Jan Žižka of Trocnov
The small village of Trocnov with two manor houses near Borovany became the seat of a landowning family of the Crayfish coat of arms in the 14th century at the latest. Jan Žižka may have been born here between 1360 and 1364. From scarce sources we know several of Žižek’s relatives - his father Řehoř and mother Jana, uncle Mikeš, brother Jaroslav, sister Anežka, 2 wives - both Kateřina, and a daughter of unknown name, later married to Ondřej or Jindřich of Dubá. None of them, however, has the surname Žižka, which some interpret as “one-eyed” (Žižka probably lost an eye at a young age), others see in it the word “žoužel”, which was used to refer to all-loving water creatures, including the animal from the coat of arms of the Trocnov landowners, but there are other interpretations as well.
On the basis of indirect references, it can perhaps be concluded that young Žižka may have served Henry III of Rožmberk for a short time in his youth. We have only fragmentary information about Žižka’s life at the beginning of the 15th century. The French historian Bertrand Schnerb discovered in French archives reports of a Bohemian squire named Jean Susque, who moved between Burgundy, Bohemia and Hungary in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy. On the basis of his similar sounding name and Czech origin, we cannot identify him as a Žižka. However, where we are more likely to find Žižka is in the robber companies operating in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown at the beginning of the 15th century. The person referred to as Žižka appeared in the robber retinue of Matěj the Leader (executed 1409) and in the retinue led by Vilém Sudlice of Litovany, which operated at the Moravian castle of Kraví Hora (the castle itself was in the possession of the Šelmberk family). Among the specific events in which the then robber Žižka took part, we can mention, for example, the ambush of the chariot with the herrings or the attempted siege of Hus Castle, which was defended from the captives by the later Hussite hetman Mikuláš of Hus.
Monument of Jan Žižka in Trocnov. Photo by the author
While Žižek’s comrades in arms from the ranks of the robbery squads were captured and executed, he himself was very lucky. In 1409 he was pardoned by King Wenceslas IV, probably on the basis of the intercession of Jan Sokol of Lamberk, who was based near Kraví Hora. Shortly afterwards, he entered the service of the Polish king as a member of Sokol’s retinue and together with him took part in the war of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Order of German Knights and probably also in the famous Battle of Grunwald in 1410. After the battle, Žižka probably served briefly in Sokolov’s garrison of the occupied Crusader castle of Radzyń Chełmiński. It is noteworthy that many participants of the Polish-Crusader Wars fighting on both sides later became important actors in the Hussite Wars.
When Žižka returned to Bohemia, he became the gatekeeper of King Wenceslas IV and as such was well off financially and could afford to buy a house in Prague’s New Town, which he later sold and bought another house in the Old Town. Although it is often assumed that he attended the sermons of Jan Hus in Bethlehem Chapel, we lack direct evidence of any meeting between Žižka and Hus. Similarly, the texts that mention Žižka as a servant of Queen Žofia are of significantly younger date. Žižka’s participation in the battles of Azincourt must be relegated to the realm of myth, based on the absence of sources. Similarly, we have absolutely no idea what Žižka was doing and thinking about at the time of the imprisonment and burning of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague during the Council of Constance. We do not find Žižka’s name on even one copy of the letter of complaint of the Czech and Moravian nobility against the burning of Hus. These events, however, may have brought Žižka to take stock of his life so far and his future direction. Perhaps the fear of hell, which threatened him thanks to his previous rather sinful life, and the desire to defeat the Antichrist in the form of the bad Church and the irregular secular rulers with a means he mastered - the sword - played a role. At this time Žižka was probably able to maintain contacts with the Vyšehrad vassals, who later became leading Hussite hetmans (e.g. Mikuláš of Hus, Jan Roháč, Jan Smiřický, Jan Kolda of Žampach or Bernard of Valečov). Whether Žižka belonged among them, however, cannot be said with 100% certainty.
