Jan Žižka
One-eyed soldier, once of the king’s household, chosen in 1420 as one of four captains of the Taborites. He held the hill of Vítkov outside Prague against the crusaders in July 1420 and led Hussite field armies until his death in 1424.
Lawrence of Březová introduces him among the four captains chosen by the Taborites in the spring of 1420 as John Žižka the one-eyed, formerly of the king’s household and a foremost zealot for the law of Christ (Lawrence of Březová, Chronicle, year 1420 (Höfler, p. 356)). When Sigismund meant to fortify the hill of Vítkov and so cut off the food supply of Prague, Žižka built two wooden bulwarks there with a ditch and a wall of earth and stone. On 14 July 1420 the king’s troops stormed it; Žižka himself was nearly struck down, Lawrence says, before the attackers were driven off. The next day he had the works enlarged, and some came to call the hill by his name (Lawrence of Březová, Chronicle, year 1420 (Höfler, pp. 375–379)).
A Prague chronicle records his battles against the Praguers and the lords in 1423 and 1424, his peace with Prague in September 1424, and his death at the siege of the castle of Přibyslav on the Wednesday before Saint Gall, 11 October 1424. He was buried at Hradec Králové, and his field army was afterwards called the Orphans (Chronicle of the Old College of Prague, year 1424 (Höfler, pp. 87–88)). See the Hussites and the Compacts of Basel.
In the timeline
- 1419 to 1436, firm dateThe Hussites and the Compacts of Basel
After the burning of Jan Hus, Praguers and Taborites defend the lay chalice in arms. A crusade proclaimed by Martin V fails before Prague in 1420, the city states its demands in Four Articles, and in 1436 legates of the Council of Basel concede the chalice at Jihlava.