Hussite Crusades, 1420 - 1431

Jan Hus, faithful and upright Christian and preacher in Bohemia, was excommunicated by John XXIII (bishop of Rome? now deemed anti-pope), in 1411. He was summoned to the Council of Constance in 1415, to which he was promised safe passage and return. Nevertheless, at the council he was arrested, tried, condemned as a heretic, and burned at the stake. This was an offence to his countrymen.

... When the tidings of Huss's martyrdom arrived, the magnates and great nobles held a full council, and, speaking in the name of the Bohemian nation, they addressed an energetic protest to Constance against the crime there enacted. They eulogized, in the highest terms, the man whom the Council had consigned to the flames as a heretic, calling him the "Apostle of Bohemia; a man innocent, pious, holy, and a faithful teacher of the truth." [Wylie, citing Comenius, Persecut. Eccles. Bohem., cap. 9, p. 33] Holding the pen in one hand, while the other rested on their sword's hilt, they said, "Whoever shall affirm that heresy is spread abroad in Bohemia, lies in his throat, and is a traitor to our kingdom; and, while we leave vengeance to God, to Whom it belongs, we shall carry our complaints to the footstool of the indubitable apostolic Pontiff ... declaring, at the same time, that no ordinance of man shall hinder our protecting the humble and faithful preachers of the words of our Lord Jesus, and our defending them fearlessly, even to the shedding of blood."...
The History of Protestantism, Volume First - Book Third, Chapter 13, by James A. Wylie

Martin V, bishop of Rome, issued a bull in 1420 proclaiming a crusade against the Hussites. This resulted in five separate anti-Hussite crusades, in all of which the papal forces were defeated by the Hussites.

[Holy Roman Emperor] Sigismund was determined to suppress them, but when Pope Martin V, with Sigismund's support, declared a crusade against them, the Hussites gave the invading armies several stunning defeats. The Hussites at first fought only defensive battles under the leadership of John Zizka.... Under Procopius the Great, Zizka's successor, the Bohemians won several more important defensive victories and then took the offensive, attacking Catholic strongholds in Slovakia, Silesia, and Lusatia.
Encarta.com, Hussites

Peace negotiations commenced at the Council of Basel in 1431, and a treaty, the Compact of Iglau, was achieved in 1436, in which the Hussite Church was granted independence, the ownership of the lands of the Church in Bohemia, and communion in both kinds.


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