THE POPES AND THE COUNCILS
[Sidenote: The problem of the relation of church and state.]
112. The influence which the Church and its head exercised over the
civil government in the Middle Ages was due largely to the absence of
strong, efficient rulers who could count upon the support of a large
body of prosperous and loyal subjects. So long as the feudal anarchy
continued, the Church endeavored to supply the deficiencies of the
restless and ignorant princes by striving to maintain order, administer
justice, protect the weak, and encourage learning. So soon, however, as
the modern state began to develop, difficulties arose. The clergy
naturally clung to the powers and privileges which they had long
enjoyed, and which they believed to be rightly theirs. On the other
hand, the state, so soon as it felt itself able to manage its own
affairs, protect its subjects, and provide for their worldly interests,
was less and less inclined to tolerate the interference of the clergy
and their head, the pope. Educated laymen were becoming more and more
common, and the king was no longer obliged to rely upon the assistance
of the clergy in conducting his government. It was natural that he
should look with disfavor upon their privileges, which put them upon a
different footing from the great mass of his subjects, and upon their
wealth, which he would deem excessive and dangerous to his power. This
situation raised the fundamental problem of the proper relation of
church and state, upon which Europe has been working ever since the
fourteenth century and has not completely solved yet.
[Sidenote: Edward I and Philip the Fair attempt to tax the clergy.]
The difficulty which the Church experienced in maintaining its power
against the kings is excellently shown by the famous struggle between
Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, and Boniface VIII, an old
man of boundless ambition and inexhaustible energy who came to the papal
throne in 1294. The first serious trouble arose over the habit into
which the kings of England and France had fallen, of taxing the property
of the churchmen like that of other subjects. It was natural after a
monarch had squeezed all that he could out of the Jews and the towns,
and had exacted every possible feudal due, that he should turn to the
rich estates of the clergy, in spite of their claim that their property
was dedicated to God and owed the king nothing. The extensive
enterprises of Edward I led him in 1296 to demand one fifth of the
personal property of the clergy. Philip the Fair exacted one hundredth
and then one fiftieth of the possessions of clergy and laity alike.
[Sidenote: The bull _Clericis laicos_ of Boniface VIII, 1296.]
Against this impartial system Boniface protested in the famous bull
_Clericis laicos_ (1296). He claimed that the laity had always been
exceedingly hostile to the clergy, and that the rulers were now
exhibiting this hostility by imposing heavy burdens upon the Church,
forgetting that they had no control over the clergy and their
possessions. The pope, therefore, forbade all churchmen, including the
monks, to pay, without his consent, to a king or ruler any part of the
Church's revenue or possessions upon any pretext whatsoever. He likewise
forbade the kings and princes under pain of excommunication to presume
to exact any such payments.
[Sidenote: Boniface concedes a limited right to tax churchmen.]
It happened that just as the pope was prohibiting the clergy from
contributing to the taxes, Philip the Fair had forbidden the exportation
of all gold and silver from the country. In that way he cut off an
important source of the pope's revenue, for the church of France could
obviously no longer send anything to Rome. The pope was forced to give
up his extreme claims. He explained the following year that he had not
meant to interfere with the payment on the clergy's part of customary
feudal dues nor with their loans of money to the king.[199]
[Sidenote: The jubilee of 1300.]
In spite of this setback, the pope never seemed more completely the
recognized head of the western world than during the first great
jubilee, in the year 1300, when Boniface called together all Christendom
to celebrate the opening of the new century by a great religious
festival at Rome. It is reported that two millions of people, coming
from all parts of Europe, visited the churches of Rome, and that in
spite of widening the streets many were crushed in the crowd. So great
was the influx of money into the papal treasury that two assistants were
kept busy with rakes collecting the offerings which were deposited at
the tomb of St. Peter.
Boniface was, however, very soon to realize that even if Christendom
regarded Rome as its religious center, the nations would not accept him
as their political head. When he dispatched an obnoxious prelate to
Philip the Fair, ordering him to free the count of Flanders whom he was
holding prisoner, the king declared the harsh language of the papal
envoy to be high treason and sent one of his lawyers to the pope to
demand that the messenger be degraded and punished.
