Jan Hus

Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia

Thomas A. Fudge

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786729842
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

A century before Martin Luther and the Reformation, Jan Hus confronted the official Church and helped to change the face of medieval Europe. A key figure in the history of Europe and Christianity and a catalyst for religious reform and social revolution, Jan Hus was poised between tradition and innovation. Taking a stand against the perceived corruption of the Church, his continued defiance led to his excommunication and he was ultimately burned at the stake in 1415. What role did he play in shaping Medieval Europe? And what is his legacy for today? In this important and timely book Thomas A. Fudge explores Jan Hus, the man, his work and his legacy. Beginning his career at Prague University, this brilliant Bohemian preacher was soon catapulted by virtue of his radical and popular theology to the forefront of European affairs. This book fills a real gap in contemporary understanding of the medieval Church and offers an accessible and authoritative account of a most significant individual and his role in history. Jan Hus belongs to the pantheon of extraordinary figures from medieval religious history. His story is one of triumph and tragedy in a time of chaos and change.

1

BIOGRAPHY

On a Saturday morning, 6 July 1415, a group of seven bishops gathered around a kneeling man dressed in clerical vestments in the cathedral in the south German city of Constance. They denounced him as a ‘cursed Judas’ and removed his clothes. After an argument they disfigured his hair with a pair of scissors. In solemn tones they collectively committed his soul to hell. Shortly thereafter the condemned man was led out of the city and burned alive before several thousand onlookers. The man chained to the stake on a woodpile, wearing a miter-shaped crown featuring demons, was a native Czech, the Bohemian priest Jan Hus from Prague. The events of that Saturday morning brought to an end a meteoric career and secured Hus’ place in history. The Hus of history can be divided into four general categories with obvious overlap: Hus the scholar (1390–1402), Hus the pastor (1402–1412), Hus the exile (1412–1414) and Hus the accused heretic (1414–15).

Little is known of his early life. In the absence of parish registers, we can only surmise his birth around 1372. This estimation is based upon his probable age at the time of ordination in 1401. The biographical details of Hus’ life have been told sufficiently and in detail elsewhere.¹ Only a brief overview is necessary here in order to provide a basic outline of his life. Jan Hus came from the small village of Husinec in southern Bohemia. His father’s name was Michael and we know nothing of his life. Hus’ mother’s name has not survived. Hus had one brother who died before he did and we know that Hus took responsibility for his young nephews for whom he expressed concern while incarcerated awaiting death at Constance.² The ruler of the country, King Charles IV, died in 1378. His death opened the door for significant changes on practically every level in Bohemia. Those changes included the career of Jan Hus. Around 1385 Hus ostensibly left Husinec to attend school in Prachatice, a town five kilometers south.³ Since there is no evidence of a school in Prachatice before the sixteenth century it is necessary to question the validity of the claim. Almost nothing is known for certain about Hus’ life or activities before he came to Prague. The stories which have come down to us are of later origin and are almost certainly hagiography rather than history. As such they are useless for understanding the historical Hus. Only rarely do we find comments or clues in the corpus of Hus’ writings which shed any light on his early years. He referred to his mother once or twice and revealed that she taught him how to pray.⁴ He spoke with regret of his youthful participation in the popular but sometimes scandalous Feast of the Ass.

What manifest outrage they perpetrate in the church by wearing masks. In my youthfulness I also was once to my shame a masquerader! Who could possibly depict everything that transpired in Prague? Having designated a cleric, dressed in monstrous attire, as bishop, they cause him to sit backwards on an ass with his face turned towards the tail. Then they take him into the church to Mass. They carry a plate of broth in front of him, and a jug or can of beer, and he eats in the church. I saw how the ass incenses the altars and, raising one leg, calls out in a loud voice Boo and the priests carry before him large torches instead of candles. He rides from one altar to another altar, incensing as he goes. And I observed how the priests turned their fur-lined vestments inside out and danced in the church. All the people watch this and laugh, thinking that all of this is holy and proper, since it appears in their rubric and in their statutes. Nice statutes alright! What undisciplined abomination! . . . When I was still young both in years and in reason I also adhered to this crazy rubric. But when the Lord God helped me understand the Scriptures I eliminated such notions and the statutes of delusion from my weak intellect.⁵

For a long time the Latin Church unsuccessfully tried to eradicate the observance of such traditions and feasts but as late as 1435 we find the Council of Basel condemning these practices.⁶ Archbishop Jan of Jenštejn had forbidden the Feast of the Ass as early as 1386 in Prague but clearly the practice continued.

