Hussite
The Hussites were a Christian movement following the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415) that became one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation.
After the Council of Constance put their leader to death on July 6 1415, the Hussites fought a series of wars (1420-1434) for their cause, which was propelled by social issues and strengthened Czech national awareness, as well as religious sentiment.
Among present-day Christians, Hussite traditions are represented in churches which call themselves Moravian or Unity of the Brethren churches, and in the refounded Czechoslovak Hussite Church.
Effect in Bohemia of the Death of Hus
John Hus had been respected scholar and a popular preacher in Czech territory but gotten caught up in the politics of the Western Schism, when three popes viewed for control of the Catholic faithful. He was also a supporter of church reform and an opponent of the selling of papal indulgences, and was also accused by his enemies of being a Wyclifite heretic.
The arrest of Hus in 1414 caused considerable resentment in Czech lands. However the politics of the time left him vulnerable, and he was eventually condemned for heresy at the Council of Constance and burned at the stake in 1415.
When news of his death arrived, disturbances broke out, directed primarily against the clergy, and especially against the monks. Even the archbishop of Prague narrowly escaped from the effects of this popular anger. The treatment of Hus was felt to be a disgrace inflicted upon the whole country, and his death was seen as a criminal act. Supporters of Hus became a potent force and even King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, prompted in part by past conflicts with his half-brother Sigismund, king of Germany, expressed public indignation at the course of events in Constance. His wife openly favored the friends of Hus, and avowed Hussites stood at the head of the Bohemian government. The Hussites soon openly broke with Rome, using a Czech liturgy and allowing the the laity to administer the Eucharist.
The Hussites spread strongly under Wenceslaus, and a league was soon formed by Czech noblemen who pledged themselves to protect the uncensored preaching of the Gospel in all their possessions and estates. They determined to obey the authority of the bishops only when their teaching accorded with the injunctions of the Bible, with the university established as arbiter of any disputed points. The entire Hussite nobility joined the league, as well as some of their supporters. If the king had joined, its resolutions would have received the sanction of the law. He, however, decided the reformers had gone too far and approached the newly formed Roman Catholic League of lords, whose members pledged themselves to support the king and the Roman Church. The prospect of a civil war began to emerge.
Pope Martin V, who when he was still Cardinal Otto of Colonna, had been a bitter opponent of Hus, energetically resumed the battle against Hus' teaching after the enactments of the Council of Constance. For this purpose, the co-operation of King Wenceslaus had to be obtained. In 1418, Sigismund succeeded in winning his brother over to the standpoint of the Council of Constance by pointing out the inevitability of a religious war if the "heretics" in Bohemia found further protection. Hussite political and army leaders were forced to leave the country, and the authority of the priests alone to offer the sacraments was reinstated. These measures caused a general commotion which hastened the death of King Wenceslaus by a paralytic stroke in 1419. His heir was Sigismund.
The Parties of the Bohemian Hussites
The Hussites during the years 1415-1419 formed two parties. The moderate party, who followed Hus more closely, sought to carry reforms while leaving the Catholic hierarchy and liturgical order untouched.
The more radical party identified itself more with the doctrines of John Wyclif, sharing his passionate hatred of the monastic clergy, and his desire to return the Church to its supposed condition during the time of the apostles. This required the removal of the existing hierarchy and the secularization of ecclesiastical possessions. The radicals held that the Bible) is the sole rule and canon for human society, not only in the church, but also in political and civil matters. As early as 1416, the rejected an tradition that they believed had no basis in the Bible, such as the veneration of saints and images, fasts, certain holidays, oaths, intercession for the dead, verbal Confession, indulgences, and the sacraments of Confirmation and the Anointing of the Sick. They admitted laymen and women to the preacher's office and chose their own priests rather than relying on the appointments of bishops. Above all they promoted Wyclif's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, denying transubstantiation, and this is the principal point by which they are distinguished from the moderate party.
