THE GREAT COUNCILS OF PISA AND CONSTANCE; JOHN HUSS

[1Sidenote: [1409-1429 A.D.]]

2The Council of Pisa, which was designed to heal the wounds of the divided church, unexpectedly inflicted upon her a new wound. On the 5th of June it passed a heavy sentence on each of the pontiffs; for it declared them both to be heretical, perjured, contumacious, unworthy of any honour, and no longer members of the church. As the next step, the council created Pietro Philarghi of Candia sovereign pontiff in their place, on the 26th of June; and he assumed the name of Alexander V. But the two pontiffs spurned the decrees of this council, and continued still to perform their functions. Benedict held a council at Perpignan, and Gregory assembled another at Austria, near Aquileia; but fearing the resentments of the Venetians, he went first to Gaeta, where he threw himself upon the protection of Ladislaus, king of Naples, and then fled, in 1412, to Rimini.

3The church was thus divided among three pontiffs, who fiercely assailed each other with reciprocal excommunications, reproaches, and maledictions. Alexander V, who was elected in the Council of Pisa, died at Bologna in 1410. The sixteen cardinals, who were present in the city, immediately filled his place with Baltasare Cossa, a Neapolitan, who took the name of John XXIII, a man destitute of principle and of piety. From this war of the pontiffs vast evils arose which afflicted both the church and the state. Hence the emperor Sigismund, the king of France, and other kings and princes of Europe, spared no pains nor expense to restore harmony and bring the church again under one head.

4From the pontiffs it was found quite impossible to obtain any personal sacrifice for the peace of the church; so that no course remained but to assemble a general council of the whole church, to take cognisance of this great controversy. Such an assembly John XXIII, being prevailed on by the entreaties of Sigismund and hoping that it would favour his cause, appointed to be held at Constance in 1414. In this council were present the pontiff John, the emperor Sigismund, many princes of Germany, and ambassadors from the absent kings and princes of Europe, and from the republics.

5The principal object of this great council was to extinguish the discord between the pontiffs; and this business was accomplished successfully. For having established by two solemn decrees, in the fourth and fifth sessions, that a pontiff is subject to a council of the whole church, and having most carefully substantiated the authority of councils, the fathers, on the 29th of May, 1415, removed John XXIII from the pontificate on account of various offences and crimes; for he had pledged himself to the council to resign the pontificate, and yet withdrew himself by flight. Gregory XII voluntarily resigned his pontificate on the 4th of July in the same year, through Carlo Malatesta.

6And Benedict XIII, on the 26th of July, 1417, was deprived of his rank as a pontiff by a solemn decree of the council. After these transactions, on the 11th of November, 1417, Otto Colonna was elected pontiff by the unanimous suffrages of the cardinals, and assumed the name of Martin V. Benedict XIII, who resided at Perpignan, resisted indeed, and claimed the rights and the dignity of a pontiff till his death, 1423; and after the death of this obstinate man, under the auspices of Alfonso, king of Sicily, Ægidius (Giles) Nuños, a Spaniard, was appointed to succeed him, by only two cardinals. He assumed the name of Clement VIII, and wished to be regarded as the legitimate pontiff; but in the year 1429 he was persuaded to resign the government of the church entirely to Martin V.

7[Sidenote: [1407-1416 A.D.]]

8The things done in this council for the repression and extirpation of heretics are not equally commendable; some of them, indeed, are quite inexcusable. Before the council sat, great religious commotions had arisen in several countries, but especially in Bohemia. There lived and taught at Prague, with much applause, an eloquent and learned man, by name John Huss, who acted as a professor of theology in the university and as a minister of holy things in the church. Vehemently did he declaim against priestly vices of every kind; which was generally done in that age, and no good man disapproved it. He likewise endeavoured, after the year 1408, to detach the university from acknowledging as pontiff Gregory XII, whom Bohemia had hitherto obeyed. This gave great offence to the archbishop of Prague and to the rest of the clergy, who were devoted partisans of Gregory. Hence arose great hostility between Huss and the archbishop, which the former kept up and increased by his discourses against the Romish court and the vices of the clergy.

9To these first causes of hatred against Huss, which might easily have been surmounted, others were added of greater magnitude. First, he took the side of the Realists in philosophy, and, therefore, according to the usage of the age, goaded and pressed the Nominalists to the utmost of his power; yet their number was very considerable in the university of Prague, and their influence was not small. Afterwards, in the year 1408, he brought it about that, in the controversy between the Germans and the Bohemians respecting the number of votes, the decision was in favour of the Bohemians. By the laws of the university it was ordained that in academic discussions the Bohemians should have three votes, and the other three nations but one.

