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Czech Nobles' Conceptions CHAPTER 5 In Search of Continuity: Czech Nobles’ Conceptions for the defense and the liberation of God’s law, and the pacification and order of the Czech lands [ku obraně a vysvobození zákona božieho a upokojení a zřiezení země České] —a letter from Sigismund Korybut, a prince of Poland-Lithuania who temporarily and sporadically ruled Bohemia as one sympathetic to Hussitism, asking Oldřich z Rožmberka to stop destroying the land, May 21, 1422.1 to bring these disorders into order and these storms to peace and con- cord and to here remedy and reinforce the common good of the king- dom, we are making and convoking a general assembly of the Czech land, all together representing as one person. —the Diet of Čáslav, as part of the explanation for rejecting Sigismund Luxemburg, June 7, 1421.2 ∵ Religious issues divided people in the Czech lands in the early fifteenth cen- tury. More than one layman who chose a side, chose more than once. Čeněk z Vartenberka most notoriously and most often seemed to switch sides while his once legal ward, Oldřich z Rožmberka, probably the most powerful, famous, and influential nobleman of fifteenth-century Bohemia, switched from Hussitism to Catholicism. Jan řečený Chudoba (i.e., “John called the poor”) z Vartenberka na Ralsku, a lesser known distant relative of Čeněk, also switched sides, but his reasons may have had more to do with finances than fervor. Nobles on both sides of the religious divide had familial, legal, cultural, and economic obliga- tions to consider. Religious issues divided nobles but at the same time both sides of the religious divide had similar obligations and expressed those obli- 1 Blažena Rynešová and Josef Pelikán, eds., Listář a Listinář Oldřicha z Rožmberka, 1418–1462, Vol. 1 (Prague: Nakl. ministerstva školství a národní osvety, 1929), 45 (No. 64). 2 Archiv český iii, 227: “žádajíce wší naší pilností, jakožto dlužni jsme, ty neřády w řád, a ty búře w klid a we swornost uwesti, a tady obecné dobré téhož králowstwie naprawiti a upewniti, učiniwše swolawše sněm obecný České země, wšichni wespolek za jeden člověk na tom sněmu sě ustanowiwše . .” For an alternative translation see Fudge, The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437, 118. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�83�68_006 in search of continuity: czech nobles’ conceptions 109 gations with similar language and concepts. They deeply held those concepts and, more importantly, those concepts were malleable though believed at the time to be ageless. Late Medieval Christianity in Bohemia: The Blurry Line between Orthodoxy and Heresy Czech nobles who remained Catholic or switched sides during the Hussite Reformation and Revolution adhered to and employed the same concepts regarding their understanding of their relationship to the Czech kingdom as the Hussite Czech nobles. They, too, believed themselves defenders and pro- tectors of the kingdom. Further, Catholic nobles were not strangers to religious reform. In the fourteenth century, the famous reform movements and preach- ers in Bohemia received support from royalty and nobles, including from some nobles, perhaps most surprisingly the Rožmberks, who became perhaps the most important resource for King Sigismund Luxemburg during the later Hussite wars. In fourteenth-century Bohemia reform could constitute ortho- doxy or heresy, but usually consisted of something in between. Fourteenth-century reform movements never received the ire of the Church the Hussite movement did in the fifteenth century, but they were certainly outside the boundaries of orthodox Catholicism. From discussions and pro- motion of frequent communion to practical, applied reform social experimen- tation, Czech reformers skated close to heresy. One reform preacher, Jan Milíč of Kroměříž (d. 1374), who was responsible for the social experiment called Jerusalem in Prague, the name for a community of former prostitutes and ecclesiastics, first received assistance from both the archbishop of Prague and Emperor Charles iv to establish the community in 1372 and then had to travel to Avignon in 1374 to answer accusations of having gone too far in his advocacy of frequent communion and of seeming to have established a new religious order, among other things. Milíč was confident of the emperor’s support as he defended himself and was declared innocent and free to preach, though he died the summer of 1374 before he could return to Bohemia.3 As one of Milíč’s supporters, Vojtěch Raňkův of Ježov (b. 1320) is an exem- plum of how religious reformers in fourteenth-century Bohemia mingled with secular and ecclesiastical authorities who obviously thought their reforms 3 Peter C.A. Morée, “Similiter predicator: the Relation of the Postils of Milíč of Kroměříž to his Work and the Jerusalem Community,” in Zdeněk V. David and David R. Holeton, eds., The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice Vol. 7 (Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2009), 63–64 and 70–71..
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