The Hussites, as the Bohemian reformists have come to be called, became one of the most vocal and influential reform movements of the late Middle Ages, with significance for the reformations of the sixteenth century and later. They represented an interchange between “town and gown” that was largely unprecedented in medieval Europe. Scholarship on the Hussites has a long and distinguished tradition, and current studies must continually contend with a historiography that is implicated in the nationalism, confessionalism, and politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume gives students and scholars a clear sense of the historiography and current trends in Hussite studies, as well as concise statements on major emphases in Hussite theology, ecclesiology, philosophy, and religious practice.
Contributors are: Eliška Baťová, Pavlína Cermanová, Dušan Coufal, Phillip Haberkern, Ota Halama, David Holeton, Stephen Lahey, Jindřich Marek, Pavel Kolář, Olivier Marin, Petra Mutlová, Pavlína Rychterová, Pavel Soukup, Michael Van Dussen, and Blanka Zilynská.
Michael Van Dussen is Associate Professor of Medieval Studies at McGill University. He has published articles and volumes on late-medieval religious controversy and manuscript studies, including
From England to Bohemia: Heresy and Communication in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012).
Pavel Soukup is researcher at the Centre for Medieval Studies (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences) in Prague. He has published on heresy, preaching and religious warfare in fifteenth-century Central Europe, including a monograph of Jan Hus (Stuttgart, 2014).
Acknowledgements
Conventions on the Use of Proper Names
English Equivalents of Czech Names
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Hussite Histories
Michael Van Dussen and Pavel Soukup
Part 1: Influences
The Early Bohemian Reform
Olivier Marin
Wyclif in Bohemia
Stephen E. Lahey
Part 2: Major Figures
Major Hussite Theologians before the
Compactata Petra Mutlová
Major Figures of Later Hussitism (1437–1471)
Jindřich Marek
Part 3: Religious Politics
The Apocalyptic Background of Hussite Radicalism
Pavlína Cermanová
The Utraquist Church after the
Compactata Blanka Zilynská
Part 4: Theology and Religious Practice
Key Issues in Hussite Theology
Dušan Coufal
Preaching, the Vernacular, and the Laity
Pavlína Rychterová
Liturgy, Sacramental Theology, and Music
David R. Holeton, Pavel Kolář and Eliška Baťová
Part 5: Later Developments
The Unity of Brethren (1458–1496)
Ota Halama
The Bohemian Reformation and “The” Reformation: Hussites and Protestants in Early Modern Europe
Phillip Haberkern
Index
This volume is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in the history, influences, and afterlives of the Hussite movement in its European context.