Ján Hus - Famous Czech Personality

Ján Hus was one of the most eminent personalities in 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 from Charles’ University in 1393 and he was awarded the lowest academic degree there. He didn’t differ from the other students. He was doing his duties to the school, visiting libraries etc.. He visited pubs also where he was discussing all the problems in the society. The most usual topics were three. The first one was moral descent of a church, the second were problems in the state and the third was University. On the University all the people were divided to four groups. Czechs, Poles, Bavarians and Saxons and each group had one vote. So if Czechs wanted to change something they had no chance to do it. Czech students were unsatisfied with this and therefor they protested against it with Hus as a leader. In 1396 Hus became a mister of a liberal arts and than he started to teach at Charles’ university. In 1400 he was consecrated to a priest and he desired to be a preacher. His first sermons were in the church of Santa Martin. He started his dizzying preacher way in 1402 in Betlémská kaple and in a short time he became very popular priest in Prague. He had to finish his work in 1412 there, because of severe conflicts between him and the church. In his speeches, Hus strongly criticized drawbacks of a feudal society and mistakes of the ministries. For his philosophy he found inspiration in Viklefs’ writings. And in his later work he extended them also. Viklef was an English priest who was chased in England for his ideas and criticism of a church.

Hus was strongly against indulgences in his sermons and therefore he caught in to the conflict with a bishop. In 1412 he was given in to the interdict. Serious consequences for the city of Prague resulted from this fact : no funerals, weddings, devotions and baptisms were allowed. Because of disputes with the king Václav IV. he left Prague and he 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 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 minds and his creed. However on the council they wanted him to recall his minds in his sermons, but he refused to change it. For this act he was burned on the pyre 6. July 1415. Because of his popularity, people were very disappointed with his death and therefore in the following period they started revolution against government and the Church.