The Story of Prague
Sigismund’s orders executed on the Staromestské Námesti at Prague. This caused renewed warfare, as John Kolda, lord of Zampach, who with Rohác was one of the few nobles who was to the last faithful to Tabor, rose in arms against Sigismund.
Though there was thus no real concord, the short reign of Sigismund was marked by a ceremony that formally concluded the Hussite Wars. Papal legates brought the sanction of the Compacts to Prague. On April 13, 1437, a decree was read out in Corpus Christi Chapel, in the presence of Sigismund, his Consort and the Papal legates, stating ‘that no one should revile the Bohemians and Moravians for receiving communion in the two kinds, or for availing themselves of the other right granted by the Compacts, but that they should be considered true and faithful sons of the Church.’ Tablets containing this statement were placed in the Corpus Christi Chapel.[1]
This ceremony hardly even for a time interrupted the religious struggle. The animosity of the Papal legate and the more veiled hostility of Sigismund induced Rokycan, who had been deprived of his living at the Tyn Church, to leave Prague and seek refuge at the castle of one of the Utraquist nobles. Partly in consequence of incessant political and ecclesiastical troubles, Sigismund’s already weak health now became seriously impaired. He resolved to return to Hungary, but died on the journey at Znaym (December 9, 1437).
Though most of Sigismund’s undertakings proved failures, he was successful in his principal dynastic ambition, which was to secure the succession to the Bohemian throne—Sigismund had no male heirs—to his son-in-law Albert, Archduke of Austria. The
- ↑ The Corpus Christi Chapel was destroyed in 1798. The tablets are now preserved in the Bohemian Museum.
