I 100 Dušan Coufal In the introduction, the Austrian states that once upon a time (he does not give the exact date) a rumour circulated that the Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg had issued to the Bohemians, at their request, a certain privilege very harmful and offensive to the Church. When Sigismund’s people were questioned about the charter, they covered the whole issue in falsehood. Since the Austrian historian quotes directly from the emperor’s privilege, it is quite obvious that he is referring to Sigismund’s earliest charter addressed to the Hussite Estates, which saw the light of day about July 6, 1435, in the Moravian city of Brno. According to Ebendorfer, however, the truth about the scandalous nature of the privilege became fully apparent 20 years later, when copies of it began to circulate around the world.6 He explains this delay in the conclusion of the tract by saying that the emperor had only seemingly granted the Bohemians’ request. Although he sealed the privilege to them, he did not hand it over to them, but deposited it in Karlštejn Castle (in central Bohemia), where it was found long after his death in 1454.7 In the wake of this “discovery”, Ebendorfer took up the pen in order to assess, as a knowledgeable expert and historian, to what extent the privilege was really beneficial and fair for the Kingdom of Bohemia.8 Since he gave vent to his historiographical and especially theological erudition in his work in an original way, his argumentation deserves special attention. In this chapter, however, we will deal with Ebendorfer’s interpretation only to a limited extent. While we will leave a detailed analysis of his theses to another occasion, here we will focus on the reasons that led him to take up the pen. We will illuminate the genesis of Sigismund’s privilege and describe its role in the coexistence of Utraquists and Catholics in Bohemia during the reigns of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1436–37) and his grandson Ladislaus Posthumous (1454–57). In this way, we will consider in a new perspective why the Bohemian lands teetered on the edge of political-religious conflict even after the conclusion of the peace in 1436. Genesis of the Privilege The efforts for peace in the Bohemians lands during the 1430s had both a religious and secular dimension. Both were closely intertwined.9 In the religious sphere, the Hussites negotiated with the Council of Basel on the so-called Four Articles of Prague. On the secular level, it was about the 6 Ibid.: “Cum autem celebri olim fama vulgaretur dominum Sigismundum, olim imperatorem, suorum Bohemorum ad instanciam quoddam indultum concessisse plurimum dampnosum, ymoverius irracionabile et scandalosum ecclesie, fieretque de hoc verbum eius apocrisariis, suffusi rubore rem ipsam falsitate tegebant. Que pridem emerserunt in palam, quando et huius iniquitatis copie sparguntur per orbem, in quibus orthodoxis et iustis adimitur iusticia et temerarii iustificantur, ut, que capiunt, agant impune, non iudicium veritatis, non aliorum sentenciam recte videntium imitantes, sed propriam regulationem, prout eis propria libido dictaverat.” About the extant exemplars and editions of the privilege in more detail below, in note 23. 7 Ibid., f. 300v: “Quod plane patet ex eorum apud Cesaream mayestatem instancia et votis, quibus satisfacere cupiens sub colore hoc, de quo prefatus sum, indultum sigillavit, sed ipsis minime tradidit, sed in Karenstayn castro deposuit, ubi et longe post eius mortem 1454 repertum extitit.“ 8 See above, notes 5 and 6. 9 Cf. the retrospective words of Juan Palomar in Basel in January 1437, “Ioannis de Segovia Historia gestorum generalis synodi Basiliensis, vol. I, lib. I – XII,” in Monumenta conciliorum generalium seculi decimi quinti. Concilium Basileense, vol. 2, ed. Ernst Birk (Vienna, 1873), 927: „Affirmabat [i.e. Sigismund] negocia illa duo fidei et regni ita fuisse
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