Jan Hus, Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia, Thomas A. Fudge (I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2010) xx, 367pp., hardback, £54.50, ISBN 978 1 848851 429.

Jan Hus is often compared with Martin Luther.  He lived a century before - c. 1372-1415.  Where Macaulay's schoolboy knows of Luther, Hus is a little known figure.  Yet he confronted the established church and brought about a change in the face of medieval Europe and was a catalyst for both religious reform and social revolution.  He stood against corruption in the Church and was ultimately burned at the stake after a five year legal struggle.  As a result, Hus's followers adopted a more radical doctrine and Bohemia descended into a protracted war.

Fudge, a former Senior Lecturer at Christchurch, New Zealand, and now in the States, offers a detailed account of this enigmatic figure from his deep study of primary sources in many languages.  He writes lucidly and even deftly with impressive scholarship, providing over 70 pages of end-notes and a select bibliography which lists the publications, sermons and responses to accusations by Hus, manuscript sources in Europe and the U. K. especially Prague, printed primary sources, secondary sources published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the numerous writings of Fudge himself.  There is also a comprehensive index.

The text is assimulable but the format involves a smaller type face than makes for comfortable reading.  The book is a commendable achievement which will make a real contribution to English language historiography.