February – April 1420
The founding of Tábor, 1420
On the night of 21 February 1420 Hussites of South Bohemia led by the priest Petr Hromádka, driven out of Sezimovo Ústí the year before, take the town. Finding it hard to defend, they move four kilometres north to Hradiště, a long abandoned fortified site on a rock above the Lužnice, and begin to build a town there. They call it Hradiště of Mount Tábor, after the mountain in Galilee, and on 30 March they burn Sezimovo Ústí.
The old town of Tábor on its hill above the Lužnice, seen from the northWikimedia Commons, Rudolf Kukačka, Public domain (Tabor CZ aerial old town from north B1.jpg)
The settlers call each other brothers and sisters and wait for the return of Christ and his thousand-year reign. Property is to be held in common, and the community is to have no masters, no servants and no taxes. Hussites come to Tábor from all over the country.
A Hussite camp, painting by Mikoláš Aleš, 1877, National Gallery PragueWikimedia Commons, Mikoláš Aleš, Public domain (1877 Aleš Hussitenlager Nationalgalerie Prag anagoria.jpg)
The Taborites elect four captains of the people: Mikuláš of Hus, Zbyněk of Buchov, Chval of Machovice and Jan Žižka, who arrives from Plzeň at the end of March. Under them they attack the monasteries, castles and towns of their enemies in South Bohemia, among them Mladá Vožice, Sedlec, Strakonice and Rabí.
Kotnov, the castle of Hradiště, and the Bechyně Gate of Tábor, engraving after Jaroslav Janoušek, 1885Wikimedia Commons, Jaroslav Janoušek, Public domain (Hradiště Castle and Bechyně Gate in Tábor, 1800s.png)
Sources
- Josef Macek, Tábor v husitském revolučním hnutí II (1955).
- František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce 3: Kronika válečných let (1996).
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
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