted under the heading of ‘religious houses’. Unless otherwise noted, the churches and religious houses specifically identified are in Prague. Medieval people are generally listed under places of origin (town or castle) and the index does not follow the common practice of listing in the place of priority first names for persons born before 1500. Lesser-known figures have been identified according to their chief role in connection with the subjects under investigation. Czech proper names have generally been given in their native form. The main exception is Prague rather than Praha. Several of the works of Hus which have proven especially useful for this study have been noted herein according to their original title under the heading ‘Hus, Jan’. Additionally, a number of essential songs sung as part of the memoria of Hus in late medieval Bohemia are listed by title under the heading ‘songs, popular’ even though some more properly belong to the genres of hymnody or liturgy and cross-references have been provided. This index is not a lexicon, but it does include a number of key Czech words and concepts found in some of the song texts about Jan Hus.

Abelard, Peter: 18, 22, 46, 70–71, 73, 74–75, 200, 225 Adamas, Martin, priest: 23 Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini: 7, 142, 162, 182; see also popes, Pius II Ailly, Pierre d’, cardinal: 14, 20, 26–27, 49, 79, 133 Ambrose: 223 anathema and curses: 87, 92, 95–96, 102–03, 105–06, 119, 120; see also excommunication angels: 11, 23, 34, 96, 121, 129, 179, 193, 196, 197, 252 animadversione debita: 126; see also capital punishment animals: 10, 32, 86, 100, 101, 102, 104, 130, 146, 168, 199, 218

anonymous Passio of Hus: 187–88, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 as literary martyria: 197, 205, 209 dating: 187–88 dependent sources: 187, 191, 201–02, 206 false claims: 187, 188, 193, 203 Hus and Utraquism: 187–88, 207 Hus’s death: 207–09 Hus’s enemies identified: 195 law of God in: 207 legendary elements: 188, 192, 193, 204 motivation: 193, 196, 198–99, 201–02, 203, 204–05 sanctity of Hus: 190, 200, 201 see also Barbatus, Jan; George the Hermit, Passio of Hus

280

Anselm: 223 Antichrist: 5, 22–23, 31, 43, 82, 91, 94, 100, 102, 143, 166, 172, 179, 189, 194, 217, 237, 252 priests and prelates as: 5, 22–23, 91, 166, 217 apocalyptic: 129, 143, 150, 189, 199, 222, 225, 230; see also eschatology; Last Judgement; Pelhřimov, Mikuláš appellate process, appeals: 18, 25, 79, 92, 94, 100–01, 116 Aquinas, Thomas: 62, 70, 222, 229, 234, 244, 225 Aquitaine, Prosper of: 221 Aragon, Ferdinand, king: 42 archbishopric of Prague: 10, 114, 176, 220; see also Vechta, Konrad of; Zbyněk, Zajíc of Hazmburk archbishops see prelates Aristotle: 70 arraignment: 47, 80, 155 Arrigoni, Jacob Balardi, bishop: 1 ascetics and asceticism: 60, 61, 193 Athanasius: 223 auditors: 119, 133 Augsburg, Friedrich of, bishop: 110 Augusta, Jan, bishop: 214 Augustine: 17, 60, 62, 65, 68, 70, 74, 93, 200, 221, 222, 223, 225, 244, 249 authority, religious: 5–7, 11, 26–27, 37, 55, 58, 79, 113, 121, 216–17, 221, 228–29, 231 conciliar: 55, 26–27 defiance of: 11, 27, 175, 231 episcopal: 11, 229, 231 papal: 5–6, 216 see also conciliarism; Haec sancta; papal primacy baptism: 93, 143, 219 Baptist, John the: xi, 24, 150, 159, 172, 194 Barbatus, Jan alias Barbatum, Bradatý, Bradáček, Passio of Hus: 186–87, 188, 190, 192, 193, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 206, 207, 208 as literary martyria: 197, 205, 209 authorship: 186–87 Constance as Calvary: 187, 194–95 dependent sources: 187, 191, 201–02, 206

INDEX Hus as Christ: 187, 200 Hus’s death: 207–09 ignores the young Hus: 188, 190, 196, 203 Jakoubek Stříbro and: 187, 206, 208 law of God: 207 motivation: 193, 196, 198–99, 201–02, 203, 204–05 primary source: 191, 193, 202 sanctity of Hus: 187, 206 see also anonymous Passio of Hus; George the Hermit, Passio of Hus barons see nobility Bartoš, František M.: 186 Basil the Great: 223 Bede, Venerable: 200, 223, 229 Belli, Jean, auditor: 119, 133 Bethlehem Chapel see churches Bibfeldt, Franz, theologian: 108, 134, 184, 210, 246, 254 Bible: 25–26, 42, 59, 75, 112, 182, 173, 220, 223, 225, 230 Biel, Gabriel: 215 bishops see prelates Biskupec see Pelhřimov, Mikuláš blasphemy: 13, 71, 93, 135, 143, 146 Bodensee: 40, 252 Bodman, Frischhans von, city official: 110 Bohemian saints: 82, 169 Bonaventure: 229 book-burning: 20–21, 100, 116, 124, 208 Bor, Jiří, canon lawyer: 114–15, 116–17, 120 Brancacci, Rainaldo, cardinal: 111, 118, 133 Březová, Vavřinec of, chronicler: 207, 212, 216 bribes and bribery: 86, 100, 101 Brod, Ondřej of, academic: 53, 125 Brute, Walter, heretic: 25 bulls, ecclesiastical: 86, 100–01, 102, 104, 106, 116, 120, 123, 127, 227, 229; see also popes Burda, Šimon, cleric: 119 Burkhardt, Jacob: 204 Cahera, Havel, priest: 236 Canistris, Opicinus de, priest: 46 canon law: 4, 8, 20, 26, 34, 62, 99, 103, 106, 118, 217, 223 Čapek, Jan, priest: 141, 148 capital punishment: 4, 46, 211; see also animadversione debita

