The Battle of Lipany

JAN 01 1434 · 12:00

Utraquist and Catholic nobles destroy the radical Taborite and Orphan field armies at Lipany, 30 May 1434. Place: Open ground near the village of Lipany, east of Český Brod, thirty miles east of Prague Figures: Prokop the Bald (Prokop Holý), captain of the Taborites · Prokůpek, captain of the Orphans · Diviš Bořek of Miletínek, commander of the Utraquist-Catholic league Fifteen years of war have changed the country. The Utraquist nobility (moderate, in possession of seized church lands, increasingly willing to deal with Sigismund) finds itself permanently in the field beside the Taborite and Orphan field armies, whose raids have grown into a way of life. By 1434 the moderates have decided that the radicals must be broken before a settlement with Rome is possible. They make common cause with the Catholic Bohemian lords. The Prague Utraquists send their militia. On May 30 the two Hussite field armies, perhaps ten thousand men, encamp in a wagon-fortress on the slope above Lipany. The league army of around twenty-five thousand draws up against them. Prokop has the better position; he has Žižka's tactics; he has done this before.