Jerome of Prague

Jerome of Prague was a Bohemian philosopher, theologian and preacher, one of the leading followers of Jan Hus and a prominent figure in the church reform movement of the early fifteenth century. Sources do not agree on his birth year, which is usually given as around 1379 or 1380. He matters because his career shows how the ideas of John Wyclif reached Bohemia and blended with the Hussite movement, which would end up in open conflict with the Roman Church.

He studied at Charles University in Prague, graduating in 1398, and later at Oxford, where he came into contact with Wyclif's work and copied out some of his dialogues. He taught and preached in Paris, Cologne and Heidelberg, but everywhere he was accused of heresy and had to leave. Bohemia was the place he kept returning to, since there he was largely safe from prosecution. His oratory won him a wide following, and his speeches sometimes sparked public demonstrations against the Church.

His central conviction was that every Christian could reach the teachings of Jesus directly, without depending on the Church or its officials, and that those teachings should be followed even when they clashed with the institution. He also defended philosophical realism, the view that universals have a real existence, and he criticised the wealth and worldly life of the clergy. These positions brought him repeated imprisonment and excommunication.

In 1414 Hus set out for the Council of Constance, and Jerome, despite the warnings of his friends, promised to come to his aid if needed. He reached the city in 1415, was arrested and spent months in harsh conditions. After a forced recantation, which he later withdrew, he was condemned and burned at the stake on 30 May 1416, in the same place where Hus had died. His death made him a martyr for the Hussites and, over the following centuries, for other reform movements.