Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/277

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THE HUSSITE WARS
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also caused great irritation among them. The very zealous, but somewhat tactless, Bishop Zbynev of Cracow had decreed that all religious services in the town were to cease during the presence of the Hussite heretics. When during Easter week the Polish royal family wished to assist at the religious functions, the Bohemian envoys were requested to take up their residence in the suburb of Kaziměř, situated outside the city boundaries.[1] The bishop obstinately insisted on this measure, though many of the King of Poland’s councillors disapproved of it. The chivalrous Prince Korybutovič declared that the Bohemians, whom he considered his guests, had been insulted, and sent to the bishop a letter “declaring his enmity to him.”[2]

During the period which begins with the return of the Bohemian armies from Germany in the spring of 1430 and ends with the march of these armies to the frontier to oppose the crusade of 1431, the warfare on the frontiers never entirely ceased, but it had little influence on the general course of events. Probably as early as in March 1430, a large Bohemian force, consisting of 10,000 infantry and 1,200 horsemen, again invaded Silesia. Prokop himself, who was retained at Prague by deliberations that were then taking place there, took no part in this raid, of which it is unnecessary to give a detailed account. The Bohemians were joined by Prince Korybutovič, and with their help he obtained possession of the small Silesian principality of Sleiwitz, which has already been mentioned. In April of the same year another Bohemian army invaded Hungary. This army consisted of the soldiers of the Orphans and the levies of the New Town of Prague. Commanded by Velek Koudelnik and the priest Prokupek (Prokop the Lesser), they marched on the city of Tyrnau, where Sigismund was then residing. He was on the point of starting for Germany, intent on holding another of his numerous imperial

  1. See Professor Goll, Cěchy a Prusy (Bohemia and Prussia), p. 220.
  2. This in the language of chivalry signified a challenge to single combat; there was nothing unusual in such a challenge at a period when bishops were warriors as well as dignitaries of the Church.