Z̆iz̆ka and Hus. Within a walk of the village of Husinec stands the old
town of Prachatice, where the ruins are still shown of the school in
which Z̆iz̆ka and Hus are said to have studied together. However this
may be, there can be no doubt that it was very soon after the death of
Hus that Z̆iz̆ka began to assume that position of leadership among the
extremer Utraquists, which ultimately gained him such fame both among
friends and enemies. This section of Reformers had already discovered
that they did not receive that sympathy from the citizens of Prague
which they believed to be their due. Many of them were compelled to
leave the city; and they gathered together on a mountain near Austi,
to which they gave the name of Tabor, and to which their supporters
gradually flocked from all parts of the kingdom. These gatherings so
alarmed Wenceslaus that they even weakened his hostility to the Council
of Constance; and not only the followers of Nicholaus and Z̆iz̆ka,
but even some of the more moderate Utraquists became objects of his
suspicion.
This change of feeling naturally increased the hopes of Sigismund,
and he became even more sanguine of success, and more bitter against
the followers of Hus, when the Council of Constance elected, under
the name of Pope Martin V., that Cardinal Colonna, who had urged upon
John XXIII. the first proposal for the condemnation of Hus. Under
the influence of this new Pope, all the schemes of reform, which the
Council had once thought of considering, were sacrificed to the one
aim of the suppression of heresy; and in April, 1418, the Pope secured
himself a freer hand by dissolving the Council of Constance.
Urged, then, by pressure from Emperor and Pope, and by his own fear of
Utraquistic excesses, Wenceslaus banished one of the Reformers from
Prague, and recalled the Catholic clergy, who had been expelled from
the city. He discovered, indeed, that Utraquism had taken so deep a
root in Prague that it would be necessary to grant at least three
churches to its preachers. But this concession did not satisfy the more
zealous champions of the cause; and the favour shown by the King to the
Catholics provoked riots among the Reformers. Then Wenceslaus demanded
that the citizens should all give up their arms to him.
Z̆iz̆ka now saw that the controversy with the Catholics must sooner
or later end in war; and he was determined that his followers should
not be unprovided for such a struggle. He therefore resolved to obey
the royal summons, but in a peculiar manner of his own. He gathered
together his followers, led them into the presence of the King, and
assured him that they were ready to stand by him, with life and
property, against his enemies. The unfortunate Wenceslaus felt bound to
thank Z̆iz̆ka and his followers for this loyal declaration; but Z̆iz̆ka
knew well enough that he had thereby forfeited the royal favour. He
therefore quickly retired from Court, and joined Nicholaus of Hus in
organising their followers on Mount Tabor. The alarm of Wenceslaus
was naturally increased by these proceedings; and he began to meet
the opposition by deposing the Town Councillors in the different
divisions of Prague, and thrusting in their opponents. This was a more
arbitrary act of power than he had yet resorted to in this struggle;
and it naturally hastened on the violent crisis which had long been
approaching.
The quarter in which the outbreak finally took place had a peculiar
character of its own, which some historians believe to have affected
the character of the coming struggle. It will be remembered that
Charles IV. had done much, not merely to develop the intellectual
greatness of Prague, but also to increase its physical size. A
completely new suburb had been added during that reign, which was
known as the New Town of Prague. This division of the city was
governed by its own Council, and rapidly assumed a peculiar character.
Charles’s policy attracted many Germans to the city; and, while the
more prominent struggle between the rival “Nations” of the University
had been growing in intensity, it is believed by some that an equally
bitter feeling had been springing up among those Bohemian workmen who
had fallen under the rule of German employers of labour. The historians
who hold this view maintain that the workmen, who desired to escape
from this domination, fled from the older parts of Prague, and found
new possibilities of life and of organisation in the New Town. Whether
this migration can be clearly proved or no, it is certain that, both
at this and later crises, there appears a more democratic and, in some
respects, a more national spirit in the movements which had their rise
in the New Town, than in those of other parts of the city.
