Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans: Episode 181 – Zizka’s Drum, which is also episode 18 of Season 9 “The Reformation before the Reformation”
“And anyone who would not want to keep and truly fulfill the above written pieces and articles, and would not want to help protect and defend them; such a one, without regard to person, we will not suffer amongst us and in this army fighting with God’s help, nor on the castles and in the fortresses, nor in the cities and in the towns, walled or open, nor in the villages and hamlets, no place excepted or exempted. But all persons we will everywhere admonish, advise, push, and urge toward this goodness with the help of our Lord God”
That is how the Statutes and Military Ordinance of Jan Zizka’s New Brotherhood sum up their mission. And by Jove, you do not want to be one of those who are admonished, advised, pushed and urged by this new model army. Which leaves the question, who are those who do not “keep the written articles”, and – spoiler alert -they are not just the Catholics.
From now on the “raging torrent of the revolution disgorges its quantum of corpses”
But before we get to the point where Ark is set against Ark, there is my usual plea for your munificence. You know the drill, so I do not have to repeat that this show is advertising free because some of you make generous contributions on historyofthegermans.com/support and have been elevated to the dizzying heights of an imperial knight or dame, a prince or princess, or even a prince elector. What is less well known is that if you are signed up on the new membership version on my website, you can put questions and ideas in the membership forum to discuss with your HotGPod friends and occasionally with me as well. In any event, we should all thank Jim L., Martin N., David McK, Max F., Chris B., Jim S. and Kevin M. who have already signed up
Last week I have to admit to an error. I did stupidly say that the second year of the French revolution was 1792, when it obviously was July 1791. That was not yet the time when revolutionary tribunals were introduced, but it was the time of the massacre of the Champ de Mars when the revolutionaries split between those calling for the head of Louis XVI and those who wanted a constitutional monarchy. A turning point as well, but our Bohemians were clearly faster than the French when it came to revolutionary dynamics.
And with that, back to the show.
Last week we ended with the Batte of Kutna Hora when Jan Zizka extracted himself and the Hussite army from the trap laid by Sigismund’s great general Pippo Spano. As important as it had been to save the forces from destruction, that in itself was not a victory.
The victory came a 12 days later. Sigismund believed Jan Zizka had fled and would not return. It was Christmas after all. With that I mind he allowed his army to retreat into winter quarters in the countryside.
Zizka on the other hand was not buying into the Christmas spirit. Instead of decorating trees and singing songs, he recruited men to fill in the gaps that had appeared following the battle and trained them to fight in his new formations. On January 6 he was ready and good to go. His scouts directed him to the place where a particularly large detachment of Sigismund’s army was resting with Stollen and biscuits. He attacked them and though the royalists tried to form a battle line, it took less than an hour before they were in headlong flight to Kutna Hora.
Zizka then ordered his army to rout the various other locations where Sigismund had billeted his forces.
The soldiers who weren’t captured fled into Kutna Hora, Sigismund did not have the stores of food and ammunition to hold the city over an extended siege. So he decided to retreat to Moravia. For the mostly German Catholic civilians who had overwhelmed the Hussite garrison at the battle of Kutna Hora, this decision was catastrophic. If they stayed, they would almost certainly be killed by the Hussites, if they left, they would loose all their worldly possessions. Many of them, including many women and children followed Sigismund and his men out of the town. As they left, they set their houses and the mint on fire. The fires were extinguished by Zizka’s troops who had reached Kutna Hora shortly after the last of the royalist forces had left.
Sigismund’s sudden retreat meant his army was in complete disarray. It took 2 days for soldiers to find their units again and sort out their equipment. Zizka and his men followed the retreating forces, harassing and taunting them to stand and fight.
With his forces back in reasonable order Sigismund felt he was in a position to make a stand. His generals disagreed, but having dodged battle last time Sigismund could not afford to run away again.
Here is what the chroniclers wrote happened next: quote:
“The King’s army puts up its troops in battle line. They plant their standards. Then there sounds a tremendous blast of trumpets, and manfully the Czechs run to attack them. The Hungarians turn their backs. [..] what profit could the King’s power achieve when God Himself sent [ ] terror into their souls? They desert their standards, they press their spurs into the flanks of their horses, and they flee like people to whom no other salvation is left but flight. Those however who cannot flee fast enough yield their bodies to Death.”
