The Conflict over Confession and Power at the University of Prague in the 1450s–60s BLANKA ZILYNSKÁ The University of Prague, or rather its masters, were very active in the Hussite movement.1 They provided it with ideas, cooperated in drawing up its program, and subsequently provided arguments in all religious conflicts. During the revolution, when studies were halted, the masters sided with the Hussites, and conducted religious disputes with both the Catholic party and the Táborite radicals. The university was also perceived as an important political actor working in favor of the lay chalice. In the 1430s, scholars trained at the University of Prague were the main spokesmen in delegations negotiating with the council legates in Cheb, Basel, and Prague. Despite certain uncertainties about the composition of the individual delegations2 and the educational background of some of the Bohemian participants, university masters such as Jan Rokycana, Peter Payne (called Engliš), Prokop of Plzeň, the bachelors Mikuláš Biskupec of Pelhřimov and Oldřich of Znojmo, and other scholars contributed to the successful conclusion of the compromise agreement—the Compactata.3 Some of them graduated only partially, like Martin Lupáč,4 Matěj Lauda of Chlumčany,5 or Markolt of Zbraslavice. During the negotiations with the council legates in Prague at the turn of 1433/4, 13 masters of the liberal arts were said to be present in the Carolinum College, five of them its collegiates, 1 Cf. Howard Kaminsky, “The University of Prague in the Hussite Revolution: The Role of Masters,” in Universities in Politics, eds. John W. Baldwin and Richard A. Goldthwaite (Baltimore, 1972), 79–106; František Šmahel, “Die Prager Universität und Hussitismus,” in idem, Die Prager Universität im Mittelalter. Gesammelte Aufsätze/ The Charles University in the Middle Ages. Selected Studies, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 28 (Leiden, 2007), 172– 95, and Petra Mutlová, “Major Hussite Theologians before the Compactata,” in A Companion to the Hussites, eds. Michael van Dussen and Pavel Soukup, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 90 (Leiden, 2020), 101–40. 2 The representation of university-educated persons or masters is noted by Petr Čornej, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české, vol. 5, 1402–1437 (Prague, 2000), 563, 568–69, 571, and Dušan Coufal, Turnaj víry. Polemika o kalich na basilejském koncilu 1431–1433, Studie a prameny k dějinám myšlení v českých zemích, 20 (Prague, 2020), 108 and 129–31, with other literature. 3 On most of them, see Mutlová, “Major Hussite Theologians”, and especially Jindřich Marek, “Major Figures of Later Hussitism (1437–1471),” in A Companion to the Hussites, eds. Michael van Dussen and Pavel Soukup, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 90 (Leiden, 2020), 141–84, cf. the indices. 4 On him, see Marek, “Major Figures”, 158–61, Adam Pálka, “The Basel Compactata and the Limits of Religious Coexistence in the Age of Conciliarism and Beyond,” Church history, 92 (2023): 551, 554–55, and idem, Martin Lupáč z Újezda. Osobitý myslitel pohusitské éry (Prague, 2024) (in print). 5 On him, see Michal Svatoš, “Listiny k počátkům koleje Matyáše Loudy z Chlumčan,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 17 (1977): 71–96.
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