November 1419 – March 1420
Plzeň and Nekmíř, 1419–1420
On 13 November 1419 Prague and the royal party agree a truce, and the Praguers give Vyšehrad back to the royal garrison. Jan Žižka, Břeněk Švihovský, the brothers Chval and Kuneš of Machovice and Valkoun of Adlar reject the truce and leave Prague for Plzeň. Plzeň is one of the richest towns of the kingdom, and its Hussites have been led since 1414 by the priest Václav Koranda. Žižka most likely commands their armed men.
Žižka, blind, leads a Hussite field army under the chalice banner, from the Jena Codex, about 1490–1510Wikimedia Commons, attributed to Janíček Zmilelý of Písek, Public domain (Jensky kodex Zizka.jpg)
From Plzeň they raid the strongholds of the Landfrieden of Plzeň, the league of the region’s Catholic lords under Bohuslav of Švamberk, with arms from the town’s armoury. At the end of December 1419 or early in January 1420 Žižka marches against the stronghold of Nekmíř, 17 km north-west of Plzeň, with fewer than 300 men on foot and seven wagons carrying guns. Bohuslav overtakes him with more than 2,000 horse and foot. The Old Czech Annals tell that Žižka drives the horsemen off from his wagons and kills Hynek of Nekmíř, and that the same night he destroys three fortified manors.
Memorial to Jan Žižka at Nekmíř, near the field of the battle of 1419 or 1420Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata admin upload, CC0 (Památník Jana Žižky u Nekmíře (Q94440946).jpg)
From January 1420 the Landfrieden, joined by the troops of Sigismund’s deputy Václav of Dubá, besieges Plzeň, while Catholic and German townsmen fortify their houses inside the walls. In March the priest Petr Hromádka writes from South Bohemia that the Hussites there have found a site for a town on a rock above the Lužnice, and asks Žižka to send armed men. Through the Praguers the Hussites of Plzeň agree terms for a free departure, and on about 23 March some 400 of them leave for Tábor.
Sources
- Old Czech Annals, in Ze starých letopisů českých (1980).
- Josef Macek, Tábor v husitském revolučním hnutí I (1952), p. 236.
- František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce 3: Kronika válečných let (1996), p. 28.
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