Hussite Crusades (1420–1431)

Abstract After the execution of Jan Hus (1415) and the refusal of his followers to submit to the Latin Church, and upon the order of Pope Martin V, a Crusade was proclaimed against the Czech heretics (1420), fulfilling a desire expressed three years earlier. The implementation was assigned to Emperor Sigismund. The imperial initiative met strong resistance. Battles fought inside Bohemia included five separate Crusade advances. These were countered decisively at Prague (1420), Žatec (1421), Kutná Hora and the Sázava River Valley (1421–1422), Tachov (1427), and Domazžlice (1431). On each occasion the Crusaders were spectacularly defeated by peasant armies commanded by Jan Žižka and later Prokop Holý. Parallels with the anti‐Cathar campaign in the thirteenth century are obvious. The goal of the Crusade was the eradication of heresy and submission to the official church, together with restored social stability and political control in the Czech lands. Crusades against Hussites are part of that medieval chapter of European history wherein the church took aim at enemies within Christendom, especially in southern France and eastern and northern Europe. Fifteenth‐century Hussitism cannot be considered Protestant.