proverbial “that nothing could be done in the world without the help of God and of the king of Bohemia.” The policy of John was founded on a close alliance with France, the country for which he felt most sympathy. Fighting as an ally of France he fell at the battle of Crécy (1346).
He was succeeded as king of Bohemia by his son Charles, whom the German electors had previously elected as their sovereign at Rense (1346). Charles proved one of the greatest rulers of Bohemia, where his memory is still revered. Prague was his favourite residence, and by King Charles.the foundation of the nové město (new town) he greatly enlarged the city, which now had three times its former extent, and soon also trebled its population. He also added greatly to the importance of the city by founding the famous university of Prague. Charles succeeded in re-establishing order in Bohemia. The country had been in a very disturbed state in consequence of feuds that were incessant during the reign of John, who had almost always been absent from Bohemia. Charles also attempted to codify the obscure and contradictory laws of Bohemia; but this attempt failed through the resistance of the powerful nobility of the country. During the reign of Charles, the first symptoms of that movement in favour of church reform that afterwards acquired a world-wide importance, appeared in Bohemia. As Charles has often been accused of undue subserviency to the Church of Rome, it should be mentioned that he granted his protection to several priests who favoured the cause of church reform. In his foreign policy Charles differed from his father. The relations with France gradually became colder, and at the end of his reign Charles favoured an alliance with England; he died in 1378 at the age of sixty-two, prematurely exhausted by arduous work.
Charles was succeeded by his son Wenceslas, who was then seventeen years of age. His reign marks the decline of the rule of the house of Luxemburg over Bohemia. He was a weak and incapable sovereign, but the very exaggerated accusations against him, which are found Wenceslas IV.principally in the works of older historians, are mainly due to the fact that the king and to a larger extent his queen, Sophia, for a time furthered the cause of church reform, thus incurring the displeasure of Romanist writers. During the earlier part of the reign of Wenceslas a continual struggle took place between the king and the powerful Bohemian nobles, who indeed twice imprisoned their sovereign. Wenceslas also became involved in a dispute with the archbishop, which resulted in the death of the famous John of Nepomuk.
The later part of the reign of Wenceslas is a record of incipient religious conflict. The hold of the Church of Rome on Bohemia had already been weakened during the reign of King Charles by attacks on the immorality of the clergy, which proceeded from pious priests such as Milíč and Huss and the Hussites.Waldhauser. The church schism, during which the rival pontiffs assailed each other with all the wild threats and objurgations of medieval theological strife, necessarily alienated the Bohemians to a yet greater extent. Almost the whole Bohemian nation therefore espoused the cause of Huss (q.v.). Wenceslas on the occasion of these disputes displayed the weakness and irresolution that always characterized him, but Queen Sophia openly favoured the cause of Huss, who for some time was her confessor. Huss was tried before the council of Constance (q.v.), to which he had proceeded with a letter of safe conduct given by Wenceslas’s brother Sigismund, king of the Romans. He was declared a heretic and burnt on the 6th of July 1415. The inevitable and immediate result of this event was the outbreak of civil war in Bohemia, where Huss was greatly revered by the large majority of the population. The nobles of Bohemia and Moravia met at Prague on the 2nd of September 1415, and sent to the council the famed Protestatio Bohemorum, in which they strongly protested against the execution of Huss, “a good, just and catholic man who had for many years been favourably known in the Kingdom by his life, conduct and fame, and who had been convicted of no offence.” They further declared that all who affirmed that heresy existed in Bohemia were “liars, vile traitors and calumniators of Bohemia and Moravia, the worst of all heretics, full of all evil, sons of the devil.” They finally stated “that they would defend the law of our Lord Jesus Christ and its pious, humble and steadfast preachers at the cost of their blood, scorning all fear and all human decrees that might be contrary to them.”[1] This protest was a declaration of war against the Roman church, and marks the beginning of the Hussite wars. The council, indeed, summoned the nobles before its tribunal, but they refused to appear. A large number of the nobles and knights who had met at Prague formed a confederacy and declared that they consented to freedom of preaching the word of God on their estates, that they declined to recognize the authority of the council of Constance, but would obey the Bohemian bishops and a future pope lawfully elected. Meanwhile they declared the university of Prague the supreme authority in all matters of religion. The members of the confederacy attempted, though unsuccessfully, to induce King Wenceslas to become their leader. The Romanist nobles, who were not numerous, but some of whom owned vast estates, now also formed a confederacy, pledging themselves to support the pope and the council. After the closing of the council in 1418, Sigismund, who—Wenceslas being childless—was heir to the Bohemian throne, sent a letter to his brother, which was practically a manifesto addressed to the Bohemian people. He threatened with the severest penalties all who should continue to resist the authority of Rome. Wenceslas maintained the vacillating attitude that was characteristic of his whole reign, though Queen Sophia still extended her protection to the reformers. By doing this, indeed, she incurred the wrath of the Church to so great an extent that an act of accusation against her was drawn up at the council of Constance. Intimidated by his brother, Wenceslas now attempted to stem the current of religious enthusiasm. Immediately after the death of Huss many priests who refused to administer communion in the two kinds—now the principal tenet of the adherents of Huss—had been expelled from their parishes. Wenceslas decreed that they should be reinstated, and it was only after some hesitation that he even permitted that religious services according to the Utraquist doctrine should be held in three of the churches of Prague. Some of the more advanced reformers left Prague and formed the party known as the Taborites, from the town of Tabor which became their centre. Troubles soon broke out at Prague. When on the 30th of July 1419, the Hussite priest, John of Zelivo, was leading a procession through the streets of Prague, stones were thrown at him and his followers from the town hall of the “new town.” The Hussites, led by John Žižka (q.v.), stormed the town-hall and threw the magistrates from its windows. On receiving the news of these riots King Wenceslas was immediately seized by an attack of apoplexy; a second fit on the 16th of August ended his life.
The news of the death of the king caused renewed rioting in Prague and many other Bohemian cities, from which many Germans, mostly adherents of the Church of Rome, were expelled. Finally a temporary truce was concluded, and, early in the following year, Sigismund, Sigismund.who now claimed the Bohemian crown as successor of his brother, arrived at Kutna Hora (Kuttenberg). Pope Martin V. on the 1st of March 1420 proclaimed a crusade against Bohemia, and crusaders from all parts of Europe joined Sigismund’s army. “On the 30th day of June the Hungarian king, Sigismund, with a large army consisting of men of various countries, as well as of Bohemians, occupied the castle of Prague, determined to conquer the city, which they considered a heretical community because they used the sacred chalice and accepted other evangelical truths.”[2] But the attempt of the crusaders to conquer Prague failed, and after an attack by them on the Vitkov (now Zizkov) hill had been repulsed by the desperate bravery of the Taborites, led by Žižka, Sigismund determined to abandon
