PREFACE
It is impossible when studying the events connected with the life of Hus not to devote great attention to the lengthy wars in Bohemia and the neighbouring countries that were the inevitable result of his unjust condemnation, and not to realise how great the influence of these wars on the development of Europe was. It is certainly due to the military genius of Žižka and the other Hussite leaders that Hussite teaching and Hussite thought long prevailed in Bohemia and largely influenced the neighbouring countries. Had the Bohemians been defeated in the battles of the Žižkov and the Vyšehrad, their doctrines would have been immediately suppressed, and Hus would have appeared in history as an isolated enthusiast, such as Savonarola.
Yet the history of the Hussite wars is, I think, little known in England. The late Bishop Creighton, in his History of the Papacy, gives an admirable outline of the Hussite movement, but he stated that he did not intend to attempt a detailed account of the Hussite wars. In Bohemia itself no reliable account of this great struggle existed before the days of Palacký. For political reasons, into which I do not wish to enter, the Austrian Government which, after the year 1620, obtained absolute control over Bohemia, wished to obliterate in that country all recollections of the time when Bohemia had played a great part in European politics, and successfully repulsed the attacks of countless invading armies. It is from this period that date many of the fables that have long taken the place of historical facts in the records of Bohemia, though it must be admitted that the Historia Bohemica of Æneas Sylvius is responsible for the descriptions of Žižka and Prokop as wizards or magicians, and for foolish tales such as that concerning Žižka’s drum.
In this respect Palacký’s monumental history of Bohemia produced a complete change. He was the first to collect in the archives of Bohemia and other countries authentic evidence on the period of the Hussite wars. With an amount of courage which English readers can, perhaps, hardly realise, Palacký published an impartial and authentic account of the Hussite wars, regardless of the relentless molestation and persecution which befell him, as having ventured to judge unfavourably the policy of the papal see with regard to Bohemia.[1] Since the time of Palacký, the late Professor Tomek and many others, whom I shall mention presently as authors of works which I have used, have written freely and independently on the great Bohemian civil war.
While this great civil war has thus comparatively attracted but little the attention of historians, and those who have written of it have very frequently misrepresented both the motives and the events of the struggle, the Bohemian people, since it has been allowed to study the annals of its country, has been deeply interested in the Hussite wars. This feeling has been so eloquently described by the Bohemian historian Gindely, that I cannot do better than quote his words. “The Hussite battles,” he writes, “were fought for a national cause; poets and painters have chosen them as their subject; the most stirring popular songs date from that time; the names of the leaders of this movement still linger in the memory of the people; the name of no Bohemian king is as familiar to them as that of the blind leader of the Hussite armies. The violent destruction of the national constitution by Ferdinand II, the sufferings which the country endured during the Austrian war of succession at the hand of Prussians, Bavarians, and Frenchmen, events that occurred but one or two centuries ago are forgotten. On all these occasions the peasant was a mere sufferer; he was deprived of his religious creed, or of his worldly goods, but he never defended himself. In the Hussite wars he had himself been a fighter; he had been a victorious warrior, and his flail and fighting-club had successfully beaten back the enemies of his country and his faith.”
It is necessary to refer briefly to the principal sources on which the historian of the Hussite wars has to rely. I will first mention the collections of contemporary chronicles published by Palacký in the third volume of the Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum. These chronicles, written in the Bohemian language, are the work of various writers. The manuscripts were afterwards collected and first published in the nineteenth century.
