The Oldest Religious Privilege of Sigismund of Luxembourg for the Hussites, and Its Critique by Thomas Ebendorfer DUŠAN COUFAL The Viennese theologian and historian Thomas Ebendorfer of Haselbach (d. 1464) was one of the best experts on Hussitism in his time. As a legate of the Council of Basel, he was directly involved in the conclusion of the peace agreement between the Hussites, the council, and Emperor Sigismund at Jihlava in July 1436.1 Even after this date he remained a careful observer of events north of the border of the Austrian lands. This is evidenced by the tract Contra indultum Sigismundi, which Ebendorfer completed in Vienna on July 24, 1455, and which has so far escaped the attention of scholars.2 The unpublished work is known from a single manuscript now housed in the Austrian National Library.3 It is a draft, as the author added a number of marginal notes along the sides of the text mirror, by which he made stylistic and argumentative modifications and supplementations to it.4 From today’s perspective, the preservation of the work only in an autograph would suggest that it did not enter wide circulation. However, since the author mentions that he was asked to write the opinion,5 it is unlikely that he kept it to himself. 1 Cf. Alphons Lhotsky, Thomas Ebendorfer. Ein österreichischer Geschichtsschreiber, Theologe und Diplomat des XV. Jahrhunderts, MGH Schriften, 15 (Stuttgart, 1957), esp. 15–32; Christina Traxler, Firmiter velitis resistere. Die Auseinandersetzung der Wiener Universität mit dem Hussitismus vom Konstanzer Konzil (1414–1418) bis zum Beginn des Basler Konzils (1431–1449), Fortsetzung der Schriften des Archivs der Universität Wien, 27 (Göttingen, 2019), esp. 161–76; Dušan Coufal, Turnaj víry. Polemika o kalich na basilejském koncilu 1431–1433, Studie a prameny k dějinám myšlení v českých zemích, 20 (Prague, 2020), 505–33. The topic of Bohemians and Hussites in Ebendorfer’s historiographical works was discussed by Emma Scherbaum, “Das hussitische Böhmen bei Thomas Ebendorfer,” Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur 17 (1973): 141–53. 2 As far as I know, the work with the incipit “Sicut crebro luctus post gaudia” was registred only by Lhotsky, Thomas Ebendorfer, no. 165, 89. 3 Vienna, Austrian National Library, MS 4704, ff. 289r–300v. On the codex, which contains a number of Ebendorfer’s works on Hussitism from 1433 to 1462, Harald Zimmermann, “Einleitung,” in Thomas Ebendorfer, Diarium sive Tractatus cum Boemis (1433–1436), ed. idem, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum NS, 25 (Hannover, 2010), XIII–XV. 4 It is also worth noting that some of the “chapters” of the work are not directly related to each other, but the author has left an empty space between them. 5 Vienna, Austrian National Library, MS 4704, f. 289v: “Ideo, ut quantum utilitatis, quantum incomoditatis, profectus et iusticie cristicolis et ipsi regno Bohemie ex prefato indulto aut lege provenire possit quantamque iusticiam contineat, salva omnium pace rogatus subnotabo.”
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