How Can We Perceive a Group
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Arts Department of Classical Studies THE CASE OF THE OTHER HUSSITES: REVISITING A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONSTRUCT OF THE CZECH REFORMATION Habilitation Thesis Brno 2018 Petra Mutlová Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Evidence of Contemporary Narrative Sources ....................................................................................................... 12 Laurence of Březová, Hussite chronicle ............................................................................................................. 12 Chronicon breve regni Bohemiae ....................................................................................................................... 15 John Papoušek’s narrative .................................................................................................................................. 16 Historia Bohemica .............................................................................................................................................. 17 Anonymous tract ................................................................................................................................................ 18 The beginnings of Hussitism (Počátkové husitství) ........................................................................................... 21 Chronicon Procopii notarii Pragensis ................................................................................................................. 22 Addenda ............................................................................................................................................................. 24 Summary ............................................................................................................................................................ 25 People Involved: Biographies ................................................................................................................................. 28 Nicholas of Dresden ........................................................................................................................................... 29 Peter of Dresden ................................................................................................................................................. 42 Friedrich Eppinge ............................................................................................................................................... 49 John Drändorf ..................................................................................................................................................... 52 Peter Turnau ....................................................................................................................................................... 57 Bartholomew Rautenstock .................................................................................................................................. 60 Conradus Stoecklin ............................................................................................................................................. 62 Peter Payne ......................................................................................................................................................... 62 The other “others” .............................................................................................................................................. 68 Literary Output of the Dresden School ................................................................................................................... 71 Nicholas of Dresden ........................................................................................................................................... 71 Peter of Dresden ................................................................................................................................................. 77 Friedrich Eppinge and his Posicio ...................................................................................................................... 94 Peter Turnau ....................................................................................................................................................... 97 Peter Payne ......................................................................................................................................................... 98 Common enterprises: John Drändorf, Peter Turnau, and Conradus Stoecklin ................................................. 100 Teaching as Indirect Evidence .............................................................................................................................. 102 Kreuzschule in Dresden .................................................................................................................................... 102 At the Black Rose in Prague ............................................................................................................................. 107 Shared Doctrine .................................................................................................................................................... 111 The Activities of the Disciples ............................................................................................................................. 118 Nicholas’s Tabule and the Street Propaganda .................................................................................................. 118 Propaganda in Germany ................................................................................................................................... 136 Collecting, Cataloguing and Promoting the Texts: Followers of the Dresdeners ................................................. 141 Nicholas of Dresden and his Opera omnia ....................................................................................................... 141 Evidence of Other Sources ............................................................................................................................... 152 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................ 163 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................................... 176 Manuscripts ...................................................................................................................................................... 176 Primary Sources ............................................................................................................................................... 177 Secondary Literature ........................................................................................................................................ 181 Subsidia ............................................................................................................................................................ 199 2 Introduction The Czech Reformation and a wider social-political context of its preconditions have been a central issue of Czech history for centuries. This complex and multilayered process and the development of individual postulates of the Hussite reformers have motivated generations of historians to voice their arguments.1 The appraisal of the subsequent period of the Hussite wars has undergone many changes.2 Jan Hus remains to keep a distinctively symbolic value not only for the part of Czech and European history that bears his name but he also represents a moral and philosophical attempt at reforming a contemporary society and the Church.3 The past few years marked by the anniversaries of the Council of Constance (2014), the death at stake of Jan Hus (2015), or the year of the Protestant Reformation (2017) are all witnesses to an unflagging interest in this period.4 The history of ideas and the much debated problem of the “ideological” background of the Hussite movement have been subjects to a long-lasting discussion mostly between Czech and 1 See e.g. a recent study by Olivier Marin, Ľarchevêque, le maître et le dévot. Genèses du mouvement réformateur pragois (années 1360–1419) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005). 2 Peter Morée, “Not Preaching from the Pulpit, but Marching in the Streets: The communist use of Jan Hus,” in The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 6, ed. Zdeněk V. David and David R. Holeton (Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2007), 283–296; a useful summary of relevant debates can be found in František Šmahel, Jan Hus. Život a dílo (Jan Hus. Life and Work) (Prague: Argo, 2013); more detailed treatement of the historiography of the Czech Reformation is Petr Čornej, Historici, historiografie a dějepis (Historians, historiography and history) (Prague: Karolinum, 2016), esp. 31–201. 3 A general history of this period in the Czech language with a survey of the historiographical perspectives of the Hussite movement is František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce (The Hussite Revolution), 4 vols. (Prague: Karolinum, 1995–1996), which is available also in German: František Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution, 3 vols. Translated and edited by Thomas Krzenck and Alexander Patschovsky (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2002). In English, the best