6 January 1422
Nebovidy
At Kolín Žižka gathers more men, many of them from the country round Jičín and Turnov. The royal army, which takes the breakout for a victory, lies scattered for the winter in the villages round Kutná Hora and burns the farms and villages there. On 6 January 1422 Žižka marches out of Kolín and falls on it at the village of Nebovidy, 6 to 7 km from the town.
The church of the Holy Cross in NebovidyWikimedia Commons, Jstojanov, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Kostel Nebovidy 1.JPG)
The royal vanguard, mostly Hungarians, gathers on the rising ground south of the village to give battle. By the Old Czech Annals the royal troops stand on the hills so thick that it looks like a forest. They cannot form a line before the Hussites are on them, and they break with heavy losses. The chronicles do not say how the Hussites used their wagons that day.
The battle of Nebovidy, 1422, by Věnceslav Černý for a novel about Žižka, 1925Wikimedia Commons, Věnceslav Černý, Public domain (Image from the battle of Nebovidy, 1422 (novel Jan Žižkal, 1925).png)
Sigismund sees that his scattered army cannot hold Kutná Hora and orders a retreat. He has the miners of the town taken away, and in the night of 6 to 7 January his men set Kutná Hora on fire and leave for Německý Brod with its remaining people.
Sources
- František Šmahel, Jan Žižka z Trocnova (1969), p. 138.
- Otakar Frankenberger, Naše velká armáda, vol. 1 (1921), p. 176.
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
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