[539] When the Council of Constance came to an end, in April, 1418, it was agreed between this body and Pope Martin V. that a similar council should be convened at Pavia in 1423. When the time arrived, conditions were far from favorable, but the University of Paris pressed the Pope to observe his pledge in the matter and the council was duly convened. Very few members appeared at Pavia, and, the plague soon breaking out there, the meeting was transferred to Siena. Even there only five German prelates were present, six French, and not one Spanish. Small though it was, the council entered upon a course so independent and self-assertive that in the following year the Pope was glad to take advantage of its paucity of numbers to declare it dissolved.
[540] The Dauphiné was a region on the east side of the Rhone which, in 1349, was purchased of Humbert, Dauphin of Vienne, by Philip VI., and ceded by the latter to his grandson Charles, the later Charles V. (1364-1380). Charles assumed the title of "the Dauphin," which became the established designation of the heir-apparent to the French throne.
[541] Under the grâce expectative the pope conferred upon a prelate a benefice which at the time was filled, to be assumed as soon as it should fall vacant. Benefices of larger importance, such as the offices of bishop and abbot, were often subject to the réserve; that is, the pope regularly reserved to himself the right of filling them, sometimes before, sometimes after, the vacancy occurred. These acts constituted clear assumptions by the popes of power which under the law of the Church was not theirs, and, though the framers of the Pragmatic Sanction had motives which were more or less selfish for combatting the réserve and the grâce expectative, there can be no question that the abuses aimed at were as real as they were represented to be.
[542] Those who presented and installed men in benefices.
[543] These first two chapters reproduce without change the decrees of the Council of Basel. The second reiterates, in substance, the declaration of the Council of Constance [see [p. 393]].
[544] That is, the "canonical" system of election of bishops by the chapters and of abbots by the monks. The Pragmatic differs in this clause from the decree of the Council of Basel in allowing temporal princes to recommend persons for election.
[545] This means that the pope is not to add to the number of canons in any cathedral chapter as a means of influencing the composition and deliberations of that body.
[546] Annates were ordinarily the first year's revenues of a benefice which, under the prevailing system, were supposed to be paid by the incumbent to the pope. The Pragmatic goes on to provide that during the lifetime of Pope Eugene one-fifth of the accustomed annates should continue to be paid.
[547] Henry VI. succeeded his father as emperor, reigning from 1190 to 1197.
[548] The term (meaning literally "fodder") designates the obligation to furnish provisions for the royal army. The right of demanding such provisions was now given up by the Emperor.