Here goes my second timeline!
Since I won`t have a lot of time to write it because our second kid is going to be born in 2-3 weeks` time, I´ll keep this more tabular and in the form of sketches, each post covering one year, with the different events and developments taking place in different places during that year being condensed into factual summaries.
It´s going to be a timeline about the Hussites.
If people are interested, I`d like to make this as open to your assessments of the arising allohistorical situations and their likely outcomes as possible – guest contributions are very welcome, and I think I´ll do some polls, too, as a low-threshold interaction format with which you can help keep me away from an implausible Hussite-wank.
Perhaps it´s better to consider this a moderated, iterative “What If”-thread and not a fully-fledged timeline like Res Novae Romanae.
What I have already settled on is a small initial PoD in 1420, and a definitely bigger divergence in 1422. From then on, the future is open. I have considered lots and lots of variants and possibilities – and finally decided to let you decide where things are going. Throughout next week, I´ll post 1420, 1421 and 1422 and an open question (at least I hope that I´ll be able to do that).
For today, though, I´ll test the waters with a very short introduction of what happened before the PoD.
Since 1402, Jan Hus, the son of a carter and avid reader of the writings of John Wycliffe, was professor at the University of Prague and preached in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague in the Czech language. He criticized moral failings of the clergy, simony, indulgences and politically motivated crusades. He believed in predestination and that in the worldly church, the pure and pious lived alongside the sinful and the evil. He preached that laymen did not have to obey or listen to morally questionable clergymen. And he thought that the clergy should not wield worldly power.
His ideas were wildly popular with (especially Czech) commoners in Prague, both rich and poor, as well as with parts of the Bohemian nobility. They chimed in not only with widespread criticism of clerical wealth and power, whose roots were at least as old as the apostolic poverty movement of the 12th century, but also with a nascent Czech nationalism aimed against German dominance. King Wenceslaus cautiously protected Hus and his followers for a while.
Since it was the time of the Western Schism, Jan Hus was excommunicated by two popes in 1409 and 1410 respectively, then banned from Prague by the German Roman King Sigismund. In 1412, Hus left Prague and toured the Bohemian countryside, where his reformist movement gained more and more support, and celebrated the Eucharistic communion in both kinds in his masses.
When Hus was burned at the stake in Constance in 1415, in spite of Sigismund`s guarantee of free conduit, the reform movement turned into an outraged protest movement across Bohemia. The reformers had a most prominent martyr. The symbol of their movement was the chalice – for they demanded that both bread and wine be shared by all believers, laymen and clergy alike, during the Eucharist, like Hus had practiced and justified.
Growing, enraged, endangered and bereft of its charismatic central figure, the Hussite movement attracted a wide variety of groups and individuals espousing very different and sometimes contradictory views concerning church and state, the order of the Christian society, the nature of the Eucharist and whether infants should receive communion, too, the possibility of a coexistence with loyalist Catholics, the roles of men and women, the imminence of Judgment Day, the lengths to which their protest should go and many other questions. A league of Bohemian Hussite clergy and gentry formed – for mutual defense, but also as an attempt to stay on top of what increasingly looked like a social avalanche. A Catholic counter-league formed, too. All the while, significant amounts of zealous reformers, among them the nobleman Nicholas of Hus, left Prague and toured the Bohemian countryside, holding mass on hilltops and spreading the idea of change.
On July 30th, 1419, a group of Hussites led by their priest Jan Želivský marches through the streets of Prague to the town hall of the New Town, where they demand the liberation of Hussite prisoners. Allegedly, a stone is hurled from within the town hall building towards Želivský. The enraged mob storms the town hall and throws the burgomaster, the judge and thirteen town councilors, who were Catholic loyalists, out of the window, killing some of them. A few weeks later, King Wenceslaus dies. His brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, - in the eyes of the Hussites, the traitorous murderer who is responsible for Jan Hus´ death – is to succeed him as King of Bohemia.
The Bohemian Diet meets in late August. Nobility, gentry and the representatives of towns – both Catholic and Hussite – demand a recognition of their rights and of the rule of Czechs over the majority Czech population. They do not reject Sigismund`s claim outright.
The population in Prague and throughout Bohemia has gone past that point already, though. In September, a large crowd gathers on an open field near Plzen and pledges to leave the corrupted society behind and build their own morally pure, classless community. As more and more men set forth, occupying abandoned fortresses like Zelená Hora and Hradište, royalists pillage their unprotected homes and threaten the lives of their families. While Nicholas of Hus` group fails to defend Zelená Hora against Bohuslav ze Švamberka, a large group (among whom the charismatic Martin Húska stands out) successfully occupies Hradište, which becomes henceforth known as Tabor. In four other cities – Hradec Králové, Žatec, Pisek and Louny – the proponents of a new society who felt that the Bohemian Diet no longer represented them gained the upper hand already in 1419. In Prague, the German Catholic quarters of Malá Strana are assaulted by a Hussite mob in November, while those nobles and town representatives who remain loyal to the Diet continue their negotiations with Sigismund.
