Hus encouraged women to study the Scriptures, to speak to others about Christ, to participate in church singing, and to admonish those who needed correction, including priests. “Listen, daughter, and incline your ears and know that you are a person and that you have a body and a soul,” he wrote in 1412. “Therefore remember, that God created you in his likeness.”[1]
John Hus, the Bohemian Reformer who was condemned as heretic at the Council of Constance, was supported by a large number of women. This was, in some ways, unusual. The same couldn’t be said, for example, in the case of John Wycliffe, in England. One possible reason was that John Hus valued the active role of women in the church more than most medieval theologians.
Born into a peasant family around 1372, Hus often mentioned his mother as a source of encouragement in his faith and a Christian example. Even as late as 1413, when Hus faced the worst opposition against him, he confided in his mother, who reply by quoting words of comfort from Psalm 118.
Uncommon Respect for Women
The positive influence Hus’s mother had in his life might be partly responsible for the great respect he showed toward women in an age when major theologians were still debating whether women were made in God’s image, and discouraged them from reading the Bible. After all, they said, Adam was created first, directly by God, while Eve was a by-product of Adam, made from one of his ribs. (Never mind that Adam was actually made from dust).
Hus shared none of these doubts. Instead, he encouraged women to study the Scriptures, to speak to others about Christ, to participate in church singing, and to admonish those who needed correction, including priests. “Listen, daughter, and incline your ears and know that you are a person and that you have a body and a soul,” he wrote in 1412. “Therefore remember, that God created you in his likeness.”[1]
He also refused to adhere to the common belief that women were to blame for many sins of men, particularly sins of lust. In his condemnation of sin, both in writing and from the pulpit, Hus included men and women equally.
Some of Hus’s Supporters
Around 1402, when Hus began preaching in Czech in Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, his message of simple faith, free from the corruptions of most clergymen of his time, resonated with the masses. His sermons attracted about three thousand people, and his insistence in giving primacy to Scriptures gained him a group of faithful supporters who advocated for him – even demonstrating in the streets – when other clergymen began their opposition.
Some of his early supporters were Beguines, women who lived simple lives, usually in communities, devoting themselves to religious devotion, to the care of the needy, and to the education of young girls, without taking formal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.