“Warriors of God” and Their Perceptions during the Hussite Wars

About a century before Martin Luther challenged Catholic church doctrine and catalyzed the Protestant Reformation, Jan Hus was burned at the stake for heresy due to his beliefs that countered traditional church ideas. Hus, a Czech preacher, gained many supporters during and after his death, and his execution sparked a fifteen-year-long military conflict between his followers, the Hussites, and the Catholic Church and Holy Roman Emperor. This paper proposes a distinctive perspective by emphasizing how perceptions can motivate actions and shape impacts. Both sentiments, either as heretical from the Catholic Church and Emperor's perspective, or as "Warriors of God" from the Hussites' perspective, affected the actions of the Hussites, and ultimately the outcome of the wars.