Since I won`t have a lot of time to write it because our second kid is going to be born in 2-3 weeks` time, I´ll keep this more tabular and in the form of sketches, each post covering one year, with the different events and developments taking place in different places during that year being condensed into factual summaries.
It´s going to be a timeline about the Hussites.
If people are interested, I`d like to make this as open to your assessments of the arising allohistorical situations and their likely outcomes as possible – guest contributions are very welcome, and I think I´ll do some polls, too, as a low-threshold interaction format with which you can help keep me away from an implausible Hussite-wank.
Perhaps it´s better to consider this a moderated, iterative “What If”-thread and not a fully-fledged timeline like Res Novae Romanae.
What I have already settled on is a small initial PoD in 1420, and a definitely bigger divergence in 1422. From then on, the future is open. I have considered lots and lots of variants and possibilities – and finally decided to let you decide where things are going. Throughout next week, I´ll post 1420, 1421 and 1422 and an open question (at least I hope that I´ll be able to do that).
For today, though, I´ll test the waters with a very short introduction of what happened before the PoD.
A Different Chalice
Since 1402, Jan Hus, the son of a carter and avid reader of the writings of John Wycliffe, was professor at the University of Prague and preached in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague in the Czech language. He criticized moral failings of the clergy, simony, indulgences and politically motivated crusades. He believed in predestination and that in the worldly church, the pure and pious lived alongside the sinful and the evil. He preached that laymen did not have to obey or listen to morally questionable clergymen. And he thought that the clergy should not wield worldly power.
His ideas were wildly popular with (especially Czech) commoners in Prague, both rich and poor, as well as with parts of the Bohemian nobility. They chimed in not only with widespread criticism of clerical wealth and power, whose roots were at least as old as the apostolic poverty movement of the 12th century, but also with a nascent Czech nationalism aimed against German dominance. King Wenceslaus cautiously protected Hus and his followers for a while.
Since it was the time of the Western Schism, Jan Hus was excommunicated by two popes in 1409 and 1410 respectively, then banned from Prague by the German Roman King Sigismund. In 1412, Hus left Prague and toured the Bohemian countryside, where his reformist movement gained more and more support, and celebrated the Eucharistic communion in both kinds in his masses.
When Hus was burned at the stake in Constance in 1415, in spite of Sigismund`s guarantee of free conduit, the reform movement turned into an outraged protest movement across Bohemia. The reformers had a most prominent martyr. The symbol of their movement was the chalice – for they demanded that both bread and wine be shared by all believers, laymen and clergy alike, during the Eucharist, like Hus had practiced and justified.
Growing, enraged, endangered and bereft of its charismatic central figure, the Hussite movement attracted a wide variety of groups and individuals espousing very different and sometimes contradictory views concerning church and state, the order of the Christian society, the nature of the Eucharist and whether infants should receive communion, too, the possibility of a coexistence with loyalist Catholics, the roles of men and women, the imminence of Judgment Day, the lengths to which their protest should go and many other questions. A league of Bohemian Hussite clergy and gentry formed – for mutual defense, but also as an attempt to stay on top of what increasingly looked like a social avalanche. A Catholic counter-league formed, too. All the while, significant amounts of zealous reformers, among them the nobleman Nicholas of Hus, left Prague and toured the Bohemian countryside, holding mass on hilltops and spreading the idea of change.
On July 30th, 1419, a group of Hussites led by their priest Jan Želivský marches through the streets of Prague to the town hall of the New Town, where they demand the liberation of Hussite prisoners. Allegedly, a stone is hurled from within the town hall building towards Želivský. The enraged mob storms the town hall and throws the burgomaster, the judge and thirteen town councilors, who were Catholic loyalists, out of the window, killing some of them. A few weeks later, King Wenceslaus dies. His brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, - in the eyes of the Hussites, the traitorous murderer who is responsible for Jan Hus´ death – is to succeed him as King of Bohemia.
The Bohemian Diet meets in late August. Nobility, gentry and the representatives of towns – both Catholic and Hussite – demand a recognition of their rights and of the rule of Czechs over the majority Czech population. They do not reject Sigismund`s claim outright.
The population in Prague and throughout Bohemia has gone past that point already, though. In September, a large crowd gathers on an open field near Plzen and pledges to leave the corrupted society behind and build their own morally pure, classless community. As more and more men set forth, occupying abandoned fortresses like Zelená Hora and Hradište, royalists pillage their unprotected homes and threaten the lives of their families. While Nicholas of Hus` group fails to defend Zelená Hora against Bohuslav ze Švamberka, a large group (among whom the charismatic Martin Húska stands out) successfully occupies Hradište, which becomes henceforth known as Tabor. In four other cities – Hradec Králové, Žatec, Pisek and Louny – the proponents of a new society who felt that the Bohemian Diet no longer represented them gained the upper hand already in 1419. In Prague, the German Catholic quarters of Malá Strana are assaulted by a Hussite mob in November, while those nobles and town representatives who remain loyal to the Diet continue their negotiations with Sigismund.
