History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) / Revised Edition

by John William Draper

The Council of Constance deposes the pope,TheCouncil of Constance met A.D. 1415. It had a threefold object: 1. The union of the Church under one pope; 2. The reformation of the clergy; 3. The suppression of heresy. Its policy from the first was determined. It proclaimed itself supreme. It demanded the abdication of the pope John XXIII.; exhibited articles of accusation against him, some of them of such enormity as almost to surpass belief, and justifying the epithet that he was "a devil incarnate." The suffrage of the council was changed. The plan of voting by nations, which reduced the Italians to a single vote, was introduced. These incidental facts [100] may indicate to us that there were present men who understood thoroughly how to manage the machinery of such an assembly, and that the remark of Æneas Sylvius, afterward Pope Pius II., respecting the Council of Basle was equally true as to that of Constance, that it was not so much directed by the Holy Ghost as by the passions of men. The influence that lawyers were now exercising in social affairs—their habits of arrangement, of business, and intrigue, is strikingly manifested in the management of these assemblages; their arts had passed to the clergy, and even in part to the people. But how vast was the change that had occurred in the papacy from the voluntary abdication of Celestine to the compulsory abdication of John!

and murders John Huss. To this council, also, came John Huss, under a safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismund. Scarcely, however, had he arrived when he was imprisoned; this treachery being excused from the necessity of conceding it to the reforming party. On June 5th, A.D. 1416, Huss was brought in chains before the council. It was declared unlawful to keep faith with a heretic. His countrymen, the Bohemian lords present, protested against such perfidy, and loudly demanded his release. Articles of accusation, derived from his works, were presented. He avowed himself ready to defend his opinions. The uproar was so great that the council temporarily adjourned. Two days afterwards the trial was resumed. It was ushered in by an eclipse of the sun, said to have been total at Prague. No one of the bloodthirsty ecclesiastics laid to heart the solemn monition that, after his moment of greatest darkness was over, the sun shone forth with recovered effulgence again. The emperor was present, with all the fathers. The first accusation entered on related to transubstantiation. On this and on succeeding occasions the emperor took part in the discussions, among other things observing that, in his opinion, the prisoner was worthy of death. After a lengthy inquiry into his alleged errors, a form of recantation was prepared for Huss. Noble conduct of Huss. With modest firmness he declined it, concluding his noble answer with the words, "I appeal to Christ Jesus, the one all-powerful and all-just Judge. To him I commend [101] my cause, who will judge every man, not according to false witnesses and erring councils, but according to truth and man's desert." On July 1st the council met in full session. Thirty articles against Huss were read. Among other things, they alleged that he believed the material bread to be unchanged after the consecration. In his extremity the prisoner looked steadfastly at the traitor Sigismund, and solemnly exclaimed, "Freely came I here under the safe-conduct of the emperor." The conscience-stricken monarch blushed. Huss was then made to kneel down and receive his sentence. It condemned his writings and his body to the flames.

He is burnt.He was then degraded and despoiled of his orders. Some of the bishops mocked at him; some, more merciful, implored him to recant. They cut his hair in the form of a cross, and set upon his head a high paper crown on which devils were painted. "We devote thy soul to the devils in hell." "And I commend my soul to the most merciful Lord Christ Jesus." He was then led forth. They passed by the bishop's palace, where Huss's books were burning. When they fastened him with a chain to his stake, the painted crown fell off, but the soldiers replaced it. "Let him and his devils be burned together." As the flames closed over him, he chanted psalms and prayed to the Redeemer. Can that be true which requires for its support the murder of a true man?

It murders, also, Jerome of Prague.So acted without a dissenting voice the Council of Constance. It feared the spread of heresy, but it did not fear, perhaps did not consider, that higher tribunal to whose inexorable verdict councils, and popes, and emperors must submit—posterity. It asserted itself to be under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. It took profit by a shameful perfidy. It was a conclave of murderers. It stifled the voice of an earnest man, solemnly protesting against a doctrine now derided by all the intellect of Europe. The revolution it was compassing it inaugurated in blood, not alone that of John Huss, but also of Jerome of Prague. These martyrs were no common men. His singular eloquence. Poggio Bracciolini, an eye-witness, says, in a letter to Leonardo Aretino, speaking of the eloquence of Jerome, "When I consider what his choice of words [102] was, what his elocution, what his reasoning, what his countenance, his voice, his action I must affirm, however much we may admire the ancients, that in such a cause no one could have approached nearer to the model of their eloquence."

