Brian Ober
Jan Hus was born in the town of Husinec or Goose Town in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia, sometime between 1369 to 1371 to simple peasant parents. He took the towns name as his last name.
“In his twenties, he shortened his name to Huss—”goose,” and he and his friends delighted in making puns on his name” (BYUI Huss 2).
To escape a life of poverty Jan Huss, choose to seek out a career with the church. As the Britannica nicely puts it “About 1390 he enrolled in the University of Prague” (Britannica). He received multiple degrees in theology from the university from then until 1404. He was already a professor of theology there in 1398. He was ordained as a priest in 1400 and was made rector of the school in 1402.
At this time there was much division in the Catholic Church. There were two and later three claimants to the title of Pope and they all excommunicated each other. They then started selling indulgences to fund crusades against each other. There was also some disagreement over who could drink the wine at communion.
There were also some political troubles going on in Bohemia. German leaders and nobles were traditionalists and hated the writings of people like Wycliffe. “In 1403 a German university master, Johann Hübner, drew up a list of 45 articles, presumably selected from Wycliffe’s writings, and had them condemned as heretical. Because the German masters had three votes and the Czech masters only one, the Germans easily outvoted the Czechs, and the 45 articles were henceforth regarded as a test of orthodoxy” (Britannica). Czechs on the other hand wanted change and they in general liked the writings of Wycliffe. The King of Bohemia, Vaclav IV, supported the Czechs. The king decided to reverse the voting advantage in the Czech’s favor. This change led the Germans to move to different universities.
Into this mess of church and national politics stepped Jan Huss. He didn’t agree with all of Wycliffe’s views but he did support many of them. This along with the fact that he taught in the Bethlehem Chapel, one of two chapels in the country allowed to teach in Czech, soon lead him to be the head of the Czech reform movement. He denounced the gluttony, greed, ignorance, and sexual sins common to many members of the clergy of his day.
In 1403 he became the advisor of the new archbishop of Progue, Zbyněk Zajíc of Hazmburk. For a time, this strengthened the reform movement but the archbishop wouldn’t stay aligned with him for long. Those that opposed the reform movement managed to win the archbishop over to their cause. They then managed in 1407 to try two radical reformers Stanislav and Páleč for heresy. These two men, after their trial, turned their backs to the reform movement and became some of its fiercest opponents.
As Christianity.com puts it “Repeatedly accused of heresy, Hus was excommunicated four times, once in violation of church procedure” (Christianity). In 1409 Alexander V, one the claimants to the title of pope, was bribed to excommunicate Jan Hus by the archbishop for the crime of preaching in Czech. In 1412 the archbishop excommunicated Jan Huss for supporting a rival pope to the one the archbishop did, ironically the archbishop did not support Alexander V (Anglican).
As long as the king supported Jan Hus he was allowed to preach as if nothing had happened. This changed after Jan Hus started publicly preaching against the practice of selling indulgences for the purpose of funding a war against other papal claimants. The king profited from the practice of selling indulgences and had approved their sale in his country.
Around this time the new Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Hungary forced the Catholic Church to call the Council of Constance. This council was called to determine once and for all who the pope was. He then offered Jan Huss a chance to come forth and explain his views on the matter. When Jan Huss hesitated to come the emperor promised him safe conduct to and from the council no matter what the council decided.
The emperor did not keep his word. Jan Huss was arrested shortly after arriving at the conference and was put on trial as a Wycliffe Heretic. When he was asked to recant his teachings, “Hus declared that he would gladly root out all heresy if he could be shown from the Bible anything false that he had taught. He flatly refused to pretend he had ever promoted the lies attributed to him” (Christianity). While he was on trial Cardinal Peter D’Ailly refused to let Jan Huss answer any of the charges. He was rebuked for appealing to God. He prayed that God would forgive those clergy that falsely accused him.
He was stripped of his priestly office and sentenced him to burn at the stake. When given yet another chance to recant he declared “The principle intention of my preaching and of all my other acts or writings was solely that I might turn men from sin. And in that truth of the Gospel that I wrote, taught, and preached in accordance with the sayings and expositions of the holy doctors, I am willing gladly to die today” (Christianity). While he burned, he sung Psalms. The Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II later acknowledged that Jan Huss’s death was unjust.
His death caused an uproar throughout Bohemia. His followers, the Hussites rose up in armed rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire and the church. They withstood multiple crusades and military campaigns until a compromise was reached with the moderates among the Hussites.
His teachings would go on and greatly influence the Reformation. Martin Luther was greatly influenced by the writings of Jan Hus and he called him “great a man, who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill” (BYUI Huss 1).
Read more: Jan Huss: Pre-Protestant ReformerSources
“John Huss Pre-Reformation Reformer”. Found by Brian Ober, Oct. 6, 2022, https://byui.instructure.com/courses/201222/pages/course-readings?module_item_id=25418966
Dan Graves, MSL, with Ken Curtis, PhD, Joe Thomas, PhD, Tracey L. Craig, and Ann T. Snyder “The Tragic Trial and Death of Jan Hus” 2006 by Christian History Institute. Found by Brian Ober, Oct. 6, 2022, https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1201-1500/the-tragic-trial-and-death-of-jan-hus-11633059.html
James E. Kiefer “Jan Huss Priest and Matyr” Found by Brian Ober, Oct. 6, 2022, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/7.html
František M. Bartoš “Jan Hus” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Jul. 2022, Found by Brian Ober, Oct. 6, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Hus/The-final-trial
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