František Šmahel, . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, vi, 596 pp., 1 map, 1 table, 8 figs.

In twenty-five chapters the leading historian of medieval Bohemia has delineated how and why the kingdom of Bohemia should be regarded as “Europe’s Center in Motion.” All of these essays have previously appeared in print over a twenty-five year period between 1984 and 2009. The book is divided into five parts. Part one called “Panoramic Views” takes up considerations of the Czech lands between 1050 and 1452; the social question of the pre-Hussite era in terms of crisis and revolution; the idea of forced toleration in the Hussite age; and the role of heresy. Part two focuses on the Luxemburgers with special attention on royal festivals, Charles IV, and considerations of nascent nationalism. Part three draws attention to the Hussite period on which Šmahel has devoted so much of his work over the past 60 years. Here we learn much about the Jewish community in that time, along with incisive considerations of the communities of Prague, Tábor, and urban ideals. Part four considers Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, the famous and important “four articles of Prague,” along with considerations of the afterlife and magic in this life. Part five delves into visual culture, and Šmahel escorts the reader along the fruitful boundaries of late medieval mass media, illegible manuscript inscriptions, legal archaeology, and other iconographical marginalia. The German scholar Thomas Krzenck who helped edit these essays for publication has added a short afterword in which he provides the reader with an interesting and helpful overview of Šmahel as a medievalist, contemporary witness, and human being. The book concludes with indices of places and proper names.