Bridging Fiction and Reality: Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Hussites, and the University of Vienna

Abstract In the first third of the fifteenth century, the University of Vienna actively resisted Wycliffism and Hussitism in various ways. This study explores the early skepticism of Viennese university masters toward peace negotiations with the Hussites, focusing on a previously unknown exhortation in which the Bohemian-Austrian nobility urged King Sigismund to take decisive action against the heretics. The only known manuscript dates the text to 1419, but this early date seems unlikely. Various clues suggest that the letter was written within the University of Vienna as a protest against King Sigismund’s conciliatory policies in the summer of 1429. By that time, the monarch had initiated negotiations for a general truce with the Hussites in preparation for his planned coronation journey to Italy. Given that the author employed literary fiction and symbolic communication to influence the king in a politically sensitive moment, this study also examines innovations in communication and textual media amid the late medieval ecclesiastical crisis (1378–1449). It additionally includes a critical edition of the exhortation’s Latin text, accompanied by an annotated English translation.