9 - HAEC SANCTA SYNODUS …

Summary

The Councils of Pisa and Constance had a double impact on the church, allowing the recently devised conciliarist programme to be carried out and also producing a fundamental alteration in the balance of forces at work within the ecclesia. The opening of the first of these assemblies marked the beginning of that epoch in ecclesiastical history known as the Conciliar Period, which lasted until Pope Pius II delivered a formal condemnation of the theory of conciliarism in his bull Execrabilis, issued in 1460. The assembly of the Council of Pisa also to some extent marked the end of what had been the apogee of university influence in European affairs, for once the conciliar procedures were under way and ecclesiastical politicians resumed control of the machinery for directing the church, then the involvement and status of the universities were considerably reduced, almost to that of mere spectators.

But although university influence became more remote, the academics were certainly not reduced to impotence. The cardinals had requested many of the universities to send representatives to their intended council – although the Spanish universities are conspicuously absent from the list of known addressees – and in most cases these summonses appear to have been complied with. This was in itself an innovation, but the control which the academics who remained behind could exert over their supposed representatives was strictly limited, largely because of the difficulties of communication over long distances.