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change and social justice. It bears a much stronger resemblance to the Dózsa model than
either of the other two uprisings we have looked at, chiliastic expectation in this instance
providing the urgency and conviction which a christological (and perhaps patriotic)
response to the Ottoman threat was to furnish a century later. The episode made a lasting
impression. When Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini visited Tabor in 1451 there were few
vestiges left of its early communism, but the future pope referred to it in a letter, noting
that they attempted to live after the example of the primitive church, possessing all
53
F. Smahel, La Révolution hussite: une anomalie historique (Paris, 1985), 105 110.
54
Smahel, La Révolution hussite, 71, 127.
55
Smahel, La Révolution hussite, 83.
56
Lawrence of Brezova, De gestis et variis accidentibus regni Boemiae , in: Geschichtschreiber der
husitischen Bewegung in Böhmen, ed. K. Höfler, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1856), 321 527, at 410 11.
57
Good recent studies are J. Klassen, The disadvantaged and the Hussite revolution , International review of
social history, 35 (1990), 249 72, and T.A. Fudge, Neither mine nor thine : communist experiments in
Hussite Bohemia , Canadian journal of history, 33 (1998), 26 47.
152 Norman Housley
goods in common, with one making provision for the other, and referring to all members
as brothers. 58
Tabor s communism was abandoned largely because of the need to defend the Hussite
cause against the crusaders and their allies among the Czech Catholics. Food, equipment,
supplies and money were required for the Taborite army. On 14 October 1420 the
Taborites started collecting seigneurial dues from the surrounding villages, and their
community s egalitarian nature was slowly eroded.59 But the Taborite social programme
was not just a casualty of the need to wage an organised war in defence of religious
principle. Thomas Fudge has pointed out that from the beginning Tabor s communism
was as much aspirational as actual, disparities of size appearing in the houses which
were constructed at Tabor.60 Smahel referred more broadly to the seductive appeal of
urbanisation, which won over even those imbued with the biblical association of cities
with sinfulness (Genesis 4:17).61 Moreover, there was a tension between the chiliastic
expectations of the early Taborites and any attempt to create an economic system based
on the common production of goods. The millennialism faded away in 1420, and
without it the ideals of apostolic poverty and equality proved too weak to resist the
influx of war booty generated by Taborite military prowess. Taborite preachers were to
complain frequently in years to come that both the practice of God s law and its defence
against attack were being undermined by the desire for personal enrichment.62
There were other uprisings in this period whose ideology was heavily influenced by
religion, perhaps most importantly the Comunidades of 1520 21 in Castile and the
Germaní asof 1519 23 in Valencia.63 But the four which we have looked at suffice to
draw some conclusions about the way recent scholarship has approached the impact
which religious convictions exerted on insurrection during the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. There have certainly been major advances, including a one-volume
edition of all the known sources for the Dózsa uprising,64 an excellent English translation
of a rich sample of the documents for the German Peasants War,65 and important studies
written or translated into English on the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Hussite
revolution.66 As one would expect, the journal literature has been immense. Yet one has
the impression that to progress further the subject needs an injection of new ideas. We
lack any equivalent to the studies on the French Wars of Religion in which Natalie
Zemon Davis and Denis Crouzet have recreated, in remarkable and at times overwhelm-
58
Fudge, Neither mine nor thine , 34. In general, H. Kaminsky, Pius Aeneas among the Taborites , Church
history, 28 (1959), 281 309, esp. 288 91.
59
Kaminsky, Pius Aeneas , 37; Smahel, La Révolution hussite, 79 80.
60
Fudge, Neither mine nor thine , 39.
61
Smahel, La Révolution hussite, 80.
62
H. Kaminsky, Nicholas of Pelhrimov s Tabor: An adventure into the eschaton , in: Eschatologie und
Hussitismus: Internationales Kolloquium Prag 1. 4. September 1993, ed. A. Patschovsky and F. Smahel
(Prague, 1996), 139 67, at 156 7.
63
J. Perez, La revolución de las Comunidades de Castilla, 1520 1521 (Madrid, 1977); R. Garcí a Cárcel,Las
germaní as de Valencia(Barcelona, 1981).
64
Monumenta rusticorum in Hungaria rebellium anno MDXIV, ed. A. Fekety Nagy and others (Budapest,
1979).
65
The German peasants war, ed. Scott and Scribner.
66
Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace; T.A. Fudge, The magnificent ride: The first Reformation in Hussite Bohemia
(Aldershot, 1998); Smahel, La Révolution hussite.
Insurrection as religious war, 1400 1536 153
ing detail, the psychology of groups engaging in religious violence.67 One way in which
this technique could be fruitfully applied in the case of our revolts would be through
analysis of the symbols which participants wore on their persons and displayed on their
banners: the cross in Hungary, Germany and England, the chalice in Bohemia, the badge
of the Five Wounds in England. Such symbols, and the rites surrounding their adoption
and use, played a major role in expressing and crystallising group aims, hopes and
identities. It is clear that they mattered because, as we have seen in the case of England,
their use was a cause of deep concern to the authorities. By investigating them we could
escape from the methodological cul-de-sac of trying to pinpoint motivation and
causality, both of which in the case of revolts are so fraught with problems.
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