At a very early age Hus proceeded to Prague to pursue at the university there the studies required for the purpose of entering the Church. With his usual candour and simplicity Hus himself tells us that he originally decided to adopt the ecclesiastical career rather for the purpose of gaining a living than through any special vocation. It is, however, certain that during his years of study he already led a pious and studious life. He has indeed confessed[30] that before he was ordained "he had been fond of playing chess, thus wasting time and causing irritation" (to his partners). Such a confession, written while he was preparing for his fatal journey to Constance, proves indeed how little he had to confess, and is a touching instance both of his extremely sensitive conscience and of the profound humility so characteristic of Hus.
In September 1393 Hus took the degree of bachelor of arts, in the following year that of bachelor in divinity, and in 1396 that of master of arts. His reputation for great learning seems to have spread very rapidly at the university, for in 1401 we already find him dean of the Faculty of Arts, and in the following year he became, for the first time and at an unusually early age, rector of the university of Prague. He seems soon to have attracted attention by his great learning, and by the acumen which he displayed in the learned disputations that formed so large a part of the routine of mediæval universities. His learning was at that period noticed rather than any special religious fervour. His lectures, as Dr. Lechler has conjectured, were probably founded on Wycliffe's philosophical works, which became known to the Bohemians earlier than the theological works of the English divine.
A change appears to have come over the mind of Hus about the beginning of the fifteenth century. He has himself told us that after his ordination as a priest (probably in 1400) he led a yet simpler and more ascetic life. The principal cause of the enthusiasm, both religious and national, that henceforth distinguishes Hus was, however, undoubtedly his appointment in 1402 as rector and preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. The foundation of the Bethlehem Chapel, which took place in 1391, and was the work of Križ, a tradesman of Prague, and John of Milheim, one of the courtiers of King Wenceslas, is an important manifestation of the desire to reform the Roman Church and to enlarge the sphere of the native language, which was then gaining ground in Bohemia. In their deed of endowment the founders stated that their object was the encouragement of the preaching of biblical doctrines in the Bohemian language. No special provision for the reading of masses was made, and no doubt many Bohemians, after hearing mass in other churches where German sermons were still preached, then proceeded to the Bethlehem Chapel. The stress laid on the preaching of the Gospel, one of the points to which the partisans of Church reform attached great importance, proves that the founders, or at least Milheim, sympathised with this movement. The increased use of the Bohemian language for preaching and its general development greatly irritated the Germans in Bohemia, who believed their preponderant position in the town and University of Prague to be menaced. The Germans in Bohemia were therefore thoroughgoing partisans of the Church of Rome, rather from antagonism to their fellow-citizens of Slav nationality than from any sympathy for the abuses then prevailing in the Roman Church. This division by nationalities, according to which the Bohemians favoured Church reform, while the Germans defended the authority of Rome, continued during the whole period of the Hussite wars, and indeed far later. It was only with the appearance of Luther that this distinction entirely ceased.