Questions before the Council of Constance—The Hussite Movement—Its Political Aspect—Exodus of Germans from Prague—Hus at the Council of Constance—Parties at Constance—Hus imprisoned—Attacks on John XXIII.—His flight—Triumph of Sigismund—Deposition of John XXIII.—The Council during Sigismund’s absence—Sigismund’s journey—Dissensions in the Council—Election of Martin V.—Dissolution of the Council.

The Council of Constance, like that of Pisa, had two very |Questions before the Council of Constance.| obvious questions to consider: (1) the restoration of unity; and (2), if the reforming party could have its way, the reform of the Church in its head and members. But circumstances forced the Council to consider a third question, which had never been even touched in the discussions at Pisa. This was reformation in its widest sense: not merely a constitutional change in the relations of Pope and hierarchy, but a vital change in dogma and ritual. This question was brought to the front by the so-called Hussite movement in Bohemia. The fundamental issues involved were those which have been at the bottom of most subsequent disputes in the Christian Church. How far was the Christianity of the day unlike the Christianity to be found in the record of Christ and His Apostles? And the difference, if any, was it a real and necessary difference consequent on the development of society, or was it the result of abuses and innovations introduced by fallible men? The orthodox took their stand upon the unity and authority of the Church. The Church was the true foundation of Christ and the inheritor of His spirit. Therefore what the Church believed and taught, that alone was the true Christian doctrine: and the forms and ceremonies of the Church were the necessary aids to faith. The reformers, on the other hand, looked to Scripture for the fundamental rules of life and conduct. Any deviation from these rules, no matter on what authority, must be superfluous, and might very probably be harmful.

The Hussite movement was older than Hus, and it was |The Hussite movement.| partly native and partly foreign in its origin. The first impulse to religious reform is to be found, in Bohemia as in England, in the dissensions between the parish clergy and the mendicant orders. The latter, being in immediate dependence upon the Papacy, were not subject to the ordinary authority of the bishops, and soon learned to consider themselves superior to the parish clergy. The bishops usually supported their own dependants, while the friars often found a powerful ally in the Pope. One result of this long-standing quarrel was that the people learned to question the authority of their ecclesiastical superiors. Wherever it is necessary or possible to take one of two sides, a certain amount of thought and independence is called into exercise by the choice. This first questioning spirit among the Bohemians was taken advantage of by a series of reforming teachers in the fourteenth century, of whom the best known are Konrad Waldhäuser, Milecz of Kremsier, and Mathias of Janow. These men attacked the degradation of the Church, the vices of monks and friars, the wealth and worldliness of the higher clergy. But it was not until the rise of Hus that there was any system in the demand for reform, or any cohesion among the reformers. And the systematic teaching of Hus was for the most part derived from the great English teacher, John Wyclif. It was a rule in the University of Prague that Bachelors of Arts might not deliver their own lectures, but must expound the teaching of distinguished professors either of Prague, Paris, or Oxford. The marriage of Anne of Bohemia, Wenzel’s sister, with Richard II. led to considerable intercourse between England and Bohemia. Many Bohemian students, notably the friend and disciple of Hus, Jerome of Prague, completed part of their course in Oxford, and returned to their native land carrying with them Wyclif’s treatises, or the record and recollection of his oral teaching. Wyclif, like the Bohemian reformers, had begun by quarrelling with the friars and denouncing the vices of the clergy. The disputes with the Avignon Popes had led him on to attack the extreme claims of papal authority: and gradually he had come to question some of the most prominent dogmas of the Church, notably that of transubstantiation. Hus was at first reluctant to accept all the conclusions of Wyclif, but he advanced step by step in the same direction, and in the end it was as the avowed disciple of the English reformer that he became the leader of a religious party in Bohemia.

