Chapter VIII - Poland, Bohemia and Hungary

Summary

Not the least notable successes of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century were scored in the three kingdoms which constituted the eastern frontier-land of the Latin church: Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The historical interest of the fortunes of the Reformation in these lands is due largely to the peculiar form given to its manifestation east of Germany by those political, social and economic characteristics which distinguished this area from western Europe. For whereas in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Britain we can observe the impact of reformative ideas on societies which were already enjoying the benefits of strong monarchy, where aristocratic separatism had already been largely defeated, where commerce and the towns were increasingly potent, and where society was no longer based on an adscript, service-rendering peasantry, in the countries east of the Elbe, the Böhmerwald and the Leitha we can watch the impact of the Reformation on a society where kings were weak and noble landlords strong, where medieval Parliaments were still dominant, where the towns were relatively few, small and impotent, and where serfdom was being ever more widely and severely established and legalised. The western Slavs and the Magyars had ever since their admission into Christendom constantly been stimulated by the importation of techniques, art forms, institutions, ideas and persons from the earlier developed societies of Germany, Italy and France, and had given to them a character that was peculiarly Polish or Czech or Magyar. That process of importation and modification was in the sixteenth century applied to the principles and practices of the religious reformers of Wittenberg and Geneva.