Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/17

Rh the Austrian war of succession at the hand of Prussians, Bavarians, and Frenchmen, events that occurred but one or two centuries ago are forgotten. On all these occasions the peasant was a mere sufferer; he was deprived of his religious creed, or of his worldly goods, but he never defended himself. In the Hussite wars he had himself been a fighter; he had been a victorious warrior, and his flail and fighting-club had successfully beaten back the enemies of his country and his faith.”

It is necessary to refer briefly to the principal sources on which the historian of the Hussite wars has to rely. I will first mention the collections of contemporary chronicles published by Palacký in the third volume of the Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum. These chronicles, written in the Bohemian language, are the work of various writers. The manuscripts were afterwards collected and first published in the nineteenth century.

Of other contemporary writers Lawrence of Březova, author of a Latin work, de gestis et variis accidentibus regni Bohemiæ, is the only one who can be considered as a historian. He writes as a moderate Hussite or “Calixtine,” equally opposed to the tyranny of Rome and to the fanaticism of the advanced Táborites. If we make due allowance for the personal sympathies and views of Březova, his chronicle is very valuable, and he may be considered as almost the only genuine contemporary historian of the Hussite wars. I have here largely used the contents of his work. It is deeply to be regretted that Březova’s chronicle breaks off suddenly in the middle of his record of the year 1421. Professor Goll has edited, together with Březova’s chronicle, two other contemporary chronicles, that of the university of Prague—a not very valuable compilation—and that of Bartošek of Drahonic. Bartošek was a knight in the service of King Sigismund during the Hussite wars. He writes as a soldier, little interested in theological