INDEX cardinals see prelates Čáslav, town in Bohemia: 219 Cathars: 51, 161, 226 Causis, Michael de, attorney: x, 14, 28, 32, 35, 45, 49, 52–53, 97, 101, 103, 109–33, 159, 195 accuses Hus: 35, 53, 111, 113, 117–18, 122, 125, 126, 132 Constance activities: 122–25, 131 curial work: 115–16, 117, 118–20, 133 death of: 128 ecclesiastical positions held: 113–14 funeral of: 128–32 Hus’ opinion of: 117–18, 120, 132 motivation of: 28, 109, 113, 118, 129–30, 195 prosecutes Hus: 28, 111, 117–20, 122, 126, 133 reputation of: 112–13, 114, 115, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129–31 see also Kalteisen, Heinrich Český Krumlov, town of: 186 chalice: ix, 47, 50, 139, 165, 172, 212, 215, 219, 224, 228, 234; see also eucharist; sub utraque specie Challant, William, bishop: 110 Charles IV, emperor: 2, 18 Cheb Judge: 230; see also councils, ecclesiastical, Basel Chelčický, Petr, religious philosopher: 8, 11, 214, 233, 236, 239, 240 children: 138, 140, 170, 177, 188, 218 Chlum, Jan, knight: 33, 40, 48, 55, 110 Chochol, priest: 23 Chrást, Zdeněk of, archdeacon: 116, 119 Chrysostom, John: 223, 229 church, theologies of: 2, 5, 7–9, 13, 15, 26, 49, 58, 100, 215, 216–17, 221, 229, 232, 239–40, 244 apostolic: 2, 6, 220, 230–31, 244 authority of: 6, 11, 21, 26–27, 121, 216, 218, 221 community of the faithful: 130, 198, 232, 251 see also papal primacy; predestination churches Bethlehem Chapel: x, 2–4, 10–11, 14, 24, 31, 48, 53, 60, 81, 83, 87, 101, 103–05, 118, 120, 138, 153–55,

281

159–60, 171, 190, 199, 203, 211, 239, 240–41, 249 Mother of God before Týn: 143, 190, 236 Mother of God of the Snows: 161, 228 Olomouc cathedral, Moravia: 141, 181 parish church of Chlum: 113 parish church of Prien, Bavarian diocese of Chiemsee: 113 St Adalbert: 114, 117, 120 St Adalbert, Zderaz: 114 St Clement: 111, 115, 161 Sts Cosmas and Damian: 113 St Giles: 113 St James: 161 St Nicholas: 114 St Stephen: 116 Sts Stephen and Mary, Constance: 124 St Vitus: 88, 195 see also Constance Cathedral; religious houses Clairvaux, Bernard of: 22, 60, 156, 223 Colonna, Odo, cardinal: 84, 111, 116, 118, 133; see also popes, Martin V Comenius see Komenský, Jan Amos communion, holy see eucharist conciliarism: 26–27, 217, 237; see also church, theologies of; Constance, Council of concubinage: 2, 52, 98, 235 confession, auricular: 24, 52, 61, 130–31, 221 confessions, religious: 221, 237; see also creeds conscience: 18, 37, 54–56, 59, 66, 68, 73, 78, 175, 247 Constance cathedral: 47, 54, 208, 251 Constance, Council of: 1, 4, 40, 57, 109, 141, 162–65, 196, 217 Hus commissions at: 53, 123–26, 199 Constance, Lake see Bodensee contemptus mundi: 205, 243 contrafactum: 167–68 contumacy: 22, 28, 53, 87, 92, 103, 119, 120, 122, 136, 231; see also heresy corpus Christianum: 8–9, 231; see also feudalism and medieval social structure Cossa, Baldassare see popes, John XXIII councils, ecclesiastical: 37, 177, 178, 223, 225 Basel, 1431–49: 127–28, 142–43, 218, 224, 230, 232, 245, 252

282

Florence, 1442: 229 Lateran, 1215: 229 Pisa, 1409: 121 see also Constance, Council of creeds: 72, 147, 220, 239 crime and criminal activity: 4, 12, 23, 45, 70, 79, 94, 102, 111, 118, 126, 138, 140, 143, 146–47, 164, 170, 171, 174, 175, 205, 217, 233 crimen exceptum see heresy, exceptional crime Crispa, Jakub, notary: 150 Cusa, Nicholas, cardinal: 230 crusades against heretics: 12, 117, 127, 156, 241 Cyprian: 223, 229 Czech Brethren see Jednota bratrská Damian, Peter, prior: 23 Decretum: 106; see also canon law; Gratian demonology: 2, 3, 13, 23, 25, 36, 80, 81–82, 82–83, 87–88, 90, 99, 121, 129, 135, 146, 168, 172, 174–75, 199, 200, 208, 252 devil see demonology disobedience, to ecclesiastical authority: 5, 13, 22, 28, 64, 83, 142, 231; see also contumacy doctrine: 9, 11, 15, 26, 75, 78, 141, 192, 221, 233, 236, 239 Bible: x, 25–26, 42, 58, 61, 112, 199, 223, 225, 229, 230 church: 26, 217, 231 ethics: 51–80 eucharist: 24, 172, 207, 224 God: 76, 207 grace: 41, 60, 72–73, 75, 78, 154, 198, 234, 235, 243 Holy Spirit: 9, 27, 55, 72, 93, 150, 192, 239 predestination: 65 salvation: 6, 64, 73, 215 sermon on the mount: 189, 239 Dolany, Štěpán of, abbot: 41–42, 132 Donatism: 77, 235 Dresden, Nicholas of, academic: 172, 213, 244 drunkenness: 52, 82, 89; see also morals, morality Dubá, Jan Roháč of, Czech military captain: 241 Dubá, Václav, knight: 33, 55, 110

