One-eyed Jan (2)

Recap: Jan Zizka, the famous Bohemian general, was born c.1360 to a poor estate in Trocnov, which he gradually sold off. He moved to Prague and at some point married a woman named Catherine, about whom little is known except she probably died young. 

Now Zizka started to rise in the world. An entry in royal accounts dated 1392 records a payment to ‘Siska, venitor domini regus’, which means that Zizka had become a royal huntsman. The payment, of one year’s salary, was made in a small town 65 kilometres south of Prague near the royal castle of Orlik.  

Unless I have my kings mixed up, this means that Zizka had entered the service of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, nicknamed ‘the Idle’. The king was a drunken, pleasure-loving lout (sounds good) noted for his cruelty (not so good), and for holding grand hunting parties (better). We don’t know Zizka got the job of huntsman, although he and Wenceslaus were close in age, and the king liked to mix with the lower orders. Perhaps he caught Wenceslaus’s eye at some boozy revel or other. 

 After a year or so of this jolly life, Bohemia collapsed into civil war. The final straw was the murder of John of Nepomuk, a high-ranking clergyman, whom Wenceslaus had drowned in a river. A group of Bohemian nobles, wishing to regain the independence they had lost under Wenceslaus’s father Charles IV, went into revolt. They were led by Henry of Rosenberg and several of the king’s relatives, including his younger half-brother Sigismund and cousin Jobst. 

Although Wenceslaus was arrested and imprisoned, several powerful nobles supported him. The Czech nobility split into factions, and soon a murderous war was in progress. Both sides recruited mercenaries, led by knights and squires of the lesser nobility. 

 These bands of freebooters were little more than thugs, roving about the countryside, killing and robbing at will. Sometimes they remembered to attack the enemy, more often they simply went for soft targets - crops, livestock, isolated castles and villages. They were protected by powerful lords, so could pretty much do as they liked. 

 This was Zizka’s training in warfare. He left his comfortable post as royal huntsman and joined one of the armed gangs that supported the king. His company was led by a man named - appropriately enough - Matthew the Leader, and sponsored by the royalist lords of Lichtenburg. They targeted the lands of Henry of Rosenberg, leader of the rebel faction. 

We have lots of information on Matthew the Leader and his gang, thanks to detailed records kept in the Rosenberg archives and the town of Jihlava in western Moravia. Zizka is frequently mentioned in the ominous-sounding ‘Black Book’ of the Rosenberg estate, so we shall look at that next. 

First pic is the Martyrdom of St. John Nepomuk by Szymon Czechowicz.