The Basel Compactata and the Limits of Religious Coexistence in the Age of Conciliarism and Beyond

Abstract

The Compactata, one of the most significant documents related to the Council of Basel, have not been analyzed and understood properly in the historiography, both in relation to their content and impact. This article aims to provide a better understanding of the Basel Compactata by discussing the controversial nature of these documents as demonstrated in international diplomacy and polemical writings of the fifteenth century. The diplomatic missions of J. Carvajal, N. Cusanus, J. Capistrano, and E. S. Piccolomini prove that the Compactata could easily have become a crucial bone of contention between Catholics and Bohemian Utraquists even on the international level. Rather surprisingly, the Catholic diplomats’ negative approach toward the Compactata does not appear to have been influenced by their origins in the controversial Council of Basel, for other phenomena such as craving for perfect unity and alleged transgressions of the treaties played a more prominent role. A thorough examination of polemical writings shows that there existed major differences between the standard Catholic and Utraquist interpretation of the key provision of the Compactata, which was possible due to their compromise wording. Such differences could affect considerably the situation in the Czech Lands. For instance, the emergence of a semi-independent Utraquist Church after 1436 was not explicitly stated in the Compactata and was enabled by the manner in which the Utraquists interpreted their text. Although the Compactata did contribute to the stabilization of the political situation in the Czech Lands, unproductive disputes over their meaning actually disturbed the idea of peaceful coexistence between the Catholics and Utraquists.

On July 5, 1436, the Moravian city of Jihlava witnessed an event unique in its time. Representatives of the Kingdom of Bohemia and Margravate of Moravia and legates of the Council of Basel concluded treaties aimed primarily at restoring ecclesiastical unity and peace between the Czech Lands and the Roman Catholic Church. These documents, known as the Basel Compactata, were the fruit of lengthy negotiations that had started in 1432 when the council realized that Bohemian Hussitism could not be suppressed by force. By renouncing crusades and relying on diplomacy, the council was conceding that some of the Bohemian demands would have to be met, the most important being permission for the practice of Utraquism, that is, communion for the laity in both kinds. One of the key provisions of the Compactata was indeed recognition of the right of certain inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia to take communion sub utraque specie.¹

Those participating in the 1432–1436 negotiations could hardly have been unaware of the immense importance of the Basel Compactata. Not only did the documents declare unity, peace, and the right to Utraquism, but their agreement opened the way to recognition of Emperor Sigismund's claim to the Bohemian throne. Their impact was also far from limited to the 1430s. The events of subsequent decades showed clearly that the 1436 treaties could influence political and religious life in the long term.²

Although historians have hardly overlooked the Basel Compactata, a great deal of historical research still needs to be done if the 1436 treaties are to be properly understood.³ This article takes a step in that direction by discussing the highly controversial nature of the Compactata. In other words, I intend to show how the Compactata contributed to the actual worsening of Utraquist–Catholic relationships, despite their status as peace treaties. Certainly, various controversies surrounding the Basel Compactata have been addressed in the historiography, but nobody appears to have placed this issue under close scrutiny, and there has also been little endeavor to decode their vagueness. Moreover, a number of historians have presented claims that misinterpret the role of the Compactata within the continuous religious quarrels and the problematic co-existence between the Catholics and Utraquists after 1436. Therefore, this article offers both a description/analysis of controversies pertaining to the Compactata (first in diplomacy, second in polemical writings) and a contestation of questionable claims in other researchers’ works. All in all, the article presents the Compactata as influential and yet highly imperfect peace treaties that became a significant source of religious controversy even outside Central Europe.