10The university was then divided into four nations, but the Bavarian, Polish, and Saxon were comprehended under the general name of the German nation. The usage had been that the Germans, who far exceeded the Bohemians in numbers, gave three votes and the Bohemians but one. Huss, therefore, either from partiality to his country or from hatred of the Nominalists, whom the greatest part of the Germans preferred to the Realists, obtained, by means of the vast influence at court which his eloquence gave him, a decree that the Germans should be deprived of the three votes and should be bidden to content themselves with one.

11This result of a long contest so offended the Germans that a great multitude of them, with the rector of the university, Johann Hofmann, at their head, left the university of Prague and retired to Leipzig, where Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, founded a university on their account in the year 1409. This event contributed much to increase the odium against Huss and to work his ruin. The Germans being ejected from Prague, Huss inveighed more freely than before against the vices of the clergy, and also publicly preached and recommended the opinions and the books of John Wycliffe, the Englishman. [See the history of England.] Being accused before John XXIII, in the year 1410, he was excommunicated by that pontiff.

12Spurning this thunderbolt, he continued, with general applause, first by word of mouth, afterwards in various writings, to lash the sores of the Roman church and of the priest of every degree.

13This good man, who was in love with real piety, but perhaps had sometimes too much warmth and not sufficient prudence, being summoned to the Council of Constance, went thither on the faith of a safe-conduct given by the emperor Sigismund, with a view to demonstrate his innocence and prove them liars who talked of him as an apostate from the Roman church. And certainly he had not departed in things of any moment from the religion of his times; but had only inveighed severely against the pontiffs, the court of Rome, the more considerable clergy, and the monks; which in fact had the sanction of his times, and was daily done in the Council of Constance itself.

14Yet his enemies, who were numerous both in Bohemia and in the council, managed the procedure against him so artfully and successfully that, in violation of the public faith, he was cast into prison; and when he would not, according to the council’s order, confess himself guilty, he was adjudged a heretic, and burned alive, on the 6th day of July, 1415. Full of faith and the love of God, he sustained this punishment with admirable constancy. The same unhappy fate was borne with the same pious fortitude and constancy by Jerome of Prague, the companion of John Huss, who had come to Constance to support and aid his friend.

15He yielded at first through fear of death to the mandates of the council, and renounced those opinions which the council had condemned in him; but being retained still in prison, he resumed courage, again avowed those opinions, and was, therefore, committed to the flames on the 30th of May, 1416.

16Before Huss and Jerome were condemned by the council, John Wycliffe, who was considered, and not altogether without reason, as their teacher, had been pronounced infamous, and condemned by a decree of the fathers. For on the fourth day of May, 1415, the council declared a number of opinions extracted from his writings to be abominable; and ordered all his books to be destroyed, and his bones to be burned. Not long after, on the 14th of June, they passed the famous decree that the sacred supper should be administered to the laity under one kind of bread only, forbidding communion under both kinds. For in the preceding year, 1414, Jacobellus (James) of Mies, incumbent of St. Michael’s church at Prague, by the instigation of a Parisian doctor, Peter of Dresden, had begun to celebrate the communion under both kinds, at Prague; which example many other churches followed. The subject being brought before the council by one of the Bohemian bishops, it considered a remedy to be required even for this heresy. By this decree at Constance, the communion of the laity under one kind obtained the force and authority of law in the Roman church.

17[Sidenote: [1407-1431 A.D.]]

18In the same year, the council placed among execrable errors, or heresies, an opinion of Jean Petit, a Parisian theologian, that tyrants might be lawfully slain by any private person. The party however, from whom this opinion came was not named, because he was supported by very powerful patrons. John duke of Burgundy employed assassins, in the year 1407, to murder Louis duke of Orleans. A great contest now arose, and Petit, an eloquent and ingenious man, pleaded the cause of John of Burgundy at Paris; and in order to justify his conduct he maintained that it is no sin to destroy a tyrant, without a trial of his cause, by force or fraud, or in any other manner, and even if the persons doing it are bound to him by an oath or covenant.

