The Trial of Jan Hus is the third and last of a series of studies of the Bohemian reformer by Thomas A. Fudge. It seeks to chronicle in careful detail the variety of court proceedings against Hus in the first two decades of the fifteenth century. But this book contains more than narrative; it also quite unapologetically offers judgments, both of Hus and his trial: “I believe the evidence shows conclusively that Jan Hus was a heretic. I am also convinced that . . . the trial was legal” (347). In reaching these conclusions, Fudge positions himself outside the mainstream of scholarly writings on Hus and the case against him, works which at one point he polemically characterizes as containing “little more than the pious longings of their evaluators . . . a projection of their own ideas and desires” (346). While this volume's textual analysis is in many ways to be commended, the tone of comments like these mars the overall effectiveness of its argument.

In his first three chapters, Fudge begins with a survey of the events leading up to the burning of Hus at the Council of Constance in 1415, as well as with an overview of the procedures that governed late medieval heresy trials. A strength of Fudge's analysis throughout the book is his meticulous examination of the specific provisions of canon law that shaped the church's treatment of Hus. Thus it is no surprise that Fudge treats heresy as primarily a legal category, although he also recounts the ways in which it signified intellectual deviance, religious formation and reform, a challenge to the social order, and a purported form of madness, disease, perversion, and the work of the devil.

Chapter 4 initiates Fudge's detailed account of Hus's confrontations with the institutional church, which began in Prague in 1403 with the assembly of a list of Wycliffite articles that unnamed university masters were accused of circulating and affirming. Subsequent chapters trace the evolution of the process against Hus both in Bohemia and at the papal court. Along the way, the reader meets a colorful cast of characters: the sharp Jan Jesenice, Hus's lead attorney for most of the process; Michael de Causis, his primary antagonist; the local archbishop, Zbyněk; and participants in the Council of Constance such as Jean Gerson. On Fudge's account, Hus committed significant strategic errors at least twice in the course of the proceedings against him: first by issuing a direct appeal to the judgment of Christ, one that according to Fudge placed him outside the processes of the church and rendered his argument preposterous in the eyes of many; and second by accepting Emperor Sigismund's safe-conduct to attend the Council of Constance. Because Hus had already been excommunicated for heresy at the time of the council and because heretics had no rights in medieval canon law, Fudge argues, the church and its associates were under no legal obligation to honor any promise made to him. In short, Fudge's narrative of the trial portrays Hus as a legal naïf, one who repeatedly failed to grasp the political realities of his situation.

Two chapters in the middle of the book attend closely to key documents in the surviving record, namely, Hus's appeal to Christ and the Ordo procedendi, a collection of notes about the Hus case that Fudge argues was prepared by Jesenice but amended by Hus. Fudge then returns to his chronological narrative, recounting the details of Hus's trial at Constance and concluding with his own assessments of the judicial process as a whole. Here again, the overall note is one of regret about Hus's naïveté: “what he miscalculated entirely was the extreme prejudice arrayed against him . . . . Moreover, he failed to appreciate the full force of canon law and legal procedure that would unavoidably determine his fate” (297).

Fudge is undoubtedly right that there are too few scholarly works in the English language about the trial of Hus, a proceeding that occurred at a key moment in the history of medieval heresy and featured many of the most important ecclesiastical actors of the early fifteenth century. It is for that reason that the methodological shortcomings and polemical character of the present study are especially to be regretted. Among the former is Fudge's apparent lack of familiarity with or interest in recent scholarship on medieval heresy proceedings apart from those connected with Hus: theoretical reflections on the balance of power between inquisitor and suspect, and on the marks that such power relations leave on texts, could particularly have enhanced Fudge's analysis of the written record of the Hus case. Fudge appears to dismiss much such scholarship as “postmodern theoretical approaches, politically correct guidelines, and gentle ecumenical applications, all of which are plain and simple anachronism,” but to the contrary, it is unclear whether it is possible to read the extant documents in as straightforward a way as Fudge attempts (339). More unhelpful is the dismissive and combative tone that Fudge adopts at various points throughout his study, especially when positioning his work vis-à-vis that of other scholars. Not infrequent comparisons between medieval canon law and contemporary U.S. politics (for example, likening summary procedures in cases of heresy to the 2001 Patriot Act) do not contribute constructively to the argument of the book, and some passages repeat material introduced in earlier chapters.

All in all, Thomas Fudge has done an important service in producing a painstakingly detailed analysis of one of the Middle Ages' judicial causes célèbres. His volume contributes to a recent renewal of interest in Czech sources and Hussite materials in particular. It is unfortunate that his volume does not engage more with the scholarly mainstream, instead mounting attacks that are reminiscent of the very polemics with which he is concerned.