extreme reaction and ultramontanism, which in Austria succeeded to the revolutions of 1848, several writers came forward, who attacked the views of Palacký and his account of the Hussite movement in particular. Baron Helfert, a high official of the Austrian government, wrote a life of Hus in which he attempted to refute Palacký’s narrative. The book, though of course entirely written in accordance with the views of Rome, yet treats its subject with fairness and moderation.
As much cannot be said of the most famous of Palacký’s opponents, Professor Höfler. Under the protection of the Austrian government the book was printed at the imperial printing-press Hofler began to publish a series of volumes containing the works of the historians of the Hussite movement. It is not my purpose to enter here into the controversy which this publication caused, but it can be truthfully stated that in the choice of his materials Hofler was constantly and persistently guided by the endeavour to place the Hussites in the most unfavourable light. The book is to a large extent polemical, and in the third volume a larger space is occupied by Höfler’s own reflections than by the writings of ancient historians. Höfler’s inaccuracy is proverbial in Bohemia. Palacký’s book, which I shall mention presently, gives hundreds of examples; I shall here limit myself to one. Höfler tells us[1] that in 1426 Žižka established Prügelherrschaft (the rule of the stick) in Prague. It would have been difficult for Žižka to establish that or any rule in the year mentioned, as he died in 1424—a fact known to every Bohemian schoolboy.
- ↑ Höfler, Geschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, vol, iii, p. 171.
