Defenestrations of Prague
The Defenestrations of Prague can refer to either of two incidents in the history of Bohemia. The first occurred in 1419 and the second in 1618, although the term "Defenestration of Prague" is more commonly used to refer to the second incident. Both helped to trigger prolonged conflict within Bohemia and beyond. Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.
First Defenestration of Prague
The First Defenestration of Prague involved the killing of seven members of the city council by a crowd of radical Czech Hussites on July 30, 1419. Jan Želivský, a Hussite priest at the Church of Virgin Mary of the Snows (Kostel u Panny Marie Sněžné), led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the New Town Hall (Novoměstská radnice). The council members had refused to exchange their Hussite prisoners, and an anti-Hussite threw a rock at one of the protestors. The enraged crowd stormed the New Town Hall and threw the councilors out of the windows onto the spears of the armed congregation below.
The procession was a result of the growing discontent at the inequality between the peasants and the Church, the Church's prelates, and the nobility. This combined with the rising feelings of nationalism and increased the influence of "radical" preachers like Jan Želivský, who saw the current state of the Catholic Church as a corruption of the Protestant faith. These preachers urged their congregations to action, including taking up arms.
The First Defenestration was thus the turning point between talk and action leading to the prolonged Hussite Wars. The wars broke out shortly afterward and lasted until 1436.
Historical Background
Bohemia at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, during the reign of Václav IV, was mired in a deep social crisis caused by the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church. Religious reformer, philosopher, and Prague University Rector Jan Hus (1370 – 1415) had been executed following his refusal to recant his criticisms of the Church. The only way out was seen in the return to the original mission of the Church – spreading of the idea of God’s Word and life in harmony with Biblical Commandments.
Among Hus’s predecessors were “folk” priests:
- Konrad Waldhauser, invited by King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV—preached in German; with minimal effect on common folks
- Jan Milíč of Kroměříž — Bethlehem Chapel, from which Jan Hus later spread his reform ideas, was built for the purposes of his ministry. He established an “institute for fallen maidens”.
- John Wycliffe – English reformer; denied the Divine origin of papacy, sought abolition of indulgencies, which he considered as a devil’s tool and demanded the Church’s divestment of secular power and assets.
- Jeroným Pražský (Jerome of Prague) — friend and ardent follower of Jan Hus, persecuted for heresy and burned at the stake in Constance, Germany, one year after Hus.
- Jakoubek of Stříbro
Hus initially did not seek secession from the Catholic Church, only its reform. He maintained that Jesus Christ, not the pope, is the head of the Church (the pope was labeled as immoral), and God’s Law, as laid out in the Bible, is the only principle to live by. The Church should be deprived of its political power and property, and the subjects do not have to obey those superiors and priests who live in sin. He insisted on university education in Czech language. His ideas were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heresy, and Hus was burned at the stake.
Since his teachings did not bring about the reformation of the Church but a culmination of societal problems, armed conflict became inevitable. The series of battles that followed came to be called the Hussite Wars. Ideologically, the Hussite revolution was a reaction to the medieveal social crisis in Europe and, at the same time, to the issues that were peculiar to Czechs. Within European reform movements, it represented the second stage of reforms, after John Wycliffe.
Hus’s advocates (Hussites) fought for the abolition of the secular power of the Church and confiscation of its property. They did the Holy Communion in both ways; the chalice became their symbol, for which they were called the Ultraquist (“kališníci” in Czech). The revolutions broke out after their gain control of Prague. Later on, the Hussites split into the moderates, who only defended Hus’s ideas and agreed with equality when it came to Holy Communion (in both ways), not in politics; the start of the Hussite Wars terminated their privileges. The second wing was Praguers, or the ideological center, who were after the privileges for the city only, not the rest of the country. The third wing, radicals, consisted of many fractions held together by an aspiration to institute the Divine Law as soon as possible through the reformation of human relationships.