Of other contemporary writers Lawrence of Březova, author of a Latin work, de gestis et variis accidentibus regni Bohemiæ, is the only one who can be considered as a historian. He writes as a moderate Hussite or “Calixtine,” equally opposed to the tyranny of Rome and to the fanaticism of the advanced Táborites. If we make due allowance for the personal sympathies and views of Březova, his chronicle is very valuable, and he may be considered as almost the only genuine contemporary historian of the Hussite wars.[2] I have here largely used the contents of his work. It is deeply to be regretted that Březova’s chronicle breaks off suddenly in the middle of his record of the year 1421. Professor Goll has edited, together with Březova’s chronicle, two other contemporary chronicles, that of the university of Prague—a not very valuable compilation—and that of Bartošek of Drahonic. Bartošek was a knight in the service of King Sigismund during the Hussite wars. He writes as a soldier, little interested in theological discussions; but with regard to the details of warfare—so sadly neglected by the other writers of the time—his work is most valuable. A large collection of mostly contemporary records was published by Professor Höfler under the title of Geschichtsschreiber der hussitischen Bewegung in Böhmen. This collection was published under the auspices of the Government of Vienna, and Professor Höfler did not limit himself to the editing of these ancient records, but violently attacked in his commentary the leaders of the Hussite movement.[3] His collection, however, contains some very valuable documents that were previously almost unknown. Of these the Chronicle of Canon Andrew of Regensburg (“Andreas presbyter Ratisponensis”), written from a thoroughly German and anti-Hussite point of view, and the Chronicon continens causam sacerdotum Taboriensium, by the Táborite priest, Nicholas of Pelhřimov, one of the few writings by Táborite divines which have been preserved, require special mention. I have, in my notes to this work, referred to other writers contained in Professor Höfler's collection. Another chronicler who, like Andrew of Regensburg, writes with a strong Roman and anti-Hussite bias, was the Professor of Theology at the University of Vienna, Thomas Eschendorfer of Haselbach, who took part in the negotiations at Basel which preceded the agreement known as the “compacts.” His chronicle is printed in the second volume of Pez, Scriptores rerum Austria carum. I mention last the work of a contemporary writer which has been more largely quoted by later writers on the Hussite wars than all others, and has up to lately been the foundation of all accounts of the Bohemian religious warfare. I refer to the Historia Bohemica of Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II. Æneas Sylvius had as a young man been present at the arrival of the Bohemian ambassadors at Basel, and he was on terms of friendship with Cardinal Cesarini. That the tendency of his work should be strongly hostile to the Calixtine or Utraquist cause was, no doubt, inevitable, but Æneas often attacks his enemies in a distinctly unfair manner. Thus he lays great stress on the appearance of the Adamite fanatics in Bohemia, though they had no connection whatever with the Hussite movement, entered Bohemia as strangers, and were almost immediately extirpated by the Hussite general, Žižka.[4] Žižka himself and the Bohemian nobles are described as savages whom Providence permitted to obtain victories to punish the sins of the Christian world. I have already alluded to the repulsive and untruthful description of Žižka’s death. The value of Æneas Sylvius’s book is also lessened by the humanistic manner of the author, who is always endeavouring to imitate the historians of Greece and Rome. He always strives to adorn and enliven his narrative by often quite unauthenticated anecdotes, and he follows the classics in introducing imaginary speeches, which the modern student of Bohemian history knows to be quite out of harmony with the character of the supposed speaker.
The period of the German reformation again shows a slight revival of interest in the Hussite movement, which, after the “compacts” and the restoration of King Sigismund, had for a time attracted but little attention. Founding their view on Luther’s words, the early German Church reformers glorified the Hussites, whom they considered as their predecessors. The German writers of this time, however, attributed all the success which the Bohemians for a time obtained to the extreme Táborite fanatics, and quite ignored the merits of the conservative Hussite party—consisting mainly of the lords sub-Utraque and the citizens of the old town of Prague—which, under more favourable circumstances, would, perhaps, have established a national church and a national kingdom in Bohemia. We find the same tendency also in the work of Zacharias Theobaldus, entitled Hussitenkrieg, which belongs to the seventeenth century. After the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, and the suppression of Protestantism and the national constitution of Bohemia, all literary activity in that country ceased, and the Bohemians were prevented from obtaining any information on the history of their country. They were even forbidden to read the Historia Bohemica of Pope Pius II. Late in the eighteenth century Pubička’s Chronologische Geschichte von Böhmen was published. Though the period of the Hussite wars is, as was then necessary, treated with great caution, yet it is not without value, and includes some interesting documents.
