For the moment John XXIII. seemed not unlikely to gain his end. Constance was thrown into confusion by the news of |Triumph of Sigismund.| his flight. The mob rushed to pillage the papal residence. The Italian and Austrian prelates prepared to leave the city, and the Council was on the verge of dissolution. But Sigismund’s zeal and energy succeeded in averting such a disaster. He restored order in the city, persuaded the prelates to remain, and took prompt measures to punish his rebellious vassal. An armed force under Frederick of Hohenzollern succeeded in capturing not only John XXIII. but also Frederick of Tyrol. The latter was compelled to undergo public humiliation, and to hand over his territories to his suzerain on condition that his life should be spared. No such exercise of imperial power had been witnessed in Germany since the days of the Hohenstaufen, and Sigismund chose this auspicious moment to secure a powerful supporter within the electoral college by handing over the electorate of Brandenburg to Frederick of Nürnberg (April 30, 1415). He thus established a dynasty which was destined to play a great part in German history, and ultimately to create a new German Empire.
The unsuccessful flight of John XXIII. not only enabled Sigismund to assume a more authoritative position in the Council and in Germany: it also sealed his own fate. The Council had no longer any hesitation |Deposition of John XXIII.| in proceeding to the formal deposition of the Pope (May 29, 1415). As the two Popes who had been deposed at Pisa had never been recognised at Constance, the Church was now without a head. But instead of hastening to fill the vacancy, the Council turned aside to the suppression of heresy and the trial of Hus. On three occasions, the 5th, 7th, and 8th of June, Hus was heard before a general session. No point in his teaching excited greater animadversion than his contention that a priest, whether Pope or prelate, forfeited his office by the commission of mortal sin. With great cunning his accusers drew him on to extend this doctrine to temporal princes. This was enough to complete the alienation of Sigismund, and after the third day’s trial he was the first to pronounce in |Execution of Hus.| favour of condemnation. The last obstacle in the way of the prosecution was thus removed, and Hus was burned in a meadow outside the city walls on July 6, 1415.
With the death of Hus ends the first and most eventful period of the Council of Constance. Within these seven or eight months Sigismund and the reforming party, thanks to |The Council during Sigismund’s absence.| the division of the Council into nations, seemed to have gained a signal success. Sigismund had purchased his triumph by breaking his pledge to Hus, and for this he was to pay a heavy penalty in the subsequent disturbances in Bohemia. But for the moment these were not foreseen, and Sigismund was jubilantly eager to prosecute his scheme. Warned by the experience of its predecessor at Pisa, the Council of Constance was careful not to put too much trust in paper decrees. John XXIII. was not only deposed, but a prisoner. Gregory XII. had given a conditional promise of resignation, and had so few supporters as to be of slight importance. But Benedict XIII. was still strong in the allegiance of the Spanish kingdoms, and unless they could be detached from his cause there was little prospect of ending the schism. This task Sigismund volunteered to undertake, and he also proposed to avert the impending war between England and France, to reconcile the Burgundian and Armagnac parties in the latter country, and to negotiate peace between the King of Poland and the Teutonic Knights. It would indeed be a revival of the imperial idea if its representative could thus act as a general mediator in European quarrels. The Council welcomed the offer with enthusiasm, and showed their loyalty to Sigismund by deciding to postpone all important questions till his return. And this decision was actually adhered to. During the sixteen months of Sigismund’s absence (July 15, 1415, to January 27, 1417) only two prominent subjects were considered by the Council. One was the trial of Jerome of Prague, which was a mere corollary of that of Hus, and ended in a similar sentence. The other was the thorny question raised by the proposed condemnation of the writings of Jean Petit, a Burgundian partisan who had defended the murder of the Duke of Orleans. The leader of the attack upon Jean Petit was Gerson, the learned and eloquent chancellor of the University of Paris. But so completely had the matter become a party question, and so great was the influence of the Duke of Burgundy, that the Council could not be induced to go further than a general condemnation of the doctrine of lawful tyrannicide; and Gerson’s activity in the matter provoked such ill-will that after the close of the Council he could not venture to return to France, which was then completely under Burgundian and English domination.
