Seeds of Reform
Seeds of Reform
“Open is the way of Satan; many walk therein.” – attributed to Jan Hus
Like most figures born several centuries ago, concrete details about Jan Hus' life, particularly his childhood and formative years, remain hazy, and even the year of his birth remains a matter of dispute. Consensus has it that Jan of Husinecz, later shortened to “Jan Hus,” was born on the 6th of July between the years of 1369 and 1373, an estimation derived from his ordination in 1401. His place of birth, as suggested by his name, was Husinecz, or “Goose-town” in English, not far from the village of Prachatice in Southern Bohemia (what is now the Czech Republic). Others have also theorized that he was born not in Husinecz, but in a village of a similar name, Husinec, which lay just a few miles away from the town of Klecany in Prague.
Even less is known about Hus' family, including their names, but chroniclers who sifted through the journals and manuscripts composed by Hus as an adult have created a narrative of sorts. What is clear is that Hus came from a poverty-stricken, but pious farming family - Hus himself wrote that his mother was an extremely devout Christian who fully expected her children to put God above all else. It was his mother who taught him how to pray and read to him select passages from the Bohemian Bible night after night, and she instilled her children with priestly ambitions. Based on Hus' limited descriptions of his mother, he seemd to be quite close to her. She was soft-spoken, generous, and most of all, attentive, escorting her children to and from the Latin school in Prachatice, rain or shine.
Interestingly enough, the Hus patriarch, referred to as both “Jan Michaluv” and the anglicized “Michael,” went unmentioned in his son's writings, so his profile is quite obscure. The lack of information regarding Hus’ father suggests that the relationship between him and his son was strained. Others have speculated that Michaluv died young, thus robbing him of a chance to bond with his son. Whatever the case, Michaluv was most likely a farmer or a manual laborer of some sort. Hus was referred to as “Jan, son of Michael” throughout his youth, as per tradition, which called for all Bohemian children to be identified by their Christian name and the name of their fathers.
The number of siblings Hus had is yet another figure up for debate, but it has been ascertained that he had at least one brother. The name of his brother is unknown, but the pair seemed to have been exceptionally tight-knit. After his brother's untimely death, it was Hus who offered to take in his orphaned nephews.
Not surprisingly, the living conditions and quality of life that young Hus endured left much to be desired. Hus and his family lived in a cramped wooden cottage with a poorly thatched roof that required regular maintenance, and it amply reflected their peasant class. Their home would have been sparsely furnished, and its walls constructed out of wattle and daub, which was a latticework of sticks and twigs stiffened with a blend of straw, mud, and manure. Due to the lack of furniture, which was considered a luxury at the time, the family most likely slept and ate on the hard dirt floor. The filthy floor would have also been matted with the feces of the family's horses, sheep, and other pets, which were rounded up and brought into the cottage at night to guard them from thieves and ravenous beasts.
Hus and his siblings were trained in the agricultural arts from an early age. He started out by helping his mother sprinkle seeds along their small plot of farmland and lugging little baskets of harvested corn, potatoes, and other produce into their cottage. The chores assigned to him, as well as the level of his exertion, was proportional to his age and physical strength. By his teenage years, he was plowing the fields, tending to large batches of crops, and chopping wood for the winter.
Growing up, Hus’ diet mostly consisted of bread (a staple food in most impoverished households), corn pottage, and vegetable gruel. Occasionally, they snacked on barley and oats, as well as milk, hard cheese, and nuts picked from the nearby woodlands. Fish and red meat, considered to be indulgences, were reserved for special occasions, and since clean drinking water was difficult to come by, the family subsisted on beer and wine. Not only was the nearby river their only source of potable water, villagers huddled over the stream to wash loads of dirty clothes, and refuse and bodily waste were also junked in the same stream. Thus, the water was highly contaminated and a breeding ground for disease. The abysmal personal hygiene those in their social class practiced – they rarely, if ever bathed – meant that illness and death were common.
Hus' time at the Latin school in Prachatice (which in some accounts is a schoolhouse attached to the local church) was both enriched and tainted by numerous firsts. For instance, it was the first time he took part in a choir, and school was where he stumbled upon his love for singing. He was also introduced to the controversial festival known as the “Feast of Fools.” For that event, a “Boy Bishop,” usually a choir boy between the ages of 7 and 12, was crowned. In England, the Boy Bishop, essentially elected to parody the actual bishop, was appointed on the 6th of December (the feast day of St. Nicholas), a mock tenure that was lifted on the 28th of December, otherwise known as the Day of Holy Innocents. In Bohemia, however, which most likely took a page from France, the festival kicked off on New Year's Day. Once elected, the Boy Bishop was accoutered in full bishop regalia, complete with crozier, a hooked ceremonial staff, and miter, the elaborately ornamented “fish-like” headdresses worn by bishops. The false bishop was also given a personal retinue of “priests” composed of randomly selected boys around his age. Together, the Boy Bishop and his entourage paraded around town, doling out blessings and performing other sacramental rituals (excluding Mass), more often than not speaking complete gibberish. Adults were expected to swap roles, too, so laymen, cooks, and gardeners took charge of the parish offices and their local choirs. Priests and other high-ranking members of the Church, in turn, donned the rags worn by the help, and they had to complete menial duties.