There may, indeed, not have been much more to it: a frontal attack which, in the first onrush, broke the enemy’s lines and completely shattered morale. The Royalist’s retreat turned into a wild, disorderly rout in which they left most of their heavy weapons as well as all of their supply train on the road and continuously suffered heavy losses in men. The Hussites kept on their heels all the time.
By nightfall, the King and his retinue reached the neighbourhood of the city of Némecky Brod (knejmetzki Brot), which translates as German Ford. He ordered this town to be defended so as to cover his own retreat in which he continued throughout the night. Thus some of the Royalist troops that were still able to put up a fight tried for a last time to offer resistance outside the walls, and many were killed in this attempt. Under the cover of these brave men and of the descending night a considerable part of the army escaped into the town and thence over the bridge which crossed the Sazava River into safety. -But as crowds of soldiers jammed up in front of the narrow bridge orders were given for the cavalry to pass the river at other points by simply riding across the ice. For a while this worked, but when their ranks widened and began to include large numbers of heavy cavalry the ice gave under the heavy load. Soon a long stretch of the river was alive with hundreds of men and horses desperately trying to work their way out of the freezing water, being crushed by the ice floes or pulled down by the weight of their armor. In the dark of the night it was difficult to give any help. In the following days 548 heavily armored bodies were dragged from the river.
Zizka then proceeded to besiege the city of Némecky Brod (knejmetzki Brot) which was, as its name suggests, largely inhabited by Germans. It was also the last significant city in eastern Bohemia not yet in the hands of the Hussites. As usual, he succeeded. Still this action would haunt him for a long time afterwards, as he lost control of his soldiers. After breaching the walls his men began one of the worst massacres of this war on the inhabitants of the city as well as on the refugees of Kutna Hora who had not been able to get away.
After this complete and utter defeat Sigismund would never again lead a major military action into Bohemia in person. This does not mean that there would not be any more attempts to force the Hussites back into the bosom of mother church at the point of a sword, but the lead for these actions would go to princes like the elector of Saxony, Frederick the Belligerent or Federick of Hohenzollern, now margrave of Brandenburg. Even the initiative for these crusades would go from Sigismund to the imperial diet and the papal legates, often times simply ignoring the king of the Romans in their planning. Sigismund’s efforts to gain the crown of his father were from now on mainly diplomatic. It would take the other participants a further 10 years to realise that they had no chance against the armies that Jan Zizka had created.
Still there was a way back for Sigismund into Bohemia and for Bohemia back into the Holy Catholic church.
The seed for this, you may call it a reconciliation or a failure of the revolution was laid at the same time this most decisive battle of the war was fought, and it happened way back in Prague.
The city of Prague as we mentioned before was socially divided between the patricians who dominated the Old Town and the artisans and labourers who mainly lived in the New Town. The New Town was more radical in their Hussite beliefs than the Old Town.
The leader of the more radical wing of the Hussites in Prague was none other than Jan Zelivsky, the priest who had led the mob that threw the royal councillors out of their windows 2 years earlier, the event that had kicked off the whole revolution.
Zelivsky was a great orator, one of those men who can really stir up a crowd, leading them to do his bidding, for good or ill. In the intervening years Zelivsky had deepened his control of the two cities, the Old and the new Town largely through these kinds of events. He had forced the councillors of the Old Town to resign and then called upon his followers to elect new ones by acclamation. In that way he had risen from influential cleric and theologian to the actual master of Prague. Around 1422 his populist rule slid into outright dictatorship. He used the threat of the second crusade that just got under way as a pretext to place one of his followers as military commander of the city with executive powers.
And that is also when things went wrong for him. As we have seen, the Hussites are very, very rarely defeated, but Zelivsky manages to botch an engagement. The enemy, in this case an army from Saxony, had already offered to surrender but Zelivsky did not want to let them get away with their lives. These German mercenaries, staring death in the face either way, struck out in a last desperate attempt and overwhelmed the Hussite forces, killed many and got away. Zelivsky was quite rightly blamed for this.
And one should not forget that the 4 articles of Prague, the fundamental tenets of Hussite beliefs set forth that priests should refrain from temporal power and wealth. That meant for many of the faithful, the spectacle of a preacher as actual lord of the city of Prague was an abomination.