INDEX ecclesiastical jurisdiction: 34, 103–04 ecclesiology see church, theologies of emotion: 18, 28, 40, 45, 46, 47, 56, 67, 68, 81, 113, 132, 179, 192, 200, 207–09, 214, 244 England: 12, 42, 94, 143 Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus: 52 Eppinge, Friedrich, academic: 103–04, 120 Erasmus see Rotterdam, Erasmus of eschatology: 7, 10, 16, 65–66, 150, 199, 215, 225, 229–30, 233, 238, 243; see also apocalyptic; Last Judgement Esztergom, city in Hungary: 154, 187 eucharist: ix, 3, 24, 76, 125, 139, 160–61, 207, 219, 224, 235, 243, 249, 250 controversy over: 160, 207, 212, 224 heresy and: 125, 207 Hus and: ix, 3, 24, 125, 207, 250 lay chalice and: 47, 50, 139, 172, 212, 234 Wyclif and: 76 see also chalice; Utraquism excommunication: 3, 31, 85, 87, 99, 103–04, 106, 116, 118–22, 231, 235 aggravations of: 31, 99, 119, 121 appealing against: 103 heresy and: 231 Hus and: 3, 116 major: 99 social implications of: 121 unjust: 103, 120 see also anathema and curses; interdict facere quod in se est: 64, 215; see also doctrine, salvation false witnesses, testimonies, rumours: 90, 101, 153, 174, 175, 194–95 fama publica: 122 fathers of the church: 220, 224; see also Ambrose; Augustine; Basil; Chrysostom, John; Jerome feasts, social and liturgical: 29, 136, 154, 162, 165, 171 feudalism and medieval social structure: x, 8, 12, 107, 172, 215, 226, 228–29, 240; see also corpus Christianum fides caritate formata: 64; see also doctrine, salvation Flajšhans, Václav: 88 Fleckel, George, papal auditor: 119, 133 Fleming, Richard, bishop: 198

INDEX Fortunatus, Venantius, poet: 167 ‘forty-five articles’, the: 123; see also Wyclif four articles of Prague, the: 215, 219, 237, 242 freedom: 56, 59, 64, 65, 70, 78, 79, 105, 215, 236 Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe: 229 Fuller, Thomas: 198 Gadamer, Hans-Georg: 203 George the Hermit, Passio of Hus: 189–90, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208 see also Barbartus, Jan; anonymous Passio of Hus. as literary martyria: 197, 205, 209 dating: 189 dependent sources: 189, 191, 201–02, 206 Hus’s death: 207–09 Hus’s enemies identified: 195, 199 law of God in: 207 legendary elements: 192–93 motivation: 193, 196, 198–99, 201–02, 203, 204–05 sanctity of Hus: 189, 190, 200, 201, 206 young Hus details: 189, 196 see also Barbatus, Jan Germans: 10, 30, 113, 138, 147, 179 Gerson, Jean, theologian: 14, 25–27, 30, 49, 133 Giles of Rome, archbishop: 76, 227 ‘golden legend’ of Jacobus de Voragine: 192, 193, 209 Gottlieben castle, fortress of: 18, 30 Gratian: 62, 106, 223; see also canon law; Decretum Grünsleder, Ulrich, priest and martyr: 182 Haec Sancta: 27; see also conciliarism; Constance, Council of; authority, religious hagiography: 185, 188, 191, 192, 195, 201 Hales, Alexander of, Franciscan: 71 heilsgeschichte see time hell, concepts of: 28, 52, 56, 81, 92, 121, 140, 143, 167–68, 199, 232, 252 Héloïse see Abelard Henry of Ghent, theologian: 76 heresiarch Hus as: 5, 21, 28, 49, 118, 123, 187, 208

283

Wyclif as: 49 heresy: xii, 4, 19, 41, 161 canon law on: 51, 217 contumacy as: 22, 122, 231 crime as: 4 definition of: 6, 20, 87, 217 exceptional crime: 49, 118 nomenclature: xii relation to sin: 51 suppressed by secular authorities: 117, 131 trials: 25, 40, 44, 109, 122, 207 see also anathema; appellate process, appeals; excommunication; Cathars; Hussites; interdict; Lollards; simony; Waldensians Holeton, David R.: 149, 154, 181, 214, 220 Hooper, John, bishop and martyr: 209 Hus, Jan: xx accusations and charges against: 21, 22, 30, 35, 42, 53, 56, 66, 84, 86, 95, 111, 113, 117–18, 121, 123, 125, 132, 175, 207, 255 and biblical figures: 150, 172, 194 and truth: 11–12, 22, 27, 32–33, 37 appeal to God: 18, 47, 79, 102 appeals lodged by: 86, 92, 94, 100–01, 116, 117 arrest of: 2, 4, 32, 39, 44, 109, 110–11 as apostle: 156, 165, 168, 169, 180, 194 as Christ-figure: 172, 187, 189, 253 as faithful knight: 155–56, 158, 159 as goose: 10, 86, 104, 168 as intercessor: 153, 169, 180, 199, 253 as lamb of God: 156, 165, 166, 174 as reformer: ix, 15, 28, 30, 51–52, 73, 91, 116, 189, 248–49 as saint and martyr: 16, 37, 41, 49, 135, 141, 143, 153, 157, 158, 166, 169, 176, 177, 185, 189–92, 196, 198, 203, 253 as theologian: 62, 66, 75, 77, 237 attacks indulgences: 23, 100, 113, 139, 227 commentary on the Sentences see Hus, Jan, Super IV sententiarum commitment to truth: 39, 66, 79, 155, 161, 177, 206 condemnation of: 2, 4, 28, 54, 118, 122, 124, 126, 135, 155, 157, 181, 195, 234 contumacious: 22, 28, 120, 122, 231

