Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (40 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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In May, the situation changed abruptly again: the radical aldermen handed over the keys and the insignia of Prague to Prince Sigmund Korybut,
who arrived in Prague in the name of his uncle, Grand Duke Witold of Lithuania, who had been elected king of Bohemia by moderate Hussites and was shortly to take up the reins of power (actually, he never did), and the moderates, under his protection, proclaimed a time of reconciliation. Radicals and Táborites later attempted a few times, by stealth or by military force, to take the Prague towns again, but they never succeeded, and Prague, throughout the later Hussite wars, remained a moderate town of Utraquist lords, burghers, and university masters longing for peace and, as the conflict dragged on, for a compromise with the church. Today, tourists are reminded of Jan Želivský by a small plaque on the tower of the Old Town city hall, put there by the Stalinist authorities and explaining that he was a “victim of the bourgeoisie.” It is a rather simple view of a radical priest of considerable political and spiritual gifts, and of the vicissitudes of his time.
who arrived in Prague in the name of his uncle, Grand Duke Witold of Lithuania, who had been elected king of Bohemia by moderate Hussites and was shortly to take up the reins of power (actually, he never did), and the moderates, under his protection, proclaimed a time of reconciliation. Radicals and Táborites later attempted a few times, by stealth or by military force, to take the Prague towns again, but they never succeeded, and Prague, throughout the later Hussite wars, remained a moderate town of Utraquist lords, burghers, and university masters longing for peace and, as the conflict dragged on, for a compromise with the church. Today, tourists are reminded of Jan Želivský by a small plaque on the tower of the Old Town city hall, put there by the Stalinist authorities and explaining that he was a “victim of the bourgeoisie.” It is a rather simple view of a radical priest of considerable political and spiritual gifts, and of the vicissitudes of his time.
In a world of increasing brutality, the Prague Jews went on living in their own community, blessed with the traditions of internal self-rule; though theoretically the absence of a central authority protecting its financial interests may have contributed to legal uncertainties, the barons and the towns were disinclined for economic reasons to change Jewish policies radically. King Václav IV was called by many of his enemies a “king of Jews,” because he and his middle-class advisers were interested more in successful financial transactions than in endangering an important source of needed cash. But though the king could not be held responsible for the terrible pogrom of 1389, he had listened to the accusations that Prague Jews were blaspheming Christ, and as a result, eighty representatives of the Jewish community were put to death in 1400.
The people of the Prague reform movement held ambivalent views about Jews; in spite of all the insults they hurled at Jews, the Hussites were awed by the Maccabean nation of the Bible and the fierce morality of their prophets. They did not belligerently intervene in Prague Jewish life, but it is also true that in other Bohemian places, and during armed conflict, Jews were given the choice of accepting Christianity
sub utraque specie
or dyirig: this happened in Chomutov (Homotau), where Jews preferred to die. Yet it has to be said that during the restive Hussite years, Prague Jewry, as if living on an island of tradition, suffered far less (even when the Prague
Lumpenproletariat
invaded the Jewish Town in 1420
and 1422) than Jews in Austria, for instance, where the entire Viennese community was killed off or driven into exile, accused by the Austrian authorities of selling weapons to the Hussites raiding Austrian territory.
sub utraque specie
or dyirig: this happened in Chomutov (Homotau), where Jews preferred to die. Yet it has to be said that during the restive Hussite years, Prague Jewry, as if living on an island of tradition, suffered far less (even when the Prague
Lumpenproletariat
invaded the Jewish Town in 1420
and 1422) than Jews in Austria, for instance, where the entire Viennese community was killed off or driven into exile, accused by the Austrian authorities of selling weapons to the Hussites raiding Austrian territory.
In the early years of the Czech reform movement, theologians raised the question of how the coming, or virtual presence, of the Antichrist (a certain sign of the millennium or the fullness of time) related to Jewish history. Mili
of Krom
ž believed that the Antichrist was of Jewish origin and that, after the destruction of the first and second temples, he would build a third temple for the Jews; clearheaded Peter Payne rejected such mystical speculations. Mat
j of Janov made evil a thoroughly Christian problem, radically severing any link between Jews and the Antichrist; he insisted that the Antichrist was but the totality of all bad Christians wherever they were (one of them being, of course, the highest Antichrist). Others, including Jan Hus himself, believed that in the fullness of time, Jews, who were not at all the people of the Antichrist, would freely convert to Christianity, fervently embrace their new religion, and serve, before the coming of Christ, as an example to others.