Around 1390 Hus left south Bohemia and went to Prague to study at the university. He later wrote of his proclivity for playing chess and how badly he felt over the amount of time wasted on the game and the quarrels it caused. Hus also bemoaned his early and inordinate devotion to entertainment and frivolity.⁷ These reflections of selfcondemnation reveal a man of considerable austerity. The absence of any charges against his character even by his most vociferous enemies associated with Michael de Causis leads to the conclusion that Hus’s greatest moral failing consisted in playing chess to excess and taking occasional delight in aspects of the medieval carnival. He wrote dismissively of the courtly and popular culture of singing, music, dancing and games.⁸ In this severity of personal deportment, Hus was not unlike others in Prague before him, namely Konrad Waldhauser and especially Jan Milíč of Kroměříž. Hus’ personal life might be considered compatible with the tradition of Christian asceticism which characterized aspects of Latin Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. In a statement made late in life, Hus lamented his service to God had been characterized by numerous shortcomings.⁹

We know little of the details of Hus’ student days in Prague save that he, like many medieval university students, suffered the ravages of poverty. Hus wrote of how he made a spoon out of bread in order to eat his peas and once he consumed the peas he ate the spoon too.¹⁰ It is quite impossible to say with any degree of certainty just when the young Jan Hus decided for a career in the church. That decision was not extraordinary. After all, the medieval Latin Church was a major employer by the end of the Middle Ages and opportunities for advancement, power, prestige and the assurance of eternal salvation were not unattractive enticements for many. That Hus did not elect to pursue the priesthood from purely pious motives can be determined from his own words. ‘Whoever wishes to live well should enter the monk’s cell.’ Hus admitted he decided on the religious life for unspiritual reasons. He chose the priesthood and desired to advance as quickly as possible in order to secure a reasonable standard of living, be able to dress well and thereby earn the respect of others.¹¹ Later, Hus repudiated such motivations and castigated relentlessly wicked priests who put carnal desires ahead of the cure of souls. By 1393 Hus managed to secure a Bachelor’s degree. He was placed sixth out of twenty-two graduands presented that year. This is the first confirmed date in the life of Hus. On the occasion Hus heard the customary speech from his promoter Jan of Mýto who based his address on the comment made by Aristotle that through hardship one comes to a sense of well-being. The formal address commended Hus for his hard work which enabled him to gain knowledge and understanding but apparently at the expense of his health. Jan of Mýto alluded to an unspecified illness brought on by the intensity of constant study. We also find an early reference to the various puns on Hus’ name which even Hus himself later employed. Hus, meaning goose in Czech, possessed wings that Jan of Mýto claimed would lift Hus to higher places.¹² In 1393 neither man could possibly see twenty years into the future.

In the same year he attained his university qualification, Hus came into contact with a practice which later served to propel him into revolt against the church and into conflict with religious authority. During the jubilee of 1393 Hus heard the Cistercian preacher Jan Štěkna expound forcefully on the subject of indulgences at Vyšehrad, the castle-fortress situated on the right bank of the Vltava River just south of Prague’s New Town. Inasmuch as indulgences represented the remission of all or part of the debt of temporal punishment owned to God due to sin after the guilt has been forgiven, the practice of buying a certificate of indulgence had become a normal religious practice. Since the indulgence generally extended only for a particular time period it became necessary to buy another once the previous one expired. Part of the economic stability of the later medieval Church depended upon the preaching and sale of indulgences. Hus was so taken by the persuasive rhetoric of the proclamations of Jan Štěkna that he spent all of his last coins to purchase an indulgence at Vyšehrad.¹³ A few years later, the sale of indulgences turned violent in Prague. Blood ran in the streets. Jan Hus found himself caught up in the disturbances. On that occasion he took a staunch position against the practice. That posture had not always been his preferred stance. But in 1393 he remained a firm believer in the merits of the indulgence. He seemed prepared to be penniless and live a life of utter poverty so long as he possessed the assurance of the forgiveness of sins.