[Sidenote: The Estates General of 1302.]
Philip was surrounded by a body of lawyers, and it would seem that they,
rather than the king, were the real rulers of France. They had, through
their study of Roman law, learned to admire the absolute power exercised
by the Roman emperor. To them the civil government was supreme, and they
urged the king to punish what they regarded as the insolent conduct of
the pope. Before taking any action against the head of the Church,
Philip called together the representatives of his people, including not
only the clergy and the nobility but the people of the towns as well.
The Estates General, after hearing a statement of the case from one of
Philip's lawyers, agreed to support their monarch.
[Sidenote: Nogaret insults Boniface VIII.]
[Sidenote: Death of Boniface, 1303.]
Nogaret, one of the chief legal advisers of the king, undertook to face
the pope. He collected a little troop of soldiers in Italy and marched
against Boniface, who was sojourning at Anagni, where his predecessors
had excommunicated two emperors, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II.
As Boniface, in his turn, was preparing solemnly to proclaim the king of
France an outcast from the Church, Nogaret penetrated into the papal
palace with his soldiers and heaped insults upon the helpless but
defiant old man. The townspeople forced Nogaret to leave the next day,
but Boniface's spirit was broken and he soon died at Rome.
[Sidenote: Clement V, 1305-1314, and his subservience to Philip the
Fair.]
[Sidenote: The popes take up their residence at Avignon.]
King Philip now proposed to have no more trouble with popes. He arranged
in 1305 to have the Archbishop of Bordeaux chosen head of the Church,
with the understanding that he should transfer the papacy to France. The
new pope accordingly summoned the cardinals to meet him at Lyons, where
he was crowned under the title of Clement V. He remained in France
during his whole pontificate, moving from one rich abbey to another. At
Philip's command he reluctantly undertook a sort of trial of the
deceased Boniface VIII, who was accused by the king's lawyers of all
sorts of abominable crimes. A great part of Boniface's decrees were
revoked, and those who had attacked him were exculpated. Then, to please
the king, Clement brought the Templars to trial; the order was abolished
and its possessions in France, for which the king had longed, were
confiscated. Obviously it proved very advantageous to the king to have a
pope within his realm. Clement V died in 1314. His successors took up
their residence in the town of Avignon, just outside the French frontier
of those days. There they built a sumptuous palace in which successive
popes lived in great splendor for sixty years.
[Sidenote: The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.]
113. The prolonged exile of the popes from Rome, lasting from 1305 to
1377, is commonly called the Babylonian Captivity[200] of the Church, on
account of the woes attributed to it. The popes of this period were for
the most part good and earnest men; but they were all Frenchmen, and the
proximity of their court to France led to the natural suspicion that
they were controlled by the French kings. This, together with their
luxurious court, brought them into discredit with the other
nations.[201]
[Sidenote: The papal taxation.]
At Avignon the popes were naturally deprived of some of the revenue
which they had enjoyed from their Italian possessions when they lived at
Rome. This deficiency had to be made up by increased taxation,
especially as the expenses of the splendid papal court were very heavy.
The papacy was, consequently, rendered still more unpopular by the
methods employed to raise money, particularly by the granting of
benefices throughout Europe to the pope's courtiers, by the heavy
contributions which were demanded for dispensations, for the
confirmation of bishops, and for granting the pallium to archbishops, as
well as the high fees for the trial of law suits.
[Sidenote: Pope's control of church benefices.]
Many of the church offices, such as those of the bishops and abbots,
insured a more than ample revenue to their holders. It was natural,
therefore, that the pope, in his endeavor to increase his income, should
have tried to bring as many of these appointments as he could into his
own hands. He did this by reserving to himself the filling of certain
benefices so soon as they should become vacant. He then chose some one
to whom he wished to do a favor and promised him the benefice upon the
death of the one then holding it. Men appointed in this way were called
_provisors_ and were extremely unpopular. They were very often
foreigners, and it was suspected that they had obtained these positions
from the pope simply for the sake of the revenue, and had no intention
whatever of performing the duties connected with them.