Then a new player mounted the already somewhat overcrowded political stage. As you may remember at the diet in June of 1421 almost the whole of Bohemia had got together and had deposed king Sigismund. They had also decided to offer the crown of Bohemia to Jogaila, the king of Poland-Lithuania. Jogaila had passed the honour on to his brother, Witold, the grand duke of Lithuania. For the house of Jogaila, this offer was very much a double edged sword. On the one hand, becoming Kings of Bohemia had been a dream of Polish rulers since the days of Boleslav the Great (see episode 18). On the other hand both Jogaila and Witold had only very recently become Christians. And them becoming Christian had been their argument that the Teutonic Order no longer had any purpose in Prussia. The risk was that accepting the crown of Bohemia from a bunch of heretics would prove the grand master in Marienburg ‘s argument that they were fake Christians and that the armed crusades against Lithuania should continue.
That was a tricky one. The solution for Jogaila and Witold presented itself in the form of their nephew, Zygmunt Korybut. He was close enough to the family to be loyal, but distant enough to provide plausible deniability for anything he may do amongst these fanatics dissenters. He was sent down to Bohemia with a small army as Witold’s representative.
Korybut was not only ambitious, but also smart and engaging. Rather than going straight to Prague, he expelled Sigismund’s garrison from one of the Hussite cities in Moravia. He immediately signed up to the four articles of Prague. And then he spent the next few months meeting people and getting the lay of the land. Being an engaging and energetic man, willing to commit to the cause, Korybut convinced many of the Hussite leaders that he and his family could provide the unifying glue that stitched the kingdom back together. One of those who signed up to this idea was Jan Zizika, whist Jan Zelivsky, the master of the city of Prague did not.
Zelivsky was not only a religious radical, he was also motivated by social issues. He thoroughly disliked the Bohemian barons. He saw many as turncoats who had defected to Sigismund every time he had shown up and had one very notable baron executed for treason. He also believed the nobles had gorged themselves on church property that had been expropriated under the third article of Prague rather than give the land to the poor. A return of the monarchy under Witold or Korybut would strengthen the legitimacy of the barons, which is why he opposed Korybut as regent.
And quite frankly he wasn’t wrong on any of these points. But still Korybut had gained a lot of support. After years of a complete embargo on Bohemian trade, Korybut’s promise of more normal relationships with the neighbours and an economic recovery appealed not just to the merchants but also to Zelivsky’s constituency amongst the artisans of Prague.
His final problem was that he had not been tough enough on the Pikharts, these ultra radicals who thought the eucharist was only a commemorative ritual rather than the manifestation of the body and blood of Christ. Rumours were going round that he was sympathetic to their view, might even support it.
It is not clear whether Zelivsky realised that his situation was getting under ever more pressure and that is why he tried to expand his level of control, or whether he did not realise that and just got ever more power hungry.
Still what he did was trying to gain sole control of the Hussite church on top of control of Prague. If you remember from last week, the Hussite church had called a synod in the summer of 1421 and established a committee of four directors who were to decide on all matters of dogma. Zelivsky had been elected as one of these directors.
Another was Jakoubek of Stibro. If the name means something to you, it is because he had appeared before, in episode 175. He was the theologian who had raise the issue of the chalice, of receiving the eucharist in both forms, way back in 1415. This had made him the godfather of the revolution and a highly respected doctor of the university.
After that he had been preaching in Prague and writing treatises, but he had not taken a major political role in the revolution, until now. Zelivsky’s takeover of Prague and sympathy for the Pikharts dragged him back into the limelight. He accused Zelivsky of being overbearing, of replacing conservative preachers without due process, of sympathy to Pikharts. Jakoubek too organised mass gatherings on squares to preach against his opponent.
Things were put to a decision when the army came back to Prague from its great victories at Kutna Hora and Némecky Brod (knejmetzki Brot). 19 military leaders were tasked to investigate and decide what should happen in the administration of Prague and in the committee of directors of the Hussite church. There were several sworn enemies of Zelivsky amongst these commanders, namely the Hussite barons who had fought against Sigismund. But Zelivsky expected that the Taborites, in particular Zizka would be on his side. The vote of the victor of Kutna Hora would sway everyone else.
But Zizka did not side with Zelivsky. Despite both of them being part of the more radical wing of the new faith, there were many things the blind old general did not like about the aggressive preacher. He did not like that a priest had seized political power, a priest who did have a soft spot for the Martin Houska, the man Zizka had insisted should be burned for his Pikhart beliefs. And Zizka thought Korybut would help stabilise Bohemia.