A Brief Overview of Historiography

The controversial nature of the Basel Compactata has mostly been addressed in relation to the Catholics who questioned their validity. Their vagueness (a major cause of the subsequent religious disputes) has been pointed out by G. Heymann, P. Čornej, T. Woelki, B. Zilynská, and J. Červenka,⁴ among others. Nevertheless, only a few scholars, namely R. Urbánek and T. Fudge, have at least partially explained the cause of this vagueness.⁵ The content and importance of Utraquist–Catholic disputes over the meaning of the Compactata have recently been addressed by J. Marek and A. Pálka.⁶ Interestingly, Thomas Prügl has identified the Compactata as far from a genuine and complete consensus, but the major evidence presented for this claim are passages that, in fact, were hardly employed in Utraquist–Catholic polemics after 1436.⁷

More research has been conducted on the numerous diplomatic quarrels connected with the Compactata, undoubtedly due the international overlap of these events, as can be seen in the works of F. M. Bartoš, G. Heymann, O. Odložilík, H. Hallauer, and T. Woelki.⁸ However, the question of the various causes that contributed to the problematic position of the Compactata in diplomacy has not been sufficiently answered. Scholars have typically stressed only one cause, the most prominent one arguably being the close connection between the Compactata and conciliarism (see M. Lambert, P. Čornej, F. Šmahel, E. O'Brien, and J. Červenka⁹).

Concerning František Šmahel's recent monograph Die Basler Kompaktaten, it does not include any major findings on the controversial nature of the Compactata. Instead, it mostly deals with the 1433–1436 negotiations between the Bohemians and the Council of Basel, and the subsequent history of the Compactata originals. There is no serious attempt to explain what made the Basel Compactata such a controversial document or to clarify the treaties’ vague and ambiguous wording.¹⁰

Clarification of Key Terms

As religious controversy in the late medieval Czech Lands is not a well-understood research topic outside Central Europe, it is certainly useful to offer a brief explanation of key terms before moving to the gist of this article. First and foremost, let us address the meaning and significance of the word “Utraquism,” which is very often used in connection with the Basel Compactata. By Utraquism, we mean the practice of the laity and nonconsecrating priests receiving both the body (bread) and blood (wine) of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic ritual. The word comes from the Latin phrase communio sub utraque specie (“communion in both kinds”). In Western Christianity, this practice had once been rather common, but in the course of the Middle Ages it was gradually replaced by communion in one kind (bread) due to the intensified reverence for Christ's blood and the belief in Christ's full presence even in one kind.¹¹ It was eventually only the consecrating clergy who regularly received Jesus's blood from the chalice.

The Bohemian reformist movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries first introduced the requirement for frequent (possibly daily) participation of the laity in communion. In 1414, the Prague university master Jakoubek of Stříbro significantly enriched this doctrine when he concluded that for one's salvation it was essential not only to receive communion frequently, but also to receive it in both kinds. Jakoubek's teaching was based on a specific reading of certain biblical passages, and its main principles were the necessity, commandment, and redemptiveness of the eucharistic chalice.¹² Utraquism quickly gained popularity in much of Bohemia without being approved by any relevant church authority. Neither the anti-Utraquist Cum in nonnullis decree of 1415 (issued by the Council of Constance), nor a series of crusades against Bohemia between 1420–1431, were capable of suppressing Utraquism. The chalice soon became the symbol of the Bohemian reformation, and the requirement for communion in both kinds was embodied into the renowned Four Articles of Prague,¹³ which later turned out to be the basis of the negotiations with the Council of Basel.

It is also important to discuss briefly the nouns “Hussites” and “Utraquists.” Both terms are used in the historiography for adherents of the Bohemian reformist movement. The former, related to the immense support and reverence for the reformer John Hus, appears to be commonly employed for the period 1415–1436, while the latter tends to be used more for the period following the conclusion of the Compactata (after 1436). In the broadest sense, they may be considered synonymous. Nevertheless, this article will employ only the word “Utraquists” when referring to supporters of Hus's and Jakoubek's teaching in order to avoid confusion.

Finally, as the Compactata were treaties concluded between the Utraquists and Council of Basel, we should clarify why the Bohemian question played a crucial role in the council's policy. The Utraquists were considered heretics who had been endangering Western Christianity for years, both due to the failed crusades and the Utraquists’ military campaigns abroad. Bringing them back into unity with the church was therefore of tantamount importance for much of Europe.¹⁴ Besides being aware of this aspect, the Basel fathers also knew that dealing with and solving the Bohemian question could strengthen the authority of the council in the famous conciliarist–papalist clash. This can be exemplified by Eugene IV's attempt to dissolve the Basel assembly in 1431—in the second version of his Quoniam alto bull, he cited the invitation of the Bohemians to Basel as one of the reasons for dissolving the council.¹⁵

The Catholic Church and the Compactata, 1447–1452

This section explores the activities of four highly influential Catholic diplomats/intellectuals in relation to the Bohemian Kingdom between 1447 and 1452. This is relevant for this article because the Compactata frequently manifested their controversial nature during these events, and it was here that they once again proved to be immensely significant internationally. The time span has been chosen because the degree of Catholic criticism toward the Compactata reached one of its peaks then.