of Kromž believed that the Antichrist was of Jewish origin and that, after the destruction of the first and second temples, he would build a third temple for the Jews; clearheaded Peter Payne rejected such mystical speculations. Matj of Janov made evil a thoroughly Christian problem, radically severing any link between Jews and the Antichrist; he insisted that the Antichrist was but the totality of all bad Christians wherever they were (one of them being, of course, the highest Antichrist). Others, including Jan Hus himself, believed that in the fullness of time, Jews, who were not at all the people of the Antichrist, would freely convert to Christianity, fervently embrace their new religion, and serve, before the coming of Christ, as an example to others.Averse to an economy of credit and money, Hussites were brave moralists rather than theological hairsplitters, and early on they turned their attention to the question of Jewish and Christian usury. Both Nicholas of Dresden, the German Hussite, and his Czech colleague Jakoubek of St
bro wrote pamphlets against usury in 1415. The German radical inveighed against both Jewish and Christian usurers, and he raised his energetic voice against Christian princes who, ultimately, derived substantial income from Jewish taxes and contributions (a point well understood by his contemporaries: King Václav derived one-fifth or perhaps one-fourth of his income from Jewish sources). Jakoubek of St
bro often alluded to St. Thomas Aquinas in suggesting that Christian society carried its own heavy burden of responsibility by forbidding Jews to do anything except lend money for interest. He believed that the practice of lending money in its own way guaranteed the survival of Jewish tradition; if, he believed, Jews would work, as did the Christians, “in the fields, in the forests, on rivers, on crafts, and profane commerce,” they would be easily converted to Christianity; people, he added, were “made for work as flies were made for flying,” and shared labor was essential to end the Jews’ social and religious isolation. Also, he added with a dash of naiveté or cynicism, “if Jews worked more, they would have less time to study the Talmud and, in consequence, would be less qualified to argue against Christian theologians.” Jakoubek was not at all fond of Jews, whom he called “pigeon shit,” making the soil fat but not fertile, or “excrement of
the patriarchs,” but he had little sympathy for Christian usurers either, perhaps even less.
bro wrote pamphlets against usury in 1415. The German radical inveighed against both Jewish and Christian usurers, and he raised his energetic voice against Christian princes who, ultimately, derived substantial income from Jewish taxes and contributions (a point well understood by his contemporaries: King Václav derived one-fifth or perhaps one-fourth of his income from Jewish sources). Jakoubek of Stbro often alluded to St. Thomas Aquinas in suggesting that Christian society carried its own heavy burden of responsibility by forbidding Jews to do anything except lend money for interest. He believed that the practice of lending money in its own way guaranteed the survival of Jewish tradition; if, he believed, Jews would work, as did the Christians, “in the fields, in the forests, on rivers, on crafts, and profane commerce,” they would be easily converted to Christianity; people, he added, were “made for work as flies were made for flying,” and shared labor was essential to end the Jews’ social and religious isolation. Also, he added with a dash of naiveté or cynicism, “if Jews worked more, they would have less time to study the Talmud and, in consequence, would be less qualified to argue against Christian theologians.” Jakoubek was not at all fond of Jews, whom he called “pigeon shit,” making the soil fat but not fertile, or “excrement ofthe patriarchs,” but he had little sympathy for Christian usurers either, perhaps even less.
Many Czech historians, among them Prantišek Palacký, justly believed that the Hussite movement was strongest, if not invincible, as long as Prague and Tábor lived and fought together, but Palacký was also aware that many Prague citizens, even in times of common campaigns, were uneasy about the alliance with the radicals, who were uncontrollably split into groups and ferocious factions, and were unwilling to consider political and religious solutions to end the splendid isolation of Prague and Bohemia. Jan Želivský, who overreached himself more than once, had uneasily tried to establish a radical stronghold among the moderates, but as soon as his dictatorial power was broken in the Hussite Thermidor of 1422 (the Hussite revolution too devouring its children), Prague preferred the possible election of a king of Polish-Lithuanian origins, joint responsibility for destroying the radical army once and for all (this happened at Lfpany field in 1434), and protracted negotiations with the church at the Council of Basel. It is easier to sympathize, for romantic reasons, with the desperate radicals, who suicidally fought to the bitter end, than with the Prague moderates, who were concerned with the devastation of Bohemia and tired of the ossified liberation theology that had been originally so eager to spread freely the word of God. They wanted to return to the European community rather than see Bohemia turn irrevocably into, to speak in more recent terms, a sullen and sectarian Albania.
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