During the 1420s a significant portion of the Czech people lived outside the jurisdiction of the country’s government, and offered an alternative approach to the ordering of society. The radicals, attempting to apply ideas of a strict personal morality, believed that the welfare of the country required a total religious cleansing of the individual which went much deeper than the moderates felt necessary. At a meeting held near Plzen in September 1419 in preparation for political action they put it thus:
Accordingly all of us, with one will... ask God that we be purged of all that is evil and damaging to the soul, and be developed in all that is good ... And so, dearest ones, we ask and beg you for God and your salvation to join us all on Saturday at The Crosses ... for godly unity on behalf of the freedom of the Law of God and for the salutary benefit and honourable welfare of the whole realm, in order that offences and manifest scandals and dissensions be ended and removed, with the help of God, king, lords, knights, esquires, and the whole Christian community.
The moral and religious vision of these people was at the same time a political programme for the whole country. The radicals (or Taborites, as their contemporaries referred to those who, in 1419, gathered on a hill, dubbed Mount Tabor, in southern Bohemia) none the less failed to organise their nation around their ideas of religious and national reform, a failure which they recognised late that year when Prague and the moderate nobles negotiated with Sigismund and dismantled their defences. At the same time the royalists plundered the property of the Hussites, drove out their priests and killed their brothers and sisters. Some radicals, or Chiliasts, interpreted this as the activity of the anti-Christ, concluding that the wrath of God would soon be upon the earth, followed by the early return of Jesus. Rejecting all existing social and political forms, they proclaimed it time for the faithful to leave their livelihoods, seek refuge in five cities and prepare to defend themselves with the sword against the enemies of God. For a brief time those who fled to the five cities imitated apostolic practices and pooled their resources, their priests setting up chests and distributing goods to the needy. Their leaders exhorted them to await the advent of Christ, and to make way for the coming millenial kingdom by destroying his enemies. Wenceslas, a tavern keeper in Prague, and Martin Huska, operating in southern Bohemia, explained that the elect of God would then possess all their enemies’ goods, and freely administer their estates and villages. Gold and silver would be freely available; rents paid to lords would be abolished, as would be all forms of subjection. The elect would freely and peaceably possess their villages, fish ponds, meadows, forests and the domains of former lords. All persons of high rank were to be chopped down as pieces of wood. Women would give birth without pain and would no longer suffer the grief of the death of children. Even those who repudiated Chiliasm were influenced by its egalitarian vision of social peace.
There were several towns, from Hradec Kralove in the east to Zatec in the north-west and Plsek in the south, to which radicals fled. Tabor, the name given to the deserted fortress of Hradiste near the town of Ustl, was in many ways the most important. Both here and in other radical towns the leadership knew that a stable and ordered society involved rules and laws which must be enforced. These men and women formed social, political, economic and military organisations enlivened by ideals of human equality while restrained by tradition and the material realities of life. They viewed as threats some of the alternative approaches to social organisation found in their midst. One such was that of Peter Chelcicky who argued that to use force, either against enemies or in order to organise a society and force people to behave in a Christian manner, was incompatible with biblical teaching. Chelcicky held that no lord could ask a peasant to do labour which he himself was unwilling to perform. He rejected the three-tiered social structure, and called for a community organically unified by its faith in Christ, whose members treated one another as loving equals. Chelcicky also went furthest in subverting the centuries-old prejudice that women were inferior beings. In an undated sermon for Christmas day, after noting the current negative feminine stereotype, he reminded his listeners that both sexes were capable of vice and virtue, and that courage and strength were not preserves of the male.
A second danger came from the free spirit Pikartism of Martin Huska which can be seen as a muted continuation of Chiliasm. Huska believed that God would work real changes in men and women so that their behaviour would be such that there would be no need for law. He taught that Christ was not present in the eucharistic elements, and that this Christian celebration acquired its real meaning when the faithful feasted around supper tables in small groups, performing acts of kindness to one another following the example of Christ. Since He was present in their actions, ordinary people were transformed into something better, something which would exist at the consummation of the age. A small breakaway group, led by Peter Kanis, practised ritual nudism, and their enemies accused them of gathering for sexual love feasts. Perceived as undermining the wider Hussite cause, they were exterminated by Jan Zizka in April 1421.
Tabor’s participation in the efforts to establish national government depended on whether its view of a reformed Church was taken seriously. Its representatives participated at the diet held at Caslav in 1421, and two of its military captains, Jan Zizka and Chval of Machovice, were named to the twenty-strong governing council. In 1426, however, Tabor opposed the decision of its allies to establish a government on a regional, rather than on a confessional basis, in order to co-operate with the central government in its attempt to reach agreement with King Sigismund.
Nevertheless, Tabor co-operated with others to create at least a modicum of social peace. For most of the revolution, up to 1434, Tabor was part of a federation of allies, including gentry and towns largely from southern and eastern Bohemia, and including the towns of Zatec and Louny in the northwest. Ties with allied lords were quite free as Tabor’s captains entered into agreements with nobles who provided military security for a number of outlying posts. Ideological agreement was voluntary, and the lord could enter the service of a Catholic once he had fulfilled the terms of his agreement with Tabor. Such nobles were useful allies. They brought armed retinues into battle; they served as administrators of castles conquered by the peasant field armies; and they built up independent retinues. However, the commitment of important nobles such as Nicholas Sokol of Lamberk, John Smil of Kremz and Priblk of Klenova could easily evaporate. None of these fought on the side of the radical brotherhoods when these were defeated by conservative forces at Lipany in May 1434. Many of the captains who had gained property with the help of peasant armies were later to desert the commoners in order to enter the Hussite aristocracy.