[Sidenote: Statute of provisors, 1352.]
The papal exactions met with the greatest opposition in England because
the popes were thought to favor France, with which country the English
were at war. A law was passed by Parliament in 1352 ordering that all
who procured appointments from the pope should be outlawed, that any one
might injure such offenders at will, and that the injured should have no
redress, since they were enemies of the king and his realm.[202] This
and similar laws failed, however, to prevent the pope from filling
English benefices to the advantage of himself and his courtiers. The
English king was unable to keep the money of his realm from flowing to
Avignon on one pretext or another. It was declared by the Good
Parliament, held in 1376, that the taxes levied by the pope in England
were five times those raised by the king.
[Sidenote: John Wycliffe.]
The most famous and conspicuous critic of the pope and of the policy of
the Roman Church at this time was John Wycliffe, a teacher at Oxford. He
was born about 1320; but we know little of him before 1366, when Urban V
demanded that England should pay the tribute promised by King John when
he became the pope's vassal.[203] Parliament declared that John had no
right to bind the people without their consent, and Wycliffe began his
career of opposition to the papacy by trying to prove that John's
compact was void. About ten years later we find the pope issuing bulls
against the teachings of Wycliffe, who had begun to assert that the
state might appropriate the property of the Church if it was misused,
and that the pope had no authority except as he acted according to the
Gospels. Soon Wycliffe went further and boldly attacked the papacy
itself, as well as indulgences, pilgrimages, and the worship of the
saints; finally he even denied the truth of the doctrine of
transubstantiation.
[Sidenote: Wycliffe's 'simple priests.']
He did not, however, confine his work to a denunciation of what he
considered wrong in the teaching and conduct of the churchmen. He
established an order of "simple priests" who were to go about doing good
and reprove by their example the worldly habits of the general run of
priests and monks.
[Sidenote: Wycliffe the father of English prose.]
Wycliffe's anxiety to reach the people and foster a higher spiritual
life among them led him to have the Bible translated into English. He
also prepared a great number of sermons and tracts in English. He is the
father of English prose, and it has been well said that "the exquisite
pathos, the keen, delicate irony, and the manly passion of his short,
nervous sentences, fairly overmaster the weakness of the unformed
language and give us English which cannot be read without a feeling of
its beauty to this hour."
[Sidenote: Influence of Wycliffe's teaching.]
Wycliffe and his "simple priests" were charged with fomenting the
discontent and disorder which culminated in the Peasants' War. Whether
this charge was true or not, it caused many of his more aristocratic
followers to fall away from him. But in spite of this and the
denunciations of the Church, Wycliffe was not seriously interfered with
and died peaceably in 1384. While his followers appear to have yielded
pretty readily to the persecution which soon overtook them, his
doctrines were spread abroad in Bohemia by another ardent reformer, John
Huss, who was destined to give the Church a great deal of trouble.
Wycliffe is remarkable as being the first distinguished scholar and
reformer to repudiate the headship of the pope and those practices of
the Church of Rome which a hundred and fifty years after his death were
attacked by Luther in his successful revolt against the mediæval
Church.[204]
[Sidenote: The papal court moves back to Rome, 1377.]
114. In 1377 Pope Gregory XI moved back again to Rome after the popes
had been exiles for seventy years, during which much had happened to
undermine the papal power and supremacy. Yet the discredit into which
the papacy had fallen during its stay at Avignon was as nothing compared
with the disasters which befell it after the return to Rome.
[Sidenote: Election of Urban VI, 1378.]
Gregory died the year after his return and the cardinals assembled to
choose his successor. A great part of them were French. They had found
Rome in a sad state of ruin and disorder and heartily regretted the gay
life and the comforts and luxuries of Avignon. They determined therefore
to select a pope who would take them back to the banks of the Rhone.
