window of flopportunity
Or, it's high time we all talked about the Defenestrations of Prague.
Hello, friends!
This week’s dirtbag is a reader suggestion from Nina, although to be fair it’s less a specific dirtbaggy individual and more an Overall Dirtbag Situation. But when she suggested it, I dropped everything I’d been planning to write for this week, because THIS is what I mean when I say “bring me your suggestions with Dirtbag Energy”:
The Defenestrations of Prague!
We’re already on strong ground here: a historical incident with a jaunty title. But then we get even stronger with the Wikipedia Table of Contents:
So let’s start from the beginning. Why were people in Prague so excited to throw people out of windows? Who was being thrown, and by whom? And above all, what hats did they wear while they did it??
(Seriously, this story has so many good hats in it. Buckle up.)
Hus Your Daddy
First, to situate us geographically: Prague, during the 15th century, was part of the kingdom of Bohemia. Bohemia was one of those countless “German-not-German” principalities I will someday (not today) wrap my head around.
Next, to situate us religiously: one of the biggest religious celebrities in 15th-century Bohemia was a priest named Jan Hus, who was bopping around Bohemia trying to start some spicy church reforms. This was about 100 years before Martin Luther started nailing his anti-Catholic diss tracks to doors, so we can’t call it Protestantism exactly, but—basically, it was Protestantism. The Catholic church was not into this, and Jan Hus was executed for heresy in 1415.
All the guys on Team Jan Hus were decidedly not in favor of this, and unrest broke out. The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund and his brother, King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia, tried to keep things under control, but violence repeatedly broke out across the duchy to protest Jan Hus’s death/martyrdom.
Important sidebar for all of you who read history the way I read history: this King Wenceslas was not the Christmas Wenceslas. Different guy. However, we do have this portrait of Wenceslas IV, which I am legally obligated to share with you:
This period of unrest is known as the Hussite Revolution. It’s actually hella interesting (there’s at least two antipopes involved!), but that’s all you need to know about it for this story. Now we can proceed to….
Defenestration One: The Council of Fell-Rond
(This pun is for my Tolkeinites, of which I have to assume there are at least a dozen.)
OK so: scene set. The Hussite priests and their followers are pissed off that the emperor killed their leader and tried to squash their religion. So in 1419, they gather together a group of protesters under the leadership of a priest named Jan Želivský, and the group marches on Town Hall to yell at the city council about it.
It’s nice to know that some things never change in world history. Empires may rise and fall, but there will always be groups of citizens coming together to yell at the City Council.
Before the group can make it to Town Hall, though, somebody throws a rock at Želivský. It didn’t kill him—he was fine in like a week—but nobody enjoys getting hit in the head with a rock, and his followers were already royally pissed off. So we all know what happened next:
THEY STORM THE PALACE AND START THROWING CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS OUT THE WINDOW!!
At least five people were killed by window-tossing before order was restored. King Wenceslas IV was so surprised to hear of this quintuple defenestration that he immediately had a heart attack and died. This left a power vacuum in Bohemia, which isn’t ideal in a volatile situation. And thus, basically, did the Hussite Revolution turn from disgruntled mumbling to 15 years of violent warfare.
Fighting would continue until 1434, when a truce was reached and the moderate Hussites were allowed to do their thing so long as they stopped throwing people out of windows. The only other important thing I need you to know about the Hussite Revolution is that it brought about a massive improvement in military technology: the WAR WAGON. BEHOLD:
Look at this Flinstones-ass tank. I love her.
Were this the only time someone was yote through a window in Prague, it probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal. It certainly wouldn’t get a jaunty name, I’ll tell you that for certain. Which brings us to…
Defenestration Two: Electric Boogaloo
The year: 1483. The religious problem: persistent Protestant discontent and something about the Eucharist? (Unclear; unimportant.) The solution:
STORM THE PALACE, KILL SEVEN CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, AND THROW THEIR ALREADY-DEAD BODIES OUT THE WINDOW!!!!
There’s very little information about this second defenestration, as far as I can tell. Some historians don’t even count it. I include it mostly for the Rule of Three, and also because we have this lovely illustration of it.
Strangely, it appears that the Second Defenestration of Prague was actually an effective policy solution? The dominant powers and the religious reformers reached a truce shortly afterward, and by 1485, the violent religious schism was resolved peacefully. So while I can’t condone throwing people out of windows, I do have to acknowledge that in one singular instance, it did work.
However, defenestration-based solutions to questions of civil administration tend not to be long-lasting, which brings us to…
Defenestration Three: The Window Takes It All
Full disclosure before we set up this context: it involves both the Hapsburgs and the Thirty Years’ War, which are like a sleeping pill for me and probably many of you also. So I will try not to get too far in the weeds, for all our sakes.
Since 1526, Bohemia has been ruled by the Hapsburgs, that ultra-powerful dynastic family who inbred so much they got a genetic mutation named after them.