When they established their settlement on the plateau of the deserted fortress, Taborite settlers thought of themselves as breaking decisively with the old Babylon and as being uncontaminated by the past. However, the first settlers looked after their own interests and took the best plots for themselves, showing the kind of greed denounced by reformers. None the less this new settlement represented a social revolution of sorts because some who, before the revolution, had owned small dwellings, now found themselves living on the prestigious town square. Furthermore, the founding of Tabor was an act of popular sovereignty and spontaneous free will in that these radical Hussites recognised no human lord, in either the religious or the political sphere. They tried to act with the autonomy of the resurrected Church as they saw it described in the Bible. Individual Taborites lived out that freedom in their worship. Sermons, the simple liturgy and hymns were all in their own Czech language. In discussion groups people offered informed opinions on public life based on their own reading or on the many sermons or expositions which they had heard. As an urban centre, not subject to any lord, Tabor resisted calling itself a town, preferring the more egalitarian form of ‘commons’. When referring to themselves as ‘We, the commons (obec) of the Taborites’ they meant a society of people with the same faith and goals, brothers and sisters as partners in self-government, privileges and rights. To the older idea of the urban corporation they added the notion of the common faith. Howard Kaminsky described the form of democracy there as ‘the leader acting with the people, in a sort of resonance that cannot be fixed in the routine of institutions’. In the early days women may have participated in the community’s self-government, although they probably did not have voting rights.
The highest organ of civil government was the assembly of all citizens to which the council of elders was responsible. This ‘Great Commons’ made important decisions, such as in 1450 when it had to decide how to respond to the demand for submission from George of Podesbrady, the leader of moderate Hussitism. Normally the ‘Commons’ met once a year to elect twenty-four elders, from whom twelve were selected to serve on the town council. The ‘Great Commons’ approved taxes and the budget, and discussed matters of war and peace. By the end of the 1420s they elected a ruler (vladar) who, in time of war, led the forces of Tabor and its allies. The elders had direct responsibility for the non-military matters of the region. After 1432 the town council was elected regularly for one year, the chair rotating with each member holding it for four weeks. The judge was elected at the same time as the council. He supervised the property market within the town walls, as well as agreements over debts, and the sale of property of those dying intestate. With the help of bailiffs he looked after policing and fire safety needs. Appeals from his decisions could be heard by the council.
Despite its egalitarian rhetoric, leadership of the radical federation remained substantially in the hands of nobles. The new rulers in each town sought first and foremost to consolidate their own position at the expense of the urban classes in the county as a whole. Only rarely did members of those classes represent Tabor or serve as military captains. This inclination towards tradition was reflected in a dispute in 1427 when the Taborite council of elders, acting as arbiters, supported the hereditary judge against the autonomy of the town council of Pelhrsimov.
The lines of authority and jurisdiction between the civil, spiritual and military life of Tabor’s community were blurred before the charter of King Sigismund clarified them in 1437. Although committed to equality between brothers and sisters, two informal elites, one clerical, the other military, dominated. The Taborite priest, better educated and more articulate, carried great influence; he was at once agitator, organiser, councillor and warrior, giving the commune a theocratic character. By the mid-1420s two military leaders were appointed, one responsible for the home army, the other, resident in a nearby fortress, leading the troops further afield. For many years Prokop the Shaven, a priest and military captain, dominated the federation of radical forces. Yet, in a serious crisis, even he had to submit to his soldiers. In deteriorating military circumstances, during the futile siege of Catholic Plzen, they criticised his policies and choice of captains, and in 1433 they deposed and briefly imprisoned him.
After his accession in 1437, King Sigismund granted Tabor the status of a royal town, and it entered the normal framework of late medieval politics. It could elect its own council, and rights of appeal from urban and local courts could be made before the king or his representative. The royal judge or advocate was subject to the town council. Tabor was to be free of all royal taxes, except for a small, twice-yearly, payment of 300 groschen. It was to remain a free town until integrated under the government of the country by George of Podebrady in 1448.
Because the radicals wanted a general renewal of the Church in the whole of Europe, they made little use of national arguments in the early stages of the revolution. However, their practices and experience enhanced a Czech identity in their midst. They introduced Czech as the language of worship so that the believer could better communicate with God. It was fundamentally important to Tabor’s leaders that their children could read the Bible and sing. By 1446 a separate building had been built for the school. Girls and boys were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and other subjects from the seven liberal arts. The language of instruction was Czech.
As Tabor became more isolated, it saw itself as alone representing the Czech people, as its support of Kolda of Zampach in 1441 illustrates. Kolda, a lord, had disturbed the peace, and the government, with the help of German-speaking Silesia, had taken action against him. The government saw itself as keeping the peace in the crown lands to which the Silesians belonged; they were not foreigners, simply subjects of the crown. It was as a fellow Czech, however, that Tabor supported Kolda. In a letter of 27 May 1441 Tabor complained of the destruction done, in particular, by Silesian elements in the government’s armies. For the sake of the Czech tongue they were helping their friend Kolda against Czech lords and their German allies: ‘let the good people see who it is that loves the Czech and Slav languages, who stands for the promotion of the praise of God and for the spread of the Czech language; is it we or is it those who want to counsel and help foreigners?’ The patriotic tone of their complaint reflects the distance the radicals had come since their early hopes for a redeemed Europe.