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Anna, who married King Richard II. Worse still, as far as Church traditionalists were con-
cerned, Hus began to preach in the language of the masses (Czech) against the wealth, cor-
ruption and hierarchical tendencies within the Church at the time. A devout, mild-mannered
manhimself,hebecameembroiledinadisputebetweentheconservativeclergy,ledbyArch-
bishop Zbyněk and backed by the pope, and the Wycliffian Czechs at the university. When
ArchbishopZbyněkgavetheordertoburnthebooksofWycliffe,VáclavbackedHusandhis
followers for political and personal reasons (Hus was, among other things, the confessor to
his wife, Queen Sophie).
There can be little doubt that King Václav used Hus and the Wycliffites to further his own
political cause. He had been deposed as Holy Roman Emperor in 1400 and, as a result, bore
a grudge against the current emperor, Ruprecht of the Palatinate, and his chief backer, Pope
Gregory XII in Rome. His chosen battleground was Prague's university, which was divided
into four “nations” with equal voting rights: the Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, who supported
Václav's enemies, and the Bohemians, who were mostly Wycliffites. In 1409, Václav issued
the
KutnáHoraDecree
,which rigged the voting within the university,giving the Bohemian
“nation” three votes, andthe rest atotal ofone.The other “nations”, whomade upthe major-
ity of the students and teachers, left Prague in protest.
Three years later the alliance between the king and the Wycliffites broke down. Widening
his attacks on the Church, Hus began to preach against the sale of religious indulgences to
fund the inter-papal wars, thus incurring the enmity of Václav, who received a percentage of
thesales.In1412,Husandhisfollowerswereexpelled fromtheuniversity,excommunicated
and banished from Prague, and they spent the next two years as itinerant preachers spreading
their reformist gospel throughout Bohemia (the countryside is peppered with Hus stones and
Hus oaks, places where he said to have addressed the masses). In 1414, Hus was summoned
tothe
CouncilofConstance
toanswerchargesofheresy.Despiteaguaranteeofsafeconduct
from Emperor Sigismund, Hus was condemned to death and, having refused to renounce his
beliefs, was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.
Hus's martyrdom sparked off
widespread riots
in Prague, initially uniting virtually all Bo-
hemians - clergy and laity, peasant and noble (including many of Hus's former opponents)
- against the decision of the council, and, by inference, against the established Church and
itsconservativeclergy.TheHussitesimmediatelysetaboutreformingChurchpractices,most
famously by administering communion
sub utraque specie
(“in both kinds”, bread and wine)
to the laity, as opposed to the established practice of reserving the wine for the clergy.
The Hussite Wars: 1419-34
In 1419, Václav inadvertently provoked further large-scale rioting by endorsing the readmis-
sion of anti-Hussite priests to their parishes. In the ensuing violence, several councillors (in-
cluding the mayor) were thrown to their death from the windows of Prague's
Novoměstská