It was then, in the church of St. Stephen, in the New Town, that on
the 30th of July, 1419, a fiery preacher named John of Seelau (Zelív)
delivered a sermon in the presence of an excited crowd of the followers
of Z̆iz̆ka. After being worked up by pictures of the coming judgment,
these fiery reformers marched in procession through the streets. As
they passed the Council House, some insult appears to have been offered
them by those who were looking out of the windows; whereupon the
infuriated Utraquists rushed upstairs into the council chamber, and
hurled the newly-elected Councillors from the window, the crowd below
receiving the falling men on the points of their spikes. Then Z̆iz̆ka
and his friends proceeded to seize the town into their hands, elected
four captains for each district, and appointed Councillors in the place
of those who had been killed.
Wenceslaus was furious at this news, and vowed that he would
exterminate all Wyclifites and Hussites. Many of his advisers, however,
were still in sympathy with the principle of Utraquism; and they
persuaded the King to come to terms with the rioters, and to confirm
the election of the new Councillors. The excitement of the controversy
and the humiliation of this confession were too much for the strength
of Wenceslaus. He was seized with a fever; and, in August, 1419, ended
at last his long and tragic reign.
The concessions into which Wenceslaus had been persuaded by his queen
and his nobles, produced less effect on the minds of the citizens of
Prague than the violent threats which had preceded them; and, at the
time of his death, the feeling against him was so fierce that his
friends did not venture to give him a public funeral, but buried him
secretly by night. A still plainer evidence of this feeling was shown
in the renewal of the riots against the monks. Altars, organs, and
images of saints were destroyed; and many of the monks were driven out
of the city.
Several of the nobles who had been hitherto inclined to the Utraquist
cause, were so much alarmed at these excesses that they called upon
Sigismund, as next heir to the throne, to hasten to Bohemia, to restore
order. The messengers found him preparing to start on an expedition
against the Turks; and his German and Hungarian councillors persuaded
him to delay his visit to Bohemia, until he could enter it at the head
of a victorious army. He therefore appointed Wenceslaus’s widow Sophia
as regent in his place; and he chose a council to assist her, of which
the most prominent member was C̆enĕk of Wartenberg.
C̆enĕk was one of those men who will always receive more condemnation
and less pity than are their due. He was evidently a man of some
attractive qualities, and, originally at least, of excellent
intentions. He had taken the lead in the protest against the execution
of Hus; and, if he had shown himself somewhat too tolerant towards
the early excesses of Z̆iz̆ka and his friends, he had at least helped
to preserve Wenceslaus from being driven by those acts into the arms
of Sigismund. But to steer the kingdom through the dangers with which
it was threatened by the fierce intolerance of Sigismund on the one
hand, and of Z̆iz̆ka on the other, required stronger nerve and clearer
purpose than C̆enĕk possessed; and thus his continual changes of party
were effected in a manner which have left a deep stain on his memory.
When the Bohemian Assembly first met to consider the position of
affairs, it seemed as if the moderate Utraquists would be able
to carry the day; for a resolution was passed that the Estates
would only consent to the coronation of Sigismund on the following
conditions: First, that he would permit the Communion in both kinds
to be celebrated in all the churches, and would try to procure the
sanction of the Pope to this practice. Secondly, that he would place
no clergy in temporal authority. Thirdly, that he would not permit the
publication of any Papal Bulls until they had received the approval of
the King’s Council. Fourthly, that he would not appoint any foreigners
to either temporal or spiritual offices, nor set German magistrates
over towns where Bohemians dwelt. Lastly, that the proceedings of the
law-courts should be conducted in the Bohemian language. These were the
principal demands of the nobles; but the citizens of Prague, who were
daily gaining greater influence in the councils of the State, added
certain conditions of their own. These were that Sigismund should grant
an amnesty for the recent disturbances; that he should not permit the
establishment in Prague of any more houses of ill-fame; and that he
should permit the reading of at least the Gospel and Epistle in the
Bohemian language. Such a programme might seem to unite for the moment
all sections of Bohemians who desired peace and independence for their
country; but, when Sigismund replied by putting aside the whole of
these demands, and declaring that he would only promise to govern as
his father had governed before him, the situation was entirely changed.
