Council of Constance

The Council of Constance is the 15th ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, held from 1414 to 1418. The council ended the Western Schism, by deposing the remaining Papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V. 
The Council also condemned and executed Jan Hus and ruled on issues of national sovereignty, the rights of pagans, and just war in response to a conflict between the Kingdom of Poland and the Order of the Teutonic Knights. The Council is important for its relationship to the development of the Councilarism and Papal supremacy.
==Origin and background==
The council was called by the German King Sigismund (later Holy Roman Emperor), a supporter of John XXIII, the pope recently elected at Pisa (and later declared an Antipope). The council was held from November 16, 1414 to April 22, 1418 in Constance (currently known as Konstanz). Its main purpose was to end the Papal schism which had resulted from the confusion following both the Avignon Papacy and the Council of Pisa (which had sought to resolve the situation). The Council of Constance marked the high point of the Conciliar movement to reform the Church. According to Joseph McCabe, the council was attended by roughly 29 cardinals, 100 "learned doctors of law and divinity," 134 abbots, 183 bishops and archbishops. 
At the time the council was called, there were three Popes (Benedict XIII, Gregory XII, and John XXIII) all of whom claimed legitimacy. A few years earlier, in one of the first blows to the Conciliar movement, the bishops at the Council of Pisa had deposed the two claimant popes and elected a third pope, claiming that in such a situation, a council of bishops had greater authority than just one bishop, even if he were the bishop of Rome. 
An innovation at the Council was that instead of voting as individuals, the bishops voted in national blocs, explicitly confirming the national pressures that had fueled the schism since 1378.
==Decrees and doctrinal status==
The famous Haec sancta decree on papal primacy and infallibility was promulgated in the fifth session, April 6, 1415. Its declaration that
:Legitimately assembled in the holy Spirit, constituting a general council and representing the Catholic church militant, it has power immediately from Christ; and that everyone of whatever state or dignity, even papal, is bound to obey it in those matters which pertain to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the general reform of the said church of God in head and members.
marks the high water mark of the Conciliar movement of reform . This decree, however, is not considered valid by the Catholic Church, since it was never approved by Pope Gregory XII or his successors, and was passed by the Council in a session before his confirmation. The Church declared the first sessions of the Council of Constance an invalid and illicit assembly of Bishops, gathered under the authority of Emperor Sigismund and Antipope John XXIII.
The acts of the Council were not made public until 1442, at the behest of the Council of Basel; they were printed in 1500. The creation of a book on how to die was ordered by the council, and thus written in 1415 called Ars moriendi.
==Ending the Western Schism==
With the support of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, enthroned before the high altar of the cathedral of Constance, the Council of Constance recommended that all three popes abdicate, and that another be chosen. In part because of the constant presence of the emperor, other rulers demanded that they have a say in who would be pope. 
Gregory XII then sent representatives to Constance, whom he granted full powers to summon, open and preside over an Ecumenical Council; he also empowered them to present his resignation to the Papacy. This would pave the way for the end of the Western Schism. 
The legates were received by Emperor Sigismund and by the assembled Bishops, and the Emperor yielded the presidency of the proceedings to the papal legates, Cardinal Dominici of Ragusa and Prince Charles of Malatesta. On 4 July 1415 the Bull of Gregory XII which appointed Malatesta and Cardinal Dominici of Ragusa as his proxies at the council was formally read before the assembled Bishops. The cardinal then read a decree of Gregory XII which convoked the council and authorized its succeeding acts. Thereupon, the Bishops voted to accept the summons. Prince Malatesta immediately informed the Council that he was empowered by a commission from Pope Gregory XII to resign the Papal Throne on the Pontiff's behalf. He asked the Council whether they would prefer to receive the abdication at that point or at a later date. The Bishops voted to receive the Papal abdication immediately. Thereupon the commission by Gregory XII authorizing his proxy to resign the Papacy on his behalf was read and Malatesta, acting in the name of Gregory XII, pronounced the resignation of the papacy by Gregory XII and handed a written copy of the resignation to the assembly.
Former Pope Gregory XII was then created titular Cardinal Bishop of Porto and Santa Ruffina by the Council, with rank immediately below the Pope (which made him the highest ranking person in the Church, since, due to his abdication, the See of Peter was vacant). Gregory XII's cardinals were accepted as true cardinals by the Council, but the members of the council delayed electing a new pope for fear that a new pope would restrict further discussion of pressing issues in the Church. 
By the time the anti-popes were all deposed and the new Pope, Martin V, was elected, two years had passed since Gregory XII's abdication, and Gregory was already dead. The council with great care to protect the legitimacy of the succession, ratified all his acts and a new pontiff was chosen. The new pope, Martin V, elected November 1417, soon asserted the absolute authority of the papal office.
==Condemnation of Jan Hus==
A second goal of the council was to continue the reforms begun at the Council of Pisa. These reforms were largely directed against John Wycliff, mentioned in the opening session, and condemned in the eighth, May 4, 1415 and Jan Hus, and their followers. Jan Hus, summoned to Constance under a letter of indemnity, was condemned by council and burned at the stake notwithstanding on 6 July 1415.
==Polish-Teutonic conflict==
During the council there were also political topics discussed, such as the accusation by the Teutonic Knights that Poland was defending pagans. Paweł Włodkowic, rector of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, presented there the theory that all nations, including pagan ones, have the right to self-government and to live in peace and possess their land, which is one of the earliest ideas of international law:
*Communities have the right to determine to which nation they belong; 
*Peoples have the right to decide on their own future and to defend their nation; 
*Rulers are bound to respect the individual religious convictions of their subjects who cannot be denied their natural rights because of their belief; 
*Conversion through the use of force and coercion is invalid, sinful and deplorable; 
*Conversion can never be used as a pretext for war; 
*Maintenance of peace required an International Tribunal to judge contesting claims. No ruler, not even the Emperor or the Pope, should be able to declare war without submission to due process; 
*The principles of just war are always applicable and binding, regardless as to whether the state, nation or people against whom war is being declared is Christian or not; 
*Non-Christian and non-Catholic nations living at peace with their neighbors have the right to have their sovereignty and the integrity of their territories safeguarded; 
*Neither the Emperor nor the Pope could authorize anything that contradicts the principles of natural law; 
*Poland was bound to the Emperor only when he acted as Defender of the Faith; 
*The right of might erodes international relations like a cancer; 
*Exercising its right to self-defense, a Catholic state can also engage non-Christians or non-Catholics among its forces.
During the proceedings of the Council, John of Falkenberg accused Poles of being: “guilty of the abominable crime of using Pagan allies in their war against the German Order.” He proposed that “the Poles must be exterminated.”doctor John Cassar The Rights of Nations: Reflections on the Address of Pope John Paul II to the 50th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Center for Global Education, St. John's University 1997 In his Liber de doctrina, Falkenberg argued that “the Emperor has the right to slay even peaceful infidels simply because they are pagans; the Poles too should be killed for allying themselves with the infidels and resisting Christian Knights. The Poles deserve death for defending infidels, and should be exterminated even more than the infidels; they should be deprived of their sovereignty and reduced to slavery.” 
 
==References==
*Cantor, Norman F. 1993. Civilization of the Middle Ages pp 498ff.
*Stump, Philip. The Reforms of the Council of Constance (1414-1418). Brill, 1994.
*Tanner, Norman P., editor, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils: Council of Constance 1414-18, excerpts of the sessions (in English)
*Dr. Joseph Cassar: The Rights of Nations
==External links==
*Catholic Encyclopedia: Council of Constance
*Council of Constance
Category:Ecumenical councils
Category:Western Schism