284

criticism of the priesthood: ix–x, 2–4, 22–23, 31, 36, 46, 53, 61, 71, 81–82, 83, 89, 94, 98, 105, 107, 153, 227, 235 Czech nationalism and: x, 16, 50, 150, 154, 175, 207 Dcerka, O poznání cěsty pravé k spasení (The Daughter, or how to know the correct way to salvation): 24, 74, 223, 242–43 De ecclesia: 62, 64, 70, 80, 94, 100, 110, 116, 123 De libris hereticorum: 20–21, 223 De sufficientia legis Christi: 34, 62, 235 death of: 2, 4, 36, 49, 56, 87, 126, 136, 153, 156, 176, 186–90, 204, 208–09, 212, 251 defrocked: 47, 208 disobedience of: 5, 13, 22, 28, 64, 83, 84, 87, 100, 171, 227 Dixit Martha ad Iesum: 64, 73, 213 Donatism of: 77, 235 ecclesiology of: 2, 6, 13, 21, 30–31, 35, 80, 83, 100, 189, 221, 227–28, 229, 244 excommunications of: 3, 31, 99, 104, 116, 119, 120, 122 heresy of: 4–5, 20, 22, 26, 28, 80, 96–97, 118, 121, 125, 139, 207, 220 historiography: 11, 15, 55, 150, 171, 185, 192 holiness of: 160, 166, 177, 191, 206 iconography: xi, 14, 15, 19, 135, 137, 149, 158, 169, 248 ideal man: 191, 194, 195, 201, 203 in exile: 31, 35, 38, 41, 49, 86, 87, 89, 92, 100, 130, 177 in prison: 18, 25, 33, 36, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46–47, 53, 74, 124, 132, 155, 159, 186, 205 influence of: 22, 212, 222–23, 226 Jádro učení křesťanského (Kernel of Christian Doctrine): 24, 64, 69, 74, 219, 221 Knížky proti knězi kuchmistrovi (Books against the Priest Cookmaster): 32, 28, 40, 67, 83–106 letters of: 18–19, 22, 24, 25–26, 29, 35, 37, 41, 48, 55, 68, 186, 243 masses for: 14, 135, 136, 137, 154, 156, 165, 168, 170, 171, 181, 197–98, 248

INDEX memory of: xi, 135, 136–37, 148, 157–58, 170, 176, 183, 185–209 moral reform: 1–2, 5, 13, 26, 30, 52, 61, 83, 94, 106, 109, 226, 229 myth of: 212–13, 252 naiveté of: 32, 44–45, 79, 86 nonappearance in Curia: 99, 105, 236 O svatokupectví (On simony): 5, 24, 38, 83, 94, 98, 248 on capital punishment: 46 perjury, fear of: 34, 53, 54, 55, 56, 138, 139, 205 Postil: 31, 34, 37, 41, 52, 56–58, 61–62, 69, 72, 83, 88, 95, 97, 99–102, 104, 118, 218, 227, 232, 234, 236, 241, 243 relation to Wyclif: 28, 49, 50, 65, 75–76, 77, 111, 121, 143, 146, 167–68, 211 safe conduct of: 110 Sermon de pace: 20, 23, 29, 38, 40, 73 sermons about: 1, 34, 53, 60–61, 131, 136, 137, 176, 190, 213 sermons and preaching: 4, 22–23, 24, 31, 38, 64, 69, 82–83, 89, 94, 111, 143, 213, 243 songs about: 135–83 Super IV sententiarum: 5, 58–60, 62, 64–66, 71–73, 75–78, 80, 87, 111, 224, 235, 250 trial, legality of: 12–13, 166, 212, 233 truth and ethics: 61–62 understanding of truth: 33–34, 42, 48, 55, 57–60, 247 Výklad desatero (Exposition of the Decalogue): 53, 60, 62–63, 70–71, 98, 229 Výklad na Páteř (Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer): 29, 57, 67, 249 Výklad víry (Exposition of the Faith): 24, 25, 29, 31, 32, 37, 38, 39, 225 see also churches, Bethlehem Chapel; Constance, Council of; predestination; songs, major motifs concerning Hus; songs, popular Husinec, town in Bohemia: 136, 155, 160, 171 Hussites: x, xii, 6, 50, 81, 127, 136, 141, 161–62, 187, 192, 201, 211–46 authority, ideas of: 215–16, 223–24, 225, 228, 235, 244 eschatology and: 215, 225, 229, 233, 238

INDEX Jednota bratrská as: 213, 219, 226, 236, 239, 242 nomenclature: 211–12, 219 reform emphases: 220, 226, 229, 230, 233, 235, 238, 244 relation to Hus: 211–12, 213, 214, 220, 222–23, 240, 242–43 religious freedom and: 236–37 sacraments: 215, 216, 224, 229, 234 salvation: 215, 234, 235 theology and: 214–15, 230–31, 245 types of: 213, 216, 218–19, 236, 240 Utraquists as: 213, 219, 221, 226, 236 see also heresy hymns and hymnody: xi, 14, 137, 140, 141, 147, 149, 154, 156, 171, 176, 192, 247, 250; see also, liturgy; songs, major motifs concerning Hus; songs, popular; Stabat Mater iconoclasm: 12, 244; see also book-burning iconography: 98, 143, 147, 148, 169, 176, 177, 192, 213, 218, 248 image of God, imago dei: 65, 235 imitatio Christi: 35, 73, 204, 206 incarceration see prisons indulgences: 14, 23, 45, 86, 100, 113, 121, 139, 227 inquisition: 12, 20, 122, 128–29 interdict: 45, 95, 121, 186 Isidore, bishop of Seville: 51 Jagiełło, Władysław, Polish king: 23 Jan ‘the Iron’ see Železný, Jan Janov, Matěj of, scholar: 65, 214, 234 Jednota bratrská: 85, 149, 213, 219, 222, 226, 231, 232, 236, 237, 239, 242 Jenštejn, Jan, archbishop: 114 Jerome: 62, 223 Jerome of Prague see Prague, Jerome of Jesenice, Jan, attorney: 32, 48, 86, 118–20, 186 Jesuits: xi, 233 Jews and Judaism: 19, 64, 101, 102, 146, 164, 175, 205 Jílové, town in Bohemia: 115 Jindřichův, Hradec, Prokop of, scholar: 237 Jiříka, Heremity see George the Hermit Jistebnice, town in Bohemia: 171