Throughout the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Hapsburg rulers of Bohemia tended toward a more hands-off and tolerant religious approach, at least insofar as the Protestants and Hussites were concerned. Maybe they remembered that these particular Protestants knew how to open a window and weren’t afraid to do it.
However, when the newest emperor, Ferdinand of Styria, cruised into town in 1617, he…brought different vibes. This man loved Catholicism and chose as his personal motto a phrase from the Apostle Paul: “To Those Who Fight Justly Goes The Crown.” As this newsletter’s opinion on Saul of Tarsus is well-documented, I bet you can guess what direction this story is going to go.
Sure enough, Ferdinand started revoking Protestant rights and convinced the Holy Roman Emperor to stop allowing Protestants to build churches in certain areas. When the Bohemian Protestants complained, Ferdinand dissolved their town council.
Hold on to your windowsills, buds, because you know what happens next.
In May 1618, a group of members of the now-dissolved Protestant town council arrived at the Bohemian Chancellery and cornered the four administrators who were then inside. The exchange that followed went thus:
Protestant Mob: Hey! Was it you guys who said we couldn’t build churches?
Catholic Councilman 1: Can I go ask our boss what we should say and get back to you tomorrow?
Protestant Mob: No, you gotta answer now.
Count Jaroslav Bořita: WE SURE DID, I LOVE OPPRESSING YOUR DUMBASS RELIGION AND WE’D DO IT AGAIN!!
Count Vilem Slavata: FUCK YEAH CATHOLICISM!!
Catholic Councilmen 1 and 2: JESUS CHRIST, JAROSLAV
Protestant Mob: You know what, actually, you two seem fine, you can be excused
Catholic Councilmen 1 and 2: [skedaddle]
Count Jaroslav’s Secretary: hi uh sirs may I also be excused
Protestant Mob: NO THE FUCK YOU MAY NOT
By the way, I know my dialogue fudges the facts on occasion in this newsletter, but this is literally what happened. The mob barreled into Town Hall, demanded whose fault it was they couldn’t build churches, and then let two guys go because they seemed too nice to do such a thing.
The remaining two councilmen and their secretary? They stood by their guns and said “we’ll take any judgment the mob will bring down against us, because we are good pious Catholic rulers and we don’t fear you!”
Which, of course, led to…
YEET YEET, MOTHERFUCKER!
Angels in the Outfield Town Square of Prague
Here’s the thing, though. It appears that in the years between 1419 and 1617, either the citizens of Prague got worse at defenestrating people or the skulls of city councilmen had gotten significantly thicker. Whatever the case, all three men fell 70 feet straight out the window and survived.
How? Well, there are two explanations, depending on who you ask. The defenestrated councilmen themselves claimed that they had been gently cradled by angels and the Virgin Mary, who carefully lay them upon the cobblestones safe from harm. See below:
Can we all just sit here a minute together and enjoy this, my new favorite painting in all of art history. Peep the Virgin Mary holding her soap bubbles while the Baby Jesus holds onto the angel’s big toe to keep from slipping off her lap. The angels catching the city councilmen in their little parachutes. The random noblewoman in the turban flashing her titties in the corner. The skeleton frolicking away as if to say “people just don’t defenestrate the way they used to.” The little angel at bottom right who is clearly saying “now what in the Sam Hell is going on in Prague.” It’s glorious. I want this framed in my home.
The Protestant mob said the three councilmen fell in a pile of horse shit, which broke their fall. This is probably what happened, but the art of this version isn’t as good.
After all this, both the Protestants and the Catholics were preparing themselves for war, because what else are you gonna do when you’ve defenestrated a guy. Ferdinand of Styria was soon named the new Holy Roman Emperor, which gave him like eighteen times the army he had previously. The Protestants rallied together under the new King of Bohemia, Frederick V. Frederick and Ferdinand would go on to fight a series of battles that would spiral out of control into the Thirty Years’ War.
Maybe I will learn about the Thirty Years’ War after all. Although the statistical likelihood of further defenestrations seems slim to none, so probably not.
PS: Because I know you were wondering about that last bit of the Wikipedia table of contents:
It’s only a Defenestration of Prague if it’s from a particular historical era of Bohemian history, otherwise it’s just *sparkling window yeeting.*
All right, my friends, that’s all for today. I am gloriously between steps in the publishing process for Our Rotten Hearts, which means I get to concentrate on One Thing At A Time for the foreseeable future and will hopefully be back on a regular writing schedule over here. Hooray!
Until next time, be well, and if you happen to trip over your shoelace or something in the middle of the street please make sure to convince all bystanders that the Virgin Mary and her legions of angels cradled you gently as you fell,
-Allison
My Czech friend’s daughter’s coloring book had a defenestration scene in it in the year 2023!
Your humor is Top Tier 😂 *sparkling window yeeting* had me rolling! Thank you so much for this fantastic rollercoaster of defenestration accounts. Absolutely amazing 😂