Three years later Hus proceeded to the M.A. having been examined on this occasion by the important university master Stanislav of Znojmo. This man later played an important role in religious affairs in Prague, first as a supporter of Hus and later in opposition. By 1398 Hus became a full-fledged faculty member of the university. He taught full time from 1396 and the two year period was consistent with university rules before a scholar could be considered a regular faculty member. Curiously and regrettably none of his lectures in the arts faculty are extant. During his tenure as an academic, Hus presided over the elevations of twenty-three students.¹⁴ The requirements and rigor for one achieving a doctorate in the later Middle Ages were onerous. Hus did not obtain that ultimate academic qualification mainly because his career took a significant and permanent detour early in 1402.

Hus had determined to seek a place within the medieval church. On a date which has not been recorded, but likely in 1401, Hus received ordination and took up holy orders. His early preaching occurred at St. Michael’s in the Old Town but also in other parish churches around the city. On 14 March 1402, Hus was appointed preacher in Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town, a private chapel established in 1391. Thereafter he styled himself as the ‘rector and preacher in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem in the old and great city of Prague.’¹⁵ Indeed, apart from his fiery death at Constance more than thirteen years later, Jan Hus remained indissolubly linked forever with Bethlehem Chapel. Here his career reached a city-wide reputation, later transcended local significance, and came to a place of prominence on a European platform. Hus achieved his goal of ordination to the priesthood, with an acceptable standard of living and the respect of his peers and the people of Prague. He admitted he was initially reluctant to speak out against evil and irregularities which he observed tolerated and unchecked among the religious of his day.¹⁶ Soon, however, he became the vigorous correcter of the religious. The world of Hus can only be appreciated with an understanding of his career as a committed preacher in Bethlehem Chapel and with his principal identification as a priest. The life of Hus reveals a number of functions or categories into which he may be placed. All of these must be subordinated to his main work which had to do with the proclamation of the gospel and the cure of souls.¹⁷

Even though he became preacher at Bethlehem Chapel, Hus continued with academic affairs. From 1404 to 1406 he lectured and wrote commentaries on several of the smaller epistles in the New Testament, namely James, I and II Peter, I, II, and III John and Jude. Likewise he devoted considerable attention to Psalms 109–118.¹⁸ A careful consideration of these works leads to an unavoidable conclusion that Hus followed in the native Czech preaching and reform tradition established a generation before he arrived in Prague. This charismatic spirituality can neither be accurately described as a preparation for Hus nor in any meaningful sense as ‘pre-Hussite’. That said, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in these commentaries Hus was familiar with the religious and spiritual impulses already established in Prague. It is not misleading in that sense to see Hus as a disciple of Milíč and Matěj of Janov. After all it is impossible to assign a tabula rase – blank mind – to Hus. Between 1407 and 1409

Hus delivered an important series of lectures on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the standard medieval theological textbook. The significance of Hus’ theological acumen can best be gauged from this commentary.

