Jan Hus
Jan Hus was burned at Constance in 1415 after being given an imperial safe conduct to come and argue his case. He was born about 1372 to a poor family in southern Bohemia, took degrees at Prague, was ordained, and became preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel, which had been founded specifically for preaching in Czech and held some 3,000 people. His theology came substantially from Wycliffe, whose works reached Prague through the marriage of Richard II to a Bohemian princess: the church is the body of the predestined rather than the institution, a priest in mortal sin has no authority, scripture outranks papal decrees, and indulgences are a fraud. His preaching also attached to a national grievance, since the German masters at the university and much of the higher clergy were foreign. He was excommunicated in 1411 and preached on. The Council of Constance was assembled to end a schism of three popes, and Sigismund persuaded Hus to come and defend himself under a written safe conduct. He was arrested within weeks, held for months in a dungeon and then a castle, and tried on charges drawn largely from Wycliffe's writings and from propositions he denied holding. He refused to abjure articles he had not taught, which the council treated as obstinacy. He was burned on 6 July 1415 and his ashes thrown into the Rhine. Bohemia rose. The Hussite armies under Žižka beat five crusades over fifteen years, and 6 July is a Czech national holiday. His surname means goose in Czech, which he made jokes about and which his followers turned into an emblem. The Catholic church expressed regret for his death in 1999, and a Vatican-backed commission has been reconsidering the verdict since.
- Lived: 1369 CE – 1415 CE
- Nationality: Czech
- Roles: religious_leader
