Two additional histories were put on the market by publishers in 1896: Bohemia: an Historical Sketch, by Count Lützow; and Charles Edmund Maurice’s Bohemia: from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620.
It is no secret that English Bohemica cost Count Lützow (born 1849 in Hamburg, died 1916 in Switzerland) his diplomatic career, making him persona non grata at the Vienna court. Of the several volumes written by this high-minded, unselfish nobleman, the most erudite and mature is The Hussite Wars. Lützow is especially esteemed by English-speaking Bohemians, for they alone are able to appreciate the measure of his labors.
Will S. Monroe’s Bohemia and the Čechs was published in 1910. It is profusely illustrated and contains an informative review of the literature, art, politics and the economic and social conditions of the people. Monroe knows his Bohemia from close personal association and not from books alone, and his Bohemia and the Čechs has achieved wider popularity than any of the accounts preceding it.
In the Cambridge Modern History the student will find abundant and reliable material on Bohemia, from such noted writers as Robert Nisbet Bain, A. W. Ward, Louis Eisenmann, and others.
John Hus. Jerome of Prague. Unity. Moravians. The Hussite Reformation in the fifteenth century was a movement which concerned not Bohemia alone, but the entire Christian world. “Thus begun,” remarks Bishop de Schweinitz, “one of the most remarkable and at the same time terrific wars the world has seen; for sixteen years Bohemia single handed defied papal Europe.” Two Englishmen, John Wickliffe and Peter Payne, the first impersonally, through his writings, the other personally, played not an inconspicuous rôle in the great religious awakening which followed the burning of Hus at the stake in 1415.
The Hussite literature, as the reader will perceive, is quite bulky. Of the non-Bohemian Hus scholars, whose works have been written in English or translated into that tongue, these deserve to be mentioned: De Bonnechose, Les Réformateurs avant la Réforme, known as Reformers before the Reformation; Johann Loserth’s Hus und Wiclif; De Schweinitz’s History of the Church known as the Unitas Fratrum, or the Unity of the Brethren; Count Lützow’s The Hussite Wars; David S. Schaff’s John Huss; His Life, Teachings and Death; W. N. Schwarze’s John Hus, the Martyr of Bohemia. Knowing the Bohemian language and being in a position to make use of native sources, some of them still unpublished, Count Lützow has had an undoubted advantage over Hus commentators who were not so fitted. Rev. E. H. Gillett’s Life and Times of John Huss, was, after it had been published, adversely commented upon, the author being openly charged with taking bodily sentences, paragraphs and pages from De Bonnechose, without giving the Frenchman due credit. (See North American Review, July, 1865.) Rev. A. H. Wratislaw’s John Huss, the commencement of resistance to papal authority, has for its basis the trustworthy researches of the historians Palacký and Tomek.
The Moravian Church, claiming direct descent from the Unity of Bohemian Brethren, has produced noteworthy sectarian literature. In fact, the Moravians, to mention only one scholar, the late Bishop de Schweinitz, have done more than any other evangelical church in the way of interpreting to the English speaking people the most stirring chapters of Bohemian history.
There is this criticism to be made, however, in reference to the Hus literature, that while non-Bohemian writers regard Hus as a religious reformer only and treat the reformation inaugurated by him wholly in the light of a religious upheaval, the Bohemians insist on taking a broader view of Hus and of Hussites. To them Hus reveals himself not only as a religious reformer, but likewise as a champion and purifier of the native tongue. In the Hussite Wars they recognize a political-spiritual revolution, having for its purpose the liberation of the Bohemian nation alike from papal trammels and from German domination.
The Bohemian Church, Unity, Unitas Fratrum, Unity of Bohemian Brethren, Brethren’s Unity, are the names given to a church which originated in the second half of the fifteenth century. In the severely strict notions as to what is proper in the practice of religious duties, the Unity bore a striking resemblance to the Puritans.
Its doctrine and discipline are admirably set forth in the articles passed in 1616 at the Synod of Žeravice. These articles, provided with annotations by Komenský have been translated into English, under the title Ratio disciplinae, or the Constitution of the Congregational Churches. Thus one is able to trace the influence of the Unity upon the Church of England. When the Bohemian Revolution broke out (1618) the nobility belonging to the Unity were powerful enough to influence the selection of a new King in the place of Ferdinand II., who was dethroned by the Estates. The choice, as we know, fell upon Frederick of the Palatinate. The Patent of Tolerance, (1781) allowing Protestant worship in Austria, purposely excluded the Unity. To the Government the church was objectionable, first because of its Bohemian national traditions, and secondly because of the leading part its members had taken in the revolution against Ferdinand.