This book introduces the ethical, philosophical, and social legacy of the work of Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848), highlighting the theological element of Bolzano's thought. Bolzano influenced several key thinkers (primarily Catholic priests) such as Vincenc Zahradnik, Josef Michael Fesl, Anton Krombholz, Frantisek Schneider, and their pupils and successors. Zahradnik co-founded an important professional Czech periodical and created much of modern Czech theological terminology. Anton Krombholz became an important representative of Austrian education after 1848, working at the Vienna Ministry of Education. Based on her previous comprehensive Czech monograph, the author now highlights other new manuscripts from Krombholz's literary legacy. She underscores connections between Bolzano's legacy and the reform movement of the Czech Catholic clergy, emphasizing that Bolzano's ideas resonated in Czech Catholic modernism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Notwithstanding the tumultuous national development of Czechs and Germans in nineteenth-century Bohemia, Bolzano's conception of a peaceful coexistence between the two nationalities in Bohemia very favorably contributed to the preservation of the unity of the Catholic Church during such ethnically complex times. The author's theological conception drew upon the works of Jan Milic Lochman (1922-2004), who, in addition to writing on contemporary ecumenical themes, also dealt with the spiritual legacy of the Czech National Revival.

The Bohemian reformer Jan Hus made a substantial and critical contribution to the development of the medieval church, owing especially to his views and teachings on Scripture, the church, faith, conscience, and spirituality. This book offers a presentation of Hus's theological commitment centered on his understanding of truth. Lasek and Franklin explore Hus's preaching ministry and his long-drawn-out legal struggle against charges of heresy as ethical outworkings of this approach to truth. Central to this exploration is a new annotated translation of Hus's Appeal to Jesus Christ as the Supreme Judge against the pope and canon law. This document was not only a protest against papal power, but expressed a fundamentally new legal situation: in bypassing canon law, it essentially represented a personal claim to freedom of conscience. This unheard-of principle from within the medieval legal framework preceded other related ecclesiastical and legal developments by several centuries. The authors argue that Hus's appeal thus represents a momentous event in church history and European history as a whole. Due to the historical significance of his martyrdom and commemoration by many churches throughout Europe, this book demonstrates that Hus remains an important figure not only for the study of European history, but also for understanding contemporary values of Western civilization.

The Hussites' contribution to the transformation of the Czech state and its influence upon constitutional development were substantial. Various Hussite factions united over a program known as the Four Articles of Prague. InThe Four Articles of Prague within the Public Sphere of Hussite Bohemia, Kamila Veverkova situates the Four Articles-presented here in a new translation by Angelo Franklin-in their political and economic context, emphasizing the societal reforms stimulated by the Hussite theological program. The Hussites demanded free proclamation of God's word, advocated public punishment of sins for all estates, rejected the secular rule of the church, and proclaimed the need to receive communion under both kinds. With no royal government in the country, the Czech Land Diet and its appointed administrators exercised practical power. The Czechs' arduous negotiations at the Council of Basel ultimately succeeded; the Council adopted the Four Articles of Prague in the form of the Compactata, which later became part of Czech law (1436). The Religious Peace of Kutna Hora (1485) expressed the new constitutional situation, allowing religious freedom. This unheard-of principle preceded other related legal developments by several centuries. Hussites permanently changed the form of the state and law, becoming a model for Europe in the transition from feudalism to a bourgeois society.