Jan Hus
Jan Hus was one of the most important personalities of our history. In fact, we don't really know the date and place of his birth. It is assumed that it was in 1372 in Husinec. He was born in a poor and very populous family. Hus is known as a Czech thinker, preacher and leader of a reform movement.
From his history: He graduated at Charles' University in 1393 and he was awarded the lowest academic degree there. He wasn't much different from the other students. He was doing his duties for school, visiting libraries etc. He also visited pubs where he discussed all the problems of society. There were three major topics. The first one was the moral descent of the Church, the second were problems in the state and the third was the University. At the University all the people were divided into four groups. Czechs, Poles, Bavarians and Saxons, and each group had one vote. So if the Czechs wanted to change something, they had no chance of doing it on their own. Czech students were dissatisfied[1] with this situation and therefore they protested against it with Jan Hus as their leader. In 1396 Hus became a Master of Liberal Arts and then he started to teach at Charles' University. In 1400 he was ordained to become a priest and he desired to be a preacher[2]. His first sermons were in the church of Saint Martin. He started his overwhelming preacher carrier in 1402 in Betlémská Kaple and in a short time he became very popular among the Prague people. He had to finish his work in 1412 there, because of the severe conflicts with the Church. In his speeches, Hus strongly criticised the drawbacks[3] of the feudal society and the mistakes of the ministries. He found inspiration in Viklefs' writings and in his later work he also extended them. Viklef was an English priest who was persecuted in England for his ideas and criticisms of the Church.
In his sermons, Hus was strongly against indulgences and therefore he got into conflict with the bishop. In 1412 an interdict was declared upon him. The city of Prague was hit by serious consequences of this fact: no funerals, weddings, devotions and baptisms were allowed there. Because of disputes with the king Václav IV. Hus left Prague and moved to the country (Krakovec). At this time he started to write a lot of important writings (Postila, De Ecclesia) against the Church. He was also very important for our language. He wrote a lot of books in which he simplified the Czech orthography. The tension between Hus and the Church gradually increased and therefore he went to the Council in Kostnice in September 1414 to explain his thoughts and clear his credit. However, on the Council they wanted him to take back his thoughts, which he refused to do. For this act he was burned to death on the 6th July 1415. Because of his popularity, people were very disappointed to learn about his death and therefore in the following period they started a revolution against the Government and the Church.
[1] nespokojený
[2] kazatel
[3] nedostatky
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