Strange as it sounds, in speaking of so turbulent a country, it is
none the less true that, till this time, there had been no instance
of a combined national resistance in Bohemia to a King who was the
sole lawful claimant of the throne. There had been plenty of instances
of setting up rival members of the royal family against each other;
attempts by discontented nobles to call in a foreign King or Emperor
to their help; and even something like a provincial insurrection of
Moravia against Bohemia; but that the National Assembly of Bohemia
should formally commit itself to an attempt to exclude from the
country the lawful heir to the throne, who was at once the only living
representative of the House of Luxemburg, and the ruler of the Holy
Roman Empire--this was a step so unprecedented that it may well have
caused hesitation in those who were called upon to take it.
Doubtless this difficulty might have been avoided if Sophia could have
ventured on more independent action. But the Queen, though she had
exercised so useful an influence over her husband during his lifetime,
seems, after his death, to have fallen completely into the background,
and to have taken her cue from Sigismund, or from his principal
advisers.
The result, then, of the deliberations of the Bohemian Assembly was
that the nation was broken up into three parties. These were as
follows: (1) The Catholic Party, which was in favour of complete
submission to Sigismund. (2) The Moderate Utraquist Party which would
have accepted him if he would have granted some amount of religious
liberty. (3) The Extreme Reforming Party, which thoroughly distrusted
Sigismund, and desired to throw off his authority. The first of these
parties found its supporters chiefly in Moravia, and particularly in
the German-speaking districts of that province. By a strange irony
of fortune, its leader was that Wenceslaus of Duba who had stood so
gallantly by Hus at the Council of Constance. But though he, and one or
two others of the party, may have cherished some national aspirations,
they were, as a body, too much out of sympathy with the keen Slavonic
feeling of the country to be reckoned as a Bohemian party at all. The
second party, which gradually acquired the name of Calixtines, from the
importance which they attached to the custom of granting the Cup to the
laity, were really composed of two very different elements. Many of the
great nobles, while theoretically zealous for the Cup, were far more
anxious to maintain that position in the country which largely depended
on the favour of the king; while, on the other hand, learned preachers
like Jakaubek of Kladrau were as zealous for the reforms which they
desired as many of the extremer Utraquists could be, and would have
risked and sacrificed as much to secure them.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE INTO FORTIFIED PART OF TABOR.]
But, though men like Jakaubek of Kladrau had an important part to play
in the coming struggle, it was from the third Bohemian party that there
were to be drawn the most determined fighters, and the most impressive
figures, in the struggle of Bohemia against the German Emperor. This
party had been founded by those fiery spirits who had been banished
from Prague by Wenceslaus; and they derived their name of Taborite
from the mountain which they had made their chief place of refuge
after their expulsion from Prague. So great was the enthusiasm which
they caused that, when Wenceslaus forbade any further visits to Tabor
under penalty of death and confiscation of goods, large numbers of
the peasantry willingly sacrificed all their possessions, and risked
the chance of death, to unite themselves with this chosen band. A
community so formed naturally developed very remarkable qualities; and
a stern Puritanical gloom, combined with the Puritanical nobleness
of aspiration, rapidly showed itself among them. Rich and poor
shared their food with each other; no strife or theft was permitted;
intoxicating liquors were excluded from the mountain; and not only was
gambling forbidden to the elders, but even the children were deprived
of their games. Such is the account given of the Taborites by a
somewhat hostile chronicler, who thus proceeds to describe their manner
of passing the day:
“Having then completed the moderate refreshment of the body, the
priests rise with the people to give thanks to God. They march round
the Mount of Tabor, bearing the venerable Eucharist--the virgins
preceding the Sacrament, and the men and women in their squadrons
following, all shouting and singing psalms as seems convenient. When
this procession is finished, they exchange farewells with their clergy,
not bending to the right or left lest they should trample on the wheat;
and so they come to the place whence they started.” These people,
already prepared for religious enthusiasm by the stern discipline of
such a life as this, were kindled yet further by fiery sermons, founded
chiefly on the visions of the Apocalypse, in which prophecies were
delivered of the speedy coming of Christ, and the reign of the Saints,
which was to be hastened by the putting to death of the enemies of
Christ. They were told that they were to bathe and sanctify their hands
in the blood of their enemies; and that, while they were to imitate the
zeal and indignation of their Master, this was not the time to imitate
His gentleness. All human learning, said the fiercer of the preachers,
was to be treated with contempt; and the taking of degrees at the
University was a vanity.