While people were gathering in the mountains in the countryside, Žižka stayed in Prague. However, the news of the replacement of the New Town Council, which included new members opposed to the teachings of Hus and Jerome, and the imprisonment of the supporters of their ideas (whom we can call Hussites for simplicity), did not leave Žižka cold. After a sermon by the priest Jan Želivský, his listeners marched towards the town hall and demanded the release of the prisoners. As the councillors refused to hand them over, the crowd, of which Žižka was a part, attacked the town hall, freed the prisoners and threw the councillors out of the windows. However, we do not know from the sources whether Žižka was the initiator of the attack and the so-called first Prague defenestration or a mere ordinary participant. To calm the situation, the Hussite-minded subcommander Jan Bechyně was sent to the scene, but he did not intervene against the crowd. The supporters of Hussitism then took their seats at the town hall.
Shortly afterwards, King Wenceslas IV, Žizka’s previous benefactor, died and the country was thrown into many years of chaos and rulelessness. Wenceslas’s brother Sigismund, with whom the inhabitants of the kingdom had had only the worst experiences in earlier years, would not have been greeted with joy on the Czech throne. Given his contacts with the Vyšehrad manes, it is not surprising that Žižka was involved in the takeover of Vyšehrad by the New Town community. However, the de facto ruler of the whole of Prague was Čeněk of Vartenberk, who was inclined to negotiate with Sigismund, and the New Towners handed Vyšehrad over to the royal garrison from Prague Castle.
Žižka and Břeňek Dolanský from Rýzmberk, Valkoun from Adlar and Chval Řepický from Machovice were disappointed by the situation in Prague and therefore went to Plzeň, where the Hussite priest Koranda was then working. According to the Hussite radicals, only the towns of Žatec, Louny, Slaný, Klatovy and Plzeň were to survive the approaching end of the sinful world. During Žižek’s time in Plzeň, armed skirmishes occurred in the vicinity of the city, including a battle with the army of Bohuslav of Švamberk near Nekmíře, where use of wagons during the fighting is documented for the first time. However, as evidenced by older sources (the Bellifortis manuscript by Konrad Kyeser or the military order of Jan Hájek of Hodětín, if we are to believe its dating), the tactics of using wagons in battle were not unknown in Bohemia at the time of Wenceslas IV.
However, Plzeň did not become a base for Žižka and his friends for long; external attacks and a number of enemies inside the city forced the Hussites to leave the city at the beginning of 1420. The destination of several hundred people of different ages and genders leaving Pilsen became the newly built Tábor, an ideal community of Hussite supporters, emerging on the ruins of the abandoned town of Hradiště and the castle. Along the way, however, the Hussites, whose leaders included Žižka, had to repel an attack at Sudoměř by the Strakonice Johannites and the Plzeň Landfried. During the battle, Žižka’s comrade-in-arms Břeněk Dolanský died. Earlier interpretations of the sources suggested that he was to be the commander of the Hussite army and Žižka was to take command after his death. However, Čornej has shown that such an interpretation is not entirely correct and the battle was (apparently) commanded by Žižka from the very beginning.
After his arrival in Tábor, he became one of the 4 hetmans of Tábor (the others were Mikuláš of Hus, Zbyněk of Buchov and Chval of Machovice). Only this moment can be considered the beginning of Žižka’s journey to the top of the Hussite hierarchy. According to some sources, Žižka may have been responsible for the capture of the nearby Sedlec fortress and the exemplary execution of Oldřich of Ústí, the former owner of the recently burnt Sezimovo Ústí and the town of Hradiště, not long after his arrival in Tábor. Žižka gradually plundered the estates of all the enemies of the chalice. The Hussite victory over the Catholic troops in May 1420 at Poříčí nad Sázavou should also be associated with Žižka’s participation. His army was heading to Prague to help the crusade led by King Sigismund of Hungary and Rome. The repulsion of the huge enemy army on the Vítkov hill above Prague on 14 July 1420 was Žižek’s great success. The hill was later called Žižkov after the event. In the autumn of the same year, Žižka was in south-west Bohemia, where in October he scattered the army of the allies of Oldřich of Rožmberk near Panský Bor and in November he massacred the population of Prachatice. Just a few days later he concluded a truce with Rožmberk. At the turn of November and December, Žižka, together with the campers and the Prague citizens, besieged the castle of Říčany, on the road to Prague, and after capturing it, he captured its garrison and had the prelates hidden in the castle burned.
