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When radical preacher Jan Želivský arrived in Prague in 1418, he stepped into a seething conflict. In the three years since Jan Hus's death, Praguers had grown more passionate about reform—particularly about receiving both the bread and the chalice in Communion.

Reform-minded clergy, enjoying the support of commoners, nobles, and university masters, had expelled Catholics from most of the city's churches. King Václav did not interfere, but then he grew to fear the reformers' escalating power and in 1419 forced many of them, including Želivský, from their pulpits.

Želivský wanted his church back.

On July 30 he and his followers, some armed with pikes, swords, and clubs, marched to their former sanctuary. Finding the doors locked, they smashed through, then held a Communion service with bread and wine.

The group proceeded to the town hall, where several newly appointed Catholic councilmen were gathered. The angry crowd demanded the release of imprisoned reformers. When the councilmen refused, the protesters threw 13 of them out the window. Any who survived the fall were killed—but their corpses were not robbed.

The event was less a riot than a planned coup. The rebels succeeded in gaining some concessions from the king, who died a fortnight later of apoplexy. The victory was only temporary, though, and for the next 17 years Bohemia became a military and ideological battleground.

The Czech reform movement comprised two major camps: the radical wing, including the Táborites, and the more moderate Utraquists. Radicals largely came from the lower levels of society (Želivský sometimes called himself "preacher of the poor, unfortunate, miserable, oppressed"), while moderates drew from the ranks of nobles and university masters.

When Václav had reneged on reform and placed Catholics in power, some Hussites began gathering for Communion in the hills outside Prague. They gave these hills biblical names like Tábor, Horeb, and Olivet. Because of increasing persecution in the cities, and because the group believed the end times were coming soon, the meeting places became refuge settlements.

"Therefore do not resist evil," a Táborite song proclaimed, "but go out to the mountain, and here learn Truth; for so Christ commanded when he prophesied on the mountain and preached of the destruction of the temple."

The Táborites, early proponents of sola scriptura, rejected anything not found in the Bible, including the veneration of saints, prayers for the dead, transubstantiation, and indulgences. They lived communally, conducted their austere worship services in Czech, and welcomed laymen and women to preach.

Utraquists, like Táborites, firmly believed that lay people should receive Communion in both bread and wine (sub utraque specie). As Jacob of Mies had argued at the Council of Constance, citing Scripture, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you." However, being generally wealthier, they were not nearly so eager to upset the order of Bohemian society.

Upon Václav's death, Sigismund gained formal right to the Bohemian crown. But Hussites hated Sigismund, "the dragon of the Apocalypse," for his duplicity at Constance. Pope Martin V, hoping to silence the reformers, gave Sigismund permission to take the kingdom by force.

Utraquists attempted to reach a diplomatic compromise with the incoming monarch, asking only that Communion with the lay chalice be permitted, not imposed. This was hardly enough for the Táborites, who threw their support behind Jan Žižka, a royal guard turned radical.

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