The fourteen and fifteenth centuries cannot be regarded as a time of intellectual stagnation and from a religious history standpoint there is much of value and vibrancy in the history of ideas. One of the more contentious intellectual developments was that connected to the thought of the Oxford professor, John Wyclif. From 1403 Wyclif’s ideas gained currency and controversy in Prague. Hus became embroiled in a long-standing dispute over Wyclif; a debate which proved fatal for him at the Council of Constance in 1415. The political, theological, social and economic implications of Wyclif’s thought garnered considerable attention. It is clear that no where else in Europe did Wyclif make as strong an impact as in Bohemia. Rightly or wrongly, Hus came to be styled as a disciple of Wyclif and up until 1420 his followers were frequently labeled ‘Wyclifites’. In addition to the influence of Wyclif, it is clear that Waldensian heresy penetrated Bohemia by the early fourteenth century. Hus denied any dependence upon Waldensian thought. However, the Waldensian world cannot be excluded from the foundations of religious belief and practice in Bohemia after 1360.

Crucial to Hus’ career and also for the religious life of early fifteenth-century Prague was the election of a new archbishop in 1402, eight months after Hus’ appointment as preacher in Bethlehem Chapel. Consistent with the medieval practice of simony, Archbishop Zbyněk bought the appointment for the sum of 2,800 gulden and had the backing of royalists loyal to King Václav IV. This man Zbyněk has been unfairly pilloried by the Hussite tradition to the extent of suggesting he knew nothing of theology and could not even read. There is no basis for these accusations. He had been prior of a religious house in Mělník which included a canonry in Prague, though the degree of absenteeism among clerics in late medieval Europe meant he may have done absolutely nothing as the holder of these appointments. Moreover, his career to date had been largely military. Whatever his merits, Zbyněk was unsuited for the archbishopric of Prague. Initially, Zbyněk favored Jan Hus and the direction of religious reform and practice in the capital. Later he developed an animus against Hus and actively interfered in religious affairs. Much of this had to do with the infusion and popularity of Wyclif, the debate over indulgences, and the politics of the papal schism. Nevertheless, Zbyněk clearly sided with the reform-motivated caucus in Prague up until 1408.

In addition to his academic work, preaching in Bethlehem Chapel, prominence within the Prague synod, and reform activities, we catch glimpses of Hus’ pastoral work. During the spring of 1403 the episcopal warrior Zbyněk was commissioned by the king to help bring to justice a robber bandit named Jan Zúl of Ostředek. The archbishop succeeded in capturing the fugitive who was hanged together with his men. At the gallows Hus accompanied the condemned man to his execution and evidently succeeded in bringing the criminal to repentance. A contemporary chronicle recorded Zúl asking the people gathered to pray to God for his soul.¹⁹ This incident shows Hus the pastor actively engaged in the work of ministry. A few years later Hus set down a brief exposition of the duties of a priest. He included five in number: preaching the gospel, prayer, the ministry of the sacraments, study of the scriptures, and setting the example of good works.²⁰ His career admirably reflected all five.

By the fifteenth century, popular piety and religious devotion in Central Europe had embraced the power of pilgrimage and a cultural appropriation of the eucharist came to dominate popular imagination. A veritable cult of the sacrament emerged. The emphasis shifted to the body of Christ. This was evident in the striking social observance of the feast of Corpus Christi manifested in various places throughout Europe. The host carried publicly in a monstrance, bleeding hosts, holy blood, and the popular perception that the body and blood of Christ could effect social change, informed religious practice and suggested a new sense of religious devotion. Shrines devoted to the holy blood and bleeding hosts began to capture popular imagination in the later fourteenth century. When Archbishop Zbyněk decided to look into the cult at Wilsnack in Brandenburg in 1405 he appointed Hus to act on the investigating committee. Clearly, at that time Hus was a favorite of the archbishop. This assumption can further be strengthened with the appointment of Hus as synodal preacher in 1405 and 1407.

Somewhere in the period between 1406 and 1412 Hus undertook a significant revision of the Czech language. De orthographia bohemica is an anonymous undated Latin manuscript sett...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps and Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Biography
• 2. Prague
• 3. Theology
• 4. Proclamation
• 5. Spirituality
• 6. Politics
• 7. Trial
• 8. Revolution
• 9. Commemoration
• 10. Iconography
• 11. Historiography
• 12. Rehabilitation
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Select Bibliography