Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/704

ZIZ of different church-forms, but as an alliance of true believers, based upon their common love to Christ, and seeking to fulfil the new commandment of their Lord. As a lasting monument of his indefatigable activity, we may further consider the church of the Brethren, which is now spread over the European continent. Great Britain, and America. To that interesting church he was the chosen instrument of God, for the establishment of her congregations and the development of her constitution. The numerous works which he published are chiefly theological. Some of them, especially his "Berlin Discourses," and other sermons, are read by many even at the present time. His poems and hymns have been collected, and were published in the year 1845 by the celebrated divine and poet Albert Knapp of Stuttgart. Memoirs of Count Zinzendorf were written by A. G. Spangenberg, J. G. Müller, J. W. Verbeek, and others; and for additional particulars we would finally refer the reader to E. Cröger's History of the Renewed Church of the Brethren.—J. R.  ZIZKA,, of Trocznow, the invincible leader of the Hussites, was born near the castle of Trocznow in Bohemia— tradition says under an oak-tree in the open fields—about the year 1360, or, according to other accounts, 1380. His father was a Bohemian noble of more rank than wealth, and at an early age he was sent into the service of King Wenceslaus as a court page. But such an office could not long be agreeable to a youth who was a born soldier, and he soon exchanged it for his proper element, the profession of arms. He fought his first battle in Poland in the war of Wadislaw II. against the Teutonic knights; and he soon after served with distinction in the wars of Hungary against the Turks, and of England against France. He won great renown in the battle of Agincourt in 1415; and already rich in martial knowledge and experience, he returned soon after to Bohemia to put his sword at the service of his countrymen in their noble struggle for religious liberty. It was in the same year (1415) that John Huss and Jerome of Prague, his compatriots, suffered martyrdom at Constance; and Zizka, who was a disciple of Huss, was conspicuous among the party of nobles who pressed Wenceslaus to revenge what they considered an insult to the Bohemian name and nation. His hatred to the Church of Rome had been further inflamed by the seduction of his sister, who was a nun, by a licentious monk, and he burned for an opportunity of avenging his private as well as the public wrongs. But the character of the king was weak and irresolute. He felt the stain which the pope and emperor had cast upon the honour of his kingdom, but he had not magnanimity and courage enough to wipe it off. "What are you musing about?" said Wenceslaus to Zizka one day, as he saw him from a window of the palace walking about in a thoughtful mood. "I am thinking," replied he, "upon the bloody affront which the Bohemians have suffered at Constance." "It is true," said the king, "that we have been insulted, but I fear it is neither in my power nor yours to revenge it." Meanwhile the council of Constance closed in 1418, without holding out to papal Christendom any prospect of church reform. Pope Martin V. sent his cardinal-legate, John Dominicho, into Bohemia, with full powers to repress and extinguish the heresy of Huss; and the moment had arrived for the Hussites to take decided action, unless they were prepared to return into the bosom of Rome. Zizka left the court, and betook himself to his native province, where he brought together an assembly of the reforming nobles in the castle of Wyssehrad, to devise measures for the defence of their religious liberties. They decided to send a message to the king, to say that they were resolved to continue in their own faith and worship, and to make no terms with Rome. Wenceslaus assured them of his sympathy, but blamed them for taking the initiative into their own hands. "You should have left your cause to me," said he; "you should have put your weapons at my disposal." Zizka saw his opportunity and seized it. "Take your arms," he called out to the nobles, "and follow me—I understand the king." They were soon in the sovereign's presence, when Zizka thus addressed him —"Sire, behold a body of your majesty's faithful subjects. We have brought our arms as you commanded us. Show us your enemies, and you shall acknowledge that our weapons can be in no hands more useful to you than in those that hold them." "Take your arms," replied the king, "and use them as becomes you." From that moment Zizka became the acknowledged leader and champion of the patriots and reformers of Bohemia. The war began in 1419 with an outbreak in the streets of Prague, when Zizka, at the head of the Hussites, broke into the council-house, where the