Hussites, The

The Hussite movement was a historical watershed - popular and scholastic theology combined with a nascent Czech nationalism to produce a full-scale social revolution that presaged the Reformation and the birth of the modern nation state. The Hussites defeated the Empire and the Pope, and their king George Poděbrady advocated a trans-national European state. Hussite theology influenced Martin Luther and the birth of Protestantism. This survey introduces the reader to the events, people, and ideas that define this remarkable movement.