Bottom line was that the military commanders almost unanimously decided to end the military dictatorship Zelivsky had established, removed the councillors who had been Zelivsky’s followers and elected a new city council. And with that the preacher’s political power collapsed.
The new councillors were in the main conservatives. Two barons were made captains of the city. Within just days the resources and power of Prague that had been aligned with the radicals in Tabor had swapped sides. A baron called Hasek of Waldstein and a knight William Koska emerged as the new leaders of Prague and the conservative wing of Hussites. They quickly occupied all the leavers of power. Zelivsky’s supporters were stripped of their posts and sometimes of their property as well. The counterrevolution is under way.
John Zelivsky may have been stripped of temporal power, but he still had his chancel in his church Maria of the Snow and he was still one of the four directors of the Hussite church. He used both of these positions to push his political and religious ideas. Crowds were again gathering to listen to him speak.
Hasek of Waldstein was now determined to get rid of that troublesome priest. The opportunity arose when Jakoubek of Stibro, the old preacher and opponent of Zelivsky repeated his accusations, and this time asked for formal legal proceedings.
Zelivsky was invited to come to the city hall of the Old Town, not to stand trial, but to give advice on military matters. He arrived with several of his followers. Waldstein began a discussion about where to deploy Prague’s forces next. Zelivsky felt that he was back in the midst of things and asked more of his former colleagues to join the conference. Everything was going swimmingly, until the mood suddenly changed. Soldiers appeared from all corners and shackled Zelivsky’s friends. They were given the opportunity to confess and then Zelivsky and 9 of his friends were beheaded without even the pretence of a legal proceeding.
Prague was now firmly in the hands of Waldstein and his conservative colleagues. A wide gap has again opened up between Prague and Tabor.
But that was not the only falling out. There was another gap that opened up, between Tabor and its greatest defender, Jan Zizka himself. What exactly had brought this about is unclear. It may have been a disagreement on matters of faith. Tabor was by now a genuine theocracy, run by its bishop and its priests. Though the military commanders, most prominent amongst them Jan Zizka, were of course important. But most of the time they were out on campaign, either defending Bohemia against Sigismund or breaking castles and cities of either the catholic baron Ulrich of Rosenberg or the Pilsener Landfrieden.
Whilst Zizka had been away, the Taborites too had developed Pikhart sympathies, something as we know Zizka had absolutely no time for. There may have also been some personal animosity between Zizka and Wenceslaus Koronda, the firebrand from Pilsen or disagreements over military strategy. We do not know what exactly it was.
When Zizka left Tabor, he joined another community of radical Hussites we have not mentioned before, mainly because they had played only a minor role in proceedings to date. These were the Orebites. Like the Taborites, they had named themselves after a mountain in the bible, in their case the Mount Horeb where Moses had received the 10 commandment.
They had not created an entirely new city as the Taborites had done, but had occupied several towns in eastern Bohemia, namely Hradec Kralove. Their leader, a priest named Ambrose was more to Zizka’s liking. He was an old skool Hussite, not a conservative, but also not as radical as the Taborites after recent shifts toward Pikhartism.
Once he joined them, he got to work on what he was best at, creating a powerful military force. And to do that he produced his military doctrine. This document, and his implementation of it is the last great military reform he devised. This Statutes and Military Ordinance of a New Brotehrhood is not about weapons or tools, this is about discipline.
Discipline is nothing new in European warfare, but by 1423 had gone out of fashion in a major way. Knightly armies tended to attack and fight more or less at will, seeking individual glory in line with chivalric ideals. Only the orders of knights operated as coherent entities which is what accounted for their success in places like Prussia.
Zizka extended this kind of discipline to the whole army. He insisted that every soldier marched in good order with his platoon and behind his standard, that they followed the orders to the letter, that they did not plunder uncontrollably, but shared booty on an equitable basis and that anyone leaving the fight without permissionis is punished most harshly. Talking about harsh discipline, quote “Brother Zizka and the other lords, captains, knights, squires, townsmen, craftsmen, and peasants named above, and all their communities, with the help of God and of the Commonwealth, will punish all such crimes by flogging, banishment, clubbing, decapitation, hanging, drowning, burning, and by all other retributions which fit the crime according to God’s Law, excepting no one from whichever rank and sex, be he a prince, a lord, a knight, a squire, a townsman, a craftsman, or a peasant, or a man whatsoever” end quote.
