ABSTRACT

The first edition of Crespin's martyrology, 1554's Livre des Martyrs, begins with a section depicting the: 'History of the Holy Martyr Jan Hus', the Bohemian theologian who had been burned at the Council of Constance in 1415. Crespin's lengthy narration of the trial and execution of Hus was largely based on Peter of Mladonovice's eyewitness account of the trial and execution at the Council of Constance, the Relatio de Magistri Joannis Hus causa. The Hussite Wars were described in Crespin through the history produced by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, whose 1458 Historia Bohemica was rooted in his mission to Bohemia, which had secured the Compacts of Basel, allowing the Hussites to remain in communion with Rome which practising Utraquism. Between Hus, Jerome, and the Hussite wars, Crespin devoted a substantial amount of space to the Bohemians - 143 pages of octavo in 1554, and fifty-four of folio in his 1570 edition.