The Albigensian Crusade and Hussite Wars: The History of the Catholic Campaigns against Christian Minorities in Europe before the Protestant Reformation

Eastern Christians did not acknowledge the Pope's supremacy, and many Catholics felt that it was lawful for him to declare a crusade to bring schismatics back to the obedience of Rome. German knights fighting the Orthodox Russians at the Battle on the Ice in 1242 believed this, as did the Hungarian prosecutors of the 1235 invasion of Bosnia, which was thinly disguised as a crusade. The Church even extended the object of crusade to believers in communion with Rome, who refused to obey lawful authority. After peasants revolted against the Prince-Archbishop of Bremen in 1204 over tithes and land rights, Pope Gregory IX was persuaded to declare them heretics and proclaim a crusade against them, and when the “heresy” of Catharism began to take root in southeastern France toward the end of the 12th century, both Church and State considered the use of force to extirpate it.

If John Wycliffe was the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” Jan Hus was the Guiding Star of the movement. Hus started as a Czech priest, but he quickly became notorious for debating several Church doctrines such as the Eucharist, Church ecclesiology, and many more topics. Today, he is viewed as a predecessor of the Lutherans, but the Church viewed him as a threat, and the Catholics eventually engaged Hus’ followers (known as Hussites) in several battles in the early 15th century. Hus himself was burned at the stake in 1415, but his followers fought on in a series of battles known as the Hussite Wars, and Czechoslovakia’s inhabitants by and large remained Hussite afterward. About 100 years later, Martin Luther would spark the Reformation across the continents.

The Albigensian Crusade and Hussite Wars: The History of the Catholic Campaigns against Christian Minorities in Europe before the Protestant Reformation examines the origins of the Cathars and Hussites, the conflicts with Catholicism, and the results of the fighting.