The following passage is a short, but concise description of the feast provided by a disgruntled attendee in a 15th century letter: “Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, panders, or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying Mass. They play at dice...They cense [sic] with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame. Finally, they drive about the town...in shabby traps and carts; and rouse the laughter of their fellows and bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and unchaste!”
To most, the feast was harmless fun, but Hus, on the other hand, was not at all impressed by the bright colors, endless carousing, and cross-dressing revelry. He found it to be a bizarre and reprehensible tradition, but the young Bible-hugger, perhaps intimidated by the idea of going against the grain at such an early age, kept mum and played along. One of Hus' later journal entries reveals his true stance on the practice, as well as his remorse for his participation in these depraved feasts: “What manifest outrage they perpetrate in the church by wearing masks. In my youthfulness, I also was once to my shame a masquerader!...Having [been] designated a cleric, dressed in monstrous attire, as bishop, they cause him to sit backwards on an ass with his face turned towards the tail. Then, they take him into the church to Mass. They carry a plate of broth in front of him, and a jug or can of beer, and he eats in the church. I saw how the ass incenses the altars and, raising one leg, calls out in a loud voice, 'Boo!', and the priests carry before him large torches instead of candles. He rides from one altar to another altar, incensing as he goes. And I observed how the priests turned their fur-lined vestments inside out and danced in the church...All the people watch this and laugh, thinking that all of this is holy and proper, since it appears in their rubric and in their statutes. Nice statutes, alright! What undisciplined abomination!...When I was still young, both in years and in reason, I am ashamed to say that I also adhered to this crazy rubric. But when the Lord God helped me understand the Scriptures, I eliminated such notions and the statutes of delusion from my weak intellect.”
Hus' reluctance to immerse himself in the annual, nationally celebrated feast was only one example of his piety, which was remarkably robust for a kid his age. According to one account, the God-fearing young man took his devotion to an entirely new level. Hus, as the story goes, was curled up by the hearth one winter evening with the tattered pages of his precious St. Lawrence biography illuminated by the crackling fire. In early summer of 258 CE, Valerian, the pagan emperor of Rome, sentenced all Christian priests, bishops, and deacons (including Lawrence) to be burned at the stake. Before their inescapable executions, the condemned were ordered to empty the treasuries of their churches and surrender all their possessions to the prefect of Rome. With a twinkle in his eye, Hus read about how Lawrence was granted the three days he requested to collect his belongings, tidy up the church, and tie up other loose ends. Indeed, this was precisely what he did, but rather than set aside his personal valuables and holdings, as he was instructed, he sold them all and distributed the profits, as well as the church's funds, to the destitute.
Naturally, Lawrence's antics landed him in a deeper vat of hot water. On August 10, 258, the doomed deacon was marched out to the execution square at San Lorenzo in Panisperna, where a massive gridiron, placed above a bed of blistering coals, awaited him. The simultaneously weeping and jeering spectators watched as the guards viciously struck Lawrence with their scourges, dislocated his arms, and tethered him to the gridiron, prodding the martyr with pronged spears as the stench of roasted human flesh filled the air. To the astonishment of his executioners and the spectators alike, even in the midst of the horrific torture session, the martyr managed to maintain his sense of humor. “I'm well done on this side,” the partially cooked deacon defiantly said. “Turn me over!”
Upon reading this, Hus shut his book and set it down next to him with pursed lips as he stared blankly into the fire before him. Then, without warning, he shoved his hand into the fire, remaining almost impossibly stoic as the ferocious flames licked his palms. Seconds later, his startled brother (in other accounts, a classmate), who just happened to pass by, yanked his hand out of the flames, eyes bulging as he demanded an explanation. “It was nothing,” Hus reportedly replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I was only trying to see what part of the tortures of this holy man I might be capable of enduring.” While the account might be apocryphal, it makes clear that contemporaries believed Hus had a fixation with martyrdom at an early age.
Upon completing his primary school education at the school in Prachatice, the family relocated to Prague, where Hus pursued his secondary education. His lack of finances remained an issue, so he had to put in work to earn his keep. He utilized his silvery singing voice both inside and outside of church in exchange for tips, and he served as an altar boy in various churches around the village. Put simply, Hus endured a tough living, wearing the same mangy clothes throughout the year and surviving on scraps, typically eating only once a day. He later reflected on his privation in his journal, writing, “When I was a hungry young student, I used to make a spoon out of bread in order to eat peas with it. Then, I ate the spoon as well.”
