“The one who lets God rule over every part of his life honors Him more and benefits his soul more than if he traveled the entire world for God while simultaneously standing on his head.”
-Jan Hus- (Nine Pieces of Gold)
Jan Hus (c. 1370–1415), sometimes anglicized as John Huss, was a Roman Catholic priest, teacher, and reformer, largely inspired by John Wycliffe.
Jan Hus (John the Goose) was born in Husinec, a small village in southern Bohemia, in 1370s. Czech historians (apparently unlike the American) know very little of his family or youth, except that Jan seemingly grew up in poverty. It is quite possible that he was educated at a parish school in nearby Prachatice.
Later, when he was 16, he went to study at the renowned Charles University in Prague to become a priest, so that (as he himself admits) he would never have to worry about money again. During his studies, he earned his living as a choir singer and an assistant to some of the university professors. Thus, he had access to the higher intellectual echelons and simultaneously gained experience which he later used in promoting his ideas through hymns and songs.
Hus earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1393, Master’s Degree in 1396, and he began teaching at the University in 1398. He was ordained as a priest in 1400; in 1401, he became a dean; and in 1402, he was appointed to preach in the Bethlehem Chapel (a chapel for 3 000+ people erected specifically as a place where the Czechs of Prague could hear sermons in their vernacular).
Even though Protestants like to claim Hus, and even though the events surrounding Hus played a significant role in the later Protestant movement, it would be seriously misguided to consider Hus anything else but a medieval Catholic (with an eccentric idea here and there).
True, Hus was strongly influenced by Wycliffe (to the degree of sometimes quasi-plagiarizing his works), and he helped to spread Wycliffe’s ideas, even though many of Wycliffe’s works had been banned by the Catholic authorities. But when he was told to hand over Wycliffe’s writings, he obeyed, and he rejected many of the more radical views of Wycliffe, such as his denial of transubstantiation.
True, Hus denounced the sins of the clergy of all ranks from the pulpit. But that was one of the reasons why his archbishop actually appointed him as the preacher at the local clerical synods. Hus followed in the footsteps of men like St. John Chrysostom and St. Bernard of Clairvaux and carried on the venerable tradition of breathing fire from the pulpit, irrespective of the social and ecclesial status of his target.
True, Hus was critical of certain practices related to the sale of indulgences, and it seems that communion under both kinds might have been practiced around him. But neither of these appear among the charges brought against him even by the most vicious and disingenuous of his opponents, and the start of the practice among his contemporaries is documented only after Hus left Bohemia.
…so, Hus was passionately preaching and teaching his Wycliffe-influenced, Realist, medieval Roman Catholicism. And, over time, the Roman authorities were becoming more and more serious in getting rid of Wycliffism.
Jumping forward over years of politicking (between the Bohemians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Poles), religious upheaval (caused by the Western Papal schism), and political tensions (between the Czech king and the popes): In 1410, the Bohemian “Wycliffites” were excommunicated by the Pisan (anti)pope Alexander V (who was then however recognized as the true pope by both Hus and the Czech king). In the famous words of St. Vincent Ferrer (1350–1419): “I feel you. Those were some crazy times.”
Alexander V died shortly after, and was succeeded by pope John XXIII, who launched a crusade against the king of Naples, the key protector of pope Gregory XII. The crusade, together with sale of indulgences to support it financially, was preached in Prague as well – and opposed by Hus – which exacerbated the religious tensions, and first blood was shed in 1412, when three young firebrands from the ranks of the sympathizers of Hus called indulgences a fraud and were beheaded. (This was a harbinger that the whole debate, which had been largely academic until then, would later to a significant degree morph into a popular, revolutionist movement.)
Hus continued to preach, and his influence was reaching the whole of Bohemia. Thus, in October 1412, the Pisan (anti)pope placed Hus under an interdict (basically a prohibition of the liturgy, sacraments, Christian burials etc. in the location where Hus was present). To relieve the city of Prague, Hus left for the countryside, and at the same time, he appealed to Jesus Christ as the Supreme Judge in a gesture of “bypassing” the whole legal hierarchy of the medieval Roman Church.
After Hus left Prague and encountered “the life out there”, he more fully realized the chasm between the life of academic theological speculation, and the life of the country clergy and the lay sheep entrusted to them. Hus still kept preaching, but he also started writing hymns and songs in Czech, together with many basic catechetical texts, the best known of these being The Daughter: How to Know the Correct Way to Salvation. At the same time, Hus wrote his most important book, De Ecclesia, which John Wycliffe might have mistaken for his own.
Enter Sigismund of Hungary, the head of the Holy Roman Empire, and brother of the Czech king Wenceslaus. Sigismund, wanting to be a new Constantine the Great, organized a general church council in Constance to end the papal schism, and to deal with the dissention that the Bohemian “Wycliffites” were exporting far and wide in the heart of Europe. Hus was granted a safe-conduct and agreed to come to Constance, seemingly hoping for a constructive dialogue.
After Hus came into Constance in November 1414, his interdict was revoked (for rather obvious reasons), and he continued celebrating Mass and preaching. In a few weeks, he was arrested because of the increasing upheaval in the city, and he was imprisoned in a local Dominican monastery. (It is worthy of notice that only after Hus left for Constance, Jacob of Mies, one of his colleagues, started administering the chalice to the laity, despite the protests of many other university Masters.)
Hus was given three hearings by the council, and numerous private visits by the various council authorities. He publicly rejected what he considered to be Wycliffe’s errors, and he denied and repudiated many errors that had been falsely attributed to him. However, his clarifications, denials and appeals to conscience, the Fathers, and Scripture were not considered sufficient by the Council, and in the end, Hus was condemned as a heretic and burned at a stake on July 6th.
It is reported that his last words were: “God is my witness that the things charged against me I never preached. In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today.”
