Jan Hus preached reform in Prague—and died for it in 1415
Czech theologian Jan Hus (about 1369–1415) attacked simony, contested Eucharist teaching and other Church practices from Charles University pulpits in Prague. Excommunicated, forced into exile, then condemned, he became the namesake of Hussitism, a major forerunner of Protestant reform across Europe.
Even his birth year is argued over: estimates run from about 1369 to 1375, with recent research favouring 1372, and the story that he was born on the date he died has no basis. He came from peasant stock in Husinec, southern Bohemia, went to a monastery at around ten, and later worked his way through the university in Prague, singing in a choir to pay his keep. He took a bachelor's degree in 1393 and a master's in 1396 among professors with strong anti-papal leanings.
He began teaching in 1398, defended the ideas of the English reformer John Wycliffe in public the following year, was ordained in 1400, and in 1402 became preacher at Prague's Bethlehem Chapel. From there he denounced corrupt clergy and even popes. At first Archbishop Zbyněk Zajíc tolerated him, but Rome pressed for action against Wycliffe's teaching on the Eucharist. When the Western Schism split loyalties, King Wenceslaus IV gave the Czech nation three votes to the Germans' one in university affairs in 1409, reshaping the institution in favour of Hus's camp.
A papal bull of 20 December 1409 ordered Wycliffe's books surrendered and free preaching stopped; the books were burned and Hus's circle excommunicated. When the rival pontiff John XXIII sold indulgences in 1411 to fund a crusade against Naples, Hus condemned the trade. Three commoners who called indulgences a fraud were beheaded and later honoured as the first Hussite martyrs.
Summoned to the Council of Constance, Hus travelled under a promise of safe conduct and moved about freely for some weeks before being arrested, tried and told to recant. After his execution his followers refused a Catholic king and beat back five papal crusades between 1420 and 1431. Bohemia and Moravia stayed mostly Hussite until the Protestant defeat at White Mountain in the 1620s.
Source: Jan Hus
