Defenestrations of Prague

Two incidents in the history of Bohemia are known as the Defenestrations of Prague, the first in 1419 and the second in 1618 (though the second is generally considered The Defenestration of Prague). Both helped to trigger prolonged conflict within Bohemia and beyond. (A defenestration is an act of throwing someone or something out of a window.)

Related Topics:
Bohemia - Prague - 1419 - 1618 - Defenestration

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The First Defenestration of Prague involved the killing of seven members of the hostile city council by a crowd of radical Czech Hussites on July 30, 1419. The prolonged Hussite Wars broke out shortly afterward, lasting until 1436.

Related Topics:
Hussites - July 30 - 1419 - Hussite Wars - 1436

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The Second Defenestration of Prague was an event central to the initiation of the Thirty Years' War in 1618. Some of the Bohemian aristocracy was effectively in revolt following the 1617 election of Ferdinand, Duke of Styria and a Catholic, to become the successor King of Bohemia. In 1617, Roman Catholic officials ordered the construction of some Protestant chapels (on land the Catholic clergy claimed belonged to them) to cease, which Protestants (saying it was royal, not Catholic Church, land and thus available for their own use) interpreted as a violation of the right of freedom of religious expression as granted in the Letter of Majesty that had been issued by Emperor Rudolf II in 1609. They feared that the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand would revoke the Protestant rights altogether once he came to the throne. At Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants tried two Imperial governors, Wilhelm Graf Slavata (1572 - 1652) and Jaroslav Borzita Graf von Martinicz (1582 - 1649), for violating the Letter of Majesty, found them guilty and threw them, together with their scribe Fabricius, out of the high castle windows, where they landed on a large and conveniently-placed pile of manure. Both survived.

Related Topics:
Thirty Years' War - 1618 - Aristocracy - 1617 - Ferdinand - Styria - Catholic - Protestant - Letter of Majesty - Emperor Rudolf II - 1609 - Prague Castle - May 23 - Wilhelm Graf Slavata - 1572 - 1652 - Jaroslav Borzita Graf von Martinicz - 1582 - 1649

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Roman Catholic Imperial officials claimed that they survived due to the mercy of benevolent angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause. Protestant pamphleteers asserted that their survival had more to do with the horse manure in which they landed.

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An English translation of part of Slavata's report of the incident is printed in Henry Frederick Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943, issued as volume LIII of Harvard Historical Studies), pp. 344-347.

Related Topics:
Henry Frederick Schwarz - Harvard University Press - Harvard Historical Studies

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