John XXIII. was compelled to abdicate. Gregory XII. died. Some time after, Benedict XIII. followed him. The council had elected Martin V., and in him found a master who soon put an end to its doings. What the council did. It had deposed one pope and elected another; it had cemented the dominant creed with blood; it had authorized the dreadful doctrine that a difference in religious opinion justifies the breaking of plighted faith between man and man; it had attempted to perpetuate its own power by enacting that councils should be held every five years; but it had not accomplished its great object—ecclesiastical reform.

The Council of Basle.In a room attached to the Cathedral of Basle, with its roof of green and parti-coloured tiles, the modern traveller reads on a piece of paper this inscription: "The room of the council, where the famous Council of Basil was assembled. In this room Pope Eugene IV. was dethroned, and replaced by Felix V., Duc of Savoie and Cardinal of Repaile. The council began 1431, and lasted 1448." That chamber, with its floor of little red earthen flags and its oaken ceiling, witnessed great events.

The democratic influence pervading the Church showed no symptoms of abatement. The fate of Huss had been avenged in blood and fire by the Bohemian sword. Eugenius IV., now pontiff, was afraid that negotiations would be entered upon with the Hussite chiefs. Such a treaty, he affirmed, would be blasphemy against God and an insult to the pope. He was therefore bent on the prorogation of the council, and spared no means to accomplish his purpose. Its ostensible object was the reformation of the clergy; its real intent was to convert the papal autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. It declares the pope in contumacy. To this end it cited the pope, and, on his non-appearance, declared him and seventeen of the cardinals in contumacy. He had denounced it as the Synagogue of Satan; on its part, it was assuming the functions of the [103] Senate of Christendom. It had prepared a great seal, and asserted that, in case of the death of the pope, the election of his successor was vested in it. It was its firm purpose never again to leave that great event in the hands of a conclave of intriguing Italian cardinals, but to intrust it to the representatives of united Christendom. After a due delay since he was declared in contumacy, the council suspended the pope, and, slowly moving towards its object, elected Amadeus of Savoy, Felix V., his successor. It was necessary that its pope should be a rich man, for the council had but slender means of offering him pecuniary support. Amadeus had that qualification. And perhaps it was far from being, in the eyes of many, an inopportune circumstance that he had been married and had children. Its real intentions. We may discern, through the shifting scenes of the intrigues of the times, that the German hierarchy had come to the resolution that the election of the popes should be taken from the Italians and given to Europe; that his power should be restricted; that he should no longer be the irresponsible vicar of God upon earth; but the accountable chief executive officer of Christendom; and that the right of marriage should be conceded to the clergy. These are significantly Teutonic ideas.

Cause and close of these troubles.We have pursued the story of these events nearly as far as is necessary for the purpose of this book. We shall not, therefore, follow the details of the new schism. It fell almost without interest on Europe. Æneas Sylvius, the ablest man of the day, in three words gives us the true insight into the state of things: "Faith is dead." On the demise of Eugenius IV., Nicolas V. succeeded. An understanding was had with those in the interest of the council. It was dissolved. Felix V. abdicated. The morality of the times had improved. The anti-pope was neither blinded nor murdered. The schism was at an end.

End of the intellectual influence of the papacy.Thus we have seen that the personal immoralities and heresy of the popes brought on the interference of the King of France, who not only shook the papal system to its basis but destroyed its prestige by inflicting the most conspicuous indignity upon it. For seventy years Rome was disfranchised, [104] and the rivalries of France and Italy produced the great schism, than which nothing could be more prejudicial to the papal power. We have seen that, aided by the pecuniary difficulties of the papacy, the rising intellect of Europe made good its influence and absolutely deposed the pope. It was in vain to deny the authenticity of such a council; there stood the accomplished fact. At this moment there seemed no other prospect for the Italian system than utter ruin; yet, wonderful to be said, a momentary deliverance came from a quarter whence no man would have expected. The Turks were the saviours of the papacy.

At this point is the true end of the Italian system—that system which had pressed upon Europe like a nightmare. The great men of the times—the statesmen, the philosophers, the merchants, the lawyers, the governing classes—those whose weight of opinion is recognized by the uneducated people at last, had shaken off the incubus and opened their eyes. A glimmering of the true state of things was breaking upon the clergy. No more with the vigour it once possessed was the papacy again to domineer over human thought and be the controlling agent of European affairs. Convulsive struggles it might make, but they were only death-throes. The sovereign pontiff must now descend from the autocracy he had for so many ages possessed, and become a small potentate, tolerated by kings in that subordinate position only because of the remnant of his influence on the uneducated multitude and those of feeble minds.