Calixtines (Utraquists) and Taborites
The views of the moderate Hussites were widely represented at the university and among the citizens of Prague. They were known as the Prague party, but also Calixtines (Latin calix - chalice) or Utraquists (Latin utraque - "both"), because they emphasized the second article of Prague (see below), and the chalice became their emblem.
The program of the more conservative Hussites is contained in the four articles of Prague, which were agreed upon in July 1420 and promulgated in Latin, Czech, and German. The articles are often summarized as follow:
- Freedom to preach the Word of God.
- Celebration of the Lord's Supper in both kinds (bread and wine to priests and laity alike).
- No secular power for the clergy.
- Punishment for mortal sins.
The radical Hussites had various gathering-places throughout the country and took a both a more violent and a more theologically extreme attitude. Their first armed assault fell on the small town of Ústí, on the river Luznice, south of Prague (today's Sezimovo Ústí). However, as this location did not prove to be defensible, they settled on a hill not far away and founded a new town, which they named Tabor after the biblical mountain of the same name. They were thus called Taborites. Their aim was to destroy the enemies of the law of God and to defend his kingdom, which they expected to come in a short time, by the sword.
In the beginning they observed a strict regime, inflicting the severest punishment not only for murder but also for adultery, perjury, and usury. The Taborites were supported by the Orebites (later called Orphans), an eastern Bohemian sect of the Hussites based in Hradec Králové.
The Hussite Wars
The news of the death of King Wenceslaus in 1419 produced a great commotion among the people of Prague. A revolution swept over the country: churches and monasteries were destroyed, and church property was seized by the Hussite nobility. Sigismund could get possession of his kingdom only by force of arms. Pope Martin V called upon all Christians of the West to take up arms against the Hussites, and there followed 12 years of bloody struggle, known as the Hussite Wars.
The Hussites initially campaigned defensively, but after 1427 they assumed the offensive. Apart from their religious aims, they fought for the national interests of the Czechs. The moderate and radical parties were united in this effort, and they not only repelled the attacks of the army of anti-Hussite crusaders, but crossed the borders into neighboring countries.
One of their opponents was none other than Joan of Arc. On March 23, 1430, she dictated a letter that threatened to lead a crusading army against the Hussites unless they returned to the Catholic faith, but her capture by English and Burgundian troops two months later would keep her from carrying out this threat.
The Council of Basel and Compacta of Prague
Eventually, the opponents of the Hussites found themselves forced to consider terms of peace. They invited a Bohemian embassy to appear at the Council of Basel. The discussions began on January 10, 1432, centering chiefly on the four articles of Prague. No agreement emerged. After repeated negotiations, a Bohemian-Moravian state assembly in Prague accepted the Compacta of Prague on November 30, 1433. The agreement granted communion in both kinds to all who desired it, but with the understanding that Christ was entirely present in each kind, thus rejecting the doctrine of Wyclif and the radical Hussites. Free preaching was granted conditionally: the Church hierarchy had to approve and place priests, and the power of the bishop must be considered. The article which prohibited the secular power of the clergy was not accepted.
The Taborites refused to conform, but the Calixtines united with the Catholics and destroyed the Taborites at the Battle of Lipany on May 30, 1434. From that time forward, the Taborites lost their importance, though the independent Hussite movement would continue in Poland for another five years, until royalist forces defeated the Polish Hussites at the Battle of Grotniki.
The state assembly of Jihlava in 1436 confirmed the Compacta and gave them the decrees the sanction of law. This effectively accomplished the reconciliation of Bohemia with Rome and the Western Church, and at last Sigismund obtained possession of the Bohemian crown. His reactionary measures caused a ferment throughout country, but he died in 1437. The state assembly in Prague rejected Wyclif's doctrine of the Lord's Supper as heresy in 1444. Most of the Taborites now went over to the party of the Utraquists and reconciled with Catholicism. The rest joined the "Brothers of the Law of Christ," the Bohemian Brethren, and the Moravian Church).
