Abstract
The paper explores a group of texts from late medieval Bohemia that are all built on the gospel Passion narrative. They include accounts of burning of Jan Hus at the council of Constance on July 6, 1415, repeatedly described as martyrdom in the footsteps of Christ, especially the Passio Magistri Iohannis Hus secundum Iohannem Barbatum (written soon after 1415).
Here, the analogy to the Gospels is at times so close that it almost sounds blasphemous. Indeed, although it is generally accepted that it was written by a follower of Hus, in one manuscript it is converted into a narrative mocking Hus simply by adding rusticum quadratum at the end of the title.
This addition to the identification of the author links this text to mock Passion narratives like the violent Passio Pragensium Iudaeorum secundum Iohannem, rusticum quadratum (describing a pogrom in 1389), or the more parodic Passio raptorum de Slapanicz secundum Bartoss, tortorem Brunensem (describing the end of a group of thieves from near Brno, surviving in a sole 15th c. copy). Following closely the Biblical narrative while describing actual historical events, all these texts aptly represent the thin borderline between history and literature.
I would like to argue that due to the high level of intertextuality that these texts feature, they could be (and indeed had been) easily converted from serious narratives into parodies; that when a text is built on quotations and allusions (here a comparison with Sermo de sancto Nemine, or the Cena Cypriani is in place), it remains naturally ambiguous as far as its supposed purpose is concerned.