April – November 1429
Talks at Pressburg, 1429
At the end of 1428 Sigismund invites the Hussites to talks at Pressburg, and a Hussite assembly at the new year chooses envoys with Prokop the Great at their head. They reach Pressburg on 4 April 1429. Sigismund asks them to return to the Church. Prokop asks for a public hearing of the Four Articles of Prague before all Christendom, and the English Wycliffite Peter Payne asks the king to accept the articles, so that the whole Czech nation will obey him.
Pressburg with its castle, its walls and the Danube, a plan of 1438 to 1455Wikimedia Commons, unknown author, Public domain (Pressburg city plan 1438-55.jpg)
Sigismund answers that as a layman he cannot judge matters of faith, and proposes a truce. The Hussites refuse a truce without a hearing, and a private meeting between the king and Prokop changes nothing. Their envoys leave the truce and a Hussite part in the coming council to the diet, which meets in the Carolinum in Prague on 23 May. A second embassy goes to Pressburg in the summer and comes home on 24 July without an agreement.
Emperor Sigismund, portrait of about 1433, formerly attributed to PisanelloWikimedia Commons, formerly attributed to Pisanello, Public domain (Pisanello 024.jpg)
On 20 September Prokop makes peace between the Old and New Towns of Prague, which have been firing on each other. At the end of September the Taborites and the Orphans ride into Lusatia. They reach the abbey of Oybin near Zittau about 1 October, take ransom from Bautzen after three days of bombardment, take Kamenz and turn by Großenhain, Luckau and Cottbus to Guben, where the town and the abbey of Neuzelle are destroyed. They come home by Crossen, Bolesławiec, Lubań and Zittau on 11 November.
Sources
- Frederick G. Heymann, “The Crusades against the Hussites”, in Harry W. Hazard (ed.), A History of the Crusades, vol. 3 (1975), pp. 621 to 623.
- Count Lützow, The Hussite Wars (1914), ch. 6.
- Petr Čornej, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české V, 1402–1437 (2000).
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