Reorganization of the Hussites
The Utraquists had retained hardly anything of the doctrines of Hus except Communion in both kinds, and this, too, would soon be rescinded. In 1462, Pope Pius II declared the Compacta null and void and prohibited communion in both kinds, acknowledging King George of Podebrady only if he would promise an unconditional harmony with the Roman Church. This he refused, but his successor, King Vladislaus II, favored the Catholics and proceeded against the more zealous clergymen of the Calixtines. In 1485, at the Diet of Kutná Hora, an agreement was made between the Roman Catholics and Calixtines which lasted for 31 years. Martin Luther's appearance was hailed by the Utraquist clergy, and Luther himself was astonished to find so many points of agreement between the doctrines of Hus and his own. But not all Utraquists approved of the German Reformation. A schism thus arose among them, and many returned to the Roman doctrine, while other elements had organized the "Unitas Fratrum"" already in 1457.
Under Emperor Maximilian II, the Bohemian state assembly established the Confessio Bohemica, upon which Lutherans, Reformed, and Bohemian Brethren agreed. From that time forward Hussitism as a distinct movement began to die out. After the Battle of White Mountain on November 8, 1620, the Roman Catholic faith was re-established, fundamentally changing the religious conditions of Bohemia and Moravia.
Leaders and members of Unitas Fratrum were forced to choose to either leave the many and varied southeastern principalities of the Holy Roman Empire (mainly Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and parts of Germany and its many states), or to practice their beliefs secretly. As a result, members were forced underground and dispersed across northwestern Europe. The largest remaining communities of the Brethren were located in Lissa in Poland, which had historically strong ties with the Czechs, and in small, isolated groups in Moravia. Some, among them Jan Amos Comenius, fled to western Europe, mainly the Low Countries. A settlement of Hussites in Herrnhut, Germany, in 1727 caused the emergence of the Moravian Church.
Today, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church claims to be the modern successor of the Hussite tradition.
See also
The Hussite Bible, a Hungarian Bible translation named after the Czech-influenced orthography imported by Hungarian followers of Hus.
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bezold, Friedrich von, "König Sigmund und die Reichskriege gegen die Husiten," G. Olms, Hildesheim, 1978, ISBN 3-487-05967-3
- Denis, Ernest, "Huss et la Guerre des Hussites," AMS Press, New York, 1978, ISBN 0-404-16126-X in
- Kaminsky, Howard. "A History of the Hussite Revolution," University of California Press, 1967.
- Mathies, Christiane, "Kurfürstenbund und Königtum in der Zeit der Hussitenkriege: die kurfürstliche Reichspolitik gegen Sigmund im Kraftzentrum Mittelrhein," Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, Mainz, 1978. OCLC 05410832
- Macek, Josef, "Jean Hus et les Traditions Hussites: XVe-XIXe siècles," Plon, Paris, 1973, OCLC 905875
- Ondřej, Brodu, "Traktát mistra Ondřeje z Brodu o původu husitů" (Latin: "Visiones Ioannis, archiepiscopi Pragensis, et earundem explicaciones, alias Tractatus de origine Hussitarum"), Muzem husitského revolučního hnutí, Tábor, 1980, OCLC 28333729
This article includes content derived from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1914, which is in the public domain.
External links
- Hussite Museum, Tabor
- Hussites - God's warriors
- Notes on the Hussite movement and links to primary sources, from Kenyon college
- The Hussite Era, from Radio Prague's History Online feature
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Hussites
- Hussite War-wagons, presenting detailed information about the Hussites' most characteristic tactic, by Matthew Haywood
- Letter to the Hussites dictated by Joan of Arc on March 23, 1430, translated by Allen Williamson.
- Short article on the Hussites, from the University of Calgary's 'The End of Europe's Middle Ages'
- Article on the Tactics of the Hussites
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