Great Schism Research Articles

C. M. D. Crowder. <italic>Unity, Heresy and Reform, 1378–1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism</italic>. (Documents of Medieval History, number 3.) New York: St. Martin's Press. 1977. Pp. 212. $19.95

C. M. D. Crowder. Unity, Heresy and Reform, 1378–1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism. (Documents of Medieval History, number 3.) New York: St. Martin's Press. 1977. Pp. 212. $19.95 Crowder C. M. D.. Unity, Heresy and Reform, 1378–1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism. (Documents of Medieval History, number 3.) New York: St. Martin's Press. 1977. Pp. 212. $19.95. Louis B. Pascoe Louis B. Pascoe Fordham University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 83, Issue 3, June 1978, Pages 700–701, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/83.3.700-a Published: 01 June 1978

Unity, Heresy and Reform, 1378-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism

Unity, Heresy and Reform, 1378-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism

The University of Cologne and the Great Schism

From 1378 to 1418, the Roman Church was faced with a situation hitherto unprecedented. For the first time in its history, it experienced a schism for which its constitution, as accepted in 1378, could provide no solution: there were two popes, both of whom could claim to have been legally elected. The dissident cardinals who rebelled against Urban vi in July 1378, only three months after they had elected him pope, discovered some legal (although admittedly rather spurious) grounds for denouncing the election and declaring the papacy vacant; a step followed in September by the election of the cardinal Robert of Geneva as rival pope, taking the name of Clement VII.

The Fourteenth-Century Franciscans and Their Critics

THE FOURTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCISCANS AND THEIR CRITICS I. The Order's Growth and Character Historians of the Franciscan Order have written about the period between the mid-fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries as an adjunct to two peripheral themes: the rise of the Observants and the Great Schism. Conscious of the parallel development of the Observants , some have seen in Conventual history little beyond the decadence and decline that inevitably precede a reform movement.1 Those who have studied the Franciscan involvement in the schism, on the other hand, have either overlooked the Order's internal history entirely or have subordinated it to the broader subject of Minorite participation in church history.2 Writing on Conventual history after 1350, J. R. H. Moorman, David Knowles, A. G. Little and 1 Riccardo Pratesi, for example, in "Francesco Micheli del Padovano, di Firenze, teólogo ed umanista francescano del sec. XV," Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 47 and 48 (1954 and 1955), refers to the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries as an era of "slackness" and "decadence" in the Order, and points to the insubordination, strife and violence of the friars, along with their ambition for offices, as evidence of this. 2 In a pair of complementary articles, "Die avignonesische Obedienz der Mendikanterorden zur Zeit des grossen Schismas," in Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte, I and II, and "Die avignonesische Obedienz im Franziskanerorden zur Zeit des grossen abendländischen Schismas," in Franziskanische Studien, I (1914), 165-192, 312-327 and 479-490, Konrad Eubel edited and commented on documents illustrating the history of the Clementine friars during the schism. Otto Hüttebräuker, Der Minoritenorden zur Zeit des Grossen Schismas (Berlin, 1893), is limited to an appreciation of structural changes in the Order and a survey of benefits conferred on the Minorites by the Urbanist and Clementine popes. However, he does recognize in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries "the most important and far-reaching period in the Order's history after the early thirteenth century," and concludes that, because of the even closer ties with the papacy created during the schism, the Franciscan Order consciously underwent a tremendous revitalization and advance, which assured its predominant position in the fifteenth century. ??8CAROLLY ERICKSON others gave an important emphasis to the anti-mendicant literature of the period. And, although they make allowances for exaggeration in degree in the works of the friars' critics, they largely accept their allegations in kind. Too often the abundant anti-mendicant literature of these years has been used to prove flagrant laxness among the Conventuals by historians who have then argued that this corruption itself accounts for the copious writings against the friars. Moorman repeats the accusations in the critical treatises largely without comment, despite his acquaintance with much of the documentary evidence from within the Order.3 Knowles points to the "spirit of the age" as one cause of the fourteenth-century criticism of the mendicants, and notes that historians' dark view of the period after 1350 has been influenced by their estimates of the psychological and demographic effects of the plague of 1348-49.4 The assumption of an inevitable link between falling population and spiritual decline has distorted the interpretation of fourteenth-century history. In Studies in English Franciscan History, A. G. Little was ambivalent in his use of the satirical and polemical literature against the friars, now acknowledging its validity, now adopting a skeptical attitude toward it.5 In an important article on the mendicant-clerical disputes of the fourteenth century, Père Hugolin Lippens shed new light on anti-mendicant criticism. Stressing the clergy's reliance on custom and that of the mendicants on written law, he showed that jurisdictional clashes and written polemic between the two groups were all but inevitable.6 By contrast, G. M. Trevelyan, who wrote a good deal about the friars in his England in the Age of Wyclif, was only too happy to use the claims of Wyclif and other opponents of the friars to make a case against them, and freely admitted his reliance on the critical literature: In the attempt that I have made in this chapter to give some representation...