But it is important to remember that the Hussite movement had a secular as well as an ecclesiastical side. Bohemia |Political aspect of the Hussite movement.| was a Slav state, and for centuries there had been a conflict between Slavs and Germans. At one time the Slavs had advanced along the southern shores of the Baltic almost as far as the North Sea. But, harassed by the attacks of the Magyars, they had been unable to hold their own, and had gradually been subdued or driven eastwards by German influences, represented by the Dukes of Saxony, the Margraves of Brandenburg, the Hanseatic League, and finally the crusading order of the Teutonic Knights. At the end of the fourteenth century this steady eastward advance of the Germans met with a severe, and to some extent a permanent, check. No doubt the chief agency in effecting this was the success of the Jagellon kings of Poland in their war with the Teutonic Order. But the Hussite movement belongs to the same Slav reaction, and for a time contributed almost as directly as Polish victories to assure the successful resistance of the Slavs. Hus himself, born of humble parentage in the village of Husinec, was profoundly imbued with popular sympathies, and lost no opportunity of identifying himself and his teaching with the national cause. And in this aim he was served by events in the University of Prague, where he early rose to a distinguished position. Founded in the days of Bohemian ascendency under Charles IV., the University had from the first attracted a large number of German teachers and students, and had become far larger and more distinguished than any purely German university. Like the Paris University, on which it had been modelled, it was divided into four nations—Bohemians, Poles, Bavarians, and Saxons. After the foundation of a Polish university at Cracow, the Polish nation at Prague had come to be composed mainly of Germans from Silesia, Pomerania, and Prussia. Thus to all intents and purposes the University was composed of two nations, Germans and Bohemians, of whom the former had three times as much power as the latter. In all questions which were decided by the vote of the nations, the Germans had three votes to one, and as offices went in rotation to the four nations, they had three turns to the Bohemian one. As the divergent interests of Slavs and Germans became accentuated by political and religious differences, the inferiority of the Bohemians in their own University became more and more of a grievance. It was on religious questions that the quarrel was most embittered. The majority of the orthodox party in the University consisted of Germans, and they denounced the growth of Wycliffite heresy. A German teacher brought forward a number of propositions which had been attributed to Wyclif and condemned by a Synod in London. In spite of the opposition of Hus and his Bohemian supporters, the majority in the University voted that the doctrines were heretical, and prohibited their teaching. Wenzel, who was at this time supporting the rebellious cardinals, was anxious that his intervention should not be weakened by the charge of the prevalence of heresy in his dominions, and was at first inclined to support the majority. But when he applied to the University for their approval of the Council of Pisa, he found the Bohemians ready to acquiesce, while the Germans were mostly on the side of the Roman Pope. At this moment the so-called ‘contest of the three votes’ was at its height, and Hus had adroitly come forward as the champion of the cause of his fellow-countrymen. In the hope of forwarding his ecclesiastical policy, Wenzel was induced to intervene in the University quarrel. In January 1409 he issued an edict that henceforth the Bohemians should have three votes and three turns in office, while the foreign nations were only to have one between them. The Germans protested vigorously, and as they failed to obtain redress, determined to leave Prague. The roads were crowded with the emigrants, and it was reckoned that on one day two thousand Germans took their departure.

The exodus of the Germans from Prague is an important |Exodus of the Germans from Prague.| historical event. For sixty years Prague had been the capital of Germany, partly as the residence of the Emperor, and partly as the seat of the leading University. With the students had come German traders, who had made Prague a commercial as well as an intellectual centre. All this came to a sudden end in 1409. Prague lost its prominence among German towns. Other universities were strengthened by the addition of the exiles from Bohemia; and a large number of them founded a new university at Leipzig. Germany received a great intellectual impulse, which was strengthened rather than weakened by the loss of a general centre. And for Bohemia the consequences were no less important. The German element in the country received a blow which was fatal to its further development for two centuries. At the same time the great dam which had hitherto impeded the spread of the new religious doctrines was removed. The rapidity with which the people received the Wycliffite or Hussite teaching shows not only that the soil was already well prepared for the seed, but also the strength of the national antipathy to foreigners.