Although the ceremonial sealing and proclamation of the Compactata in July 1436 were pivotal events, the Utraquists present in Jihlava were very much aware of the fact that, as far as the church representatives were concerned, the Compactata had only been authenticated by the seals of four Basel legates, and there was no trace of the council's own seal on the parchment documents. The Council of Basel itself was expected to ratify the Compactata by a bull and send the sealed documents to Prague, the capital of the Bohemian Kingdom. This was indeed what happened at the beginning of the next year: the council ratified the Compactata on January 15, 1437, and the inhabitants of Prague could see the ratified documents for the first time less than a month later.¹⁶

The council's confirmation definitely was not the only one desired by the Bohemians, for they were also interested in the possibility of the pope confirming the Compactata with his seal. The Council of Basel may have temporarily weakened the pope's position within the Catholic Church, but in the 1440s it was becoming ever clearer that Eugene IV was gaining the upper hand over conciliarism and the antipope Felix V (elected by the Council of Basel in 1439).¹⁷ The Czech Utraquist leaders undoubtedly knew that having the Compactata confirmed by the Roman papacy would be much more valuable than their ratification by Felix V, whose authority was dwindling. Thus, when a delegation was finally sent from the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1447, it was headed for Rome, in accordance with the proceedings of the Land Diet the previous year.¹⁸ As Eugene had died in February 1447, the Czech ambassadors encountered his successor, Nicholas V.

One of the most important figures in the Czech-Roman negotiations of 1447–1448 was Cardinal John Carvajal. He dealt with two major requests presented by the Bohemians: papal ratification of the Compactata and confirmation of John Rokycana's archiepiscopal title. During the negotiations in Rome, the cardinal evidently opposed the Utraquists’ wish to have the Compactata confirmed by Nicholas, for he told them: “Abandon the chalice [Utraquism] and unify with the Roman Church; as long as you remain separated, the Germans will always rebel and irritate the pope.”¹⁹ He was later to remark that the Compactata had been concluded solely for the sake of peace²⁰ and thus to imply that they were no longer necessary. The pope himself was no more obliging. He praised communion in one kind and the need for ecclesiastical unity. In response, the Czech diplomats pointed out that a few years before, the Church had been willing to make a union with the Greeks despite the latter's practice of Utraquism. The Bohemians therefore asked Nicholas to grant them the Compactata, concluded at the time of his predecessor Eugene. There was allegedly no reply from the pope's side.²¹

Nicholas nevertheless made an important move ensuring that negotiations between the church and Utraquists would continue. He decided that Carvajal was to be sent to the Bohemian Kingdom for further discussion. On his arrival in Prague, Carvajal, cunningly claiming that neither he nor the pope was familiar with the Compactata, persuaded the Bohemians to lend him the original documents of July 1436.²² In his subsequent reply to the Czech orators, the legate dwelt mainly on the church's unwillingness to confirm John Rokycana as archbishop of Prague. Regarding papal ratification of the Utraquist–council treaties, Carvajal said that he had been lent the Compactata originals only the day before, had not yet had time to study them, and would address the issue later.²³ But attempts to get Carvajal to negotiate about the Compactata ultimately proved unproductive. On May 17, when the Bohemians asked him to provide the final reply about communion in both kinds and the Basel Compactata, he refused to do so, claiming that he had been sent to Prague to make peace, not to make decisions about these issues.²⁴