The University of St. Andrews and the Great Schism, 1410–1419

Of the many testimonials to the importance of the role assumed by the European universities in the political and ecclesiastical machinations which accompanied attempts to find a solution to the problems created by the elections of the rival popes Urban VI and Clement VII in 1378, there is none more striking than the tract written by Boniface Ferrer (brother of the saint) in 1411, after the Council of Pisa in 1409 had declared both the then rivals deposed, and had replaced them by Alexander v. This tract, intended as a defence of the Avignonese claimant, Benedict XIII is an extremely bitter attack on the academics of the day, both individually and generally. Several of them are singled out for criticism, especially those who had taken a major part in producing the conciliarist viewpoint. Thus, Simon de Cramaud, patriarch of Alexandria and acting president of the Council of Pisa for most of its sessions, is twice called an heresiarch. Many of the other major thinkers of the day have their integrity attacked, notably Pierre d'Ailly, bishop of Cambrai, and Baldus de Ubaldis, one of the major lawyers of the period.

Medicine's great schism: prevention vs. cure: an historical interpretation.

All societies, primitive and advanced, demand therapeutic services, but a society must develop sophisticated prerequisites before it can support preventive services. This discordance in the origins of curative medicine and public health does not explain why a schism between them still persists. This gap should be closed since medicine has cured most curable diseases and the residue of chronic conditions is best handled by preventing them or detecting them before they become medical crises. Reasons for persistence of the schism include; early concentration of public health on environmental sanitation to the exclusion of medicine; identification of public health was governmental bureaucracy; linking care of the poor with tight-fisted welfarism; existence of two separate educational systems, the view of doctors, who are activists by nature, toward the excitement of cure; the custom of paying only for active therapy; and the orientation of the Hippocratic ethic toward individuals.

Nicholas of Cusa and the End of the Conciliar Movement: A Humanist Crisis of Identity

The ignominious end of the conciliar movement in the mid-fifteenth century strikes many contemporary historians and theologians as one of the tragedies in the history of western civilization. Having shown great promise as an instrument of ecclesiastical reform and credited with ending the scandalous Great Western Schism in 1417, the movement for all practical purposes reached an inglorious end with the signing of the Concordat of Vienna in 1448. Though the tragic dimensions of the movement's demise are somewhat diminished by the truth of Tierney's conjecture that “the merely constitutional reforms emphasized in the conciliar programme could not have produced the much-needed regeneration in the whole life of the Church”, one is nevertheless inclined to view with sadness the neutralization of the nascent democratic aspirations which conciliarism represented.

Textus Breviores Theologiam et Historiam Spectantes by Collezione della Pontificia Accademia Teologica Romana