magistrates were sitting, and threw out thirteen of the popish city-senators through the windows to the excited multitude below, by whom they were torn in pieces. This tragical commencement cost the poor king his life; and as the right of succession to the vacant throne was immediately claimed by his brother Sigismund, king of Hungary and emperor of Germany, who was hated by the Hussites for the treacherous part he had acted in the matter of the safe conduct of their revered teacher, John Huss, they at once resolved to oppose his succession, and to defend their religion and liberties against all the formidable power which he could bring against them. Proclaiming Zizka their commander-in-chief, they made energetic preparations for war, and forty thousand men instantly flocked to his standard. Seizing upon Pilsen, he converted it into a place of drill for his undisciplined masses; and furnishing them with arms collected from all quarters, he was soon able to lead them against the capital itself. Prague fell into his hands, with the exception of the castle; and taking up his position on Mount Withkow, near the city, which he strongly fortified (still called Zizka's hill), he awaited the approach of the emperor with a regular army thirty thousand strong. On the 19th August, 1420, the two armies confronted each other, and a fierce battle ensued, which ended in the complete discomfiture of Sigismund. Soon after Zizka appeared before Aussig, where the Hussites were suffering great oppressions, took it by storm, gave it to the flames, and put the cruel governor to death. Availing himself of the opportunity of the emperor's retreat, he formed a central camp upon a hill called Tabor, about ten German miles south of Prague, and surrounded on three sides by the windings of the Moldau. Here, having strongly entrenched himself, he fixed the head-quarters of his army; and hence the name of Taborites, often given to the chief body of the Hussites, by which they are distinguished from some minor sects which appeared among them. In 1421 Zizka laid siege to the castle of Prague, and took it; and in the same year, at the successful siege of the castle of Raby, he was deprived by an arrow of his only remaining eye (he had lost the other in boyhood), a calamity which might have been expected to bring his splendid career as a general to a close. But nothing could quench, or even damp the ardour of his great soul. He resolved to make use of the eyes of his officers in carrying on the holy war of patriotism and religion; and blind Zizka, carried in a cart at the head of his columns, proved himself more than a match for all the chivalry of the German empire and the Hungarian kingdom combined. Sigismund had now completed his preparations for a second campaign. Entering Bohemia himself from the south with a great army, including fifteen thousand Hungarian horse, he brought against Zizka from the north another large army of Saxons, commanded by the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg. But Zizka first routed the emperor's forces in a pitched battle fought on 18th January, 1422, driving them pell mell before him into Moravia; and then turning round against the Saxons, though unsuccessful in his first charge, he routed them in a second so completely that they left nine thousand men upon the field. These immense successes convinced Sigismund that Zizka was not to be conquered, and he opened negotiations with him, with a view to a compromise on terms honourable to the Hussites. But before a treaty could be arranged the hero of Bohemia was cut off by a species of plague which broke out among his troops while engaged in the siege of a castle in the district of Czaslau. He died on the 12th October, 1424, and was buried in Czaslau, where his iron war-club was hung up over his tomb. His death was a great calamity to his country, as it gave courage to its enemies to renew that dreadful war, which continued for eleven years longer, till it was at length concluded by the treaty of Prague in 1435, by which Sigismund was acknowledged king of Bohemia. It has been calculated that Zizka was victorious in thirteen pitched battles, and in more than one hundred smaller engagements and sieges. He has been accused of cruelty and ferocity. But the war he waged was one of strict defence, and on the side of the invaders it was carried on as a crusade of extermination. The story told of his bequeathing his skin to be converted into leather for a drum to frighten the enemy, is now regarded as a fable. He was a true patriot, and as a champion of liberty worthy to be placed among the foremost; while as a military genius he has had few equals for presence of mind, invention, power of organization, and uniformity of success.—P. L.  ZOËGA,, was the son of a Danish clergyman, and born in Jutland on the 25th December, 1755. He studied at 