Modern reconstruction of the Battle of Vitkov, photo by the author
At the beginning of 1421 Žižka marched with his army to western Bohemia, where he besieged and captured the castle of Krasíkov-Švamberk and captured one of the most important opponents of the Hussites - Bohuslav of Švamberk. During his imprisonment by the Hussites, he radically changed his mind and sided with his former enemies. From western Bohemia, Žižka eventually fought his way through central Bohemia to Chomutov, which he burned, and from there he continued back to southern Bohemia, burning Beroun on the way. However, the destination of Žižka’s journey south was not Tábor but Příběnice, which was occupied by the Adamites, a radical group split from the Hussites who turned Christian love (agape) into a sexual orgy (eros). Žižka had the Adamites taken to Klokot near Tábor, where he had them burned. In April and May, the Hussites under Žižka’s command managed to take control of several East Bohemian towns, and it was then that Jan Smiřický joined Žižka. Together they marched to Litoměřice, near which Žižka founded the Kalich (Calixe) Castle in 1421, after which he began to write, and which remained in the possession of the Žižka family even after his death. On his way to the Congress of Čáslav, Žižka burned Roudnice.
Castle Kalich photo by the author
The assembly in Čáslav, which was attended by representatives of both Hussites and Catholics on 3-7 June 1421, had the task of pushing through the question of the adoption of the four Prague Articles and also addressed the question of Sigismund’s possible claim to the throne. The result of the assembly was the election of a 20-member provisional government, which was to be in charge of the running of the kingdom until St. Wenceslas’ Day in the same year, if a king had not been elected by then. Among the twenty elected was Žižka, but the results of the Assembly were meagre.
Not long after the Assembly, Žižka again set off for western Bohemia, where he lost his second eye during the siege of Rabí Castle. Although doctors in Prague, where he was taken, tried to restore his sight, Žižka was apparently blind from the middle of 1421, although some sources suggest that he could partially see (see below). In early August, however, he went to the aid of the Praguers fighting at Most. At the end of the same month, a second crusade set out against the Bohemian Hussites. Žižka spent the end of summer and the beginning of autumn liquidating the Rosenberg estates and prosecuting the surviving Adamites in southern Bohemia. Later, Žižka went to western Bohemia, where he did not fare well at Krasíkov and Klatovy. The battle on the Vladař Hill near Žlutice, where he fought off the army of the Plzeň Landfried led by Henry of Plavno on the way to Žatec and from where he fled, is often regarded as Žižek’s “brilliant tactical retreat”, as it is a kind of a blot on the otherwise perfect biography of the never-beaten warlord.
From there he continued through Prague to Kutná Hora, where at the turn of 1421 and 1422 he dispersed a crusader expedition. Since Žižka’s arrival to Kutná Hora, we do not have so many detailed reports about him, because the most detailed source of the Hussite age - the chronicle of Vavřinec of Březová - does not describe further events. The Crusaders fleeing from Kutná Hora were eventually defeated at Habry and Německý (today’s Havlíčkův) Brod. The town itself resisted the Hussites, but soon fell, and although Žižka declared a truce with the inhabitants of Německý Brod, the Hussite army did not respect his order and massacred 1500 soldiers and inhabitants in the town. Žižka considered the disobedience of the army a stain on his honour. In April, Žižka again fought against the Plzeň Landfried. When Sigismund Korybut arrived in Bohemia in the summer of 1422, Žižka was among those who recognised him as land governor; however, it is questionable how seriously Žižka took this recognition, as Korybut and the people of Prague soon became his enemies. The ongoing conflicts between Tabor and Prague resulted in an attempt by the camps to capture Prague in September, but whether Žižka was behind this action is uncertain. In the autumn of 1422, Žižka himself devoted himself to the siege of Bechyně, Strakonice and the fight against the Rosenbergs.
In the spring of 1423 Žižka stayed in the Vilémov monastery, from where he sent two letters inviting the representatives of the East Bohemian Hussites - Orebites to a meeting in Německý Brod in early April. After this meeting Žižka joined with the Orebites and at the end of the same month (20 or 23 April) they defeated the army of Čeněk of Vartenberk near Hořice. It was probably shortly after this battle that Žižka’s famous military order was written, which summarised how the army should be organised, but also what was forbidden or when the soldiers should pray. In the summer, Žižka briefly stayed at his North Bohemian castle Kalich to besiege the opposite Catholic fortress Panna, built by Sigismund of Wartenberg. Despite a reconciliation between the Pragueers and the Taborites, concluded at the end of June 1423, Žižka turned away from both Hussite groups and set off for eastern Bohemia, where the priest Ambrož allowed him to capture Hradec Králové, followed by the capture of Jaroměř and Dvůr Králové, previously under the rule of the Pragueers.