With the departure of the Germans, all opposition to the recognition of the Council of Pisa by Bohemia came to an end. But the religious dispute was as far from a settlement as ever. Although the people were inclined to regard Hus as the champion of the national cause, there was still a large orthodox party among the upper classes, and the clergy were resolutely opposed to doctrinal reform. Alexander V. issued a bull ordering the Archbishop of Prague to put down heresy, and Wyclif’s writings were publicly burned. Hus appealed from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope when he should be better informed. In 1412 the quarrel was envenomed. John XXIII. had proclaimed a crusade against Ladislas of Naples, and endeavoured to raise money by the sale of indulgences. Hus protested against such an iniquity as vigorously as did Luther a century later, and the papal bull was burned in the public square. Riots broke out in Prague, and Bohemia seemed to be on the verge of civil war. Wenzel could only obtain a temporary truce by persuading Hus to retire for a time into the country. Meanwhile Sigismund had succeeded in inducing John XXIII. to summon a General Council, and anxious to pacify his future kingdom, he invited Hus to attend. The reformer’s friends warned him of the danger he would run in accepting the invitation, but Hus was eager to state his opinions before an assembly of Christendom, and on receiving a promise of |Hus invited to Constance.| a personal safe-conduct from Sigismund, he arrived in Constance on November 3, 1414.

The Council of Constance is one of the most notable |The Council of Constance.| assemblies in the history of the world. In the number and fame of its members, in the importance of its objects, and above all, in the dramatic interest of its records, it has few rivals. It is like the meeting of two worlds, the old and the new, the mediæval and the modern. We find there represented views which have hardly yet been fully accepted, which have occupied the best minds of succeeding centuries: at the same time, the Council itself and its ceremonial carry us back to the times of the Roman Empire, when Church and State were scarcely yet dual, and when Christianity was co-extensive with one united Empire. At Constance all the ideas, religious and political, of the Middle Ages seem to be put upon their trial. If that trial had ended in condemnation, there could be no fitter point to mark the division between mediæval and modern history. But the verdict was acquittal, or at least a partial acquittal; and the old system was allowed, under modified conditions, a lease of life for another century. It must not be forgotten that there were great secular as well as ecclesiastical interests involved in the Council. Princes and nobles were present as well as cardinals and prelates. The Council may be regarded not only as a great assembly of the Church, but also as a great diet of the mediæval empire.

The man who had done more than any one to procure the summons of the Council, and whose interests were most closely |Parties at Constance.| bound up in its success, was Sigismund, King of the Romans and potential Emperor. He was eager to terminate the schism, and to bring about such a reform in the Church as would prevent the recurrence of similar scandals. But his motive in this was not merely disinterested devotion to the interests of the Church. He wished to revive the prestige of the Holy Roman Empire, and to gratify his own personal vanity, by posing as the secular head of Christendom and the arbiter of its disputes. More especially he wished to restore the authority of the monarchy in Germany, and to put an end to that anarchic independence of the princes, of which the recent schism was both the illustration and the result. In pursuing this aim he was confronted by the champions of ‘liberty’ and princely interests, who were represented at Constance by the Archbishop of Mainz and Frederick of Hapsburg, Count of Tyrol. The archbishop, John of Nassau, had been prominent in effecting and prolonging the schism in the Empire. He was a firm supporter of John XXIII., and had no interest in attending the Council except to thwart the designs of the king, whom he had been the last to accept. Frederick of Tyrol was the youngest son of that Duke Leopold who had fallen at Sempach in the war with the Swiss. Of his father’s possessions Frederick had inherited Tyrol and the Swabian lands, and the propinquity of his territories made him a powerful personage at Constance. His family was the chief rival of the House of Luxemburg for ascendency in eastern Germany, and he himself seems to have cherished a personal grudge against Sigismund. To these enemies Sigismund could oppose two loyal allies, the Elector Palatine Lewis, who had completely abandoned the anti-Luxemburg policy pursued by his father Rupert, and Frederick of Hohenzollern, the most prominent representative of national sentiment in Germany, who had already given in Brandenburg an example of that restoration of order which he wished Sigismund to effect throughout his dominions.

