Prague
Capital of the kingdom of Bohemia and seat of its university, where Jan Hus taught and preached before he left for the Council of Constance in 1414.
Before he left Prague in 1414, Jan Hus had notices posted in Latin, Czech and German on the doors of its cathedral, parish churches and monasteries, announcing that he was going to Constance to give an account of his faith and inviting anyone who charged him with error to meet him there (Peter of Mladoňovice, Relatio p. 238). John Paul II called him one of the most famous of the scholars to come from the University of Prague (John Paul II, Address on John Hus (1999) §1). See the Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus.
What happened here
- 1414 to 1418, firm dateThe Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus
A general council ends the papal schism, declares that even a pope must obey it, and orders councils to meet at fixed intervals. It also tries the Czech preacher Jan Hus, who had come under the king’s safe-conduct, and hands him over to be burned on 6 July 1415.
- 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.
- 1618 to 1648, firm dateThe Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia
A revolt of Bohemian Protestants in 1618 grows into a war that draws in all Germany and its neighbours. The treaties of Osnabrück and Münster in 1648 fix the rights of Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed in the Empire by the year 1624; the pope declares those articles void.