Jan Žižka in Codex of Jena, , fol. 75 r., ca. 1490-1510, Source: Initiale
Žižka crushed the Pragueers in the Battle of Strauch’s Court. During the battle Žižka was supposed to kill an enemy priest with a mace, which raises questions about his complete blindness. During the summer, Žižka managed to capture Čáslav and he also thought of Kutná Hora, where he managed to install a town council sympathetic to him, but soon the town was again taken by the Pragueers. In autumn Žižka went to Moravia and fought at Jihlava and Telč. In the older literature, there are occasional reports of Žižka’s subsequent expedition to Upper Hungary (today’s Slovakia), based on the records in the Old Czech Chronicles. The Hussite campaign in question, however, took place several years after Žižka’s death and is erroneously associated with him. Žižka’s enemies apparently wanted to get rid of him, because in autumn the Hradec priest Ambrož warned Žižka against a possible attack by the murderer. At the beginning of January 1424, Žižka, with Hvězda of Vícemilic and the townspeople of Hradec, defeated the Catholic nobles from the north-east of Bohemia in the Battle of Česká Skalice and then devoted himself to fighting in the surrounding area.
At the end of May, Žižka defended the armies of the moderate Hussites (mostly from Prague) and Catholics in Kostelec nad Labem, where he was blocked by the attacking troops, however, until the siege was broken by Hynek Boček of Poděbrady. The Praguers, led by Diviš Bořek of Miletínek, subsequently pursued Žižka as far as Malešov, where on 7 June the balance was turned and Žižka was able to celebrate a glorious victory. Whether he actually launched wagons filled with stones against his enemies or whether this is a chronicler’s topoi is uncertain. Immediately after the battle Žižka preferred to burn nearby Kutná Hora, which was the main base for the Praguers in the region. The Hussite Union of Prague was in ruins and the towns of Kouřim, Český Brod and Nymburk, which were in the control of the Pragueers, preferred to surrender to Žižka. He subsequently operated in northeastern Bohemia.
In the autumn Žižka was about to march against Prague, but in Libeň in mid-September he reconciled with the inhabitants of Prague and Prince Korybut. The peace was negotiated by Jan Rokycana, and Žižka, his army and the Prague citizens set off for Moravia at the end of September 1424 to fight against the Moravian margrave and Sigismund’s son-in-law Albrecht of Habsburg. The route of the army led past Přibyslav, the castle of Čeněk of Ronov, which was besieged. Near Přibyslav, on 11 October, he died “from the tubers”, which in the past was interpreted as a plague, but it occurred in the form of epidemics and none were recorded at this time. More recent research considers sepsis (blood poisoning) related to carbuncle (the formation of purulent ulcers).
Equestrian monument of Jan Žižka in Přibyslav, photo by the author
Žižka was to be buried in Hradec Králové, from where his remains were to be transferred to Čáslav in an unclear manner. The so-called Čáslav calva, studied repeatedly by various experts and showing many surprising coincidences with what we know about Žižek, can still be seen here. Nevertheless, we cannot confirm 100% that these are indeed Žižka’s remains. With the exception of a few documents published by Žižka, chronicles and a few other sources, very few authentic reports about Žižka have survived, either from him or from persons with whom he was in contact. We are even worse off in terms of material sources. In many museum or chateau collections there are “guaranteed genuine” swords or maces of Žizka, but these clearly date from a younger period.
Depiction of Čáslav from 1650 with the grave of Jan Žižka, source: WmC
Already after his death, Žižka became a legend and his military successes were also known to Aeneas Silvius Piccollomini, later Pope Pius II and author of the Czech Chronicle. However, he also created the myth of the drum made of Žižka’s skin, which the Hussite army supposedly carried with them into battle. Although this is an absolute fiction, created to portray Žižka as a barbarian, the idea of this drum still resonates in the general consciousness from time to time. Žižka was perceived by a significant part of Czech late medieval and early modern society not only as a leader of the Czech nation, but also as a saint. It is no coincidence that in Martin Kuthen of Šprinsberk, Žižka’s depiction is on a par with portraits of monarchs; in the Jena Codex, the figure of Žižka is equated with the evangelists; and in a 16th-century litany, it is written “St. Jan Žizka, prey for us.”