Of the clerical members of the Council the most prominent at the commencement was the Pope John XXIII. He had been forced by his difficulties in Italy to issue the summons, but as the time for the meeting approached he felt more and more misgiving. His one object was to maintain himself in office; but he was conscious that neither Sigismund nor the cardinals would hesitate to throw him over if he stood in the way of the restoration of unity. He therefore allied himself with Sigismund’s opponents, the Elector of Mainz and Frederick of Tyrol, and spared no pains to bring about dissension between Sigismund and the Council.

The assembled clergy may be divided roughly into two parties: the reformers, and the conservative or ultramontane |Clerical parties.| party. The reformers were not in favour of any radical change in the Church. They were if anything more vehemently opposed than their antagonists to the doctrines of Wyclif and Hus. Such reform as they desired was aristocratic rather than democratic. They had no intention of weakening the authority of the Church; but within the Church they desired to remove gross abuses, and to strengthen the hierarchy as against the Papacy. Their chief contention was that a General Council has supreme authority, even over the Pope, and they wished such councils to meet at regular intervals. By this means papal absolutism would be limited by a sort of oligarchical parliament within the Church. The conservatives, on the other hand, consisting chiefly of the cardinals and Italian prelates, had no wish to alter a system under which they enjoyed material advantages. Their object, as it had been at Pisa, was to restore the union of the Church, but to defeat, or at any rate postpone, any schemes of reform.

The Council was opened on November 5, but the meeting was only formal, and no real business was transacted for a month. Meanwhile Hus had been followed to Constance by the representatives of the orthodox party in Bohemia, who brought a formidable list of charges against the reformer. John XXIII. at once saw in this an opportunity for embroiling the Council with Sigismund. Adroitly keeping himself in the background, he allowed the cardinals to take the lead in the matter. They summoned Hus to appear before them, and in spite of his protest that he was only answerable to the whole Council, they committed |Hus imprisoned.| him to prison. The news that his safe-conduct had been so insultingly disregarded reached Sigismund as he was starting for Constance after the coronation ceremony at Aachen. He arrived on Christmas day, and at once demanded that Hus should be released. The Pope excused himself, and threw the blame on the cardinals. To the king’s right to protect his subject the cardinals opposed their duty to suppress heresy. In high dudgeon, Sigismund declared that he would leave the Council to its fate, and actually set out on his return journey. The Pope was jubilant at the success of his wiles. But Sigismund’s friends, and especially Frederick of Hohenzollern, urged him not to sacrifice the interests of Germany and of Christendom for the sake of a heretic. This advice, and the feeling that his personal reputation was staked on the success of the Council, triumphed. Sigismund returned to Constance, and Hus remained a prisoner. From this moment John XXIII. began to despair.

The Pope’s position became worse when the Council, copying the procedure of the universities, began to discuss matters, |Attacks on John XXIII.| not in a general assembly, but each nation separately. This deprived John of the advantage which he hoped to gain from the numerical majority of Italian prelates attending the Council. Four nations organised themselves: Italians, French, Germans, and English. Over the last three John XXIII. had no hold whatever. To his disgust they treated him, not as the legitimate Pope, whose authority was to be vindicated against his rivals, but as one of three schismatic Popes, whose retirement was a necessary condition of the restoration of unity. When he tried to evade their demand, they brought unanswerable charges against his personal character, and threatened to depose him. He tried to disarm hostility by declaring his readiness to resign if the other Popes would do the same. His promise was welcomed with enthusiasm, but neither Sigismund nor his supporters were softened by it. In spite of the vehement protests of the Elector of Mainz that he would obey no Pope but John XXIII., the proposal was made to proceed to a new election. John had to fall back upon his last expedient. If he departed from Constance he might throw the Council into fatal |The Pope’s flight.| confusion: at the worst he could maintain himself as an Antipope, as Gregory and Benedict had done against the Council of Pisa. His ally Frederick of Tyrol was prepared to assist him. Frederick arranged a tournament outside the walls, and while this absorbed public interest, the Pope escaped from Constance in the disguise of a groom, and made his way to Schaffhausen, a strong castle of the Hapsburg count.

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.