In 1390, Hus enrolled at the Charles University of Prague, where he chose to study in the department of Arts, Philosophy, and Theology. Naturally, penury followed him into his university years, so he resided in a student boarding house, and apart from rent, he coughed up a heller (coin valued at 1/100 of a koruna) to the proprietor for a beer to accompany his small meals. Hus also secured a job as a famulus (a kind of servant) to Stephen of Kolin, his professor of theology, provost (senior academic administrator) of the Carolinum dormitory, and rector of the local Bethlehem Chapel. For that, Hus received a modest salary.
Hus was awarded his Bachelor of Arts degree in the autumn of 1393, placing 6th in a class of 22. John of Myto, another one of Hus' professors, was listed as the master of the ceremony. For his commencement speech, the host quoted the philosopher Aristotle, discussing how one must suffer and emerge from adversity in order to achieve a gratifying sense of well-being. When Hus was summoned to accept his diploma, he was commended by Myto for his diligence and the hard work he put forth for his degree. Hus, Myto insisted, was a “student [who] strove for mental health and intelligence at the cost of his [own] physical health,” and he concluded his speech with a neat goose-related pun. A year later, Hus was awarded his Bachelor of Arts degree in Divinity, and in the autumn of 1396, Hus was presented his Master's degree in Divinity, this time placing 10th in his class of 16.
Contrary to popular belief, as religious and ostensibly conservative as the young man was, he was not the morally high-strung and uptight individual many might imagine he was. While he was indeed an attentive and above-average student, he also very much enjoyed carousing with his friends. Hus himself admitted “to have been overly fond of elegant clothes and gambling,” among other “roistering escapades.”
Hus attended Sunday service without fail, but rather than fork over what little he had to the offertory, he dedicated his funds to booze and other activities with his friends. He rubbed shoulders with moneyed masters, professors, and friends, gorging on delicious meals on their dimes and strutting about in borrowed silk robes whenever he was afforded the opportunity. He began to neglect his Bible, instead playing round after round of chess and other time-wasting tabletop games. The charismatic college student also possessed an astoundingly bizarre sense of humor, having been particularly fond of dirty jokes, smutty double entendres, and tasteless pranks, and Hus often found himself ensnarled in tussles, mostly instigated by his chess opponents and the targets of his practical jokes. Even more surprising, the young man avoided not only asceticism, but celibacy, and frequently spent the evening with the wanton women who snuck into the all-male boarding houses. Those who knew him in his later life would have been stunned to discover that young Hus cared quite deeply about his external appearance and his artificial social status, as he was finally granted the prestige he had been yearning for all his life. Hus explained in his diary, “Therefore, I confess my wicked desire that when I was a schoolboy, I thought about soon becoming a priest in order to have a good livelihood, and robes and [sic] to have the respect of the people.”
This was the immodest lifestyle Hus led for the first three years of his university career. His transition to the virtuous, scrupulous Hus revered by Christians today was exactly that: a piecemeal process.
In 1393, just a few months after Hus received his Bachelor's degree, he wandered into a service at the Bethlehem Chapel led by one of his former professors, a Cistercian monk named Father Jan Stekna, to celebrate the Jubilee. Hus' eyes were glued to the captivating monk throughout the entirety of the sermon, and he watched with rapt attention as Stekna dissected the concept and discussed the importance of spiritual indulgences by citing the luxurious lives of the residents of the castle Vysehrad, located just south of Prague's town square. Indulgences, Stekna explained, were symbolic of the debts one owed to the Lord for their sins; in other words, by paying off one's debts, one shows that they are truly repentant, and only then would they be granted forgiveness. Stekna also expounded on the shelf life of these indulgence certificates and detailed why it was necessary to purchase these certificates regularly. The phenomenon was mutually beneficial to both the Church and the purchaser of these certificates, said Stekna, for it cleansed the transgressor of their sins and helped their local church stay afloat.
Hus, perhaps subconsciously affected by guilt over his libertine behavior, was so moved by Stekna's sermon that he traveled to Vysehrad, where Stekna was based. Once there, he emptied his purse and presented to the monk his last four groschen in exchange for an indulgence certificate, hoping to wash away some of the sins he had accumulated in recent years. He could only appease his grumbling gut with small wedges of dry, flavorless bread in the days or weeks that followed, but to Hus, it was well worth it. Thomas A. Fudge, author of Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia, explained, “[Hus,] a firm believer in the merits of the indulgence...seemed prepared to be penniless and live a life of utter poverty so long as he possessed the assurance of the forgiveness of sins.”
It seemed Hus' religious zeal was making its swift return, and he vowed to retire his “deviant” lifestyle and devote his life to the path of righteousness. Little did he know that he would soon chance upon a book that would forever reshape not only his views on the ethics of indulgences, but the Church itself.