It is impossible to narrate here the story of Sigismund’s |Sigismund’s journey.| journey, though it abounds with illustrations of his impulsive character and of the attitude of the western states towards the imperial pretensions. It furnished conclusive proofs, if any were needed, that however the Council, for its own ends, might welcome the authority of a secular head, national sentiment was far too strongly developed to give any chance of success to a projected revival of the mediæval empire. As regards his immediate object, Sigismund was able to achieve some results. He failed to induce Benedict XIII. to abdicate, but the quibbles of the veteran intriguer exhausted the patience of his supporters, and at a conference at Narbonne the Spanish kings agreed to desert him and to adhere to the Council of Constance (December 1415). But Sigismund’s more ambitious schemes came to nothing. So far from preventing a war between England and France, he only forwarded an alliance between Henry V. and the Duke of Burgundy, and though he may have done this in the hope of forcing peace upon France, the result was to make the war more disastrous and prolonged.
When Sigismund reappeared in Constance (January 27, |Dissensions in the Council.| 1417), he found that the state of affairs both in Germany and in the Council had altered for the worse. Frederick of Tyrol had returned to his dominions and had been welcomed by his subjects. The Archbishop of Mainz had renewed his intrigues, and an attempt had even been made to release John XXIII. With the Elector Palatine, formerly his loyal supporter, Sigismund had quarrelled on money matters, and it seemed possible that the four Rhenish electors would form a league against Sigismund as they had done against Wenzel in 1400. Still more galling was his loss of influence in the Council. The adhesion of the Spanish kingdoms had been followed by the arrival of Spanish prelates, who formed a fifth nation and strengthened the party opposed to reform. The war between England and France had created a quarrel between the two nations at Constance, and the French deserted the cause they had once championed rather than vote with their enemies. Sigismund could only rely upon the English and the Germans: and the question which agitated the Council was one of vital importance. Which was to come first, the election of a new Pope, or the adoption of a scheme of ecclesiastical reform? The conservatives contended that the Church could hardly be said to exist without its head; that no reform would be valid until the normal constitution of the Church was restored. On the other hand, it was urged that no reform was possible unless the supremacy of a General Council was fully recognised; that certain questions could be more easily discussed and settled during a vacancy; that if the reforms were agreed upon, a new Pope could be pledged to accept them, whereas a Pope elected at once could prevent all reform. Party spirit ran extremely high, and it seemed almost impossible to effect an agreement. Sigismund was openly denounced as a heretic, while he in turn threatened to imprison the cardinals for contumacy. But gradually the balance turned against the reformers. Some of the leading German bishops were bribed to change their votes. The head of the English representatives, Robert Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury, died at the critical moment, and the influence of Henry Beaufort, the future cardinal, induced the English nation to support an immediate election. It was agreed that a new Pope should be chosen at once, and that the Council should then proceed to the work of reform. But the only preliminary concession that Sigismund and his party could obtain was the issue of a decree in October 1417, that another Council should meet within five years, a second within seven years, and that afterwards a Council should be regularly held every ten years.
For the new election it was decided that the twenty-three cardinals should be joined by thirty delegates of the Council, six from each nation. The conclave met on November 8, and three days later their choice |Election of Martin V., Nov. 11, 1417.| fell upon Cardinal Oddo Colonna, who took the name of Martin V. Even the defeated party could not refrain from sharing in the general enthusiasm at the restoration of unity after forty years of schism. But their fears as to the ultimate fate of the cause of reform were fully justified. Soon after his election Martin declared that it was impious to appeal to a Council against a papal decision. Such a declaration, as Gerson said, nullified the acts of the Councils of Pisa and Constance, including the election of the Pope himself. In their indignation the members made a strong appeal to the Pope to fulfil the conditions agreed upon before his election. But Martin had a weapon to hand which had been furnished by the Council itself. It was the division into nations that had led to the fall of John XXIII., and it was the same division into nations that had ruined the prospects of reform. The Pope now drew up a few scanty articles of reform, which he offered as separate concordats to the French, Germans, and English. It was a dangerous expedient for a Pope to adopt, because it seemed to imply the separate existence of national churches; but it answered its immediate purpose. Martin could contend that there was no longer any work for the Council to do, and he dissolved it in May 1418. He set out |Dissolution of the Council, May, 1418.| for Italy, where a difficult task awaited him. Papal authority in Rome had ceased with the flight of John XXIII. in 1414. Sigismund offered the Pope a residence in some German city, but Martin wisely refused. The support of his own family, the Colonnas, enabled him to re-enter Rome in 1421. By that time almost all traces of the schism had disappeared. Gregory XII. was dead: John XXIII. had recently died in Florence: Benedict XIII. still held out in his fortress of Peniscola, but was impotent in his isolation.