19By a tyrant, however, Petit did not understand the sovereign of a nation, but a powerful citizen, who abused his resources to the ruin of his king and country. The university of Paris passed a stern and severe sentence upon the author of so dangerous an opinion. The council, after several consultations, struck at the opinion, without naming its author. The new pontiff, however, Martin V, from fear of the Burgundian power, would not ratify even this mild sentence.

20After these and some other transactions the council proceeded avowedly to the subject of a reformation of the church, in its “head and members,” as the language of that age was. For all Europe saw the need of such a reformation, and most ardently wished for it. Nor did the council deny that chiefly for this important object it had been called together. But the cardinals and principal men of the Romish court, for whose interest it was, especially, that the disorders of the church should remain untouched, craftily urged and brought the majority to believe that a business of such magnitude could not be managed advantageously, until after the election of a new pontiff. The new head of the church, however, Martin V, abused his power to elude the design of reformation; and manifested by his commands and edicts that he did not wish the church to be purged and restored to a sound state. The council, accordingly, after deliberating three years and six months, broke up on the 22nd of April, 1418, leaving the matter unaccomplished, and putting off that reformation, which all good men devoutly wished, to a council which should be called five years afterwards.

21[Illustration: A PRIEST IN HIS MANTLE OF OFFICE, 1400]

22[Sidenote: [1431-1439 A.D.]]

23Martin V, being admonished on the subject, after a long delay appointed this other council to be held at Pavia; and afterwards removed it to Siena, and lastly to Bâle. But at its very commencement, on the 21st February, 1431, he died; and was succeeded, in the month of March, by Gabriel Condolmieri, a Venetian, and bishop of Siena, who took the name of Eugenius IV. He sanctioned all that Martin had decreed about holding the council at Bâle; and accordingly it commenced on the 23rd of July, 1431, under the presidency of Cardinal Julian, as representative of the pontiff.

24Two objects especially were assigned to this celebrated council: first, a union between the Greeks and the Latins; and secondly, the reformation of the church, both in its “head and its members,” according to the resolution adopted in the Council of Constance. Now that the head, namely the sovereign pontiff, and all the members of the church, that is the bishops, priests, and monks, were in a very unsound state no one doubted. But when the fathers, by the very form of the council, by its mode and order of proceeding, and by its first decrees, showed an intention of performing in earnest what was expected of them, Eugenius IV became uneasy for a corrupt church under such physicians, and twice attempted to dissolve the council.

25This the fathers most firmly resisted; and they showed by the decrees of the Council of Constance, and by other arguments, that the council was superior in authority to a pontiff. This first contest between the pontiff and the council was brought to a close in the month of November, 1433; for the pontiff silently gave up the point, and in the month of December, by letters sent from Rome, gave the council his approbation.

26After this the council prosecuted with energy the business upon which it had entered. The legates of the Roman pontiff were now admitted; but not until they had promised under oath to obey the decrees of the council, and particularly the decrees of the Council of Constance, asserting the dominion and jurisdiction of councils over the pontiffs. These very decrees of Constance, so odious to the pontiffs, were renewed in a public meeting of the fathers on the 26th of June, 1434. And on the 9th of June, 1435, annates, as they were called, were abolished, the pontifical legates in vain opposing it. On the 25th of March, 1436, a profession of faith was read, intended for the pope himself on the day of his election. The number of cardinals was reduced to twenty-four; and expectatives, reservations, and provisions were abolished.

27Other things coming on little agreeable to the pontiff, Eugenius concluded that this very audacious and troublesome council must either be removed into Italy or be curbed by another council in opposition to it. Therefore, when these fathers decreed, on May 7th, 1437, that on account of the Greeks the council should be held either at Bâle, or Avignon, or in some city of Savoy, the pontiff, on the contrary, by his legates, decided that the council should be held in Italy. Neither party would revoke its decision. Hence a violent conflict, from this time onward, existed between the pontiff and the council. On the 26th of July, 1437, the council ordered the pontiff to appear before them at Bâle, and give account of his conduct. The pontiff, on the other hand, dissolved the council, and appointed another at Ferrara. But the fathers, with the approbation of the emperor, the king of France, and other princes, continued their deliberations at Bâle; and on the 28th of September of the same year pronounced the pontiff contumacious for not obeying the decree of a council.

