| Summary: | 1) Michal Polák can be considered an utraquist martyr. His exceptional position is based on how he is depicted in Slana's narrative and on the respect paid to him by the utraquist community on a regular basis. This reverence concentrates in songs created during the time from his death to the end of the XVI. century. The respect is also shown in the aforementioned narrative of Václav Slana, in the more detailed notes in some of the later editions of Staré letopisy české and in the sermon Sermo de martyribus Bohemis. It's text puts Michal even side by side with Jan Hus and Jeroným Pražský. Thanks to his special position the originally polish preacher got a specific place in the utraquist congregation and his legacy remained influential even after his death. This can be proved by the Prague events of 1483 whose representatives took Michal as a moral patronage of their doings. As there can be found a corroboration of respect to Michal Polák even in the congregation of jednota bratrská, I suppose we can say, that Michal played a role of a kind of unifying element of all reform christian movements in the Czech crown lands. As such he could (in person and by the circumstances of his death) participate on the convergency of the Rome-opposing religous scene in Bohemia, that culminated in the adoption of the...
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