On this day 595 years ago, Jerome of Prague was executed by being burnt at the stake. He had been born into a wealthy family in Prague in 1379, and studied at the University of Prague. He subsequently visited England and became interested in the teachings of John Wycliffe. In 1410 a Papal Bull against Wycliffe’s writings was issued, and as a result Jerome was imprisoned in Vienna, from which he managed to escape.
Jerome became a close friend of the reformer Jan Hus, and promised to assist him at the Council of Constance, in south-west Germany. He arrived in Constance in April 1415 without a safe-conduct, so his friends advised him to leave, and while leaving he was arrested and brought before the council. The conditions of his imprisonment led him to recant his previous support for Wycliffe’s ideas at public sessions in September 1415.
He was subsequently put on trial in May 1416, and he retracted his earlier recantation, which had been made at a time of physical weakness. On 30th May he was condemned and then executed by burning at the stake. His friend Jan Hus had suffered the same fate at the hands of the Council of Constance in July of the preceding year.