Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/93



is necessary to turn for a moment from the records of incessant warfare to the study of the internal condition of Bohemia during the early part of the Hussite wars. These wars have that analogy to the great English civil war in that minor struggles, simultaneously with the warfare of the main armies, but almost independently of it, took place in several parts of the country. Thus Žižka’s brilliant campaign in Southern Bohemia in the autumn of 1420 had little connection with the war waged against Sigismund by the Praguers and the Utraquist nobles almost at the same moment. Up to the end of the war there was constant border-warfare on the frontier of Bohemia and Silesia, and incessant combats between the citizens and the neighbouring Utraquist nobles also took place around Plzeň—the town which, first occupied by Žižka, became the principal stronghold of the Roman party during the later period of the war.

As the religious dissensions were—whatever other motives may have influenced the actors—the principal cause of the Hussite wars, it is well to consider here the position of the different parties. It is a mistake to believe, as many writers have done, that a fundamental difference existed among the Hussites from the beginning of the movement and as soon as they attempted to obtain religious freedom. All Hussites equally revered the great name of Hus, and agreed generally on many important points, such as Communion in the two kinds and the necessity of a thorough reformation of the clergy. How urgent that necessity was can only be understood by those who take the trouble to study contemporary records, even those written by faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic