VI. The Downfall of Tabor

After the death of Wenzel, the Calixtines, i.e., the nobility and Praguers, entered into negotiations with Sigismund. They were not altogether pleased by the thought that they were about to take up the cudgels against Emperor and Pope, and, in fact, against all Europe; hence the dangerous strength already acquired by the Taborites urged them to a compromise. Had it only been a question of the lay chalice, this compromise might easily have been effected, but it was more; it was a question of the lands and money of the Church, and upon that point no agreement could be reached. The Church, however, and her servant Sigismund, showed themselves quite as implacable as the Taborites, and the rupture resulted in a fight to the death, in which the Calixtines, the robbers of the Church, driven by necessity, fought on the side of the Taborites, but only half-heartedly.

This is not the place for a history of the Hussite wars. Suffice it to say that after Pope Martin V., in his Bull Omnium plasmatoris Domini of March 1, 1420, had summoned united Christendom against the Hussites, one plunder-loving army of the Cross after another was formed to stamp out the heresy; that in every one of the five Crusades, between 1420 and 1431, the army of the Crusaders was woefully defeated; that the fame of the invincibility of the Taborite hosts continued to increase, until finally (as in the fourth Crusade at Mies, 1427, and in the fifth at Tauss, 1430 large armies scattered merely at the news of the approach of the Hussites, flying in a panic without even having seen the enemy. Neither can we follow the internal conflicts between Calixtines and Taborites, which were fought out in the intervals between the wars against the crusading armies.

After the great day at Tauss, there no longer seemed to be an enemy capable of resisting the Taborites. No foreign army dared again attack them, while at home the power of their opponents (the nobility and a few towns) was vanishing faster and faster, and was threatened with complete destruction by the continuance of the Taborite reign of terror.

It now became evident, however, how little military victories avail, if the aims of the conquerors are in contradiction to those of economic development.

A complete military overthrow of the Taborites would naturally have been followed by their extinction. But even their victories gave rise to elements which led to their ruin. Their greatest triumph was immediately followed by their fall.

The greater the success of the Taborites, the more intolerable became the position of their foes in Bohemia (the Calixtines), to say nothing of the Catholics. The nobility were reduced to a condition of absolute insignificance, and would long before have willingly made peace with the Church, if they, the robbers of the Church, had not feared its greed and thirst for revenge. After the victory at Tauss, they showed themselves to be more amenable than ever.

Meanwhile the Pope and Emperor, together with their adherents among the spiritual and secular princes, had been made more pliant by the Hussite victories. Their intrigues and conspiracies with the Calixtines had never totally ceased, and after the triumph at Tauss were carried on more energetically than ever. An agreement was finally arrived at, by which the Papal Church, in the persons of delegates from the Council of Bâle, even consented to wink at the possession of Church property, and, instead of taking anything from the Bohemians, actually gave them something. It sent agents to Bohemia well supplied with money to enable its new allies, the Calixtines, to regain their power of withstanding the Taborites. When the nobility, who “had for many years disappeared from the scene” (Palacky), felt themselves backed up by the Emperor, and especially by the wealth and power of the Church, they began to pluck up heart for a war, for convening assemblies and organising themselves, in order to recover their lost power with the secular aid of the Praguers and the ecclesiastical, but exceedingly worldly, methods of Catholicism.

The situation is well described by Æneas Sylvius in his History of Bohemia; but it must be remarked that the rôle ascribed by him to Prokop (the most important of the Taborite leaders after Ziska’s death) is entirely unsubstantiated by facts, for Prokop never possessed the unlimited power assigned to him by Sylvius. Wherever, in what follows, Prokop’s reign of terror is spoken of, it would be more correct to substitute the Taborite reign of terror. Æneas tells us that: “The Bohemian barons often met together and admitted the error they had committed and the danger they had incurred in casting off the dominion of their king, only to wear the heavy yoke of Prokop. They pondered facts; and these told them that Prokop alone was master; that he ruled and governed the land as best pleased him, levying tolls, imposing taxes and contributions, dragging the people to war, leading the troops whithersoever he liked, robbing and murdering, tolerating no opposition to his commands, and treating the highest as well as the lowest like slaves and servants. They saw that the Bohemians were the most unhappy people under heaven; that they were always in the field, living summer and winter in tents, lying on the hard ground, and forced to constant military service. The people were worn out with home and foreign wars, which kept them for ever either fighting or anxiously awaiting a fight. The barons at length realised that it was time to shake off the cruel tyrant’s yoke under which, after overcoming other nations, they now groaned. They resolved to summon all barons, knights, and towns to a general Landtag, which should take into its consideration a suitable organisation of the whole kingdom. When this Landtag had assembled, Herr Meinhard drew a picture of the happiness of that kingdom which was neither addicted to sloth nor worn out by war. He set forth that Bohemia, on the contrary, had hitherto enjoyed no rest, and that their country, if not cared for in time, must, wasted by unceasing war, soon crumble into dust; that the untilled fields were lying fallow, while men and beasts were in some places dying from starvation,” &c., &c.; all of which evils could, of course, be brought to an end only by a re-instatement of the nobility in their ancient power.

