engaged in discussion, some of whom felt the spirit of free inquiry which was then stirring in Latin Christendom. As in 1046, at the instance of Henry III, the synod of Sutri deposed three popes, all resident in Rome, and elected a fourth, so for the second time this council decided between the claims of three pontiffs and, setting all three aside, chose a fourth. This it did by virtue of the supreme authority it asserted for itself in the church on earth. Gregory XII of the Roman line was prevailed upon to resign. Benedict XIII of the Avignon line, and John XXIII of the Pisan succession were deposed. Martin V was then elected pope and all Western Christendom was reunited under a single earthly head with the exception of a small Spanish territory, where a few thousand adherents continued to cling to the obedience of Benedict until that vigorous ruler’s death, 1424.
Effective as the council’s action was in doing away with the rival popes, its decision constituting itself the supreme tribunal in the church was doomed to be rudely set aside. The church had been reading, or was about to read, stirring tracts issued by Konrad of Gelnhausen, Henry of Langenstein, Gerson, Dietrich of Nieheim, Peter d’Ailly, and Nicholas of Clemanges, in which were discussed the questions of the supreme earthly seat of authority and the undone condition of the church, the result in part of the papal schism. The decision of its fifth session, when it placed itself above the pope, was in accord with the theory of the ancient church but conflicted with the theory for which Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII had stood.
An œcumenical council, so Gerson asserted in a famous sermon preached at Constance, March 23, 1415, has authority to punish popes and set them aside.[1] A pontiff is set over the church as Joseph was set over his master’s wife, not to debauch her but to guard her interests. A pontiff may be
- ↑ Du Pin’s ed, of Gerson’s Works, 2: 219. The terms church and general council he used as synonymous, p. 172.