Nor was it only the training, which they had received from their
preachers, that prepared the Taborites for the part which they were
to play in the coming struggle. Z̆iz̆ka was eminently fitted to be
the hero of a revolutionary party. To a fiery sincerity, and a steady
devotion to that high ideal of life which was implied in the Taborite
creed, he united a genius for leadership and organisation which the
greatest generals might have envied; a statesmanlike instinct for
seizing the right moment and the right course of action; and a savage
ferocity which none of his opponents could surpass.
[Illustration: HOUSE IN TABOR WITH OLD TABORITE COMMUNION TABLE IN
FRONT OF IT.]
But, though this fiery band, and their uncompromising leader, were to
give the tone to the struggle which was fast approaching, one passing
hint was given, before the outbreak of the war, of the presence among
the Bohemians of gentler spirits who would gain a hearing at a later
and more appropriate time. One or more of those Taborites, who had not
imbibed that contempt for learning which had been inculcated by their
wilder preachers, applied to the Masters of the Prague University, to
know whether war on behalf of religion was not forbidden by the command
to Peter to put up his sword into his sheath. Jakaubek answered, on
behalf of his colleagues, that, though a war for the propagation of the
Faith was undoubtedly forbidden to Christians, yet a defensive war for
the protection of the Faith was certainly lawful.
This question, as has been already suggested, has more importance as
a prophecy of future religious developments than as a characteristic
utterance of the period. But the answer has a more immediate
significance, as indicating a policy which was to separate the learned
professors of the University from the more aristocratic section of
the Calixtines. This difference has already been referred to above;
but it requires to be emphasized and developed. In the case of C̆enek
of Wartenberg the difference seems to have been partly due to a sense
of loyalty to the House of Luxemburg, and to a shrinking from some of
the violences in which the Taborites indulged. But C̆enek’s prominent
position in his party was not due solely to his personal qualities
or even to his personal rank. It was also largely derived from the
guardianship which he possessed over the lands of Rosenberg; and this
position must also be considered as colouring the character of his
policy.
Ulric von Rosenberg, like his guardian C̆enek, played a somewhat
questionable and uncertain part in the coming struggle. But the times
and circumstances of his changes of position lead one to attribute to
him somewhat different motives of action from those which influenced
his guardian. He seems to have begun his career as a decided Utraquist;
but his subsequent oppressions of his Utraquist dependents show a
bitterer change of feeling than can be laid to the charge of C̆enek;
while his special opposition to Z̆iz̆ka seems to mark the real ground
of his questionable policy. In mere doctrine he may have had some
sympathy with the reforming movement; but he was soon alarmed by the
democratic character of the Taborite party and of its leader; and the
great power which had been so long wielded by the Rosenbergs, was
thrown, in the main, into the defence of aristocratic privileges and
feudal rights. For the moment, however, the nobles could put forward
the excuse that they were supporting the claims of a Queen, who was
not stained with the blood of Hus, nor committed to an anti-national
policy; and, it was on her behalf that C̆enek now organised a standing
army, and seized into his hands several important fortresses.
Z̆iz̆ka, on his part, felt that no time was to be lost in saving the
cause for which he desired to struggle. So, at the head of a band of
his drilled peasants, he suddenly marched upon the fortress of the
Vys̆ehrad, drove out the royalist garrison, and put his own men in
their place. Then, on the 10th of November, the Taborites set out in
various bands, from the three or four towns which were occupied by
their party; and they marched to Prague, to hold a great meeting
there. The main body met at the town of Zinkov, where they organised
their forces before proceeding on their march. But three hundred men
had started alone from Austi, apparently ill-armed and ill-prepared for
attack. This detached body was met on its way by one of the royalist
nobles; and on the first attack he put to flight the men of Austi with
much slaughter.
