Part I.—Letters Written Before the Death of Archbishop Zbinek
(June 30, 1408—September 28, 1411)
John of Husinecz—a name which he abbreviated, except in formal documents, into the more familiar Hus—was the child of poor peasants in Husinecz, a village of Bohemia not far from the Bavarian frontier. The date of his birth is uncertain, but is usually accepted, on somewhat doubtful evidence, as 1369. Round the childhood of Hus there gathered in later years the usual tales with which fond memory strives to fill the gaps of ignorance. Some of these have a suspicious resemblance to similar tales concerning Luther; others are manifestly coined from the fact that in Czech the word hus, or husca, means “goose”—etymologically, of course, it is the same word—a play on the name which we shall meet with again and again in the Letters. Of the brothers and sisters of Hus we know nothing. In the sons of a brother he showed a touching interest in his last days (infra, p. 236).
On entering the University of Prague Hus supported himself, as Luther at Erfurt, by singing in the churches and by menial services. His piety at this time, though sincere, was of the usual type. In 1392 we find Hus, following in this matter the lead of Stiekna (infra, p. 121, n.), parting with his last four groschen to a seller of indulgences at the Wyschehrad—a suburb of Prague—‘so that there
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