It is on this basis that Zizka builds his Orebite army, one of the first standing armies in europe since Roman times. They have all the kit he had developed over the years, the war wagons, the flails, the howitzers and pistols and the discipline to follow their blind commander wherever he asks them to go, always in good order and full of confidence.
Tabor will adopt much of the ideas about military discipline and they too create a standing army, a brotherhood.
Looking at Bohemia in 1423, there are now quite a few political centres vying for supremacy. On the Hussite side we have the city of Prague, now run by the conservatives, the barons and patricians who also have an ever tighter grip on the university. Then we have the theocratic state of Tabor which controls a large chunk of southern Bohemia. Also in Southern Bohemia is Ulrich baron Rosenberg, the largest of the barons and a staunch catholic. In the west we have the Pilsener Landfrieden a league of catholic cities and barons. Then there is Zygmunt Korybut, technically regent of Bohemia on behalf of grand duke Witold. Korybut sits in conservative Prague but wants to be the unifying force. Then we have more barons, Catholic and Hussite who run their own little shows, sometimes aligned with one or more of the other parties. Sigismund is crowned king of Bohemia but has given up. The neighbours, in particular Albrecht, duke of Austria is and wants to remain margrave of Moravia, whilst the elector of saxony wants to pick up some juicy towns and villages on the border whilst getting absolution for his sins as a crusader. And last, but not least, the Orebites with Jan Zizka were operating in eastern Bohemia.
So far, i.e., until 1423 these different shades of Hussitism were fighting the various shades of Catholicism.
But the Orebites were upsetting this precarious balance. Until Zizka had shown up and pumped them full of military vigour, the Orebites had been vassals/allies of the city of Prague. Now they did no longer want to be subordinated to the great city, in particular not after Prague had turned conservative. Things went from tense to tactile when Zizka used the time the Prague forces were fighting duke Albrecht in Moravia to remove a conservative governor from a town that belonged to the Orebites.
The army of Prague immediately abandoned the defence of the realm and headed back to fight Zizka. For the first time two armies, both flying the Ark, the banner of the Hussite chalice fight each other. The only thing that is familiar about this battle is that Zizka won. The encounter is followed by some more skirmishes, until both sides signed a kind of armistice that lasted 12 months.
In the meantime the Polish uncles, Witold and Jogaila end their dithering and at a meeting with Sigismund decide to end their little adventure. Korybut and his Polish forces are called back home.
Korybut and his Poles gone, the conservative Hussites in Prague look for new allies. And they do materialise in the form of – drumroll – the catholic barons. Despite 4 years of war between the supporters and the enemies of the chalice, these men have a lot in common. For one, they are in the majority barons, often members of the same extended families. They also have similar economic objectives, namely to acquire the church lands made available during the revolution and the suppression of peasants. The patricians of Prague too want an end to the war with the empire and a return of trade with Nurnberg, Leipzig and Vienna and they are prepared to compromise on matters of religion.
It is a match made in heaven. They come together calling a diet for the whole of the kingdom, and, though none of the radicals attended, created a new regency council, made up mostly of barons and led by Waldstein, the captain of Prague.
Hearing about the consolidation on the right, the forces on the left, the Orebites and Taborites too join forces.
A confrontation between the two sides became inevitable. It took a few months, but in June 1424 it was time. The two Hussite armies met at Malešov, a small town not far from Kutna Hora. As always, Zizka had taken care that his army occupied the high ground. Sitting on a plateau they could watch as the army of Prague was crossing the little stream below. And again, Zizka had a new idea for his battle plan. He had a number of wagons filled with stones and placed between the cavalry regiments that made up the first line. The Praguers approached this battleline, going up the hill, but just before the two sides clashed, Zizka’s cavalry retreated, and the soldiers pushed the carts full of stones down the hill, breaking the enemies formation. Then the guns fired into the melee followed by a cavalry attack that broke whatever was left to the enemy’s morale. The baron’s army fled, leaving behind their guns and wagons and 1,400 dead.
This was potentially the largest and bloodiest battle of the Hussite war, and it was a war between mainly Hussite forces. It was also a decisive encounter that shaped the course of events for the next decade. Most of eastern Bohemia fell to the Taborites and Orebites, including Kutna Hora, the cash machine of the Bohemian kingdom. Their armies had proven to be for all intents and purposes undefeatable and would remain so until 1434.