Jan Želivský
Želivský was a former monk who came to Prague around 1418. Here he congregated with the disciples of M. Jakoubek of Stříbro, whose criticisms of lavishly decorated priestly vestments and a call for simple church services in the Czech language, among others, were the closest to his own. What he lacked in theological education he made up for by his intelligence, creativity, and proclivity to radical vision. In February 1419, he started preaching in the Czech language at the Church of Virgin Mary of the Snows, consolidating Prague’s poor through his sermons on a new, just, society, for which, Želivský urged, they should fight. He quoted the Old Testament heavily during his fiery sermons.
The objects of his criticisms were those who continuously sought to take advantage of things, con artists, and slobs. However, he did recognize the ruling classes when they followed God’s commandments. He hated merchants and craftsmen who harmed their neighbors, which inevitably made him a thorn in the eyes of the wealthy of Prague’s New Town (Nové Město) district and even more so of the wealthier Old Town (Staré Město) district, which was teeming with prosperous merchants. Želivský reinforced the nationalist sentiments by perceiving the Czech nation as the chosen one. Thus, it was only a matter of time when tension would give way to explosion – the First Defenestration of Prague. When the Catholics eventually gained upper hand, his activities were curbed and he was decapitated in 1422.
Second Defenestration of Prague
Historical Background
The Second Defenestration of Prague was an event central to the initiation of the Thirty Years' War in 1618. The Habsburg Dynasty had a hard time getting Czechs to subdue; protests against the centralization of the Habsburg rule and re-Catholicization were plentiful. Emperor Ferdinand I. laid the foundation for the gradual domination of the Czech Lands but his son Maximilian II continued in his footsteps more in the Hungarian and German parts of the Habsburg Empire than in the Czech Lands. He even tolerated the Czech Protestants. Then came Rudolf II, who started off as a strict enforcer of Habsburg interests but later was coerced into granting religious freedom to the Czechs in exchange for aid against his belligerent brother Matthias.
Psal se rok 1611 a Čechám bylo zle. Cizí vojáci si sami vybírali žold celou cestu ku Praze.. Z pohledu stavů se však Matyáš dopustil velké zrady, když prosadil svého nástupce Ferdinanda Štýrského When Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, succeed the aging Emperor Matthias as King of Bohemia in 1617, some members of the Bohemian aristocracy revolted.
Hrozbám Ferdinanda Vytrvali jen málokteří. A byli za to tvrdě potrestáni. J.M. Thurn byl zbaven výnosného úřadu karlštejnského purkrabí. O své funkce okamžitě přišli purkmistr. Navíc současně byli odměněni ti, co zapřeli své přesvědčení, především však katoličtí šlechtici, kteří byli věrnými stoupenci Habsburků. Ferdinand jim rozdal celou svou korunovační daň (80 tisíc kop míšeňských)! Čeští stavové si začínali uvědomovat, že Ferdinand II. (tak byl korunován 1617 českým králem, a následně opět pouze potvrzen v ostatních zemích koruny České) bude nesmlouvavým vládcem, který nebude na Majestát vůbec hledět.
In 1617, Roman Catholic officials ordered the cessation of construction of some Protestant chapels on land which the Catholic clergy claimed belonged to them. Protestants, who claimed that it did not belong to the Catholic Church but to the King, and thus it was available for their use, interpreted this as a violation of the right of freedom of religious expression as granted in the Letter of Majesty issued by Emperor Rudolf II in 1609. They feared that the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand II would revoke the Protestant rights altogether once he assumed the throne.
