Economy, War, and the Salvation of Christian Souls

The so-called Hussite Wars (14201436), in which Pope Martin V ( 1431) and the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund ( 1437) unsuccessfully tried to conquer the allegedly heretic followers of the Czech reformer Jan Hus ( 1415) constitute one of the largest armed conflicts in late medieval Central European history. One of the means pope and emperor employed in their struggle against the Czech heretics was an embargo upon all trade and commerce. The present publication is the first monograph, which deals with this remarkable incident of a medieval embargo and describes the seemingly straightforward economic weapon anti-Hussite embargo as a complex social interaction. For this purpose, I posit that the anti-Hussite embargo was much more than a mere means of economic warfare. Rather, its ideas and concepts stem from the papal bans on trade and commerce between Christians and Muslims. These bans started in the 12th century and evolved over the centuries into a general embargo on all trade with non-Christians. In the process, commercial relations with non-Christians, and especially with heretics, became increasingly stigmatized as a sin. Trading with the Hussites therefore was not only an act of collaboration but also gravely endangered the immortal soul of those engaging in such acts. I explore this anti-Hussite embargo by showing how it was enforced and how the political agents involved used it as a tool of governance and propaganda. For this purpose I study a variety of sources, covering different genres (papal and royal charters, letters issued by town magistrates, chronicles, municipal accounts, records of criminal proceedings, etc.) and a wide geographical area, embracing Bohemia and all of its neighbouring territories. In order to examine these sources I apply a twofold methodological approach: firstly, I consider the anti- Hussite trade embargo as an instrumental means of warfare. Secondly, I survey it as a communicative process and cultural practice. Finally, I bring these two dimensions together by scrutinising the anti-Hussite embargo as practical rule in order to uncover the intricate top- down- and bottom-up-processes that accompanied the embargos implementation. As a result, I am able to identify structures and agents of international long-distance and regional trade, adding to our knowledge of Central European trade patterns in the Hussite era. Simultaneously, I investigate this trade on the level of everyday life. The book thus provides rare glimpses on the mentalities and the self-fashioning of individuals and groups coming from all levels of late medieval society. But most importantly, I try to show that the analysis of the anti-Hussite embargo allows for fascinating insights into the political, economic, social, and cultural history as much as the history of everyday life in early-15th-century Central Europe.