BOOK REVIEWS 177 can the various positions; indeed, the theologian not thoroughly familiar with his own tradition sheds little light on an ecumenical stage. The temptation is to nod graciously in the direction of whatever sounds nice; this makes for pleasant tea but aimless theology. Even those whose discussion is quite intramural, within an increasingly pluralistic Roman Catholicism, often fail to understand the depth and sophistication of other points of view. Ramirez':; work should contribute to a better understanding of a not uninfluential strain of thought in the Roman Catholic tradition; dialogue with the pressing questions of today will be profitable to the extent that at least a few of the participants are familiar with the theological school which Ramirez has served so well. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. WILLIAM J. FINAN, 0. P. Textus Breviores Theologiam et Historiam Spectantes. Collezione della Pontificia Accademia Teologica Romana. Liberia Editrice Vaticana. (1) Ba:rtolomeo Carranza, 0. P., Arcivescovo di Toledo (t 1576) De Mysticis Nuptiis Verbi Divini cum Ecclesia et Animabus Iustorum. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 55. L. 400 (2) Agostino Favaroni da Roma, 0. S. A., Arcivescovo di Nazaret (t 1443) De Sacramento Unitatis Christi et Ecclesiae sive de Christo Integro. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 77. L. 700 (3) Guglilemo Amidani da Cremona, 0. S. A. Vescovo di Novara (t 1366) De Primatu Petri et de Origine Potestatis Episcoporum . By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 52. L. 500 (4) Domenico de' Domenichi, Vescovo di Brescia (t 1488) Oratio in laudem Beatissimae Caterinae de Senis. By ANTONIO PIOLANTI. Pp. 38. L. 400 (I) Bartolomeo was one of the Imperial theologians of Charles V at the Council of Trent, a contemporary of the great Vitoria and of Melchior Cano of the school of Salamanca. This is one of his unpublished works. It aims at harmonizing the community aspects of the marriage of God's Word with his Church and the more personal aspect of the marriage, so dear to St. Bernard. This suited the trend of piety fostered by the reform of Trent. Shortly after becoming the Archbishop of Toledo the author passed through a cloud of suspicion because of his commentary on the Christian Catechism. He was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but his cause was vindicated by Pope St. Pius V, during whose pontificate his work on the 178 BOOK REVIEWS mystical marriage was written. This more than guarantees his orthodoxy, and although it is not remarkable for originality, it succeeds in systematizing a treatise that was vaguely mystical, and it gathers together the scattered sources on the subject, biblical, patristic, and theological. (!i~) The editor of these texts presents the second fruit of his painstaking research in the hope that it will help students to understand neglected periods and personalities in the history of theology. The author of this work in mystical ecclesiology was born at Rome in 1360 and died in Prato in 1443. He was for two terms the Prior General of the Augustinians. Nominated Archbishop of Nazareth in Italy he participated in the Council of Basle, which at its QQnd session condemned a number of statements contained in his works, especially his lectures on the Apocalypse. Although he commented on the philosophy of Aristotle, he took little notice of St. Thomas, while attempting to give new and original answers to questions already profoundly examined by him. This was due to his critical reaction to the decadent scholasticism of his own time. But his errors began from this arrogant originality. This work on the unity of the Church was written to solve problems arising from the great schism of the West. (3) Msgr. Piolanti gives another reason for publishing this series of textus breviores which is applicable to this fourteenth-century study of the relations between popes and bishops: this question received new attention during and since the Second Vatican Council. The editor regrets the haste with which articles were written and, in the light of this and other neglected sources, sees the need for revising inaccurate statements bearing on the history of the theology of this question. To help scholars, the general editor of these texts has published this work of Guglielmo Amidani, who was for sixteen years...

The letters of the university of Oxford on withdrawal of obedience from pope Boniface IX

In this paper I shall discuss two letters apparently sent in 1399 by the University of Oxford to Richard II, in answer to the king’s request for advice on whether to withdraw obedience from pope Boniface IX in an endeavour to end the great schism. There has been a controversy about which letter represents the official view of the university, and this argument has largely arisen, I suspect, because hitherto one of the letters has been studied in its printed form which is incomplete and does not give a true idea of its arguments. I will also consider how these letters are to be seen in the context of the final stages of Richard II’s policy on the schism.