Hlavními aktéry byli především vůdčí představitelé české stavovské opozice v čele s Jindřichem Matyášem Thurnem a Václavem Budovcem. Sešli se 23. května 1618 krátce po půlnoci na tajné schůzce, aby připravili plán na násilné odstranění nenáviděných místodržících Viléma Slavaty a Jaroslava Bořity z Martinic. Oba místodržící jakoby zapomněli, že patří k české šlechtě a velmi často neváhali přikořenit vídeňskou politiku proti evangelíkům. Přitom se snažili vytěžit ze své oddanosti Vídni co nejvíce pro sebe. Pod panovníkovou ochranou se cítili bezpečně a neuvědomovali si, že se proti nim obrací nenávist tím výrazněji, čím více se rozrůstá konflikt mezi českými stavy a Vídní. Po poradě pokračovalo jednání nyní již početnější skupiny šlechticů na Pražském hradě. Odtud pak rozvášněný dav šlechticů vtrhl mezi 10. a 11. hodinou dopoledne do české dvorské kanceláře. http://old.hrad.cz/kultura/ctvrtlet/ctvrt498.html
At Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants (led by Count Thurn) tried two of the four Imperial governors, Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk and Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice, for violating the Letter of Majesty (Right of Freedom of Religion), found them guilty, and after 3 p.m. threw them out of the 16-meter high windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. The enraged crowd of discontented non-Catholic estates headed by A. J. Smiřický, Count J. M. Thurn, Vilémem Sr. of Lobkovice, O. Vchinský (Kinský), and Linhart Colonna of Fels did not spare even their scribe Filip Fabricius.
Slavata a Martinic se oběťmi povstání nestali rozhodně náhodou. Byli naopak hlavním terčem. Oba byli známi jako fanatičtí katolíci, kteří si nenechali uniknout jedinou příležitost, aby mohli uškodit protestantům. Už při nástupu do funkcí císařských místodržících odmítali principiálně dodržování Majestátu. Navíc díky jejich tichému souhlasu dvěma případům, které byly přímo ukázkovým porušením Majestátu (Uzavření chrámu německých evangelíků v Broumově, rozboření evangelického kostela Hrobu – pozn. aut.) byl svolán sjezd protestantských stavů do pražského Karolina (6.3.1618). Zde Thurn přednesl, že nejde konkrétně o dva již zmíněné případy porušování Majestátu a jeho dodatků, ale o celkové budoucí dodržování svobod.
The councilors landed on a large pile of manure and all survived unharmed; three sandstone obelisks in the Royal Gardens mark the place of their landing. Filip Fabricius was later ennobled by the emperor and granted the title "von Hohenfall". Professor Jaromír Tesař attributes their survival more to the fact that they landed on the steep slope of the trench off which they rolled down the hill. After Fabricius escaped, he departed for Vienna to inform the Emperor on the event.
Roman Catholic Imperial officials claimed that they survived due to the mercy of the benevolent Churmusian angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause. Protestant pamphleteers asserted that their survival had more to do with the horse excrement in which they landed than the benevolent acts of the angels of the Christo Churmusian order.
Execution of 27 Czech Noblemen
Důležitým bodem bylo Ferdinandovo zvolení německým císařem. Od té doby disponoval nejen vlastními a španělskými prostředky, ale také vojskem katolické říšské ligy,. Naproti tomu vzbouřencům se silného spojence najít nepodařilo a tak povstání zůstávalo na úrovni lokálního konfliktu, který Habsburkové po počátečních nezdarech, dokázali postupně potlačit. Českým povstalcům chyběly peníze, Co se ukázalo jako největší chyba, bylo to, že české povstání bylo pouze povstáním privilegovaných vrstev, do něhož nebyly zapojeny lidové masy. Všelidového povstání se ale stavové báli, z vítězství chtěli profitovat sami a ani si nedokázali představit, jak by obrovský dav ukočírovali. Právě kvůli těmto důvodům se české stavovské povstání proti Habsburkům vůbec nezdařilo.
After the Battle of the White Mountain (Bitva na Bílé hoře), when the Protestant Czech estates were defeated, Emperor Ferdinand II, an ardent Catholic and ambitious statesman, decided that it was time to crush Czechs as a warning to other Europen countries that could aspire to the isolated, multi-religious state the Czechs had created.
Five days after the humiliating defeat, over 200 noblemen signed a letter of pardon addressed to the Emperor; however, they were turned down and condemned to death. A total of 33 leaders of the anti-Habsburg uprising were sentenced to execution; 27 sentences were carried out on June 21, 1621.
