The Four Articles of Prague
The common programme of the Hussite parties, sent by the city of Prague to the crusading army that besieged it in July 1420. It demands free preaching, communion in both kinds, a clergy without worldly lordship and the punishment of public sins.
Lawrence of Březová reports that the Praguers asked for a public hearing before the king’s army in which their masters could set out the four articles in Czech, German, Hungarian and Latin; when none was granted, the masters wrote the articles down with their proofs and sent them to the camp. The text he copies is issued in the name of the burgomasters, councillors, aldermen and whole community of Prague.
Each article is followed by its authorities, from the Gospels and Paul to Gregory, Augustine, Jerome and the canon law. The second, on the chalice, has the longest list. The closing paragraph protests that the city seeks only to please Christ and keep his law, that anyone who attacks it for these articles will be resisted as a tyrant, and that it is ready to be corrected from Scripture. The copy in Höfler’s edition ends with the year 1421, though the chronicle places the sending in July 1420. See the Hussites and the Compacts of Basel.
Cited in
- 1419 to 1436, firm date