Huss
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN (hös), a famous Bohemian protestant in religion; born of humble parents in Husinetz, near Prachatitz, Bohemia, July 6, 1369. He became a priest in 1400. Huss was a realist in philosophy, and adopted the views of WYCLIFFE (q. v.), whose works he translated and whose doctrines he preached, giving great offense to the Archbishop of Prague. Huss appeared by citation before the Council of Constance, and, though provided with a safe-conduct from the Emperor Siegmund, or Sigis- Sigis mund, he was adj adjudged a heretic, and burned alive July 6, 1415, as was his disciple Jerome of Prague, on May 30, 1416. By the decision of the Council of Constance, in 1414, the request of the Bohemian laity to communicate under two kinds was refused. The treatment of Huss exasperated his followers, and led to a religious war in which great ferocity and cruelty were manifested on both sides. The Hussite leaders were John Ziska, and after his death Procopius. Sigismund commanded the imperial forces. The Hussites fortified a mountain near Prague, which they called Mount Tabor. Before Ziska's death, Oct. 12, 1424, after obtaining religious liberty for Bohemia, the Hussites had begun to split into minor sects, as the Orebites, or Horebits, the Orphanites, and the Calixtines. In 1433, the Calixtines were conciliated by the concession of the cup of the laity. By the treaty of 1435, Siegmund was acknowledged King of Bo Bohemia, which, however, remained in an uneasy state. The Hussite troubles prepared the way for the Lutheran Reformation.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative Collier's gave in 1921 — priest, follower of Wycliffe, condemned at Constance despite Sigismund's safe-conduct, burned 6 July 1415 — is still the standard account, though he is now normally called Jan Hus rather than John Huss, and his birth is usually put around 1372 rather than 1369. Modern scholarship is less willing to treat him as simply a man who "adopted the views of Wycliffe": he took over much of Wycliffe's philosophy and church criticism but was more conservative on the Eucharist, and his Czech writings are studied in their own right. The largest change is in standing rather than fact: 6 July is a Czech public holiday, the Hussite chalice became a national emblem after Czechoslovak independence in 1918, and in 1999 Pope John Paul II expressed deep regret for Hus's cruel death, a gesture the 1921 text could not have anticipated.
Written for this edition, 2026.