Mimořádný soudní tribunál zahájil svou činnost v polovině března 1621. Předsedal mu kníže Karel z Lichtenštejna. Paradoxně se jeho zástupcem stal bezmála šedesátiletý Adam z Valdštejna, který se navrátil z emigrace zpět. Mnoho z obviněných bylo jeho přáteli z Rudolfova dvora a mnohým se snažil nyní pomoct. Každý z obžalovaných musel nejprve odpovědět na nekonečných 236 otázek týkajících se defenestrace, volby direktoria, vypovězení jezuitů, sesazení Ferdinanda, přijetí Fridricha Falckého atd.
Stačil krátký proces. Královský prokurátor vznesl 2. dubna 1621 žalobu a 5. dubna už visel rozsudek se jmény emigrantů na šibenicích pražských měst. Všichni byli odsouzeni k smrti. Byli to tito: J.M. Thurn, a čtrnáct měšťanů. Čili 30 osob. Dostavili se všichni s výjimkou nemocných nebo zrovna nepřítomných.
Václav Budovec z Budova(74 let Významně se zasloužil o prosazení Majestátu. dr. Jan Jessenius z Jessenu Rodem Uher, z urozené rytířské rodiny, luterán, doktor medicíny (slavné učení padovské v katolické Itálii, titul z Prahy) a filosofie, veřejný profesor wittenberské university, potom pražské a toho času její rektor, anatom. Ještě na jaře 1620 zastupoval v poselstvu český stát na uherském sněmu v Banské Bystrici. Přemlouval uherské stavy a sedmihradského knížete Gabriela Bethlena, aby Čechům pomohli. Potrestán nejkrutěji. Sťat.
Mistr popravčí měl podle rozsudku za povinnost těla několika předních vůdců povstání, kteří byli odsouzeni ke stětí mečem, jak bylo tehdy zvykem, ještě rozčtvrtit a pak je se svými holomky rozvěsit všem pro výstrahu na šibenicích nebo pranýřích na dnešním Václavském, Karlově, Staroměstském a Malostranském náměstí. Ani to však triumfujícímu vítězi, císaři Ferdinandu II., nestačilo. Všech dvanáct hlav největších provinilců, tří českých pánů, Jáchyma Ondřeje Šlika, Václava Budovce a Kryštofa Haranta z Polžic a Bezdružic, sedmi rytířů a také hlavy dvou měšťanů, právníka Jiřího Hauenschilda z Furstenfeldu a lékaře Jana Jesenského, mělo být veřejně vystaveno. The families of the murdered noblemen saw their property confiscated and redistributed to the Emperor’s adherents. Foreign noblemen and generals started streaming into the country. The German language was put on par with Czech. The Habsburgs were established as heirs of the Czech throne, with Catholic Church the only allowed religion. Thousands of people who refused to convert to Catholicism were forced to leave the country. This was the completion of the transformation of the Czech estate state into one of absolutism. Tresty a hmotné pokuty, které postihly českou šlechtu, šly ruku v ruce s náboženskou perzekucí. http://cr.ic.cz/index.php?clanek=poprava&dir=habsburkove&menu=habsburkove http://www.eskk.cz/ywo/seminarka.htm
Further “defenestrations”
More events of defenestration have occurred in Prague during its history, but they are not usually called defenestrations of Prague.
A defenestration (chronologically the second defenestration of Prague) happened on September 24, 1483, when a violent overthrow of the municipal governments of the Old and New Towns ended with throwing the Old-Town portreeve and the bodies of seven killed aldermen out of the windows of the respective townhalls.
Sometimes, the name the third defenestration of Prague is used, although it has no standard meaning. For example, it has been used [citation needed] to describe the death of Jan Masaryk, who was found under the bathroom window of the building of the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 10, 1948, allegedly murdered by Communists.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
An English translation of part of Slavata's report of the incident is printed in Henry Frederick Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943, issued as volume LIII of Harvard Historical Studies), pp. 344–347.
External links
- Descendants of those defenestrated include Ferdinand II of Portugal, Sophie Chotek, and Johann Josef I, Prince of Liechtenstein.
- Czech Tradition of Defenestration
- http://www.husitstvi.cz/ro43.php
- http://referaty-seminarky.cz/husitstvi-1/
- http://dejepis.info/?t=103
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