I 172 Blanka Zilynská a fairly large group of about 30 new masters entered the teaching staff during the 1450s and early 1460s. The capacity of the university seemed thereby to have been filled. We can suspect that strong competition was felt, which forced some masters to search for a way to get rid of competitors. This does not seem to be an intergenerational tension, but a struggle for supremacy within the younger, emerging generation. The dividing line was marked by the relation to religious questions and to the Hussite legacy. Among these new masters of the 1450s and early 1460s, we find a group of seven dissidents whom we will discuss below. Although it is difficult to determine the precise denominational orientation of each master, we can say with a high degree of probability from their attitudes and subsequent fates that they were Catholics or former Utraquists who had converted or become close to Catholicism. The Conflict of Alternatives at the University between 1456–6223 The political and confessional profiling of the university after the departure of most foreigners was far from over. The second half of the 1450s became decisive. Two factors played a role here—the accession of the Catholic King Ladislaus Posthumous, and the arrival of a new generation of masters into the university lecture halls. Ladislaus made no secret of his support for the Catholic circles in the country, which were gaining in confidence.24 The group of younger masters returning from their studies abroad also brought with them new experiences from Catholic Europe, especially Italy, and new ideas on how to reform the conditions in the country. The first clash broke out under the deanship of Stanislav of Velvary25 in March 1456, when the graduated bachelors refused to take the oath in the spirit of the Utraquist doctrine.26 They referred to the rector’s registry, where the entry of the statute allowed iurare aut promittere—to swear or promise. The rector, a Catholic educated in Paris, pointed instead to the faculty statute book, where only the word “swear” was used. In this first act, the bachelor’s degree candidates won: as an exceptional situation, the rector allowed them to choose the form of the vow—in other cases, the gathering of all the masters was decisive.27 23 This subchapter is based on a study by Blanka Zilynská, “Die Beendigung der Konfessionalisierung der Prager Universität an der Wende von den 1450er zu den 1460er Jahren am Beispiel des Schicksals aktiver katholischer Magister,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 60 (2020): 65–76, where older literature is provided. 24 On him, see Ivan Hlaváček, “Beiträge zur Erforschung der Beziehungen Friedrichs III. zu Böhmen bis zum Tode Georgs von Podiebrad († 1471),” in Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493) in seiner Zeit, ed. Paul-Joachim Heinig (Köln, 1993), 279–98; David Papajík, Ladislav Pohrobek (1440–1457). Uherský a český král (České Budějovice, 2016). 25 On him, see Holá and Holý, Profesoři pražské utrakvistické univerzity, 464–68 (by Blanka Zilynská). 26 According to Šmahel, “Počátky humanismu,” 61, it was an oath on the Compactata, but the source only speaks of the oath customary at graduations. In this sense Rudolf Urbánek, Věk poděbradský, vols. 3–4, České dějiny, III/3–4 (Prague, 1930, 1962), here vol. 3, 88–89. The pre-history of disputes over oaths at the university from 1414–18 is traced by Martin Nodl, “Iurare vel promittere. Příspěvek k problematice pražských univerzitních statut,” Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 47 (2007): 49–57. Cf. also František Šmahel, “Die ältesten Statuten der Karls-Universität,” in Statuta et acta rectorum universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 1360–1614, eds. idem and Gabriel Silagi, Documenta Historica Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis, 1 (Prague, 2018), XCVI – XCIX, where the clash over the oath of 1409, and subsequently in 1456, is also reflected upon. 27 The situation was described by Dean Stanislav of Velvary in the “Liber decanorum”, vol. 2, 53–54.
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