In the nineteenth century the monumental historical work of Palacký[5] appeared, to which I have already referred. It threw an entirely new light on the history of the Bohemian revolution. Palacký proved that the Hussites were not, as had been believed, brutal and fanatical savages, but Christians, very zealous for their religion, disgusted by the corruption of the period, and anxious to return to the simplicity and fervour of the primitive church. Besides his great historical work and numerous minor works, Palacký also published two very valuable collections of documents referring to the life of Hus and the period of the Hussite wars. The volume, entitled Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hussitenkriege, is invaluable for all who wish to study the story of the great Bohemian rising. Of the works on the Hussite wars published after Palacký’s history the most valuable are those by the late Professor Tomek. His great work, the History of the Town of Prague, becomes, during the period of the Hussite wars, in which the “Praguers” played so great a part, a complete record of all the battles and negotiations that took place in Bohemia at that time. We are also indebted to Professor Tomek for a most interesting biography of Žižka, the first record of the great warrior that has any historical value at the present time. Though we, of course, do not find here the grotesque fables concerning Žižka which circulated at the time when independent study of the Hussite wars was prohibited in the Austrian Government, the tendency of the book is obviously adverse to the Bohemian general, and its motive was undoubtedly to lessen the great admiration for Žižka which, as already mentioned, is general among Bohemians. It is unnecessary to enumerate the many recent writings, of greater or lesser value, which have recently appeared in Bohemia—particularly as they are mostly written in the national language, which is almost unknown in England. Much important information is contained in the publications of the Bohemian Museum, of the Bohemian Society of Sciences, the Bohemian Academy, and particularly in the Bohemian Historical Review (“Český Casopis Historicky”). A Bohemian work dealing specially with the Hussite system of warfare was published recently by Dr. Toman under the name of Husitske válečnictor (“Hussite Warfare”). Dr. Toman has made very profound study of the different campaigns of the Hussite wars, and has visited most of the battlefields. The plans and sketches contained in the book have the greatest interest. That Dr. Toman was entirely devoid of all practical knowledge of military matters is evident even to one whose own military experience is founded only on a short period of service in an Austrian regiment of lancers. Some information on the military organisation of the Bohemians during the Hussite wars will be found in General Köhler’s very interesting work Die Entwicklung des Kriegswesen und der Kriegführung in der Ritterzeit bis zu den Hussitenkriegen. As the title indicates, General Köhler’s work ends with the Hussite wars; but incidentally the work contains very interesting remarks on Žižka’s system of warfare which I have frequently quoted. It is impossible to refer here to the vast amount of literature on the Hussite wars that has recently appeared. The books of some of these writers are mentioned in my notes to this work. I must, however, acknowledge my indebtedness to two works by Professor von Bezold; they are entitled Zur Geschichte des Hussitenthims and König Sigmund und die Reichskriege gegen die Hussiten.
I have dedicated this work to my American friends, in recognition of the great friendliness and kind hospitality which I met with everywhere during a visit to America in the winter of 1912. I have retained a most pleasant recollection of my countrymen who have settled in the United States, and many of whom I met, particularly in Illinois and Nebraska. Their energy, courage, and self-reliance often recalled to me the Bohemians of old times to a far greater extent than do those of my countrymen who have remained in their old homes.
When writing, in 1895, the preface to the first edition of my Bohemia, a Historical Sketch, I wrote the following words: “I must add one remark which is only intended for readers who are my countrymen, in the unlikely case that this little book should come into their hands. In no country has the habit of using the events of the past as examples or arguments applicable to the political dissensions of the present day prevailed so extensively as in Bohemia. Nothing is to my mind more unscientific, and, indeed, more reprehensible. I have exercised special care in avoiding any remark which might have even the appearance of an allusion to the religious or political controversies in Bohemia at the present time.”
I find it necessary to repeat this statement, particularly at a moment when the largest Bohemian party, abandoning its former attitude of opposition, endeavours by great subserviency to win the favour of the present Ministry of Vienna.
Žampach,
December 1913.
- ↑ Those interested in this matter will find an account of the annoyances caused to Palacký by the “censure-office” of Vienna in my History of Bohemian Literature.
- ↑ For a more detailed notice of Lawrence of Březova see my Lectures on he Historians of Bohemia, pp. 35–47.
- ↑ On the controversy which arose on this subject between Palacký and Höfler, see my Lectures on Historians of Bohemia, pp. 102–105.
- ↑ See my Master John Hus, pp. 360–361.
- ↑ For an account of Palacký’s life and work I refer the reader to my Lectures on the Historians of Bohemia, pp. 88–105.