The Hussite Revolution

Prague | 1419 C.E.

In 1402, Czech preacher Jan Hus began speaking out in Prague for the reform of the Church and discrediting Church authorities—for good reason, as the Western Schism had left Europe with two and then three separate popes. Hus’s movement and following grew for the next 14 years, especially after the Church began issuing wholesale indulgences and trying to crackdown on Hus’s followers, by now called Hussites. Eventually, he was summoned to discuss matters in 1415 with religious officials at the Council of Constance, under protection by the promise of the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg.

Sigismund broke his word, and Hus was put through a kangaroo trial and burned at the stake. Now, in 1419, tensions in the Czech homeland of Bohemia and the capital of Prague have come to a head, and the Czech Hussites have thrown their German magistrates out of a window in Prague’s New Town Hall, killing them. The German King of Bohemia and brother of Emperor Sigismund, Wenceslaus, has died of shock. Now, it is up to you to lead the Hussites, to decide how to maintain their newfound liberty against the desires of their German and Catholic rulers, and to avenge Jan Hus.