Hussites

The Hussites were an early Protestant

Christian movement following Jan Hus.

1. Effect in Bohemia of the Death of Huss

The arrest of Hus had excited

considerable resentment in Bohemia and Moravia.

In both countries the estates appealed

repeatedly and urgently to Sigismund

to deliver Hus. On the arrival of the

news of his death disturbances broke

out which were directed at first against

the clergy, especially against the

monks. Even the archbishop saved himself with

difficulty from the rage of the populace. In the

country places conditions were not much better.

Everywhere the treatment of Hus was felt as a

disgrace inflicted upon the whole country, and his

death was looked upon as a criminal act. King

Wenceslaus, prompted by his grudge against

Sigismund, at first gave free vent to his indignation at

the course of events in Constance; and his wife

openly favored the friends of Hus. Pronounced

Hussites stood at the head of the government. A

league was formed by certain lords who pledged

themselves to protect the free preaching of the

Gospel upon all their possessions and estates, and to

obey the power of the bishops only in case their

orders accorded with the injunctions of the Bible.

In disputed points the decision of the university

should be resorted to. The entire Hussite nobility

joined the league, and if the king had entered it,

its resolutions would have received the sanction of

the law; but he refused, and approached the Roman

Catholic league of lords, which was now formed,

the members pledging themselves to cling to the

king, the Roman Church, and the Council. Signs

of the outbreak of a civil war began to show them

selves. Pope Martin V, who, while still Cardinal

Otto of Colonna, had attacked Huss with relentless

severity, energetically resumed the battle against

Hus's teaching after the enactments of the Council of

Constance. He intended to eradicate completely

the doctrine of Hus. For this purpose the

cooperation of King Wenceslaus had to be obtained. In

1418 Sigismund succeeded in winning his brother

over to the standpoint of the council by pointing

out the inevitableness of a religious war if the

heretics in Bohemia found further protection.

Hussite statesmen and army leaders had to leave

the country, and Roman priests were reinstituted.

These measures caused a general commotion which

hastened the death of Wenceslaus by a paralytic

stroke in 1419. His heir was Sigismund.

2. Two Parties in Bohemia.

Hussism had organized itself during the years

1415-1419. From the beginning two parties were

found: the closer adherents of Huss

clung to his standpoint, leaving the

whole hierarchical and liturgical order

of the Church untouched; the radical

party identified itself more boldly with

the doctrines of John Wyclif, shared his passionate hatred

of the monastic clergy, and, like him, attempted to

lead the Church back to its condition during the

time of the apostles, which necessitated the removal

of the existing hierarchy and the secularization of

ecclesiastical possessions. The radicals among the

Hussites sought to translate their theories into

reality; they preached the sufcientia legis Christi--

only the divine law (i.e., the Bible) is the rule and

canon for man, and that not only in ecclesiastical

matters, but also in political and civil matters.

They rejected therefore, as early as 1416, everything

that has no basis in the Bible, as the adoration of

saints and pictures, fasts, superfluous holidays, the

oath, intercession for the dead, auricular confession,

indulgences, the sacraments of confirmation and

extreme unction, admitted laymen and women to

the preacher's office, chose their own priests. But

before everything they clung to 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.

3. The Four Articles of Prague.

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 the Latin, Czech, and

German languages:

(1) Freedom in preaching;

(2) communion in both kinds;

(3) reduction of the clergy to apostolic poverty;

(4) severe punishment of all open sins.

4. Calixtines or Ultraquists, and Taborites

The views of the moderate Hussites were

represented at the university and among the citizens of

Prague; therefore they were called

the Prague party; they were also

called Calixtines or Utraquists, because

they emphasized the second article,

and the chalice became their emblem.

The radicals had their gathering-place

in the small town of Austie, on the Luschnitz,

south of Prague. But as the place was not

defensible, they founded a city upon a neighboring hill,

which they called Tabor; hence they were called

Taborites. They comprised the essential force of

Hussism. Their aim was to destroy the enemies

of the law of God, and to extend his kingdom by

the sword. For the former purpose they waged

bloody wars, for the second purpose they established

a strict jurisdiction, inflicting the severest

punishment not only upon heinous crimes like murder and

adultery, but also upon faults like perjury and

usury, and tried to apply the conditions required

in the law of God to the social relations of the world.

5. The Hussite Wars.

The news of the death of King Wenceslaus

produced the greatest commotion among the people of

Prague. A revolution swept over the

country; churches and monasteries

were destroyed, and the ecclesiastical

possessions were seized by the Hussite

nobility. Sigismund could get

possession of his kingdom only by the power of arms.

Martin V called upon all Christians of the Occident

to take up arms against the Hussites, and there

followed a twelve-years' war which was carried on

by the Hussites at first 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 and they not only repelled the attacks

of the army of crusaders, but entered the neighboring

countries.

6. The Council of Basel and Compacta of Prague.

At last their opponents were forced to think of an

amicable settlement. A Bohemian embassy was

invited to appear at the Council of Basel. The

discussions began on January 10, 1432, centering chiefly

in the four articles of Prague. No agreement was

arrived at. After repeated negotiations between

Basel and Bohemia, a Bohemian-Moravian state

assembly in Prague accepted the

Compacta of Prague on Nov. 30, 1433.

Communion in both kinds was granted

to all who desired it, but with the

understanding that Christ was

entirely present in each kind. Free

preaching was granted conditionally;

priests must be approved and sent by their

superiors, and the power of the bishop must be considered.

The article which prohibits the secular power of

the clergy was almost reversed. The Taborites

refused to conform, and the Calixtines united with

the Roman Catholics and destroyed the

Taborites in a battle near Lipan (May 30, 1434). From

that time the Taborites lose their importance. The

Compactata were confirmed at the state assembly

of Iglau in 1436 and received the sanction of law.

Thus the reconciliation of Bohemia with Rome and

the Western Church was accomplished, and now

Sigismund first obtained possession of the Bohemian

crown. His reactionary measures caused a ferment

in the whole country, but he died in 1437. Wyclif's

doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which was obnoxious

to the Utraquists, was rejected as heresy at the

state assembly in Prague in 1444. Most of the

Taborites now went over to the party of the

Utraquists; the rest joined the "Brothers of the Law

of Christ" (see UNITY OF THE BRETHREN; also

BOHEMIAN BRETHREN).

7. Final Disappearance of the Hussites

The Utraquists had retained hardly anything of

the doctrines of Huss except communion in both

kinds. In 1462 Pius II. declared the

Compactata null and void, prohibited

communion in both kinds, and

acknowledged George of Podiebrad as

king under the condition that he would

promise an unconditional harmony

with the Roman Church. This he refused, but his

successor, King Vladislaus II., favored the Roman

Catholics and proceeded against some zealous

clergymen of the Calixtines. The troubles of the

Utraquists increased from year to year. In 1485, at the

diet of Kuttenberg, an agreement between the

Roman Catholics and Utraquists was obtained

which lasted for thirty-one years. But it was

considerably later, at the diet of 1512, that the equal

rights of both religions were permanently

established. Luther's appearance was hailed by the

Utraquist clergy, and Martin 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

arose among them, and many returned to the

Roman doctrine, while the better elements had long

before joined the Unitas Fratrum. Under

Maximilian II., the Bohemian state assembly established

the Confessio Bohemica, upon which Lutherans,

Reformed, and Bohemian Brethren agreed. From

that time Hussism began to die out; but it was

completely eradicated only after the battle at the

White Mountain (Nov. 8, 1620) and the Roman

Catholic reaction which fundamentally changed the

ecclesiastical conditions of Bohemia and Moravia.