CHAPTER XI
THE HUSSITE WARS AND THE COUNCIL OF BASEL, 1419-1449
Sigismund and Germany—Hussite parties in Bohemia—Crusades against the Hussites—Bohemian victories—Bohemia and Poland—Attempted reforms in Germany—The Crusade of 1427—Reforms of 1427—The Crusade of 1431—Summons of the Council of Basel—Its procedure—Its quarrel with Eugenius IV.—His submission—The Compacts with Bohemia—Civil war in Bohemia—Battle of Lipan—Sigismund acknowledged king of Bohemia—The Council of Basel and reforms—Divisions within the Council—Negotiations with the Greeks—Quarrel of the Pope and Council—Council of Ferrara or Florence—Attitude of France and Germany—The Pragmatic Sanction—Deposition of Eugenius IV.—Election of Felix V.—The Council’s prestige declines—Triumph of Eugenius IV.—Reconciliation of Germany to Eugenius IV.—Close of the Council of Basel—Failure of the Conciliar Movement.
The ultimate failure of the reforming party at Constance had |Sigismund and Germany.| ruined all Sigismund’s schemes for the restoration of monarchical authority in Germany. Ready as he was to form magnificent projects, he was equally easily discouraged and turned aside. After quitting the Council he devoted himself to personal and dynastic interests, to the defence of Hungary against the Turks, and to the enforcement of his claim to succeed in Bohemia. Germany and German interests he abandoned almost as completely as his brother had done. The result was a gradual rupture of the friendship that had hitherto existed between himself and Frederick of Brandenburg. The latter had made it his life’s task to restore unity to Germany, in order to save that country from internal dissolution and foreign attack. The desertion of Sigismund from what had been a common cause forced him to change his means, but not his end. Hitherto he had striven to unite Germany under the monarchy, but that was impossible when the king would not undertake to govern. Frederick was forced to scheme for a federal union of Germany which should be independent of, and perhaps hostile to, the monarchy. And the necessity of some such union was made more and more manifest by events in Bohemia.
In Bohemia the news of Hus’s death had provoked a storm of indignation, and had intensified the national sentiment of hostility to Germany. Sigismund was regarded |Hussite parties in Bohemia.| with special loathing as a perjured traitor as well as a party to a murder. Even the sluggish Wenzel shared the sentiments of his subjects. He bitterly reviled his brother for breaking his safe-conduct, ordered that no Bohemian should henceforth appear before a foreign tribunal, and showed special favour to the party which demanded vengeance for Hus’s death. Under the leadership of Nicolas of Husinec, lord of the village where Hus had been born, and of John Ziska, already known as a capable military leader, the Hussites made great strides towards ascendency in Bohemia. The chief doctrine which they advanced was the communion in both kinds. They held that laymen were entitled to receive the cup in the sacrament as well as the priests, and hence, as a religious party, they received the name of Utraquists. But though they were united in this contention, and also in common hostility to Germany and German influences, there were important divisions among the Hussites. The moderate party, or Calixtines, were in favour of a gradual reform, and wished to separate political from religious questions. They were also called Pragers, because they were strongest in the capital and in the University of Prague. In 1420 their demands were formulated in the ‘four articles of Prague,’ which became the avowed creed of the party. These were: (1) complete liberty of preaching; (2) the communion in both kinds for all Christians; (3) the exclusion of priests from temporal affairs and the holding of property; (4) the subjection of clergy to secular penalties for crimes and misdemeanours. But side by side with the Calixtines was a radical and democratic party, known as the Taborites. Like the Lollards in England, they mixed up social and religious questions, and advocated republican and even communistic theories.