The fugitives escaped to Knin, at which point the main body of their
friends had now arrived. Baron von Sternberg, the general of the
royalists, marched thither to meet the advancing Taborites, and
probably hoped to obtain an easy victory. But the sturdy peasants
repelled his attack with such vigour that the royalists were forced to
retreat; and on the 4th of November, 1419, the Taborites entered Prague
without further opposition. The royalist party were at once called to
arms; while, on the other side, Nicholaus of Hus and Z̆iz̆ka marched
into the Small Division of Prague, and, after a fierce struggle, seized
upon the great fortress, which still overlooks the town. The Queen fled
from Prague under the protection of Ulric of Rosenberg. C̆enek in the
meantime gathered new forces on her behalf, and persuaded several towns
to declare for the royalist cause.
[Illustration: FIGURE OF MINER WITH MINING LAMP AND STAFF IN CHURCH OF
ST. BARBARA AT KUTTENBERG (KUTNA HORA).]
[Illustration: KUTNA HORA, OFFICE WHERE THE COINS WERE STRUCK BY THE
ITALIANS BROUGHT TO KUTNA HORA BY WENCESLAUS II.]
Each party was now conscious of the strength of its opponents; and,
under such circumstances, those moderate citizens of Prague who
combined a zeal for freedom with a desire for peace, were able to
hold the balance between the contending parties. So a compromise was
effected, by which the queen and the nobles were pledged to protect
religious liberty and especially Communion in both kinds; while the
citizens, on their part, consented to restore the fortress of Vys̆ehrad
to the Queen, and to abstain from any injuries to churches or images.
Z̆iz̆ka, however, distrusted the Queen’s party, and was discontented
with these terms. So he withdrew with most of his troops to his chief
fortress of Pilsen (Plz̆en).
[Illustration: TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF PILSEN (PLZEN).]
Although the recovery of the Vys̆ehrad was an important gain to the
royalist cause, the great centre of the extreme Catholic feeling was
the town of Kutna Hora. That town, from its importance as a mining
centre, and from the special favour shown to it by the kings, had
become a kind of rival to Prague; and in a time of civil war such
rivalry naturally ripened into active hostility of the fiercest
description. In spite of the occasional fierceness of such outbursts
as that which had produced the slaughter of the Councillors of the
New Town, there had been, till now, little organised cruelty in the
contest between the two parties. Now, however, whether actuated by
municipal rivalry or religious hostility, the men of Kutna Hora began
to inaugurate a system of persecution which was to produce terrible
reprisals. They seized upon all the Utraquists whom they could find,
and even paid other towns so much a head to send them victims. Some
of these they buried alive in pits; some they burnt, and some they
beheaded; so that in a short time more than sixteen hundred had been
put to death.
In the meantime Sigismund had returned from Hungary to Moravia; and in
Christmas, 1419, he and Queen Sophia held a meeting at Brünn (Brno).
The citizens of Prague sent a deputation to this assembly to entreat
for terms of peace. Sigismund ordered them at once to pull down all the
chains which they had placed across the streets; to destroy all their
new fortifications; and to bring back the Catholic priests who had been
driven out. The citizens were so anxious to avoid a collision with
Sigismund that they consented to these terms; and they destroyed their
fortifications amid the jeers of the Catholics and Germans.
Z̆iz̆ka now fully realised the impossibility of any compromise, and
he prepared for a desperate struggle. His first intention had been to
make the town of Pilsen the centre of his operations. From that town he
had succeeded in driving out all the Catholics; and its fortifications
were so strong that he hoped to make it good against all comers. But
the growing strength of the fortress of Tabor led him to change his
opinion; and he decided to withdraw from Pilsen, and to concentrate
the whole force of his followers on the mountain from which they
took their name. According to one account, the divisions in Pilsen
itself were the main cause of this decision. Certainly some special
explanation is needed of a step which proved, in one way, so disastrous
to the reforming cause; for, during all the victories gained by the
Utraquists, they were never able to recover this important fortress
again.