The Council of Basel was a council of bishops and other ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church that was held at Basel, Switzerland. The location reflected a desire to meet outside the territories of the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire, or the kings of Aragon and France, whose influences the council hoped to avoid. Ambrogio Traversari attended the Council of Basel as legate of Pope Eugenius IV.

The council was convened at a period when the Conciliar movement was strong and the authority of the papacy weak.

In the pressure for reform within the Church, a decree of the Council of Constance (9 October 1417), sanctioned by Pope Martin V, obliged the papacy to summon general councils periodically. At the expiration of the first term fixed by this decree, Pope Martin V complied by calling a council at Pavia. Due to an epidemic the location transferred almost at once to Siena (see Council of Siena) and disbanded -owing to circumstances still imperfectly known- just as it had begun to discuss the subject of reform (1424).

The next council fell due at the expiration of seven years in 1431; with his usual punctuality, Martin V duly convoked it for this date to the town of Basel, and selected to preside over it the cardinal Julian Cesarini, a well-respected prelate. Martin himself, however, died before the opening of the synod.

Composition of the Council

The democratic character of the assembly at Basel was a result of both its composition and its organization. Doctors of theology, masters and representatives of chapters, monks and clerks of inferior orders constantly outnumbered the prelates in it, and the influence of the superior clergy had less weight because, instead of being separated into "nations", as at Constance, the fathers divided themselves according to their tastes or aptitudes into four large committees or "deputations" (deputationes). One was concerned with questions of faith (fidei), another with negotiations for peace (pacis), the third with reform (reformatorii), and the fourth with what they called "common concerns" (pro communibus). Every decision made by three of these "deputations" — and in each of them the lower clergy formed the majority — received ratification for the sake of form in general congregation, and if necessary led to decrees promulgated in session. For this reason papal critics termed the council "an assembly of copyists" or even "a set of grooms and scullions".

Attempted dissolution

From Italy, France and Germany the fathers came late to Basel. Cesarini devoted

This order led to an outcry among the fathers at Basel and incurred the deep disapproval of the legate Cesarini. They argued that the Hussites would think the Church afraid to face them, and that the laity would accuse the clergy of shirking reform, both with disastrous effects. The pope explained his reasons and yielded certain points, but the fathers were intransigent. Considerable powers had been decreed to Church Councils by the Council of Constance, which amid the troubles of the Western Schism had proclaimed the superiority, in certain cases, of the council over the pope, and the fathers at Basel insisted upon their right of remaining assembled. They held sessions, promulgated decrees, interfered in the government of the papal countship of Venaissin, treated with the Hussites, and, as representatives of the universal Church, presumed to impose laws upon the "sovereign pontiff" himself.

According to the official Roman Catholic view, Eugenius IV resolved to resist this supremacy, but he did not dare openly to repudiate the conciliar doctrine considered by many to be the actual foundation of the authority of the popes before the schism. He soon realized the impossibility of treating the fathers of Basel as ordinary rebels, and tried a compromise; but as time went on, the fathers became more and more intractable, and between him and them gradually arose an impassable barrier.

Abandoned by a number of his cardinals, condemned by most of the powers, deprived of his dominions by condottieri who shamelessly invoked the authority of the council, the pope made concession after concession, and ended on 15 December 1433 with a pitiable surrender of all the points at issue in a Papal bull, the terms of which were dictated by the fathers of Basel, that is, by declaring his bull of dissolution null and void, and recognising that the synod as legitimately assembled throughout. However, Eugenius IV did not ratify all the decrees coming from Basel, nor make a definite submission to the supremacy of the council. He declined to express any forced pronouncement on this subject, and his enforced silence concealed the secret design of safeguarding the principle of sovereignty.

The fathers, filled with suspicion, would only allow the legates of the pope to preside over them on condition of their recognizing the superiority of the council. The legates did submit to this humiliating formality, but in their own names only it was asserted after the fact, thus reserving the final judgment of the Holy See. Furthermore, the difficulties of all kinds against which

Issues of reform

Emboldened by their success, the fathers approached the subject of reform, their principal object being to further curtail the power and resources of the papacy. They took decisions on the disciplinary measures which regulated the elections, on the celebration of divine service, on the periodical holding of diocesan synods and provincial councils, which were usual topics in Catholic councils. They also made decrees aimed at some of the assumed rights by which the popes had extended their power and improved their finances at the expense of the local churches. Thus the Council abolished annates, greatly limited the abuse of "reservation" of the patronage of benefices by the pope, and completely abolished the right claimed by the pope of "next presentation" to benefices not yet vacant (known as gratiae expectativae). Other conciliar decrees severely limited the jurisdiction of the court of Rome, and even made rules for the election of popes and the constitution of the Sacred College. The fathers continued to devote themselves to the subjugation of the Hussites, and they also intervened, in rivalry with the pope, in the negotiations between France and England which led to the treaty of Arras, concluded by Charles VII of France with the duke of Burgundy. Finally, they investigated and judged numbers of private cases — lawsuits between prelates, members of religious orders and holders of benefices — thus themselves committing one of the serious abuses for which they had criticised the court of Rome.