While they were deliberating, the Roman populace was yelling outside the
conclave and demanding that a Roman be chosen, or at least an Italian. A
simple Italian monk was accordingly selected, Urban VI, who it was
supposed would agree to the wishes of the cardinals.
[Sidenote: Election of an anti-pope, Clement VII.]
The new pope, however, soon showed that he had no idea of returning to
Avignon. He treated the cardinals with harshness and proposed a stern
reformation of their habits. The cardinals speedily wearied of this
treatment; they retired to the neighboring Anagni and declared that they
had been frightened by the Roman mob into selecting the obnoxious Urban.
They then elected a new pope, who took the title of Clement VII,
returned to Avignon, and established his court there. Urban, although
deserted by his cardinals, had no intention of yielding and proceeded to
create twenty-eight new cardinals.
[Sidenote: The Great Schism.]
This double election was the beginning of the _Great Schism_, which was
to last for forty years and expose the papacy to new attacks on every
side. There had been many anti-popes in earlier centuries, set up
usually by the emperors; but there had ordinarily been little question
as to who was really the legitimate pope. In the present case Europe was
seriously in doubt, for it was difficult to decide whether the election
of Urban had really been forced and was consequently invalid as the
cardinals claimed. No one, therefore, could be perfectly sure which of
the rival popes was the real successor of St. Peter. There were now two
colleges of cardinals whose very existence depended upon the exercise of
their right of choosing the pope. It was natural that Italy should
support Urban VI, while France as naturally obeyed Clement VII; England,
hostile to France, accepted Urban; Scotland, hostile to England,
supported Clement.
[Sidenote: The Church divided within itself and the consequences.]
Each of two men, with seemingly equal right, now claimed to be Christ's
vicar on earth; each proposed to enjoy to the full the vast prerogatives
of the head of Christendom, and each denounced, and attempted to depose,
the other. The schism in the headship of the Church naturally extended
to the bishoprics and abbeys, and everywhere there were rival prelates,
each of whom could claim that he had been duly confirmed by one pope or
the other. All this produced an unprecedented scandal in the Church. It
emphasized all the abuses among the clergy and gave free rein to those
who were inclined to denounce the many evils which had been pointed out
by Wycliffe and his followers. The condition was, in fact, intolerable
and gave rise to widespread discussion, not only of the means by which
the schism might be healed, but of the nature and justification of the
papacy itself. The discussion which arose during these forty years of
uncertainty did much to prepare the mind of western Europe for the
Protestant revolt in the sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: Idea of the supremacy of a general council.]
The selfish and futile negotiations between the colleges of cardinals
and the popes justified the notion that there might perhaps be a power
in Christendom superior even to that of the pope. Might not a council,
representing all Christendom, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, judge even
a pope? Such councils had been held in the East during the later Roman
Empire, beginning with the first general or ecumenical council of Nicæa
under Constantine. They had established the teachings of the Church and
had legislated for all Christian people and clergy.[205]
[Sidenote: Question whether the pope or a general council is the supreme
authority in the Church.]
As early as 1381 the University of Paris advocated the summoning of a
general council which should adjust the claims of the rival popes and
give Christendom once more a single head. This raised the question
whether a council was really superior to the pope or not. Those who
believed that it was, maintained that the Church at large had deputed
the election of the pope to the cardinals and that it might, therefore,
interfere when the cardinals had brought the papacy into disrepute; that
a general assembly of all Christendom, speaking under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, was a higher authority than even the successor of St.
Peter. Others strenuously denied this. They claimed that the pope
received his authority over the Church immediately from Christ, and that
he had always possessed supreme power from the very first, although he
had not always exercised it and had permitted the earlier councils a
certain freedom. No council, they urged, could be considered a general
one which was called against the will of the pope, because, without the
bishop of the Roman or mother church, the council obviously could not
lay claim to represent all Christendom. The defenders of the papal power
maintained, moreover, that the pope was the supreme legislator, that he
might change or annul the act of any council or of a previous pope, that
he might judge others but might not himself be judged by any one.[206]
[Sidenote: The Council of Pisa, 1409 adds a third rival pope.]