The Counter-Reformation in Bohemia made Žižka a villain worthy of condemnation and oblivion, yet Žižka never completely disappeared from people’s consciousness, as evidenced by various plays and fictional novels of Czech Romanticism, which are followed by the latest film treatment of Žižka’s life. The more real Žižka was “rediscovered” only by the historiography of the 19th century. However, not by František Palacký, as one might expect, but by Václav Vladivoj Tomek, whose monograph on Žižka created the image of Žižka as a “knight of God” punishing evil. In fact, the creation of various monuments to Žižka can be dated back to the period after the publication of Tomek’s book, and this trend continued into the mid-20th century, culminating in the construction of Žižka’s monumental monument at Žižkov in Prague.
Sculpture of Jan Žižka in the collections of the National Museum, originally the Tábor Town Hall 1515-1516, photo by the author
In opposition to this conception can be placed Pekař’s conception of Žižka, who interprets the sources soberly and positivistically, but interprets them in such a way that he sees Žižka as the destroyer of the Czech country. Post-war historiography, in the spirit of Marxism, saw Žižka as a leader of the rural people fighting against the feudal lords, but forgot that Žižka himself and most of his allies were also part of this group. František Šmahel’s groundbreaking work is an exception to this conception, interpreting Žižka as a man of his time and without unnecessary ideological overlays in any form. The post-revolutionary sensationalist public was hungry for literature that presented in a tabloid manner that “it was different”, which again resulted in a transformation of views on Žižka and Hussitism. The absolute exhaustion of sources on Žižek and his time can be considered to be the book by Petr Čornej. It is commendable that Čornej always offers a whole spectrum of different perspectives for each event in Žižek’s life, and it is up to the reader to make up his or her own mind.
References:
František Michálek Bartoš, České dějiny II./7. Husitská revoluce. 1. Doba Žižkova 1415-1426. Praha 1965.
František Michálek Bartoš, Nové zprávy o Žižkovi a jeho rodině, in: Jihočeský sborník historický 5, č. 4, 1932, s. 113-115.
Petr Čornej, Jan Žižka: život a doba husitského válečníka, Praha 2019.
Miroslav Ivanov, Kdy umírá vojevůdce. Praha 1983.
Jiří Jurok, Jan Žižka z Trocnova - předhusitský hejtman lapků v Čechách a na Moravě, dvořan a kurýr v Burgundsku, in: Vlastivědný věstník moravský 73, č. 3-4, 2021, s. 209-221.
Kamil Krofta, Žižka a husitská revoluce, Praha 1936.
Josef Macek, Tábor v husitském revolučním hnutí I. – II., Praha 1952-1955
Robert Novotný, Žižka mezi lapky, in: Marginalia Historica : sborník prací Katedry dějin a didaktiky dějepisu Pedagogické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy 2, 1997, s. 19-32.
Josef Pekař, Žižka a jeho doba, Praha 1992 (reprint).
Bertrand Schnerb, Jehan Susque - panoš z Českého království na vévodském dvoře v Burgundsku. In: Jihočeský sborník historický 89, 2020, s. 5-24.
August Sedláček, Doklady k otázce o Žižkově stáří, in: Český časopis historický 19, č. 4 1913, s. 446-480.
Josef Vítězslav Šimák, Kde byl Žižka pochován, in: Český časopis historický 18, č. 1, 1912, s. 7-20; č. 4, s. 463-464.
František Šmahel, Jan Žižka. Praha 2021.
František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce. 1. -4, Praha 1995-1996.
Václav Vladivoj Tomek, Jan Žižka, Praha 1993 (reprint)
Rudolf Urbánek, Jan Žižka, Praha 1925.
Zdeněk Vybíral, Jan Žižka: 1360?-1424 : o táborském hejtmanu a husitském vojevůdci, Tábor 2014.