285

Jistebnický, Kancional: 171 Josseaume, Guillaume, Franciscan: 127 Judas, moniker of abuse: 23, 28, 80, 83, 98, 165, 168, 199 iconography of: 88 judges: 20, 27, 40, 79, 120, 126, 187 justice and legal culture: 29, 32–34, 40, 53, 57, 61, 62, 67, 70, 98, 101, 117, 133, 174, 177, 198, 212, 217, 219, 226, 236, 237 kairos see time Kalteisen, Heinrich, inquisitor: 128–31; see also Causis, Michael de Kbel, Jan, cathedral chapter official: 54 Kejř, Jiří: 54, 61, 80 ketzerei: 51; see also heresy kingdom of God: 7, 8, 10, 24, 34, 36, 41, 56, 73, 88, 91, 96, 97, 109, 156, 170, 227, 228, 229, 232, 245 Knín, Matěj, academic: 48, 54 Kokorzynski, Andrej, prelate: 150 Komenský, Jan Amos: 214, 227, 232 Konstanz see Constance Kouřim, town in Bohemia: 114, 127 Kozí Hrádek, castle of: 4, 31, 85, 87, 90, 97, 177 Ctibor of: 85, 87, 89, 97 Jan of: 85 Krakovec, castle of: 85–86 Králík, Václav, patriarch: 121 Krampeř, layman: 177, 182 Kříž, Václav, Prague tradesman, co-founder of Bethlehem Chapel: 2 Kroměříž, Jan Milíč of, priest: 214, 219, 234 Kutná Hora, the 1485 Peace of: 237 laity: 3, 35, 61, 81, 82, 89, 95, 126, 172, 182–83, 215, 240–41 Last Judgement: 97, 170, 188, 205; see also apocalyptic; eschatology law of God, law of Christ: x, 6–7, 11–12, 27, 29, 33–34, 38, 40, 56–57, 62–66, 74, 105, 172, 207, 235, 244–45 lawyers, attorneys, advocates: 62, 79, 199 legal procedures: 12, 20, 40, 117, 124, 129; see also appellate process, appeals ‘Leipzig libellus’: 149–50, 154, 156, 158, 160, 169, 173–74, 176, 180 Lérins, Vincent of, theologian: 221

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lex orandi, lex credendi see Aquitaine, Prosper of Liège, Wazo of, bishop: 46 Litomyšl, city of: 14, 45, 84 Litovel, Šimon of, canon: 213 liturgy: 4, 14, 15, 36, 137, 140, 141, 149–50, 154, 165, 167, 168, 177, 181, 182, 192, 197, 221, 247, 248 prosae and introits: 165–66, 167, 181 see also hymns and hymnody; songs, major motifs concerning Hus; songs, popular; Stabat Mater Lollards: 12, 226; see also heresy; Wyclif Lombard, Peter: 62, 70, 71–72, 74, 75, 77, 111, 223 Loserth, Johann: 77 Louny, town in Bohemia: 62 Lukáš of Prague: 214 Luke, bishop of Tuy: 52 Luther, Martin: ix, 19, 46, 54, 137, 176, 215 madness, insanity: 46, 147, 160–61, 199 Mangold, Petr see Uničov, Petr of martyrdom: 37–39, 41, 49–50, 69, 87, 93, 143, 154, 158–59, 170, 190–93, 205, 206, 212, 244, 251–52 Calvary as metaphor: 39, 187, 194–95 martyria: 197, 205, 209; see also relics Mass see eucharist Mauroux, Jean, canon lawyer: 30 Meißen: 94, 213 Meziříčí, Pavel, printer: 84–85 Michael the Pleader see Causis, Michael de Milheim, Hanuš, Czech Crown council member, co-founder of Bethlehem Chapel: 2, 241 mines and mining: 115, 131, 170 miracles: 32, 130, 192, 193, 199 Mišpule, Jan alias Navara, priest: 123 Mitmánek, Václav, church administrator: 214 Mladoňovice, Petr, chronicler and academic: 47–48, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193–94, 196–99, 202–04, 206–09 Mochov, Anežka, Hussite: 90, 182 Molnár, Amedeo: 99 morals, morality: 1–2, 5, 13, 20, 25, 26–27, 30, 51, 52, 56, 60, 65, 70, 73–74, 81–82, 98, 100, 106, 150, 166, 171, 226, 229, 235; see also concubinage;

INDEX drunkenness; prostitution; sexual deviance, misconduct Moravia: 21, 30, 41, 94; see also nobility Moxena, Andreas Didachus de, Minorite: 42 Münster Unserer Lieben Frau see Constance cathedral mysticism: 61, 225, 249 Naples, Ladislas of, king: 87, 102, 106 Náz, Jan, Czech diplomat: 14, 45, 126 Nazianzus, Gregory: 223 Nejedlý, Zdeněk: 162, 171, 176 Nezero, Nicholas of, inquisitor: 121 Niem, Dietrich, notary and lawyer: 26, 49, 117, 120 nobility, Czech: 2, 30, 94, 112, 127, 136, 167, 240, 241 subpoenaed to Constance: 119, 120, 127 Nogent, Guibert of, abbot: 18, 200 nominalism, via moderna: 225; see also philosophy; realism Novotný, Václav: 189, 190 Nürnberg: 33, 43 obedience: 5, 22, 57, 60, 63–67, 69, 73, 78 Ockham, William of: 70, 215 Olivetský see Meziříčí, Pavel Olomouc, town in Moravia: 113, 121, 141, 181 cathedral chapter of: 141, 181 Origen: 206, 229 Páleč, Štěpán, theologian: 14, 28, 30, 32, 34, 41, 44, 45, 49, 52, 96, 102, 109, 111, 112, 121–22, 126, 131, 132, 133, 195, 218 pamphlet and manifesto literature: 90, 148, 233 papal primacy: 5–6, 8, 25, 26, 217, 237; see also church, theologies of papal schism: 4, 8, 10, 85, 127, 217 Pašije Mistra Jana Husi: 191, 198; see also Mladoňovice, Petr; Relatio de Mag. Joannis Hus causa ‘pater’, Hus’s anonymous ally at Constance: 125 Pelhřimov, Mikuláš, bishop: 7, 222, 230, 240, 243, 245 Chronicon causam: 222, 241–43 sermons on the Apocalypse: 7, 222, 230, 232–33, 235, 244–45 see also Hussites; Tábor

