Synopsis
CONSTANCE, The Council of, sat from
Nov. 5, 1414, to April 22, 1418, and was the second of those three councils,
which, during the fifteenth century, were convened for the purpose of reforming
the Church, head and members; that of Pisa being the first, that of Basel the
last. It was called by Pope John XXIII. and the Emperor Sigismund; and its
three great objects were to heal the papal schism, to examine the heresy of
Hus and the religious disturbances thereby caused
in Bohemia, and to carry through a general reform of the Church. It was
attended by twenty-nine cardinals, three patriarchs, thirty-three archibishops,
about one hundred and fifty bishops, more than one hundred abbots, more than
five hundred monks of different orders, and a similar number of professors and
doctors of theology and canon law, besides princes, noblemen, ambassadors, etc.
The Pope was also present. lie rode into the city on Oct. 28, with great
magnificence, sixteen hundred horses carrying his retinue and luggage. The
emperor arrived on Christmas Eve; but he had only one thousand horses in his
train. The total number of visitors to the city during the council is computed,
at the lowest rate, at fifty thousand; but of these, more than one-third were
mountebanks, money-lenders, strolling actors, and prostitutes. The most
prominent and most influential members of the council were Pierre d’Ailly
and his pupil Gerson.
The Council of
Pisa (1409) had attempted to put an end to the schism by deposing both
Gregory XII. (Angelo Corraro), who resided in Rome, and Benedict XIII. (Petro
de Luna), who resided at Avignon, and electing in their stead Alexander V. But
the result was simply, that there now were three popes instead of two; and the
confusion continued unabated, when, after the death pf Alexander V. (in 1410),
the leaders of the Pisan council elected John XXIII. (Balthasar Cossa). All the
three popes were invited to Constance, but only John was present in person. lie
was a dissipated and unprincipled rascal, ready at any time for any crime; but
he was courageous, shrewd, inexhaustible in shifts and intrigues, and equal to
any emergency. He hoped to lord it over the council by means of the very great
number of Italian prelates, who, mostly dependent upon him, accompanied him to
Constance. But in this he failed. The order of business adopted by the coimcil
was that of working and voting by nations; and in the plenary sessions the
Italian nation, though ever so heavily represented, had, of course, only one
vote beside the four other nations, - the German, French, English, and Spanish.
He now endeavored to urge upon the assembly the view that the Council of
Constance was nothing but a simple continuation of that of Pisa, which had
formally condemned his two rivals, and, indirectly at least, legitimized his
own election. But in this, too, he failed; and the party of Pierre d’Ailly
finally succeeded in carrying a motion that all the three popes should be
compelled to abdicate, and a new papal election take place. John abdicated in
the hope of being re-elected; but he soon became aware of his mistake, fled in
the disguise of a groom, protested, was caught, and was finally brought to
acquiesce in the decisions of the council. Tn its fifth plenary session (April
6, 1415), the assembly agreed that an cecumenical council, legally convened,
and fully representative of the Church, has its power directly from Christ, and
its decrees are consequently obligatory on all, even on the Pope. May 29, 1415,
John XXIII. was deposed; .July 4, 1415, Gregory XII. voluntarily abdicated;
July 26, 1417, Benedict XIII. was deposed; and Nov. 11, 1417, Cardinal Odo
Colonna was elected Pope, and assumed the name of Martin V., who closed the
council April 22, 1418, at its forty-fifth session.
The Bohemian affairs were treated with great
thoroughness; for Hus was burnt July 6, 1415, and
Jerome of Prague, May 30, 1416. But a final
settlement was not arrived at, still less a satisfactory one. It was the
school-wisdom of the university which here overwhelnied and tried to crush the
free evangelical movement of popular life. Still more conspicuously the council
failed in its reform plans. A collegium reformatori urn was formed in August,
1415; but characteristically enough for the whole situation, when Cardinal
Zabarella read aloud to the assembly the decree of April 16, 1415, he wilfully
left out the passage it contained on the power of the council to undertake
reforms in the Church. It was the lower clergy, the monks, the doctors, and
professors, led by Pierre d’Ailly and Gerson, and supported by the
emperor, who demanded reforms. But the abuses in which reforms were necessary -
such as the appeals to the Pope and the papal procedure, the administration of
vacant benefices, and the giving in commendam, simony, dispensations,
indulgences, etc. - were the very sources from which the Pope, the cardinals,
and the huge swarm of ecclesiastical officials in Rome, drew their principal
revenues. In fighting against reforms, the cardinals fought pro aris et
focis, and they proved unconquerable. The emperor wished the question of
reform discussed and decided before the election of a new Pope; but the
cardinals declared that the worst ailing of the Church was its lack of a head;
and, when Martin V. was elected, he understood how to bury away the whole
affair quietly and smoothly, by grave hesitations and cautious
procrastinations.
G. Voigt, "CONSTANCE, The Council
of," Philip Schaff, ed., A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of
Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, 3rd edn, Vol. 1.
Toronto, New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894. pp.
544-545.
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F. Donald Logan, A History of the Church
in the Middle Ages. London & New York: Routledge, 2002. Pbk. ISBN:
0415132894. pp.323-330.
Norman P Tanner, The Councils of the
Church: A Short History. The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001. Pbk. ISBN:
0824519043. pp.144.
