Jerome of Prague and the Foundations of the Hussite Movement

Abstract

Jerome of Prague has been dead for six hundred years. The Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini, who witnessed his final hours, referred to him as "a man to remember." It is unfortunate that Jerome has not been as widely remembered as he deserves or that he has been misremembered as something he was not, that is, a mere disciple of Jan Hus or a proto-Protestant. It is sobering to note that this is the first scholarly book on Jerome of Prague written in a major language. That fact only underscores the unfortunate obscurity that continues to largely conceal the fascinating world of late medieval Bohemia. Even noting the work by scholars over the past century and a half in French, German, and English, there are still curious gaps in our knowledge of the foundations of the important Hussite movement and its role on the frontier between the high Middle Ages and the period often called the European Reformations.