This article presents some manuscript texts that shed new light on the protests against the indulgence campaign connected to the promulgation of Pope John XXIII’s crusade against King Ladislas of Naples in 1412. Thanks to the sources in the University Archives in Vienna, the arrival of indulgence preachers to Prague is set to early April 1412. This new dating suggests that abstrakty a period of negotiations predated the start of the campaign (possibly on 22 May 1412). These negotiations were accompanied by public controversy. Among evidence of it are the first version of Jan Hus’s polemic Contra cruciatam II and a fragment of a sermon possibly from 12 May 1412, both of which are edited in the appendix. Also edited is a statement on indulgences by a Prague Hospitaller John. This text lets emerge a hitherto unnoticed controversial indulgence campaign that ran parallel to that of John XXIII. The sources suggest that the conflict in Prague in 1412 was escalated not so much by a shock caused by the sale of indulgences but rather by a premeditated Wycliffite counter-campaign. and Pavel Soukup.
1412 saw large-scale protests in Prague against crusading indulgences issued by Pope John XXIII. This study identifies and evaluates some polemical manuscript texts that can be situated within the context of this controversy. It offers a critical edition of the anti-indulgence pamphlet Vobis asmodeistis that was found in a money box at Prague Castle on 20 June 1412. The hitherto unknown polemic Motiva pro defensa prelatorum et indulgenciarum is also edited in the appendix. The statement arguing that prelates should not be criticised by their subjects and misdemeanours be dealt with mercy is followed by a Wycliffite refutation. Two manuscript texts on indulgences which were suspected to be treatises from 1412 by Andrew of Brod and Stanislav of Znojmo respectively are an excerpt from the Tractatus fidei by Benoît d’Alignan, with the second paragraph coming from Stanislav’s later work. In sum, the sources examined in this article show the various ways of how the events of 1412 impacted literary output. and Pavel Soukup.
The manuscript presently deposited in Staatsbibliothek Preusischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin under the shelfmark Ms. Lat. quart. 654 allows a reconstruction of ways in which recent theological literature used to be spread in the first half of the fifteenth century. The manuscript that is comprised predominantly of texts aimed against the Hussite teachings belonged to the library of the Carthusian monastery of Salvatorberg near Erfurt. This case study thus uncovers one of the channels by which the polemical tractates were spread during the times of intense literary production provoked by Bohemian heresy. The article is appended by a detailed list of works contained in the manuscript and an edition of previously unpublished text Responsiones facte ad quatuor articulos, which expresses the opinion of Catholic theologians of the first crusade who participated in the debate with the Hussite representatives in the Lesser Town of Prague in July of 1420. and Pavel Soukup.