ZIZKA, or Ziska, John (c. 1360-1424), leader of the Hussites ( q.v. ) from 1419, was born at Trocznow in the neighbourhood of Budweis in Bohemia about the year 1360. He was of noble descent, and was brought up from an early age at Prague at the court of King Wenceslaus. In 1410 he fought as a volunteer, on the losing side, in the great battle of Grünwald, near Tannenberg in Prussia, in which the knights of the Teutonic Order were completely routed by the Lithuanians and Poles. He afterwards took part in the Hungarian wars against the Turks, and is also said to have fought on the English side in the battle of Agincourt. In the discontents which followed the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome in Bohemia he sided with the liberal party, and ultimately, on the outbreak of hostilities, became its leader. He soon organized a formidable body of infantry, and from his newly fortified stronghold of Tabor as a centre achieved various successes, of which the most signal was the victory over the imperial troops at Deutschbrod (8th January 1422). At an early period of the war,—at the siege of Raby in 1421,—Zizka, who from boyhood had been blind of an eye, completely lost his sight; but his strength of will enabled him almost wholly to overcome this formidable disadvantage, and his extraordinary presence of mind, fertility of resource, and keenness of mental vision, coupled with a zeal that was wholly sincere, though not always free from fanaticism, continued to mark him out as the leader in the cause he had espoused until his death, which was caused by an infectious disorder while he was besieging Przibislaw (11th October 1424)....