IV. The Internal Parties of the Hussite Movement

So long as the heresy in Bohemia was kept under by Church and State, it displayed only its national and ecclesiastical characteristic. For the mass of the people the national enemy and the clerical enemy were one and the same person, and a common hatred had united the different social strata.

Now that the enemy had been repelled, and the “pure Word of God” was triumphant, it soon became evident that this Word, though equally applicable to all, was viewed in the most diverse lights by the various classes, according to their respective interests. Hussism divided itself, in general, into two great parties, each of which had its centre in a town, viz., Prague and Tabor; while Kuttenberg became the head-quarters of the scanty remnant of Catholicism.

Next to Prague, Kuttenberg was at that time the largest and most powerful town in Bohemia, and the German shareholders and labourers in its mines had every reason for remaining Catholic, as no one had more to lose by the success of the Hussites. Nowhere else, therefore, did the Catholics display so much fanaticism. They put to death every Hussite who fell into their power-and their victims were numerous. Indeed, the Bohemians affirmed that the Kuttenbergers had established a prize fund for the capture of Hussites, sixty Prague groschen being paid for an ordinary heretic, and three hundred for a heretic priest.

In addition to Kuttenberg, there were a few small towns in which the Germans had succeeded in maintaining themselves and which remained true to the Catholic cause. In the course of the Hussite wars, however, the greater number of these towns, and even Kuttenberg itself, fell into the hands of the Hussites, and became Bohemianised. After Kuttenberg had been definitely lost to Catholicism, the centre of the party gravitated to Pilsen.

Together with these few towns, a small fraction of the nobility still remained true to the old faith, partly because they hoped to fare better with the monarchical court, and partly through disgust for the democratic tendencies which were developing in Hussism.

The majority of the nobility, however, held fast to the Hussite cause, being induced to do so by the Church possessions which they seized. Their ideal government (especially among the higher ranks) was an aristocratic republic, with a mock king at its head. As Sigismund was not available for that purpose, they sought a substitute in Poland and Lithuania; but no prince of any importance cared to put his head into the wasp’s nest.

The larger portion of the population of Prague sided with the aristocratic party. In a series of revolts in that town, the lower classes had taken the reins of government into their own hands, after having expelled the German priests and aristocrats. In addition to the Council, there now existed the assembly of the entire commune, in which every man had a vote who carried on an independent business. The Councillors were probably chosen from this assembly.

A new municipal aristocracy, however, soon came into existence. Like the nobility, this powerful town naturally profited by the opportunity to seize the property of the Church. Men of a speculative turn of mind found a good instrument for raising themselves above the masses, in such of the confiscated property as was sold, divided, or squandered, and in the spoils of churches and monasteries. After the capture of Kuttenberg, the profits of its mines fell to the lot of the Praguers, and formed a considerable part of their incomes, a circumstance which must also have been favourable to cunning speculators. Thus a new urban aristocracy was formed composed of Czechs, which soon sympathised with the nobility, and most unwillingly submitted to the domination of the “great assembly” of the town.

There was still another reason for the growth of aristocratic sympathies among craftsmen and even among the very lowest classes in Prague. Their industries and trade flourished, so long as the Court and the upper nobility dissipated what they squeezed out of the whole country. The Praguers consequently began to look upon a monarchy and spoliating nobility as the most highly necessary requisites of society. The democratic elements in the community continued to lose strength, while the aristocratic sentiment, as continually, gained in power. Revolts, intrigues, and foreign intervention strengthened first one and then the other of these elements; but Prague as a friend to the democrats was always untrustworthy, while as their enemy it was most determined. In the second half of the Hussite wars it was unceasingly opposed to them.

The Praguers and nobility (especially the upper ranks) united in forming the “moderate party,” apparently so called because their confiscation of Church property was most immoderate. This party went under the name of the Calixtines or Utraquists.

Opposed to these was another movement, which in its composition and general tendencies may well be designated as democratic.

It found its most numerous adherents among the peasantry in Bohemia, and formed by far the largest class of the population.

The Hussite revolution caused a violent outburst of antagonism between the peasantry and the lords of the soil. The confiscated lands of the Church were useless to the nobility without the people of the Church, who supplied rent and forced labour. These toilers, however, had not risen against the Church, merely to exchange one master for another still harsher. They wished to become free peasants and owners of property; and the same desire for freedom prevailed among other classes. The revolution from above necessarily called for a revolution from below. All barriers were swept away which had hitherto in a measure prevented the violent collision between the opposing elements. Custom, which had subjected employer and employed to rigid rules, was cast to the winds, and the throne set aside, which had to some extent controlled the barons and peasants. The latter felt that if they did not succeed in making government by the nobility impossible, and in wholly destroying its power, they would be crushed by its unlimited mastery. They now had to choose between complete freedom and abject servitude.

A part of the petty citizens and proletarians of Prague sided with the peasants; but the number of their partisans was greater in the small towns, in which those classes had succeeded in getting rid of the German “honourables”, who formed the higher ranks of citizens. All these towns were far behind Prague in power. They were not, like the capital, in a position to resist the superior power of the greedy barons single-handed. Like the towns of Germany, whom the weakness of the throne had at an earlier date forced to unite in leagues in order to resist the robber knights, the towns of Bohemia now combined against their enemies, with the exception of the few still remaining Catholic.

The lower nobility at that time occupied an economic position between the peasantry and the higher nobility, similar to that now held by the small tradesmen, who stand between the capitalist class and the proletariat. They were quite as vacillating and untrustworthy as their representatives of the present day. The lower nobles, who were hardly more than large free farmers, had something to lose and something to gain on both sides. The liberation of the peasants threatened them with a further diminution of their income from rent and forced labour; but, on the other hand, the overthrow of the upper nobility would rid them of dangerous competitors and opponents, who were continually pressing them further down. Hence the spoliation of the higher nobility must have been quite as much desired by the knights as by the peasants. Some of the inferior nobility made common cause with the aristocratic party, some with the democratic; while the larger part oscillated hither and thither, inclining in the direction whence at the moment victory and booty appeared most certain.

Among the knights who remained inviolably true to the democratic party, the most prominent was Ziska von Trocnow, who had fought as a mercenary against the Poles and Turks, and in the service of the English against the French. He placed his military experience at the disposal of the democrats, and became their most dreaded and noted leader. But however firmly he may have held to them, he was their partisan only in the capacity of soldier and not of politician. As a soldier, he was the organiser and leader of an army without its equal. As a politician, he stood midway between the democrats and Calixtines, like many other knights and a large part of the humbler citizens of Prague.

After Ziska’s death his special adherents separated themselves from the democrats, and formed a distinct middle party, calling itself “The Orphans,” because its members had lost their father, Ziska.

The democrats, on the contrary, were named Taborites, after their political and military centre, the communist town of Tabor. These communists were the vanguard of the democratic movement.

Chapter 2 (cont’d) |