INDEX penance, penitential: 38, 63, 69; see also sacraments persecution: 38, 47, 91, 190, 206, 216, 236–37 pertinacia see contumacy Philarghi, Peter, archbishop: 121 Philibert, bishop of Coutances: 142–43 philosophy: 57, 59, 71, 77, 203–04, 223, 225, 235, 244 Plato, Platonism: 57, 202 Poděbrady, Jiří, Czech king: 242 Polák, Michael, martyr: 190 Poland: 23, 127, 150; see also Włodkowicz, Paweł Polívka, Ondřej, martyr: 236 poor and poverty: 83, 98, 177, 240–41 popes Alexander V: 86, 100, 101, 104, 116, 123 Boniface VIII: 6, 227, 229 Eugenius III: 99 Gregory I: 60, 62, 103, 223 Gregory VII: 6, 217 Innocent III: 192, 229 John XXIII: 14, 45, 86, 101, 102, 110–11, 115, 118, 121, 133, 205 Martin V: 127, 128; see also Colonna, Odo Nicholas V: 128 Pius II: 129 see also Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini Poříčí, Marta of, martyr: 182–83 Prachatice, Křišťán of, priest: 124, 186, 217, 240 Prague: 2, 22, 52, 61, 114, 135, 146–47, 161–62, 183, 240–41 Jerome of, academic: 1–3, 10, 36, 45, 48, 124, 127, 154, 156, 168, 174, 180, 186, 190, 240 Lesser Town of: 47, 162 New Town of: 113, 114, 116, 120, 123, 147, 228, 240, 241 Old Town of: 112, 113, 114, 186, 195, 240 Petr of, abbot: 123 priests of: x, 3, 8, 22, 43, 83, 89, 121, 194, 248 street violence and unrest in: 100, 116–17, 131, 147, 172 synods of: 4, 22, 88, 89, 141 under interdict: 45, 95, 121 university at: 4, 76, 113, 132, 136, 168, 195

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university masters: 14, 147, 166–67, 187, 195, 215 prayer: 7, 31, 47, 52, 64, 67, 98, 99, 158, 159, 169, 192–93, 208, 221, 250 predestination: 65, 157 prelates: 4, 10–11, 35, 39, 43, 45, 46, 61, 80, 82, 90, 92, 96, 98, 101, 105, 106, 111, 117, 133, 153, 175–76, 182, 238, 244, 248 Příbram, Jan, theologian: 215, 216, 220, 222 pride: 21, 28, 41–42, 53, 64, 66, 68, 94, 100, 104, 157, 164 prisons, medieval: 18, 28, 32, 39, 41, 42, 45, 53, 56, 74, 112, 123, 132, 155 processions: 161, 162, 167 procurator de causis fidei: 115, 117, 130; see also Causis, Michael de prohibition of preaching: 29, 31, 95, 100, 101 Prokop the Notary: 4, 90, 95, 105, 107, 162 prostitution: 52, 87, 98, 205; see also sexual deviance, misconduct Protestantism: ix, 50, 195, 215, 221, 231 Quodlibet, at Prague: 4, 58 Rakovník, Jan, monk: 142 Ranke, Leopold von: 203 realism, via antiqua: 75, 76; see also nominalism; philosophy Rejnštejn, Jan Kardinál of, canon lawyer: 38, 187 Relatio de Mag. Joannis Hus causa: 185, 191, 193, 201, 206; see also Constance, Council of; Mladoňovice, Petr; Pašije Mistra Jana Husi relics: 6, 197–98, 199, 227; see also martyria religious houses: 1, 100, 113, 115, 123, 146, 161, 162, 207, 230 Carthusian abbey in Moravia: 41, 132, 236 Carthusian abbey in Smíchov: 146–47 Dominican monastery in Constance: 18, 39, 56, 74, 123 Franciscan monastery in Constance: 18, 42, 53, 124, 132 Mother of God of the Snows, Carthusian: 161, 228 St Ambrose, Benedictine: 123 St Clement, Dominican: 111, 115, 161 St James, Franciscan: 161

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religious orders Augustinian: 9, 182, 232 Benedictine: 111, 113, 123, 200 Carthusian: 41, 132, 146–47, 182, 236 Cistercian: 10, 115, 224 Dominican: 14, 18, 28, 39, 56, 74, 111, 112, 115, 123, 128–29, 161 Franciscans: 18, 42, 53, 71, 124, 127, 132 Military orders, Hospital, Temple, Teutonic: 156 Minorite: 42, 161 Praemonstratensian: 21, 228 Remigius, bishop: 223 repentance: 69–70, 91, 93, 97, 99, 103, 164, 219, 233 revelation, concept of: 33, 46, 58, 60, 69, 204, 215, 223, 224–25, 226, 238, 241, 248–49 Rhine, river: 168, 171, 188, 189, 253 Rokycana, Jan, archbishop: 143, 190, 196, 214, 220, 226, 231 Rotterdam, Erasmus of: 45, 215, 225 Rupescissa, John of, patriarch: 120, 124 Rvačka, Mařik, inquisitor: 119, 120, 127 sacraments: 3, 52, 76, 77, 131, 173, 215, 220, 224, 228, 234–35, 249; see also baptism; eucharist; penance; Utraquism saints: 36–37, 49, 72, 105, 120, 135, 141, 143, 158, 166, 169, 173, 179, 190–91, 193, 195, 197, 200–01, 204–05, 236 Ambrose: 223 Anežka: 169 Anselm: 223 Apollonia: 199 Athanasius: 223 Augustine: 17, 60, 62, 65, 68, 70, 74, 93, 200, 221, 222, 223, 225, 229, 244, 249 Bartholomew: 71, 82 Basil: 223 Gregory: 60, 62, 103, 223 Hus, Jan: 176, 181, 187, 194, 199, 203 Jerome: 62, 223 Jude: 82 Katherine: 82 Laurence: 141, 194 Ludmila: 169 Paul: 10, 68, 175 Peter: 6, 32, 99, 103, 141