Richard II and the church in the years of ‘tyranny’

The years 1396–1399 were critical ones in terms of European and English politics alike and, concomitantly, in the course of the Great Schism of the West. England's attitude to the Schism at this time has hitherto been considered primarily from a presupposition of Richard II's own attitude and authority and as an aspect of European politics. An examination of the direct relationship between Richard II and both the Urbanist papacy and the English Church raises some doubts about the extent of his authority in ecclesiastical affairs both before and after his emphatic reassertion of his prerogative in 1397. Particular consideration is given to his personal view of his proper interest. A discussion of the effect of royal policy on the English Church, especially in respect of the episcopate, suggests that, both in practice and in theory, his influence, whilst strong, rested on co-operation as much as coercion, and the nature of the Anglo-papal concordat of November 1398 is reconsidered in this light. It is suggested that greater stress should be laid on the spiritual considerations which weighed with all parties at the time alongside those of a more familiar secular kind.

New Norcia and the Great Schism of Perth

New Norcia and the Great Schism of Perth

The La Grange Tomb and Choir: A Monument of the Great Schism of the West

The La Grange Tomb and Choir: A Monument of the Great Schism of the West

A sermon by John Luke on the ending of the great schism, 1409

In 1409 the council of Pisa, called by the cardinals in defiance of two rival popes, attempted to end the thirty-year-old Great Schism by deposing both rivals for heresy and schism. On 26 June 1409, the cardinals unanimously elected as pope Peter Philargi of Candia, cardinal ‘of Milan’, and amid general rejoicing he took the name Alexander V. The schism seemed over, provided that all the powers of Europe were prepared to acknowledge the new pope. Some time after the new election but before 27 July 1409, master John Luke who was at the council as a theologian, probably representing Oxford university, preached a sermon before the new pope, praising his election and hopeful of his role in the unity of the Church. Luke gave an elaborate justification of the deposition for heresy and schism of Gregory XII (the Roman pope, whom the English thought was the true one). It is with this sermon that I am concerned in the present paper.

A Lament on the Death of John of Legnano

When John of Legnano died in Bologna on 16 February 1383, the University lost an esteemed professor and the city one of its best loved leaders. Born in Milan and educated at Bologna, Legnano became well known as a professor of canon law at the University and a man of wide learning, loyal both to the Church and to the city which adopted him. His writings were numerous, ranging from standard legal commentaries and tracts to treatises on theology, moral and political philosophy, astronomy, and optics. His broadest reputation, however, came from the authorship of De Fletu Ecclesiae (1378-1380), a series of arguments defending the validity of Urban VI's election at the outbreak of the Great Western Schism. Through this work he became the chief spokesman for the Italian Pope on a politicalecclesiastical question which concerned every state in Europe.

The Great Schism, 1378. By John Holland Smith. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970. 280 pp. Illustrated. $7.50.

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REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTES

REVIEWS AND SHORT NOTES

The Representation of the universitas fidelium in the councils of the conciliar period

The Council of Pisa was the fruit of a long period of gestation. Intermittently over centuries canonists had discussed where in various contingencies the supreme authority in the Church lay—with the pope, the cardinals, the universitas fidelium in a general council. Twice in the fourteenth century theory was nearly tested by practice, when Philip the Fair opposed Boniface VIII and when Louis of Bavaria faced John XXII. The final challenge was given by the Great Schism. Begun in 1378 it dragged on for decades, causing irreparable damage to Christian Europe. Neither of the rival ‘popes’ showed any genuine goodwill to end it. So others, particularly in France, lent a hand. When Benedict XIII in Avignon refused the via cessionis (abdication) and paid only lip-service to the via discussionis, the court of Paris withdrew its obedience and the theologians of the French universities justified the royal action.

Nicholas Ryssheton and the Council of Pisa, 1409

In November 1408 Henry IV finally decided that England would support the Council of Pisa, called by the cardinals in defiance of the rival popes in the Great Schism. The decision seems to have met little opposition, but it must have involved at least some readjustment of ideas for Englishmen. There were of course good traditional arguments in favour of the Council, and we know now that the Government had not always taken a rigidly pro-Roman stand in moves to end the Schism, but Henry’s English ecclesiastical contemporaries at least had been used to a policy which supported the Roman pope and which insisted that if a Council were called, only their pope (Gregory XII) could call it. In accepting Pisa they were accepting a Council which would proceed whether or not he supported it, and a policy knowingly designed to secure his removal, with or without his consent.

REVIEWS

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Review of Book: The Great Schism 1378

Review of Book: The Great Schism 1378