Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

With Clement VII sided France, her ally Scotland, Spain, and Naples; with Urban VI, Germany, England, and most of the northern kingdoms; and when these Popes died the cardinals they had elected perpetuated the schism by choosing fresh rivals to rend the unity of the Church. Thus in the struggle for temporal supremacy reform was forgotten, and the growing spirit of doubt and scepticism given a fair field in which to sow her seed.

St. Catherine had realized her desire, the return of the Pope to Rome, only, we see, to find it fail in achieving the purpose for which she had prayed and planned. The Popes of the fourteenth century were men of the age in which they lived, not great souls like the saint of Siena herself, who called them to a task of which they were spiritually incapable. With her death her ideal faded, and another gradually took shape in the minds of men, namely, ‘an appeal from the Vicar of Christ on earth to Christ Himself, residing in the whole body of the Church’.

Christendom remembered that in the early days of her history it had been Councils of the Fathers, sitting at Nicea and elsewhere, that had defined the Faith and made laws for the Catholic Church. Now it was suggested that once more a large world-council should be called from every Catholic nation, composed of Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, the Heads of the Friars and of the Monastic and Military Orders, together with Doctors of Theology and Law. This council was to be given power by the whole of Christendom to end the schism, condemn heresy, and reform the Church.

The person who was chiefly responsible for the summoning of this council, that met at Constance in 1414, was Sigismund, King of the Romans, a son of the Emperor Charles IV, and brother and heir to the Emperor Wenzel, a drunken sot, who was also King of Bohemia, but quite incapable of playing an intelligent part in public affairs. Sigismund was King of Hungary by election and through his marriage with a daughter of Louis the Great[47]; but his subjects had little respect for his ability, and were usually in a state of chronic rebellion. In spite of the fact that he had no money and had been decisively and ingloriously defeated in battle by the Turks, he continued to hold high ambitions, desiring above all things to appear as the arbiter of European destinies who would reform both Church and State.

The Council of Constance gave him his opportunity, and certainly no other man worked as hard to make it a success. Sometimes he presided in person at the meetings, which dragged out their weary discussions for about four years: at other times he would visit the courts of Europe, trying to persuade rival Popes to resign, or, if they were obstinate, civil sovereigns to refuse them patronage and protection. He even tried, though in vain, to act as mediator in the Hundred Years’ War, in order that the political quarrels of French and English might not bring friction to the council board.

John Huss

It is unfortunate for Sigismund’s memory that his share in the Council of Constance was marred by treachery. As heir to the throne of Bohemia and the incapable Wenzel he was often led to interfere in the affairs of that kingdom, and felt it his duty to take some steps with regard to the spread of Wycliffe’s doctrines amongst his future subjects, especially in the national University of Prague. Here heretical views were daily expounded by a clever priest and teacher, John Huss. Now the orthodox Catholics in the university were mainly Germans, and hated by the ordinary Bohemians, who were Slavs, and these therefore admired and followed Huss for national as well as from religious convictions.

Sigismund agreed with Huss in desiring a drastic reform of the Church, suitable means for ensuring which he hoped to see devised at Constance. At the same time he trusted that the representatives of Christendom would come to some kind of a compromise with the Bohemian teacher on his religious views, and persuade him by their arguments to withdraw some of his most unorthodox opinions. With this end in view he therefore invited Huss to appear at the Council, offering him a safe-conduct.

Many of the Bohemians suspected treachery and shook their heads when their national hero insisted that he was bound in honour to make profession of his faith when summoned. ‘God be with you!’ exclaimed one, ‘for I fear greatly that you will never return to us.’ This prophecy was fulfilled; for Huss, when he arrived at Constance, found that Sigismund was absent, and the attitude of the Council definitely hostile to anything he might say. After a prolonged examination he was called upon to recant his errors, and, refusing to yield, was condemned to death as a heretic; Sigismund, on his return to Constance shortly after this sentence had been passed, was persuaded that unless he consented to withdraw his safe-conduct the whole gathering would break up in wrath.

Herod, he was told, had made a bad oath in agreeing to fulfil the wish of Herodias’s daughter and should have refused her demand for the head of John the Baptist. To pledge faith to a heretic was equally wrong, for as an example and warning to Christendom all heretics should be burned. It was imperative therefore for the good of the Church that such a safe-conduct should be withdrawn. Sigismund at last sullenly yielded, conscious of the stain on his honour, yet still more fearful lest the council he had called together with so great an effort should melt away, its tasks unfulfilled, as his many enemies hoped.