Žižka's Drum: The Political Uses of Popular Religion

Abstract

"Now Žižka had appointed a time to assemble for the purpose of attacking Sigismund when, near the castle of Přibyslav, by divine inspiration, if you will, that detestable, cruel, horrible and savage monster was stricken with an infectious disease and died. The one whom no mortal hand could destroy was extinguished by the finger of God. As he lay ill he was asked where he wished to be buried after his death. He ordered that his body be flayed, the flesh discarded for the birds and animals, and a drum be fashioned from his skin. With this drum in the lead they should go to war. The enemies would turn to flight as soon as they heard its voice." --Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, 'Historia Bohemi'. Near death, lying before the castle of Přibyslav near the Moravian border, the commander of the Hussite armies had already fought his last battle in defense of the law of God. Death would defeat, at last, the undefeated. According to the implacable enemies of the Hussite cause he had been invincible and only God could slay the inveterate foe of official religion. Now dead, Jan Žižka was even more terrible than ever and just as present in the center of social and religious conflict in Bohemia as he had been in days past. His followers made no mention of the drum but they too affirmed the continued presence of their captain in the theater of war and created a counterpart to the idea of a macabre postmortem existence that took residence in the patterns of popular belief and popular religion.