In 1414, the Council of Constance was held to put an end to the Western Schism that was plaguing the Catholic Church. As a part of that Council, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund had also called the Czech theologian Jan Hus to attend under a guarantee of protection to resolve the issue of Czech heresy that had been going on during this tumultuous time in Church history. While the Council was successfully able to put an end to the Schism, it was not so successful in putting down the Czech heresy. Not only that, but the consequences of the actions taken at the Council of Constance would result in dire consequences.

Jan Hus, whether he knew what was to come or not, left for the Council and arrived in Constance in November of that year. While there, he continued to preach and spread his message about the need to reform the church. However, this act angered the Church and Council, and with his enemies also being in Constance, the Church officials claimed that his actions in Constance broke the guarantee of protection given to him by Sigismund and arrested him. At first, Sigismund expressed great disdain for this action but was soon convinced to turn a blind eye to the plight of Jan Hus. A preliminary investigation against Hus was performed and on June 5, 1415, he was put on trial for heresy.

Jan Hus was accused of four heretical teachings. The first of these was the teaching that both laymen and priests should be allowed to drink from the cup during the Eucharist. The second was his teachings that attacked transubstantiation. The third was the teaching and insistence that the validity of the sacrament being held was directly affected by the moral character of the priest performing it. Lastly, for his teachings that criticized the church of both its discipline and its organization. He was also held accountable for what he had written in his book, the De Ecclesia, of which twenty-six excerpts were read. Jan Hus stood his ground on many of his beliefs, claiming that if he could be proven wrong, he would submit. On some beliefs though, he refused to recant, as they were opinions he held in his heart and would rather die than recant them.

On July 6, 1415, the assembly present for the trials against Jan Hus declared him a heretic for his beliefs and subsequently turned him over to the secular courts to be burnt at the stake. Placed upon the stake to burn, Hus is said to have sung the liturgy and only fell silent when the flames finally killed him. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine so that they could not be retrieved and returned to his homeland. News of Jan Hus’s trial and subsequent death threw the people of Bohemia into a rage at the injustice that had been committed. While the Church believed that this was the end of the Hussite reformation and that peace had been restored to Christianity, a storm was brewing in the lands of Bohemia.

Written by James Travis

Sources:

Monroe, Will S. Bohemia and the Cechs: The History, People, Institutions, and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia. Boston, MA: L. C. Page and Company, 1910 (Reprint by Forgotten Books, 2012).

Mortimer, Geoff. The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Panek, Jaroslav and Oldrich Tuma. A History of Czech Lands. 2 ed. Prague, Czech Republic: Charles University Karolinum Press, 2023.

Randy, Martin. The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2023.