After years of discussion and fruitless negotiations between the rival
popes and their cardinals, members of both of the colleges decided in
1409 to summon a council at Pisa, which should put an end to the schism.
While large numbers of churchmen answered the summons and the various
monarchs took an active interest in the council, its action was hasty
and ill-advised. Gregory XII, the Roman pope, elected in 1406, and
Benedict XIII, the Avignon pope, elected in 1394, were solemnly summoned
from the doors of the cathedral at Pisa. As they failed to appear they
were condemned for contumacy and deposed. A new pope was then elected,
and on his death a year later, he was succeeded by the notorious John
XXIII, who had been a soldier of fortune in his earlier days. John was
selected on account of his supposed military prowess. This was
considered essential in order to guard the papal territory against the
king of Naples, who had announced his intention of getting possession of
Rome. Neither of the deposed popes yielded, and as they each continued
to enjoy a certain support, the Council of Pisa, instead of healing the
schism, added a third person who claimed to be the supreme ruler of
Christendom.[207]
[Sidenote: The Council of Constance meets, 1414.]
115. The failure of the Council of Pisa made it necessary to summon
another congress of Christendom. Through the influence of the emperor
Sigismund, John XXIII reluctantly agreed that the council should be held
in Germany, in the imperial town of Constance. The Council of Constance,
which began to assemble in the fall of 1414, is one of the most
noteworthy international assemblies ever held. It lasted for over three
years and excited the deepest interest throughout Europe. There were in
attendance, besides the pope and the emperor-elect, twenty-three
cardinals, thirty-three archbishops and bishops, one hundred and fifty
abbots, and one hundred dukes and earls, as well as hundreds of lesser
persons.
[Sidenote: The three great objects of the Council of Constance.]
Three great tasks confronted the council: (1) the healing of the schism,
which involved the disposal of the three existing popes and the
selection of a single universally acknowledged head of the Church; (2)
the extirpation of heresy, which, under the influence of Huss, was
threatening the authority of the Church in Bohemia; (3) a general
reformation of the Church "in head and members."
[Sidenote: The healing of the schism.]
[Sidenote: The decree _Sacrosancta_, 1415.]
1. The healing of the long schism was the most important of the
council's achievements. John XXIII was very uncomfortable in Constance.
He feared not only that he would be forced to resign but that there
might be an investigation of his very dubious past. In March he fled in
disguise from Constance, leaving his cardinals behind him. The council
was dismayed at the pope's departure, as it feared that he would
dissolve it as soon as he was out of its control. It thereupon issued a
famous decree (April 6, 1415) declaring its superiority to the pope. It
claimed that a general council had its power immediately from Christ.
Every one, even the pope, who should refuse to obey its decrees or
instructions should be suitably punished.
A long list of terrible crimes of which John was suspected, was drawn up
and he was formally deposed. He received but little encouragement in
his opposition to the council and soon surrendered unconditionally.
Gregory XII, the Roman pope, showed himself amenable to reason and
relieved the perplexity of the council by resigning in July. The third
pope, the obstinate Benedict XIII, flatly refused to resign. But the
council induced the Spaniards, who were his only remaining supporters,
to desert him and send envoys to Constance. Benedict was then deposed
(July, 1417) and in the following November the cardinals who were at the
council were permitted to elect a new pope, Martin V, and so the Great
Schism was brought to an end.
[Sidenote: John Huss.]
2. During the first year of its sessions the Council of Constance was
attempting to stamp out heresy as well as to heal the schism. The
marriage of an English king, Richard II, to a Bohemian princess shortly
before Wycliffe's death, had encouraged some intercourse between Bohemia
and England and had brought the works of the English reformer to the
attention of those in Bohemia who were intent upon the improvement of
the Church. Among these the most conspicuous was John Huss (b. about
1369), whose ardent devotion to the interests of the Bohemian nation and
enthusiasm for reform secured for him great influence in the University
of Prague, with which he was connected.