As for Prague, the city was still the largest settlement in Bohemia and one of the largest in the empire. It remained conservative, as did the barons. Despite the guns and the military discipline the radical brotherhoods were still not strong enough to break either Prague or completely wipe out the baronial castles.
For 10 years everybody will be at everybody’s throat. Orebites versus Prague, Tabor against Rosenberg and other Barons, the Pilsener Landfrieden against the radicals. Korybut returned, not as regent for his uncle but to become king in his own right, but he did not manage to unify the country.
3 more crusades were called, the last one allegedly sending 150,000 men into Bohemia, but every single one of these 150,000 great warriors ran away in panic when they saw the dreaded Hussites appear. To maintain the standing armies of the brotherhoods, their new military leaders, Prokop the Bald and Prokop the Short led them in raids into Austria, Hungary, Silesia, Bavaria and beyond. They attacked Naumburg and even get as far as the shores of the Baltic. Only one trade thrived, Bohemians were much in demand as mercenaries.
We will get a bit deeper into this and how the conflict was eventually resolved next week, but we should end this episode with the end of the hero of the Hussite revolution, Jan Zizka.
After the victory at Malešov, the Orebites and Taborites sign an armistice with Prague and baron Waldstein. The parties agree that instead of killing each other, they should finally go and free Moravia, the other half of the kingdom and a place where the Hussite faith is still suppressed by catholic lords, duke Albrecht and the cruel and unnatural king Sigismund.
The largest Hussite force ever assembled ses off under the overall command of the undefeated, blind old general. When they got to the castle of Pribislav, half way between Prague and Brno, a small royalist garrison, seemingly intent on suicide offered resistance. The army haltsed the march, put the guns in position and began the slow and boring work of cracking the masonry of a medieval castle. The whole process should not take more than a few days.
Here is our chronicler, quote:
“There [before the castle of Piibyslav] Brother John Zizka fell sick with a mortal sickness from the plague. And in making his bequest he told his dear, faithful brethren and Czechs, the Lord Victorin, Lord John Bzdinka (Hvézda) and Kune, that they should go on fighting for the love of God, and should steadfastly and faithfully defend the Truth of God for eternal reward. And then already Brother Zizka recommended his soul to the dear God, and thus he died and ended his life on that Wednesday before St. Gall (October 11, 1424). And there his people took for themselves the name Orphans, as if they had lost their father. And they conquered the castle of Pribyslav, and they burned the people who fought back at them in the castle, about sixty men in arms, and the castle they also burned and demolished.” End quote
Now what happened to his body? The by far most famous account is that by Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, the future pope Pius II. He was a great admirer of Zizka’s genius, but he could not end his admiring account on the brilliant career of the great general without a final turn: quote: “Struck by the plague he expired, the detestable, cruel, horrible and savage monster. Whom no mortal hand could destroy, the finger of God extinguished him. When asked in his illness where, after his death, he wanted to be buried, he commanded that his body be flayed, the flesh thrown to the birds and beasts, and a drum be made from his skin. With this drum in the lead they should go to war. The enemies would turn to flight as soon as they heard its voice.” End quote
As much as I would love this story to be true and as much as it has become part of Czech lore, this story, the best of them all, is made up. Piccolomini wrote this decades after Zizka’s death. And we have earlier records that stated that the priest Prokupek (Prokop the Lesser) and the priest Ambrose conducted him, when he was already dead, to Hradec KrAlové, and there they buried him in the Church of the Holy Ghost by the main altar. But later he was conveyed to Caslay and there buried in the Church [of SS. Peter and Paul].” End quote. And there his grave stood for nearly 200 years until it was destroyed by the Catholics following the battle on White Mountain, wanting to eradicate any memory of the military leader of the first successful reformation. But instead of wiping out his memory, the destruction of his grave gave credence to the legend of Zizka’s drum und his invincible armies that is being passed down amongst the Czech people to this day.
With Zizka dead and the Hussite revolution limping to its conclusion the question is what we want to do next. We could go straight to the rise of the House of Habsburg, or we could take a tour around the Empire, dedicating an episode to each of the seven electors and to the territories we have not yet spent much time on, namely Baden, Hesse and Württemberg. Let me know what you think and if you want to discuss it, join the HotGPod community by signing up at historyofthegermans.com/support where you find the forum to discuss these issues with your fellow listeners.