THE HUSSITE WARS
CHAPTER I
All writers on the Hussite wars agree that these wars were the result of three causes, the antagonism of the Bohemians to the Church of Rome, the revival of the Slavic national feeling, and the rise of the democratic spirit which is, to a greater or lesser extent, evident in many European countries at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Where these writers differ widely is in their opinion as to the relative importance which should be attributed to each of these causes. The contemporary chroniclers, who hardly deserve the name of historians, have, both in their Latin and in their Bohemian writings, considered the Hussite movement mainly from the point of view of religious controversy; only occasional remarks indicate how great the racial antagonism was at that period, and how strongly democratic, and for a short time even communistic theories influenced the Bohemian people.
That the contemporary writers should have laid so great a stress on the religious controversies is natural, if we consider that the immediate cause of the national uprising was the execution of Hus. The first manifestation of opposition to King Sigismund, the famed “protestatio Bohemorum,” which was signed by the principal Bohemian nobles, refers exclusively to the life and the doctrine of Hus. The revival of the feeling of solidarity between the different branches of the Slavic race undoubtedly played a considerable part in the determined resistance which the Bohemians offered to the attacks of vastly superior armies of Germans. As will be noted later, this motive appears on several occasions in the
B