Huss reached the conclusion that Christians should not be forced to obey
those who were living in mortal sin and were apparently destined never
to reach heaven themselves. This view was naturally denounced by the
Church as a most dangerous error, destructive of all order and
authority. As his opponents urged, the regularly appointed authorities
must be obeyed, not because they are good men but because they govern in
virtue of the law. In short, Huss appeared not only to defend the
heresies of Wycliffe, but at the same time to preach a doctrine
dangerous alike to the power of the civil government and of the Church.
[Sidenote: The 'safe-conduct.']
Huss felt confident that he could convince the council of the truth of
his views and willingly appeared at Constance. He was provided with a
"safe-conduct," a document in which Emperor Sigismund ordered that no
one should do him any violence and which permitted the bearer to leave
Constance whenever he wished. In spite of this he was speedily arrested
and imprisoned, in December, 1414. His treatment well illustrates the
mediæval attitude towards heresy. When Sigismund indignantly protested
against the violation of his safe-conduct, he was informed that the law
did not recognize faith pledged to suspected heretics, for they were out
of the king's jurisdiction. The council declared that no pledge which
was prejudicial to the Catholic faith was to be observed. In judging
Sigismund's failure to enforce his promise of protection to Huss it must
be remembered that heresy was at that time considered a far more
terrible crime than murder, and that it was the opinion of the most
authoritative body in Christendom that Sigismund would do a great wrong
if he prevented the trial of Huss.
[Sidenote: Trial of Huss.]
Huss was treated in what would seem to us a very harsh way; but from the
standpoint of the council he was given every advantage. By special favor
he was granted a public hearing. The council was anxious that Huss
should retract; but no form of retraction could be arranged to which he
would agree. The council, in accordance with the usages of the time,
demanded that he should recognize the error of all the propositions
which they had selected from his writings, that he should retract them
and never again preach them, and that he should agree to preach the
contrary. The council did not consider it its business to decide whether
Huss was right or wrong, but simply whether his doctrines, which they
gathered from his books, were in accordance with the traditional views
of the Church.
[Sidenote: Conviction and execution of Huss, July, 1415.]
Finally, the council condemned Huss as a convicted and impenitent
heretic. On July 6, 1415, he was taken out before the gates of the city
and given one more chance to retract. As he refused, he was degraded
from the priesthood and handed over to the civil government to be
executed for heresy, which, as we have seen, the state regarded as a
crime and undertook to punish.[208] The civil authorities made no
further investigation but accepted the verdict of the council and burned
Huss upon the spot. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine lest they
should become an object of veneration among his followers.
[Sidenote: The Hussite wars, 1419-1431.]
The death of Huss rather promoted than checked the spread of heresy in
Bohemia. A few years later the Germans undertook a series of crusades
against the Bohemians. This embittered the national animosity between
the two races, which has even yet by no means died out. The heretics
proved valiant fighters and after several bloody wars succeeded in
repulsing the enemy and even invaded Germany.
[Sidenote: Opportunity of the council to reform the church.]
3. The third great task of the Council of Constance was the general
reformation of the Church. After John's flight it had claimed the right
(in the decree _Sacrosancta_) to reform even the papacy. This was a
splendid opportunity at least to mitigate the abuses in the Church. The
council was a great representative body, and every one was looking to it
to remedy the old evils which had become more pronounced than ever
during the Great Schism. Many pamphlets were published at the time by
earnest men denouncing the corrupt practices of the clergy. The evils
were of long standing and have all been described in earlier
chapters.[209]
[Sidenote: The failure of the council to effect any definite reforms.]
Although every one recognized the abuses, the council found itself
unable to remedy them or to accomplish the hoped-for reformation. After
three years of fruitless deliberations the members of the assembly
became weary and hopeless. They finally contented themselves with
passing a decree (Oct. 9, 1417) declaring that the neglect to summon
general councils in the past had fostered all the evils in the Church
and that thereafter councils should be regularly summoned at least every
ten years.[210] In this way it was hoped that the absolute power of the
popes might be checked in somewhat the same way that the Parliament in
England and the Estates General in France controlled the monarch.