While the different opponents of the Taborites were thus ignoring their individual interests in presence of the common antagonism to Taboritism, and uniting in a coalition against it, changes were in progress among the Taborites themselves which were much more threatening than the intrigues and conspiracies of their enemies.

The communists of Tabor had always formed only a fraction of the democratic party bearing the name of Taborites, although they constituted the most energetic, implacable, and in every way most advanced portion, and were by far the most capable in military affairs. The bulk of the adherents of that party were petty citizens of towns and peasants to whom the communistic programme was rather a matter of indifference, but whose sufferings were being continually increased by the prolongation of the war.

Although victorious, the Bohemians were for a long time too weak to keep the enemy far from their lands. At the outset, they confined themselves to the defensive, and it was only at a comparatively late date (1427) that they were able to devastate foreign countries in the manner prescribed by the mode of war at that time, its essential features being plunder and destruction – approximately the same as attend the spread of European civilisation in Africa to-day. But war on the offensive in no way secured Bohemia from being ravaged by neighbouring foreign enemies. Meanwhile the civil war continued, and the country became yearly more exhausted; commerce, as well as agriculture and the handicrafts, suffered, and the nobility and wealthy Praguers, together with the humbler citizens and peasants from all parts, were sinking into ruin. All classes of society experienced a profound weariness of war and a yearning for peace; and in proportion as the implacable Taborites figured as the sole obstacle to peace, the number of their adherents dwindled away, and the voice of the people cried out against them. In order to maintain its power in the land the little band of Taborites was driven, therefore, to measures of increased severity. The antagonism between them and the masses of the people grew more and more bitter, until at length the nobility were usually supported by the populace in their rising against the sect.

Moreover, in the strict sense of the word, the Taborites were no longer the Taborites of old.

The fate of Tabor is of the greatest interest; for it shows what would have been the outcome of the Münzer movement in Mühlhausen, and of the Anabaptist movement in Munster, if they had remained unconquered by military force.

Taborite communism was based upon the needs of the poor, and not on those of production. The social democracy of to-day relies for its hope of success on the fact that the requirements of production and those of the proletariat lie in the same direction. It was otherwise in the fifteenth century. While the needs of the poor engendered the struggle for communism, those of production demanded the existence of private proprietorship. Hence communism could never become the universal form of society in those days, as the necessity for it among the poor must have ceased the moment they had established it, i.e., as soon as they ceased to be poor, especially if the only means by which its long continuance could be ensured were abandoned – at any rate for small communities – namely, the abolition of the separate family and of separate marriage. As we have seen, the Taborites did relinquish this. They practically exterminated the Adamites, and in so doing again opened the path for the re-establishment of private proprietorship in the community. The rapid growth of competence and even wealth in their midst, due to the spoils they acquired, soon caused greed and envy to supplant the modes of thought essential to communism and brotherhood. Equality in the conditions of existence began to cease; there began to be richer and poorer brothers in Tabor, and the former became constantly less willing to relinquish their overplus for the benefit of the latter.

The downfall of the Taborites was also hastened by the incursion of foreign elements. The man who has so wholly given himself up to an idea that he is willing to risk his life in its defence will not readily prove untrue to it, even if he comes under conditions which tend to weaken its power over him. The original Taborities would have held fast to the faith for whose cause they had endured so many persecutions and dangers.