INDEX Prokop: 169 Simon: 82 Stephen: 82 Vitus: 88 Vojtěch: 169 Wenceslas: 82, 88, 169 salvation: 5–6, 34, 49, 60, 64, 67, 72, 136, 153, 170, 173, 192, 197, 199, 205, 215, 229, 236 papacy and: 5, 6, 229 salvus conductus see Hus, Jan, safe con­ duct of; Constance, Council of; Sigismund, emperor Satan see demonology Sawtry, William, heretic: 12 Scribner, Bob: xi, 137, 148 scholasticism: 44, 57, 74–75 Scotus, John Duns: 70 sermons: 1, 2, 4, 15, 22, 24, 31, 34, 49, 53, 69, 81, 83, 87, 90, 94, 100–01, 105, 107, 111, 118, 121, 131, 136, 137, 142, 148, 149, 153, 154, 182, 190, 228, 230 at Constance: 1, 23, 32, 38, 174 Bethlehem Chapel: 2, 34, 81–82, 105, 138, 153, 155, 159, 190, 241 heresy trials: 1 restrictions on: 86, 93, 95, 96, 100, 101, 104, 116 see also Hus, Jan, sermons sexual deviance, misconduct: 19, 24, 30, 63, 70, 71, 89, 98, 100, 171, 205; see also prostitution Sezimovo Ústí, town in Bohemia: 4, 86 Sigismund, emperor: 32, 44, 49, 135, 138, 150, 206, 208 safe conducts: 2, 110 see also Constance, Council of Simon Magus: 23; see also simony simony: 2, 23, 24, 52, 71, 87, 93, 94, 98, 100, 104, 105, 153, 180, 199, 205, 227 as heresy: 23, 71 sin: 23–24, 30, 31, 35–36, 44, 51, 56–57, 61, 64, 69–70, 73, 100, 140, 164, 215–16, 237 Abelard on: 70–71 conscience and: 68 Hus and: 41, 49, 52, 71, 74, 91, 105, 153, 159, 164, 165, 174, 191, 248 martyrdom and: 41

INDEX mortal: 30, 34, 52, 61, 71, 92, 103, 105 priests and: 2, 22, 53, 81–82, 105, 173, 248 punishment of: 36, 70, 90, 191, 215–16, 237 unpardonable: 93 venial: 29–30, 63 Smradař, Michael see Causis, Michael de Socrates: 202 sola scriptura: 26, 230; see also Bible Solnice, town in Bohemia: 127 songs, major motifs concerning Hus: 135–83 kacíř/kacířství (heretic/heresy): 135, 140, 146, 161, 168, 172, 174, 179 mučedník/mučednictví (martyr/ martyrdom): 137, 141, 143, 149, 154, 156, 157, 158, 166, 168, 169, 170, 177, 180, 181 naděje (hope): 150, 153–54, 158, 161, 165, 169, 170, 176 nevinnost (innocence): 164, 165 paměť/památka (memory): 135, 136–37, 148, 157–58, 170, 176, 183 pravda (truth): 139, 153–55, 157, 164, 170, 174, 177, 179, 180 raduj, radovat, radovánky (rejoicing): 136, 143, 146, 147, 156, 169, 172, 180, 181 reformátor (reformer): 153, 155, 157, 164–65, 168, 172, 174, 178–79, 180–01 svatý (saint/holy): 135, 141, 143, 153, 156, 157, 158, 160, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 174, 176–77 světlo (light): 154, 179, 180 věrný (faithful): 141, 155–56, 158, 159, 166, 168 zákon boží (law of God): 140, 150, 158, 159, 170, 172, 174, 180 songs, popular: 14, 15, 23, 135–83, 248 as historiography: 138, 147–48, 150–54, 161, 162–65, 171, 177 as revisionist history: 139, 160, 176 Bethlehem Chapel and: 155, 159, 160, 171 censured: 135, 141–42, 183 Cristum, regem martirum: 170 Hymna O mistru Janovi Husi (Hymn about Master Jan Hus): 156, 174, 175, 176 Již se raduj, cierkev svatá (Now Rejoice, Holy Church): 143–47, 172

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Mistra pražského, v písmích učeného (The Master of Prague, Learned in the Scriptures): 157–58, 176 O svolánie konstanské (O Council of Constance): 162–65 origins and authorship: 181–82 Pamatujmez radostně tento den (Let Us Remember This Day with Joy): 136, 158, 193 Píseň o arcibiskupu Zbyňkovi (Song about Archbishop Zbyněk): 178–79 propaganda: 147–49 Slýchal-li kto od počátka (If anyone has heard from the beginning): 165 Slyšte všickni, staří i vy, děti (Listen All of You, Young, Old, and Children): 112, 138, 140 Tvórče milý zžel sě tobě (Dear Creator Have Mercy): 172–74, 180 Utěšená milost boží (Delightful Grace of God): 138–39, 158–59, 160, 193, 197 V naději boží Mistr Jan Hus (In Divine Hope, Master Jan Hus): 150, 159, 175–76, 177, 179 Věrní Čechové pána boha chvalme (Faithful Czechs, Let Us Praise the Lord God): 139, 157, 159, 174 Všichni poslůchajte (They All Obey): 171 Zpívajmež všickni vesele (Let Us Sing Together Merrily): 160, 172 Zpívej, jazyk, toho rytěřování (Sing, O Tongue, About the Battle): 155–56 see also Hus, songs about; hymns and hymnody; liturgy Spinka, Matthew: 19, 76 St Thierry, William of, abbot: 224 Stabat Mater: 192 Stephaneschi, Peter degli, cardinal: 99, 111, 119, 133 Šternberk, Zdeněk Konopiště of (lord high burgrave): 190, 196 Strasbourg, Thomas of, Augustinian theologian: 76 Stříbro, Jakoubek, priest and academic: 34, 44, 48, 53, 60–61, 105, 111–12, 117, 131, 160, 173, 187, 190, 196, 206, 208, 214, 220, 224, 226, 229, 235, 240, 245, 248–49, 252 Stříbro, town in Bohemia: 189