[Sidenote: Abuses enumerated by the council.]
After the passing of this decree the council drew up a list of abuses
demanding reform, which the new pope was to consider with certain of its
members after the main body of the council had returned home. Chief
among the questions which the council enumerated for consideration were
the number, character, and nationality of the cardinals, the benefices
to which the pope had a right to appoint, what cases might be brought
before his court, for what reason and in what manner the pope might be
corrected or deposed, how heresy might be extirpated, and the matter of
dispensations, indulgences, etc.
Aside from the healing of the schism, the results of the Council of
Constance were slight. It had burned Huss but had by no means checked
heresy. It had considered for three years the reformation of the Church
but had at last confessed its inability to carry it out. The pope later
issued a few reform decrees, but the state of the Church was not
materially bettered.
[Sidenote: Council of Basel, 1431-1449.]
116. The sturdy resistance of the Bohemians to those who proposed to
bring them back to the orthodox faith by arms finally attracted the
attention of Europe and called forth considerable sympathy. In 1431 the
last of the crusades against them came to an ignominious end, and Martin
V was forced to summon a new council in order to consider the policy
which should be adopted toward the heretics. The Council of Basel lasted
for no less than eighteen years. At first its prestige was sufficient to
enable it to dominate the pope, and it reached its greatest authority
in 1434 after it had arranged a peace with the moderate party of the
Bohemian heretics. The council, however, continued its hostility towards
Pope Eugene IV (elected in 1431), and in 1437 he declared the council
dissolved and summoned a new one to meet at Ferrara. The Council of
Basel thereupon deposed Eugene and chose an anti-pope. This conduct did
much to discredit the idea of a general council in the eyes of Europe.
The assembly gradually dwindled away and finally in 1449 acknowledged
the legitimate pope once more.
[Sidenote: Council of Ferrara-Florence, 1438-1439.]
[Sidenote: Union of Eastern and Western Churches.]
Meanwhile the Council of Ferrara[211] had taken up the momentous
question of consolidating the Eastern and Western Churches. The empire
of the East was seriously threatened by the on-coming Ottoman Turks, who
had made conquests even west of Constantinople. The Eastern emperor's
advisers urged that if a reconciliation could be arranged with the
Western Church, the pope might use his influence to supply arms and
soldiers to be used against the Mohammedans. When the representatives of
the Eastern Church met with the Council of Ferrara the differences in
doctrine were found to be few, but the question of the headship of the
Church was a most difficult one. A form of union was, nevertheless,
agreed upon in which the Eastern Church accepted the headship of the
pope, "saving the privileges and rights of the patriarchs of the East."
[Sidenote: Results of the Council of Ferrara.]
While Eugene received the credit for healing the breach between the East
and the West, the Greek prelates, upon returning home, were hailed with
indignation and branded as robbers and matricides for the concessions
which they had made. The chief results of the council were (1) the
advantage gained by the pope in once more becoming the recognized head
of Christendom in spite of the opposition of the Council of Basel, and
(2) the fact that certain learned Greeks remained in Italy, and helped
to stimulate the growing enthusiasm for Greek literature.
No more councils were held during the fifteenth century, and the popes
were left to the task of reorganizing their dominions in Italy. They
began to turn their attention very largely to their interests as Italian
princes, and some of them, beginning with Nicholas V (1447-1455), became
the patrons of artists and men of letters. There is probably no period
in the history of the papacy when the head of the Church was more
completely absorbed in forwarding his political interests and those of
his relatives, and in decorating his capital, than in the seventy years
which elapsed between 1450 and the beginning of the German revolt
against the Church.
General Reading.--CREIGHTON, _History of the Papacy_ (Longmans,
Green & Co., 6 vols., $2.00 each), Vol. I, is perhaps the best
treatment of the Great Schism and the Council of Constance. PASTOR,
_History of the Popes_ (Herder, 6 vols., $18.00), Vol. I, Book 1,
gives the most recent and scholarly account from the standpoint of
a Roman Catholic.