But the many years of war of which the burden lay especially heavy on this community, must have fearfully thinned their ranks. From a military point of view, this was not noticeable, for the loss was quickly made good from among the communist enthusiasts from far and wide to whom Tabor had become a Mecca. Even the most distant nations, e.g., England, were represented in the town. No great difficulty seems to have been made about admission to the brotherhood. Æneas Sylvius, who visited the place, was surprised at the number of different sects living together in peace. “They are not all of one faith,” he tells us, “for every one in Tabor may believe as best pleases him. Nicolaitans, Arians, Manicheists, Arminians, Nestorians, Berengarians, and Poor of Lyons are all to be found among them. The most highly esteemed, however, are the Waldenses, those arch-enemies of the Roman See.”

Another increase which Tabor received was much more doubtful in its influence. The success of its armies had attracted thither a large number of adventure-loving folk, to whom the Taborite ideal was a matter of indifference, but who longed for fame and still more for booty.

The armies of the Taborites would not at first have materially suffered in a military sense from this cause, though the elements of enthusiasm, devotion, and voluntary discipline must necessarily have gradually disappeared. They must, however, have largely lost in trustworthiness. The bankrupt nobility had placed themselves in the service of this community for the same reason as the mercenaries, for the landlords had been able, in a measure, to maintain themselves only by becoming to a certain extent the vassals of the Taborites, to whom they paid imposts, and by whose side they were compelled to fight. (Compare on this point the complaint of the Bohemian barons concerning Prokop’s tyranny, recounted by Æneas Sylvius.)

As soon as the nobility rose against the sect and began to enlist mercenaries, to whom (thanks to the wealth of the Catholic Church) it was able to offer momentarily better conditions, treachery became rife in all nooks and corners of the Taborite armies.

Hence it is comprehensible that when civil war once more broke out, and Calixtines and Taborites measured their strength in desperate conflict, the latter, deserted by peasants and townsmen, and betrayed by a part of their own troop, should succumb to their enemies, who, setting aside their own internal animosities, had formed an overpowering alliance against the remnant of the democratic party still true to the one remaining communistic brotherhood, more in obedience to necessity than to their own impulses.

On May 30, 1434, a decisive battle was fought at the village of Lipau, near Brod, in Bohemia. The forces of the nobility outnumbered those of the Taborites, the former having 25,000 men, while the latter had about 18,000. For a long time the fight wavered doubtfully hither and thither, but at last victory inclined to the side of the nobility. This was much less due to their skill and bravery than to the treachery of the Taborite general, Johann Capek, commanding the cavalry, who, in the midst of the battle, instead of cutting his way into the ranks of the enemy, took to flight. A frightful slaughter ensued, no quarter being given. Out of 18,000 Taborite soldiers, 13,000 were cut down and killed! This fearful defeat broke for ever the strength of the Taborites.

Tabor ceased to rule Bohemia. Democracy was overthrown, and the nobility, in union with the upper classes of trade, thereupon set about re-arranging for the exploitation of the country. After endless negotiations between the king and his “true subjects,” among whom each faction feared (and rightly) that the other was only thinking out a way of betraying it, Sigismund was at last acknowledged king in 1536. He had previously consented to a universal amnesty; and as regards the property of the Church which had been stolen, had conceded to all nobles and communes the right to dispose of it as they might think best.

The power of the Taborites, however, was not completely annihilated at the battle of Lipau. They continued the struggle a short time longer, but ever more feebly and ineffectually, until, in 1436, they were glad to obtain an agreement from Sigismund assuring them at least of the independence of their town.

Tabor remained in this condition until after the beginning of the fifth decade of the fifteenth century. At that time Æneas Sylvius visited the place and reported on it in a letter to Cardinal Carvajal. This is one of the few extant communications from an eye-witness concerning the internal affairs of the sect. A few significant passages may be reproduced, as they give a very good characterisation of life in a Taborite community. According to Æneas, the houses in Tabor were built of wood or clay, and were placed without any regard to order. “This people possess abundant and costly household effects and extraordinary wealth, as they have gathered into one place the spoils from many nations. They wished at one time to live in all things in conformity with the primitive Church, and held all their possessions in common; each called the other brother, and what one lacked he received from the others. Now, however, each lives for himself alone, and some hunger while others revel [alius quidem esurit, alius autem ebrius est]. Shortlived was the fire of neighbourly love, short the imitation [of the Apostolic community] ... The Taborites robbed strangers of their possessions, and what they had acquired by violence became common property [haec tantum in commune dederunt]. But they could not maintain this state of things. Nature gained the upper hand; already they are all given over to greed; and, as they can no longer rob as of yore, being enervated and in fear of their neighbours, they snatch what they can from the profits of trade [lucris inhiant mercaturae], and give themselves up to the lowest pursuits. There are 4,000 men in the town capable of bearing arms, but they have become craftsmen, and for the most part gain their living by the weaving of wool [lana ac tela ex magna parte victum quaerentes], so that they are valueless in war.”