290

Stylites, Simon: 61 sub utraque specie see chalice; eucharist; Utraquism superbia see pride Sywort, Johannes, academic: 45 Tábor: 11, 19, 147, 171, 216, 219, 222, 228–29, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244; see also Hussites; Pelhřimov, Mikuláš; Žižka, Jan ten commandments, the: 63, 72, 146; see also Hus, Jan, Výklad desatero theology: 13, 59, 64–65, 76, 77–78, 181–82, 205, 211–45 university faculties of: 10, 14, 26 Thirty Years’ War: 15, 136, 213, 231 Tiem, Wenceslas, dean and indulgence vendor: 14, 32, 45, 121 time, concepts of: 16, 66, 72, 205, 225, 244 Todi, Jacopone da, Franciscan: 192 toleration, religious: 46, 236 Topoľciany, Jurík of, Slovak Hussite priest: 150 torture: 94, 112, 209 Tours, Gregory of: 200 tradition: x, 11, 21, 26, 56, 57, 69, 165, 177, 216, 223–24, 228, 230, 232 transubstantiation see eucharist Trent, George of, bishop: 110 trinity, doctrine of: 76, 207 truth: 6, 11–12, 22, 38, 42, 55, 57–58, 65, 67, 83, 94, 102, 139, 153, 154, 161, 203, 215, 223, 226, 229, 248 Turrecremata, John of, cardinal: 218 Ulm, Hans von, city official: 110 Unity of the Brethren see Jednota bratrská universities: 71, 181, 182, 241 Cologne see Köln Köln: 30 Prague: 4, 14, 76, 113, 132, 136, 195 Vienna see Wien Wien: 45, 124 Ústí, Jan Kaminence of, Hussite: 90 Utraquism: 3, 47, 50, 122, 136, 139, 154, 172, 181, 187–88, 207, 212, 215, 219, 226; see also chalice; eucharist

INDEX Václav IV, king: 2, 11, 31, 95, 115, 131, 138, 141, 179, 240, 241 Václav, Prague bartender: 182 Valle, Fantino de, papal legate: 142 Vechta, Konrad of, archbishop: 3, 121 veneration of images and saints: 141, 197, 213, 223, 250, 252 vernacular culture: 2, 136, 141, 142, 149, 154, 159, 193, 230 violence: 10, 12, 28, 46, 52, 53, 70–71, 88, 111, 115, 116, 129, 131, 156 Volyně, Martin, Hus’s student/assistant: 24, 25, 241 Vyšehrad, castle and fortress of, in Prague: 195 Waldensians: 21, 226 war: x, 12, 15, 33, 38, 50, 53, 136, 156, 192, 207, 213, 218, 222, 231, 233, 239, 241, 243, 244 wealth: 107, 129, 216, 217, 240 Wildungen, Berthold, papal auditor: 119, 133 witchcraft: 90, 199 witnesses: 79, 118, 123, 125, 174, 175, 194–95 women: 11, 24, 25, 35, 59–60, 61, 89, 90, 98, 182, 205, 238, 241; see also Mochov, Anežka Wyclif, John: 28, 49, 52, 65, 75, 76, 77, 96, 111, 140, 143, 146, 161, 167–68, 198, 223, 234, 252 books of, and their condemnation: 100, 116 eucharistic doctrine of: 76 exhumed: 198–99 reputation of: 49, 52, 76, 96, 111, 143, 146, 161, 167–68, 216, 223, 234 see also Constance, Council of; ‘forty-five articles’; Hus, Jan ‘Wyclifite Mass’: 167–68 Zabarella, Francesco, canon lawyer: 26, 49, 118, 125, 126, 133, 207 as ‘pater’: 125 doctrine of the church: 26, 49 involvement in Hus case: 118, 125–26, 133, 207 Zbyněk, Zajíc of Hazmburk, archbishop: 2, 20, 22, 83, 84, 101, 102, 111, 115, 116, 117, 133, 142, 178–80 Zderaz, town in Bohemia: 114, 115

INDEX Železný, Jan, bishop: 14, 121, 186, 187 Želivský, Jan, priest: 147, 162, 213, 214, 228, 240, 241 sermons preached in 1419: 7, 142, 213, 228, 230 Žižka, Jan, military commander: x, 3, 147, 170, 189, 222, 233, 241 ‘the very fine chronicle of ’: 3, 189, 193 see also Hussites; Tábor Zmrzlík, Petr, master of the mint: 240 Znojmo, Oldřich of, priest: 128, 252 Znojmo, Stanislav of, theologian: 14, 48, 89, 102 Žofie, Czech queen: 3, 11, 32, 240 Zubrník, priest: 23 Zvole, Kuneš of, archiepiscopal legate: 114–15

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Europa Sacra All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet E. Burton (2007) Anna Ysabel d’Abrera, The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism: 1484–1515 (2008) Cecilia Hewlett, Rural Communities in Renaissance Tuscany: Religious Identities and Local Loyalties (2009) Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200–1500, ed. by Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin (2010) Communities of Learning: Networks and the Shaping of Intellectual Identity in Europe, 1100-1500, ed. by Constant J. Mews and John N. Crossley (2011) Alison Brown, Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion (2012) Faith’s Boundaries: Laity and Clergy in Early Modern Confraternities, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Adriano Prosperi, and Stefania Pastore (2013) Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual: Studies in Italian Urban Culture, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr., Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, and Fabrizio Ricciardelli (2013)

In Preparation Clare Monagle, Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse: Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences’ and the Development of Theology Adriano Prosperi, The Giving of the Soul: The History of an Infanticide