Overview

This selection of over 200 texts, nearly all appearing for the first time in English translation, provides a close-up look at the crusades against the Hussite heretics of 15th-century Bohemia, from the perspective of the official Church - or at their struggles for religious freedom, from the Hussites' own point of view. It also throws light on the meaning of the crusading movement and on the nature of warfare in the late Middle Ages. There is no single documentary account of the conflict, but the riveting events can be reconstructed from a wide range of contemporary sources: chronicles, sermons, manifestos, songs, bulls, imperial correspondence, military and diplomatic communiqués, liturgy, military ordinances, trade embargos, epic poems, letters from the field, Jewish documents, speeches, synodal proceedings, and documents from popes, bishops, emperors and city councils. These texts reveal the zeal and energy of the crusaders but also their deep disunity, growing frustration and underlying fears - and likewise the heresy, determination and independence of the Hussites. Five times the cross was preached and the vastly superior forces of the official church and the empire marched into Bohemia to suppress the peasant armies. Five times they were humiliated and put to flight.

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9781032180199

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Reviews

'... its 209 documents clearly fulfil an urgent need to widen access to primary sources for Hussite Bohemia.' History 'Once again Thomas A. Fudge has given us an important contribution to Hussite studies... Here he presents, for the most part for the first time in English, translations from more than 200 documents illustrating a wide range of elements related to the crusade against Hussite heretics in fifteenth-century Bohemia.' Slavonic and East European Review 'There is no doubt that Fudge has done a great service in providing university teachers with an exceptional tool for presenting an important field of crusade studies to their undergraduate students. At the same time, the collection will serve researchers whose linguistic competence does not stretch to languages such as Polish, Czech or Hebrew, of which there are many, to acquire a taste and gain an insight into the wealth of different sources available for the history of the crusades against the Hussites.' Crusades '... the availability of translations of the Czech material will be widely welcomed... Dr Fudge's efforts to select material adequately covering the period, while using diverse sources, have been successful.' Catholic Historical Review

Author Information

Thomas A. Fudge is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. His previous publications include The Magnificent Ride: The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia (1998), also from Ashgate.

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