Eugenius IV

Main article: Pope Eugenius IV.

Eugenius IV, however much he may have wished to keep on good terms with the fathers of Basel, found himself neither able nor willing to accept or observe all their decrees. The question of the union with the Greek church, especially, gave rise to a misunderstanding between them which soon led to a rupture. The Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus, pressed hard by the Ottoman Turks, was keen to ally himself with the Catholics. He consented to come with the principal representatives of the Greek church to some place in the West where the union could be concluded in the presence of the pope and of the Latin council. There arose a double negotiation between him and Eugenius IV on the one hand and the fathers of Basel on the other. The Council wished to fix the meeting-place at a place remote from the influence of the pope, and they persisted in suggesting Basel, Avignon or Savoy, venues which neither Eugenius nor the Greeks would accept.

Main article: Council of Ferrara.

The result was that Palaeologus accepted the offers of the pope, who, by a bull dated 18 September 1437, again pronounced the dissolution of the council of Basel, and summoned the fathers to Ferrara, where on the 8 January 1438 he opened a new synod which he later transferred to Florence. Bishop Luigi Pirano of Forlì (1437) took an active part in the ensuing Council of Ferrara.

Union with the Eastern Orthodox Church

In Ferrara took place the momentary union, more apparent than real, between the Latin Church and the Greek Church on (6 July 1439). The only Eastern bishop to refuse to sign onto the union was Mark of Ephesus, who held that Rome was in both heresy and schism for its acceptance of the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed and for the papal claims to universal jurisdiction over the Church. Attempts at a wider union were also made by Eugenius IV, such as the Bull of Union with the Copts.

Deposition of Eugenius IV

During this time the council of Basel, though abandoned by Cesarini and most of its members, persisted none the less, under the presidency of Cardinal Aleman, in affirming its ecumenical character. On 24 January 1438 it suspended Eugene IV, and went on (in spite of the intervention of most of the powers) to pronounce his deposition (25 June 1439), finally giving rise to a new schism by electing (4 November 1439) duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy, as (anti)pope, who took the name of Felix V.

This schism lasted fully ten years, although the antipope found few adherents outside of his own hereditary states, those of Alfonso V of Aragon, of the Swiss confederation and of certain universities. Germany remained neutral; Charles VII of France confined himself to securing to his kingdom (by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, which became law on 13 July 1438) the benefit of a great number of the reforms decreed at Basel; England and Italy remained faithful to Eugene IV. Finally, in 1447, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, after negotiations with Eugene, commanded the burgomaster of Basel not to allow the presence of the council any longer in the imperial city.

Council at Lausanne

In June 1448 the rump of the council migrated to Lausanne. The antipope, at the instance of France, ended by abdicating (7 April 1449). Eugene IV died on 23 February 1447, and the fathers of Lausanne, to save appearances, gave their support to his successor, Pope Nicholas V, who had already been governing the Church for two years. Trustworthy evidence, they said, proved to them that this pontiff accepted the dogma of the superiority of the council as defined at Constance and at Basel.

Aftermath

In reality, the seventeen-year struggle which the fathers had carried on to defend conciliarism, ended in a defeat. The papacy, so fundamentally shaken by the great schism of the West, came through this trial with a pyrrhic victory. The era of the great councils of the 15th century closed and the constitution of the Roman Church remained monarchical, but this left unresolved many of the issues which provoked the Reformation in the next century.

References

• Mansi, vol. xxix.-xxxi.
• Aeneas Sylvius, De rebus Basileae gestis (Fetmo, 1803)
• Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. vii. (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1874)
• O. Richter, Die Organisation and Geschäftsordnung des Basler Konziis (Leipzig, 1877)
• Monumenta Conciliorum generalium seculi xv., Scriptorum, vol. i., ii. and iii. (Vienna, 1857-1895)
• J. Haller, Concilium Basiliense, vol. i.-v. (Basel,1896-1904)
• G. Perouse, Le Cardinal Louis Aleman, président du concile de Bâle (Paris, 1904).
• J. C. L. Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 312ff (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853).
• Johannes Helmrath, Das Basler Konzil; 1431 - 1449; Forschungsstand und Probleme, Köln 1978.
• Stefan Sudmann, Das Basler Konzil: Synodale Praxis zwischen Routine und Revolution (= Tradition - Reform - Innovation, Studien zur Modernität des Mittelalters, Bd. 8), Peter-Lang-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005 (Diss. Münster/Westf. 2004), ISBN 3-631-54266-6

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.

Concile de Bâle バーゼル公会議 Concilie van Bazel Concílio de Basileia-Ferrara-Florença