The Trial of Jan Hus: Medieval Heresy and Criminal Procedure

Abstract

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." The observation cannot be stressed too much when dealing with a six-hundred-year-old topic. In 1967, the medievalist Howard Kaminsky wrote: "what the historian wants is not a careful demonstration that Hus should not have been burned, but a reasonable explanation - in a sense even a justification - of why he was." This book provides that explanation. To achieve this, I have looked closely at the entire legal process involving Jan Hus and the Latin church from 1410 to 1415. The narrative does not aim at retelling the general story of Hus's ordeal and death but instead has two particular foci. The first is a legal assessment of the trial and the procedures that characterized the case of Hus against prevailing canonical legislation and procedural law in the later Middle Ages. Was his trial legal? In the modern world, there is an instinctive sympathy for a man burned alive for his convictions and the presumed conclusion that any court sanctioning such behavior must have been irregular. Second, I have undertaken an evaluation of the case against Hus from a theological point of view. Was Hus guilty of heresy? Were his doctrinal convictions contrary to established ideas espoused by the Latin church? Upon what basis does the trial verdict rest? From the time of his death to the present, he has been considered either a holy martyr or the worst heretic.