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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