Holy Scripture and the Quest for Authority at the End of the Middle Ages

Chapter 5: A Falling Out

Chapter 5 A Falling Out Hussites and Their Czech Opponents There had been a long history of reform in Bohemia that predated John Wyclif and the subsequent dissemination of his works in the region. I cannot delve into the history of Bohemian reform here, but it must be noted at the outset that the Czech reformer Jan Hus (d. 1415) was not a solitary figure; he belonged to a greater native tradition. In fact, two of his later opponents, Stanislav of Znojmo and Stephen Páleč, had been leaders of the Bohemian protest movement. I will have more to say about Stanislav of Znojmo and especially Stephen Páleč, who did not take Hus to task for demanding an end to clerical corruption but rather for his unwillingness to submit to ecclesiastical authority.1 Indeed, the matter of ecclesiastical authority proved to be the central issue in the debate between Pálečand Hus. Both in Bohemia and on the Continent as a whole a fierce struggle developed over who would be authorized to define the parameters and methods of reform. The tragic irony is that virtually everyone involved—from Jan Hus to Stephen Páleč and even Jean Gerson—had very similar goals. More than that, however, they shared many of the same exegetical strategies, and ecclesiological assumptions, that would allow them to reach those goals. Yet the Hussites, or Prague Wycli ffites as they were often known, were cast as dangerous radicals who had no place in the church that their fellow reformers were constructing. 150 Reform efforts in Bohemia stretched back to the 1360s and the preaching of Konrad Waldhauser, who railed against clerical abuses such as simony . He was then followed by Jan Milíč, an ascetic who launched relentless attacks on a worldly clergy. It was also Milíč who championed frequent lay communion as a vehicle of spiritual renewal. In his wake came Matěj of Janov, who emphasized the early church as a model for Christian life. He too stressed the importance of lay communion. In his Regulae Veteris et Novi Testamenti (1387–93) Matěj contended that it was only through participation in the Eucharist, receiving its sacramental grace, that there could be truly effective moral reform among Christian people. He writes, “There is nothing in the Church of God better, more perfect, more useful and necessary than this daily eating and drinking, which is the common right of all, by everyone who wishes to have this sacrament of the precious Body and Blood, through which, in which, and from which every good is communicated to men from God through Jesus Christ.” Merely attending mass is not enough: it is in consuming the consecrated elements that one partakes of the transformative power of the sacrament. And so he chastised those priests who looked upon the Eucharist as a unique clerical privilege that set them apart from the lay rabble.2 Hus would later compare Konrad Waldhauser, Jan Milíč, and Matěj of Janov to Old Testament prophets and acknowledged his debt to their earlier work.3 The drive for reform in the late fourteenth century was not confined to the lower clergy, however. It received support from the higher ranks, beginning with the archbishop of Prague, Arnošt of Pardubice. In 1344 the episcopal see of Prague was raised to metropolitan status and the very able Arnošt duly promoted to archbishop. The statutes issued under Arnošt’s authority were wide ranging in their efforts to reform the moral life of the church, both lay and clerical. There were strict sanctions levied against negligent and simoniacal priests. The provincial synod of Prague, held in 1369, offers an extensive list of reforming statutes, some eighty-six in all. Arnošt was succeeded by Jan of Jenštejn, who was not at first receptive to the demands of the reformers but later came around and in 1391 permitted frequent lay communion. Also in 1391 the Bethlehem Chapel was founded, its name—House of Bread—referring to the Word of God. Thus when Hus assumed the chief position there in 1402 he was stepping into a place firmly established within the reform movement. In the same year Zbyněk Zajíc of Házmburk was named archbishop of Prague, and for some years relations A Falling Out 151 between Hus and Zbyněk were good. Yet it...