A History of Bohemian LiteratureLützow, Francis, hrabe
History
A History of Bohemian Literature
Lützow, Francis, hrabe
Czech literature -- History and criticism
The adherents of Hus divided into two parties very shortly after the
death of their great leader. The more moderate party, which always
endeavoured to obtain a reconciliation with Rome, and some of the
members of which only differed from that Church in their views as to
the ceremony of communion, became known as the Calixtines, or as the
"Praguers," from the fact that the town, and specially the university
of Prague, was their centre. The more advanced Hussites received
the name of Taborites, as the town of that name soon became their
stronghold. There were minor differences of opinion in both camps.
Some of the Calixtines or Utraquists, as they were also called, were
prepared to accept the entire teaching of Rome if only the right of
receiving communion in the two kinds were granted to them. Other
Utraquists, who maintained that they alone had preserved the teaching
of Hus in its purity, differed from the Church of Rome on other points
also, as had been the case with Hus himself.
Among the Taborites also a more moderate party, led by Zižka, and known
after his death as the "Orphans," disagreed with yet more advanced
Church reformers. Finally, it should be mentioned that the intense
religious excitement, and the widely spread belief in the approaching
millennium, led to the formation of yet more advanced religious sects,
against some of which even the Taborites had no hesitation in employing
the "secular arm."
All these parties found exponents of their views, but it will here
be possible to mention only very few of the very many theological
controversialists of this time. The principal champion of the moderate
Utraquists was Magister John of Přibram, who is stated to have been a
pupil of Matthew of Janov. His polemical works are all directed against
the Taborites, and even against the more advanced members of his own
party. His constant adversary was the English Hussite, Peter Payne,
known to the Bohemians as "Magister Engliš." Přibram endeavoured,
not very successfully, to prove that the teaching of Hus was quite
independent of that of "the foreigner Wycliffe," and availed himself of
the national prejudices of the Bohemians for the purpose of alienating
them from the teaching of the English reformer and his pupil, Peter
Payne. The most important work of Přibram bears the name _Of the great
Torment of the Holy Church_, and was long attributed to Milič of
Kremsier. One of his most noteworthy books also is his _Lives of
the Priests of Tabor_, written, like the first-mentioned book, in
Bohemian. Přibram here violently attacks Nicolas of Pelhřimov, the
"false and monstrous bishop of the Taborites," as he calls him. Other
minor Bohemian works of Přibram, as well as some written in Latin, have
been preserved. He died in 1448.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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