Kuttenberg decree
With the Kuttenberg Decree (Czech Decree Kutnohorský , after the city of Kuttenberg ) of January 18, 1409 , the Bohemian King Wenceslaus IV (Václav IV), who had been deposed as Roman king eight years earlier, changed the proportion of votes in the committees of the Charles University in Prague . While the Nationes of Bohemia, Bavaria, Saxony and Poland had each one vote since it was founded in 1348, the Bohemians now received three votes, while the others ("foreigners") together received only one.
In his decree he states that (so far) “the German natio , which has no civil rights at all in the Bohemian Kingdom, can exercise three votes in various matters of university teaching in Prague ...” and “... that the Bohemian people of the Kingdom legal inheritance, enjoy the exercise of a voice… ”. He then orders that the inhabitants (incolae) of Bohemia , as an indigenous peoples group, be given three votes, as is also the case at other national universities in Paris or Lombardy , and the foreigners (Germans) only one. So a reversal of the previous situation. This was intended to limit the influence of foreigners. Wenzel IV wanted to secure the support of the university in order to regain the imperial dignity of Ruprecht of the Palatinate at the Council of Pisa . The Bohemian reformer Jerome of Prague was also instrumental in this decree .
Another reason for the constitution of the decree was the reform movement coming from England (see Lollarden ). The discussion about the teaching of John Wyclif separated the scholars of the university. In 1403, the foreign, primarily German, professors overruled the reformers' proposal to spread Wyclif's teaching at the university. They (the reformers) were condemned as heretical and now harassed the Bohemian king until he made the change in 1409.
As a result, many foreign scholars (80% of the academic staff) and students, especially Germans, left the university. Many of them went to Leipzig, where they build the local university participated. Charles University lost its previous importance in Europe. Jan Hus was elected as one of the reformers' spokesmen after the departure of the then rector, Johannes Hoffmann von Schweidnitz , himself as rector for 1409/10.
literature
- Martin Nodl: The Kuttenberg Decree of 1409: From Unity to Conflict of the Prague University Nations , Böhlau 2017
- Franz Martin Pelzel : Life story of the Roman and Bohemian King Wenceslaus , Part 2, Prague and Leipzig 1790. (The Latin text of the certificate is printed on p. 125/126 on Googlebooks )
Web links
- Text of the decree in Czech translation