the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

Theutonica as a category defined by
language and nacio Bohemica as one
defined territorially and
constitutionally. Just a few days before
the Decree was issued, Master Jerome
of Prague had published a definition of
a political community and the
conditions that members of it must
fulfil jointly and severally. Jerome
identified three such conditions:
language, common origin and faith. He
called that community nacio Bohemica.
Each of its members must therefore be a
Czech-speaker, be of Czech father and
mother and be of the true “immaculate”
faith. Admittedly, the nacio Bohemica
remains a community divided according
to estate in the medieval spirit, although
its members are bound together by
more than ties of estate. And for
Jerome, and even more so in the
developments in the subsequent
decades, faith was already the most
important factor.
Jerome also speaks of the “pure
Czech” (purus Bohemus), being every
Czech who fulfils the above three
conditions. Another of the Hussite
intellectuals, Master Jan of Jesenice,
speaks at that time of “true Czechs”
(veri Bohemici). In the Bohemian
kingdom, the Czech nation should be
“the head, not the tail, always superior,
never subordinate”, because it is
indigenous and not alien, not a
newcomer. However, in both cases the
pure or true Czech is a “faithful” Czech,
in the sense of true to the faith. And the
principle of faith did not coincide
entirely with ethnic affiliation. Not
every Czech necessarily became a
heretic, just as not every German
remained a Catholic.
By all the evidence, during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
Czech pre-national consciousness
evolved at a faster pace than in other
countries. The historian František
Šmahel therefore speaks of the “Czech
anomaly”. Nonetheless it was not a
unique development. The latest research
conducted into this aspect in Germany
has discovered features of strong national
awareness among the Germans too.
21
Historical Roots
Chapter I
However, the German national
consciousness does not emerge until the
Reformation, i.e. in the sixteenth century.
BARBARISM OR CIVILISATION?
However, religious difference that
undoubtedly encouraged the birth of
national consciousness was not the only
distinction that contributed towards the
national differentiation of the two
ethnic groups in the course of the 15 th -
King Wenceslas IV with
his queen (above).
The Kutná Hora Decree (below)
brought to a head the religious and
ethnic rift at Prague University.
17 th centuries. Alongside and coupled
with it there is also a strand of thought
inspired by classical themes and
nourished by the intellectual sources of
Renaissance Humanism. One of the key
ideas among the Humanists’ new