28On the 10th of January of the next year, 1438, Eugenius IV, in person, opened the council which he had summoned to meet at Ferrara; and in the second session of it excommunicated the fathers assembled at Bâle. The chief business of this council was to negotiate a union between the Greeks and Latins. The Greek emperor himself, Joannes Palæologus, the patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph, and the principal theologians and bishops of the nation had come personally to Italy, in order to facilitate the success of this important negotiation. For the Greeks, now reduced to extremities by the Turks, indulged the hope that if their disagreements with the Roman pontiff were removed the Latins would afford them succour.

29The business proceeded tardily, and with little success at Ferrara; but afterwards rather better at Florence. For Eugenius in the beginning of the year 1439, on account of the pestilence at Ferrara, had ordered the council to remove to Florence. The fathers at Bâle, provoked by these and other acts of Eugenius, proceeded on the 25th of June, 1439, to deprive him of the pontificate; but this bold procedure of theirs was not approved by the kings and princes of Europe. Eugenius, on the 4th of September, by a very severe bull anathematised the Basilian fathers and rescinded all their acts. Despising these thunders, on the 17th of September, 1439, they elected a new pontiff, Amadeus, duke of Savoy, who then led a retired life at Ripaille on the Leman Lake (Lake of Geneva).

30He assumed the name of Felix V.

31[Sidenote: [1439-1449 A.D.]]

32Thus the lamentable schism, which had been extinguished after so much labour and toil at Constance, returned with new and greater misfortunes. For there were not only two pontiffs mutually condemning each other, but likewise, what was worse, two opposing councils, that of Bâle and that of Florence. The greater part of the church, indeed, adhered to Eugenius; but most of the universities, and particularly the first among them, that of Paris, as well as some kingdoms and provinces, chose to follow Felix V. The Council of Bâle continued to deliberate and to pass laws and decrees till the year 1443, notwithstanding all the opposition of Eugenius and his adherents.

33And although the fathers separated in that year, they nevertheless publicly declared that the council was not at an end, but would assemble again at a proper time, either at Bâle, or Lyons, or Lausanne. The Council of Florence was chiefly occupied in settling the disputes between the Latins and the Greeks. This great business was committed to selected individuals of both parties. The principal one on the part of the Greeks was Bessarion, a very learned man, who was afterwards admitted into the order of cardinals in the Roman church.

34This man, being gained by the favours bestowed on him by the pontiff, exerted his influence, and the pontiff employed rewards, threats, and promises to induce the other Greeks to accede to the proposed terms of accommodation, and to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit proceeded also from the Son, that departed souls undergo a purgation by fire before they are admitted to the vision of God, that bread which is without leaven may be used in the sacred supper, and lastly, what was most important of all, that the Roman pontiff is the head and the judge of the church universal. One of the Greeks, Mark of Ephesus, could not be persuaded, by entreaties or by bribes, to give his assent. After all, this peace, which was extorted by various artifices, was not stable.

35For the Greeks, on returning to Constantinople, stated to their fellow-citizens that everything had been carried at Florence by fraud, and they resumed their hostility. The Council of Florence itself put an end to its deliberations on the 26th of April, 1442. There were also negotiations in this council for bringing the Armenians, and the Jacobites, but especially the Abyssinians, into union with the Romish church; which were attended with the same result as those respecting the Greeks.

36[Sidenote: [1447-1455 A.D.]]

37The author of this new pontifical schism, Eugenius IV, died in the month of February, 1447, and was succeeded in the month of March by Nicholas V, who was previously Tommaso Parentucelli of Sarzana, bishop of Bologna, a man of learning himself and a great patron of learning, and likewise moderate in temper and disposed for peace. Under him, by means of the persevering labours and efforts of the kings and princes of Europe, especially of the king of France, tranquillity was restored to the Latin church.

38For Felix V, on the 9th of April, 1449, himself resigned the supremacy of the church, and retired to his former quiet at Ripaille; and the Basilian fathers, being assembled on the 16th of April at Lausanne, ratified his voluntary abdication, and by a solemn decree directed the whole church to obey Nicholas only. On the 18th of June Nicholas promulgated this pacification; and, at the same time, confirmed by his sanction the acts and decrees of the Council of Bâle. This Nicholas was particularly distinguished for his love of literature and the arts, which he laudably exerted himself to advance and encourage in Italy, especially by means of the Greeks that came from Constantinople.

39He died on the 24th of March, 1455, principally from grief, occasioned by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.[c]

40At this date Milman closes his splendid work on _The History of Latin Christianity_. It will be profitable to quote his summing up of the point reached by Nicholas V, eight and a half centuries after Gregory the Great.[a]