Hussites

Background

In the early fifteenth century in Bohemia (today the western Czech Republic), the Prague preacher Jan Hus criticized the corruption of the church and the secular power of the clergy and called for reform. In 1415 Hus was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constance and burned at the stake. Rather than ending the movement, his death united those who had followed him, and they came to be called Hussites. Alongside its religious demands, the movement was bound up with Czech national consciousness and social issues.

Development

The Hussites divided into two main branches. The moderates were centered on the University of Prague and the urban burghers. Because they emphasized the cup in Communion, they were called "Utraquists" or "Calixtines," and they adopted the chalice as their symbol. The radicals were known as "Taborites," after their stronghold town south of Prague, and included many peasants and members of the lower classes.

• 1419: On July 30, a Hussite crowd in Prague threw members of the town council out of a window (the First Defenestration of Prague). That same year King Wenceslaus IV died, and his half-brother Sigismund, who was hostile to the Hussites, became heir to the throne.
• 1420: Pope Martin V proclaimed a crusade against the Hussites. In July the Hussites issued a common program, the "Four Articles of Prague." These called for freedom of preaching; a Communion in which the laity also receive both the bread and the cup (Communion under both kinds); the poverty of the clergy and the confiscation of church property; and the punishment of public sins regardless of social rank.
• 1420s: The Hussites repelled several crusades. After their commander Jan Žižka died of plague in 1424, Prokop the Great took over command and won the Battle of Aussig in 1426.
• 1432–1433: The Council of Basel negotiated with a Hussite delegation. In November 1433 the Diet of Bohemia and Moravia, meeting in Prague, accepted a draft agreement permitting Communion under both kinds.
• 1434: The moderates and Catholic forces jointly attacked the Taborites, who had rejected the draft agreement, and crushed them at the Battle of Lipany on May 30.
• 1436: On July 5 the Compacts of Basel were ratified at Jihlava, effectively ending the wars.

Outcomes and Influence

Under the Compacts of Basel, the Utraquists were granted Communion under both kinds and worship in the Czech language. The confiscations of church lands carried out during the wars were also allowed to stand, and the Utraquists gained a church of their own, with Jan Rokycana elected as archbishop. The papacy, however, later refused to recognize the Compacts. Despite division and persecution, the Utraquist church survived until around 1620.

In 1457 a group within the Hussite tradition established a separate community, the "Unity of the Brethren" (Jednota bratrská), at Kunvald in Bohemia. It was led by Brother Gregory and was influenced by the teaching of the thinker Petr Chelčický, who condemned violence as contrary to Christianity. This community, commonly called the Bohemian Brethren, was strictly speaking not the Hussite movement as a whole but one branch that emerged from its tradition, and the later Moravian Brethren carry on that line. The Hussites' demands for reform are also regarded as having influenced sixteenth-century leaders of the Reformation such as Martin Luther.

Assessment

• Catholicism: The Council of Constance and the papacy judged the teachings of Hus and the Hussites to be heretical. The Council of Basel, however, negotiated with the Hussites on an equal footing and reached a compromise with the moderates.
• Protestantism: Because they championed freedom of preaching and lay participation in Communion, the Hussites are regarded, together with John Wycliffe, as forerunners of the Reformation. Most Korean Protestant churches today give both the bread and the cup to the laity in the Lord's Supper; this was a central Hussite demand.
• Czech national history: The Hussite movement is closely tied to Czech national consciousness. Some regard the Battle of Lipany, in which Hussites fought one another, as one of the most tragic events in Czech history.
• Criticism: It has been noted that the reform movement escalated into prolonged warfare that took many lives and devastated the land. Chelčický, a contemporary, also criticized this violence.