It is worthy of remark that the majority of Taborites were wool-weavers.

Æneas Sylvius visited Tabor in 1451. According to his description, the military strength of the town had completely vanished, as well as its communism. But even the ruins of its revolutionary past appeared to the rulers of Bohemia to be still dangerous. One year after the above-mentioned visit, Georg von Podiebrad, then administrator of Bohemia, appeared before the place, and demanded the surrender of the whole body of Taborite priests. After a delay of only three days the town yielded, and gave them up, those not “converted” being thrown in prison till their death. Thus the peculiar position of republican Tabor and every form of its independence came to an end.

This pitiful termination of a once haughty communistic commonwealth, before which half Europe had trembled, makes it hardly possible to suppress the wish that, like Munster, Tabor had fallen in the brilliancy of its communistic youth, and had not languished in the wretchedness of bourgeois senility.

With the overthrow of Tabor the last asylum of democracy in Bohemia was destroyed.

The fate of the Taborites, exhibiting as it does many analogies with that of the Jacobins, resembles the latter also in the circumstance that it was they who by their reckless heroism saved the revolution – not for themselves, but for the exploiters of that revolution. In France, these were the great capitalists and knights of industry; in Bohemia they were the upper nobility, who acquired an almost unlimited mastery both in State and society. The petty nobility gained nothing by the Hussite wars, which accelerated rather than checked their downfall, as the upper nobles, to whom the lion’s share of the Church’s possessions fell, enriched themselves also at the cost of the lower ranks of their class by buying up their properties.

The peasants and petty townsmen were, however, the chief sufferers by the wars. The exhaustion of the country and the diminution of the population, reducing as they did the power of resistance among the peasants and small townsmen to the lowest point, became inducements to the lords of the soil to increase very largely their demands on the petty rent-paying citizens, and also the burdens imposed on the peasants. These burdens became heavier and heavier. The feeble attempts at resistance and revolt, here and there ventured on by the ill-used peasantry, were easily overcome. Where, however, in spite of the increase of forced labour, the supply of labour was insufficient, the landlord recouped himself by substituting for agriculture a branch of business requiring only a small number of labourers. In some instances the extension of this new industry not only counterbalanced the want of peasants, but even drove peasants away from their situations. In England, the want of labour (originating, it is true, from causes different from those active in Bohemia) gave an important impetus to the development of sheep-raising. This pursuit was finally so general in that country, that it became the chief means of expropriating the peasantry and creating a proletariat. A similar, though less influential part was played in many districts of Bohemia by the fishponds constructed by the landlords. If, as Thomas More said, the sheep ate up the peasants of England, those of Bohemia were equally devoured by carp.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century serfdom had almost completely disappeared in Bohemia. At the close of that century it was already again the universal condition of the peasantry.

It is absurd to hold the Hussite Wars responsible for this. Whether social development be brought about by peaceful means or by violent struggles, is immaterial to the direction it takes, that being necessarily determined by the progress and needs of production. When the results of violent revolutionary conflicts are not in accordance with the intentions of the revolutionists, it is a proof that these intentions are in contradiction to the requirements of production. Violent revolutions can never give direction to social development; they can, under definite conditions, only hasten it, at the same time, however, intensifying the evil for the defeated. This was one of the results of the Hussite Wars. From the fifteenth century onwards a deterioration in the condition of the peasantry set in throughout Europe, though later in some countries than in others. That Bohemia, notwithstanding its backward economic position, was one of the first lands in which this deterioration appeared, and that it there made the most rapid progress, were consequences of the Hussite Wars. But for these the decisive change might not perhaps have occurred until a century later, after the German Peasant Wars.

Chapter 3 |