Boheim for Behem), Hans, a forerunner of the Peasant War in Germany, was born at Niklashausen, in Baden, about the middle of the fifteenth century. In his youth he was a farm-servant and a drummer at wakes and fairs. Awakened by the preaching of a Franciscan, he burnt his drum. He believed that the Virgin appeared to him, and revealed certain ascetic and extravagant doctrines to him, which about 1476 he began to preach. He soon gained influence among the lower classes by preaching against the vices of priests and princes, and against Purgatory. He prob- ably had heard the teachings of the Hussites. Multi- tudes were stirred to enthusiasm by his preaching. He was burnt at the stake in 1482. — Ullmann, Reform- ers before the Reformation, i, 384 sq.
Bohemia (Boiemum, Boiohemum, Boemia; Germ. Bbhmen, Bohcint), a kingdom of Germany, in the Aus- trian dominions, bounded on the north by Misnia and Lusatia, east by Silesia and Moravia, south by Aus- tria, and west by Bavaria. Two thirds of the inhab- itants are Sclavonians, and call themselves Czechs ; the remainder are chiefly Germans. As early as 845, many Bohemians had embraced Christianity through the medium of the Germans and Romans, in conse- quence of the wars of the German king Lewis. In 871, Duke Borzivoy, upon a visit to Swatopluk, governor of the Moravians, became acquainted with the Chris- tian religion, and he, his wife Ludmila, and their at- tendants, received baptism, probably at Olmiitz. On that occasion lie became acquainted with Methodius, a monk and painter, who had been sent in 8C2 from Constantinople to Moravia as missionary, with his brother monk Cyrillus, who invented the Sclavonic alphabet. Methodius accompanied the Bohemian duke to his own country, where many were converted and several churches built. The pood work which Borzi- voy had begun, Drahomira, the heathen wife of his son Wratislaw, sought afterward to destroy. Lud- mila, Borzivoy \s widow, and her grandson, Duke Wen- zel, fell victims to her fury. It was not till the reign of Boleslav the Pious (907-990) that Christianity ob- tained security and peace in Bohemia.
In 968 a distinct bishopric was formed at Prague for Bohemia, which until that period had been subject to the Bishop of Regensburg; and Hatto, archbishop of Mayence, consecrated the Saxon Dethmar bishop of Bohemia. Then the pope required (though the Chris- tianity brought in by Methodius was properly derived from the Greek Church, and the Sclavonian liturgy had been introduced in several places) that cveiy thing should be arranged in conformity with the Romish ritual. The use of the Latin language in divine ser- vice, the celibacy of the priests, and the Lord's Supper without the cup, were especially enforced. Hut the Bohemians made preat resistance, and in 977 the Bo- hemian delegates obtained a temporary permission fur the use of the liturgy in the Sclavonic language. But it was soon afterward resolved at Rome that the vul- gar tongue should lie expelled from the churches. An order to that effect by Pope Gregory VII, 1079, asserts that " it is the pleasure of Almighty God that divine worship should be held in a private language, though all do not understand it; for, were the singing general and loud, the language might easily fall into contempt and disgust." Nevertheless, both liturgies continued in use up to the middle of the 14th century.
In 1353, under the archbishop of Prague, Ernst de
Pardubitz (commonly called Arnestus), the communion ui/hout the cup was again insisted upon. Foreign pro- fessors and students, who had been accustomed in their native country to the Lord's Supper under one form, promoted this innovation in Prague. Nevertheless, in 1390, the communion under both forms was for some time allowed at Kuttenberg by Boniface IX, probably because these mountaineers had always been treated with much forbearance. Under Archbishop Ernst, Romish customs were generally adopted in Bohemia. But there were many opponents of Romish perversions in the 14th century. Wycliffc's writings had impress- ed many of the noblest minds, both clergy and laity. Prominent among them were Milicz (q. v.) and Stiek- na, cathedral preachers at Prague, Matthias Janow (q. v.), confessor to Charles IV, all of whom were ex- iled. After them arose Hrss (q. v.), martyred III"', and Jerome ok Prague (q. v.), 1416, whose bloody deaths aroused the spirit of the Bohemians. In 1420, the Hussites, having taken up arms, were excommu- nicated by the pope ; the Emperor Sigismund sent an arm}' into Bohemia. The bravery and terrible deeds ofZiska, the Hussite leader, protracted the contest for many years. Fearful cruelties were practised on both sides. The painful division of the Reformers into Ca- lixtincs (q. v.) and Taborites (q. v.) gave great advan- tage to the papal party. In 1432 the pope convoked a council at Basle, which was attended by 300 Bohemian delegates. An accommodation was made by granting the cup (communio sub utraque'), and the Calixtinc Ro- kyzan was made archbishop of Prague. This arrangc- jment satisfied the Romanizing Calixtines, or XJtra- quists, as they were called, but not the Taborites, who jwere, in the main, thorough Protestants. They con- tinued unmoved by arguments or threats, by flatteries or sufferings, and, having gradually remodelled their ecclesiastical discipline, became known by the name ! of the Bohemian Brethren. The peculiarities of their religious belief are exhibited in their Confession of Faith (A.D. 150-1), especially their opinion as to the Lord's Supper. They rejected the idea of transubstan- tiation, and admitted only a mystical spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist. On all points they profess- ed to take the Scriptures as the ground of their doc- trines; and for this, but more especially for the con- stitution and discipline of their churches, they received the approbation of the reformers of the 10th century. The}- distributed their members into three classes, the beginners, the proficients, and the perfect. To carry on their system they had clergy of different degrees : bishops (seniors and conseniors or assistants) ; pres- byters and deacons : and, of lay officers, a?diles and acolytes, among whom the civil, moral, and ecclesias- tical affairs were judiciously distributed. Their first bishop received his ordination from a Waldensian bish- op, though their churches held no communion with the Waldenses in Bohemia. They numbered 200 churches in Bohemia. Persecution raged against them even up to the middle of the 17th century, and thou- sands of the best citizens of Bohemia were driven into Poland and Prussia. The}- subsequently obtained tol- eration, and entered into agreement with the Polish Lutherans and Calvinistic churches. Those who re- mained in Bohemia and Moravia recovered a certain degree of liberty under Maximilian II, and had their principal residence at Fulncck, in Moravia, and hence have been called Moravian Brethren. See Mora- vians. Though the Old Bohemian Brethren must be regarded as now extinct, this society deserves ever to be had in remembrance as one of the principal guar- dians of Christian truth and piety in times just emerg- ing from the barbarism of the Dark Ages, and as the parent of the United Brethn n. Their < iatechism has been republished by Dr. Von Zezsehwitz (Die Cute- chismen <l< r WcMi ns< r n. Bohmischen Bruck r, Erlangen, 1863). The Jesuits, supported by Ferdinand II, car- ried through the "counter-Reformation" in Bohemia