Sigismund I. und der Oberlausitzer Sechsstädtebund in den Hussitenkriegen (1419-1437)
Sigismund I and the Upper Lusatian Six-City League during the Hussite Wars (1419-1437)

Summary/Abstract: There is hardly another period in the history of Bohemia and its adjacent territories in the late Middle Ages which represents such a clear break with the past as the Hussite Wars (1419-1437). Taking the Upper Lusatian Six-City League under the Bohemian crown as an illustration, the repercussions of the religious and political conflict in the border regions will be examined with particular reference to relations with the Kingdom. Here, Sigismund I, crowned in 1420, was recognised as the rightful ruler at a very early stage, meaning that the Cities performed useful services as military allies and informers in the battle against the ‘heretical’ supporters of Jan Hus (d. 1415). From 1424 onwards, the Six-City League itself and its territory came under increasing pressure from counterattacks, the region becoming on numerous occasions a theatre of war and a transit route for Hussite forces. These were also successful in winning the temporary collaboration of certain sections of the population. Nonetheless, the militarily powerful members of the League: Bautzen; Görlitz and Zittau offered determined resistance right up to the end. In research on Sigismund, the growing network of contacts between the Lusatian Cities and the King and Reich is documented in a hitherto largely unnoticed correspondence. In research on the Province too, since Richard Jechts’ detailed monograph of 1911, hardly anyone has fundamentally examined this time of crisis for the Cities League. The war and trade embargoes brought the once blooming trading centres to the brink of ruin; for the first time they distanced themselves religiously and politically from the Kingdom of Bohemia. In this process, Sigismund functioned as the protector against Hussite influence, supported the City oligarchs against its social upheavals, and awarded the Cities numerous privileges. Although, in consequence of the war, the King of Bohemia never travelled to the Six Cities’ territory in person, relations with the central authority reached an unprecedented level of activity and intensity in this period.

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