Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”: The Hussites and Their Propaganda Campaign

Abstract

The Reformation of the 1520s is generally seen as the first major large-scale media campaign. The pamphlet has been especially touted as a vehicle for persuasion. However, seeing print as necessary for a mass campaign of any kind distorts our understanding of communication in centuries prior to the Reformation. Between 1415 and 1420, Hussite leaders launched a large-scale propaganda campaign in an effort to persuade the laity of their message. The movement relied on vernacular songs, so-called “oral pamphlets” instructing the laity in the Hussite message. Topics ranged from John Hus, simony, and anti-clericalism to the chalice and salvation. The Catholic party composed their own songs, mostly satirizing the reformers. The success of the Hussite movement should be attributed to a savvy propaganda campaign on the part of its leaders, a campaign which successfully incorporated concerns, fears, hopes, needs, and wants that already existed among the laity.