Near the end of his controversial mission, which did not lead to any kind of treaty between the Bohemians and the church, the legate was still in possession of the Compactata originals. He even stored them in his carriage, promising that he would hand them back in the city of Benešov. Naturally, the Utraquists suspected that Carvajal's intention was not to learn more about the Compactata but to humiliate the Bohemian Utraquists by taking the Compactata originals abroad. They took steps to frustrate such a plan, and when Carvajal arrived in Benešov, there were hundreds of armed Czech horsemen waiting for him in the city.²⁵

Carvajal's and the pope's hostility toward the Compactata stemmed primarily from their longing for perfect ecclesiastical unity, as is evident from the statements uttered in Rome. It is important to emphasize that during these events of 1447–1448, there was most probably no real attempt on Nicholas V's or Carvajal's side to cast doubt on the Compactata on the basis of their origins in the Council of Basel, even though there was still rivalry between this very council and the Roman papacy at the time, and the Czech ambassadors to Rome even threatened to negotiate with the Basel fathers and Felix V.²⁶ This seeming paradox can in fact be easily explained. Nicholas and his supporters were certainly aware that decisions taken in Basel had ceased to have any further official validity from 1438 when Eugene IV transferred the council to Ferrara. All the same, Eugene never nullified the Basel proceedings between 1431–1437 as a whole, in spite of their frequent association with conciliarist tendencies, and neither had his successor Nicolas V. It therefore seems that the Roman papacy, in accordance with Eugene's 1439 bull Moyses vir,²⁷ regarded the pre-1438 Council of Basel as a legal assembly with its legitimate continuation in the cities of Ferrara, Florence, and Rome (ending in 1445). Under these circumstances, it would have been somewhat unwise for Nicolas or Carvajal to question the validity of the Compactata on the grounds of their origin in Basel, as both the sealing of these documents in Jihlava and ratification in Basel had occurred in the “legitimate period” (July 5, 1436, and January 15, 1437).

Carvajal's mission, while unsuccessful for both sides, proved that the Compactata could easily become a thorny issue in Utraquist–Catholic diplomacy. It also foreshadowed the growing significance of the Compactata for diplomacy in subsequent years. Indeed, three prominent Catholic ambassadors came to the Czech Lands or close to them at the beginning of the 1450s, and all of them showed interest in the Basel Compactata during their missions. Like Carvajal, they were pressing for perfect union between the church and the Bohemians, and were therefore bound to oppose Utraquism and the rights accorded to it in the Compactata.

Let us look first at John of Capistrano's mission in Moravia and Bohemia in 1451–1452. John, a Franciscan friar and diplomat for Nicholas V, spent several months in various Czech and Moravian towns, preaching and writing in support of Catholicism, with the aim of getting Utraquists to convert, and thus showing no tolerance for communion sub utraque specie. Unlike Carvajal, he was not involved in any official negotiations with Utraquist leaders, but he communicated with some of them through letters.²⁸ Those written to the elected archbishop John of Rokycana show Capistrano bringing up the Compactata in his arguments against Utraquism. Specifically, he pointed out that although the text of the Compactata referred to publication of a new license of the chalice for the Bohemians and Moravians (which was supposed to be published after December 23, 1437, when the council published its verdict on the necessity of Utraquism), such a license had never been issued, whether by the council or representatives of papacy.²⁹ More importantly, Capistrano enumerated a number of alleged transgressions against the Compactata by Utraquists, such as the holy communion of infants, lack of obedience to the Roman Church, the noncanonical election of the archbishop of Prague, and disrespect for peace with other Christians.³⁰

Appeal to concrete examples of Utraquist failure to observe the terms of the Compactata was also typical of another Catholic diplomat who visited Czech territory in 1451. Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Bishop of Sienna and ambassador of the King of the Romans Frederick III, attended an important diet in Benešov where he met George of Poděbrady, one of the most influential Utraquist politicians. In their discussion, Piccolomini did his best to prove that it was not the Catholics, as George claimed, but the Utraquists who had violated the spirit of the treaties between themselves and the council. He accused the Bohemians of several transgressions contra compactata, such as their belief in the necessity of Utraquism, the communion of infants, forcing the chalice on Catholics, the noncanonical election of Rokycana, and the introduction of Czech songs into the mass.³¹ What is interesting is the mention of Carvajal's position in 1448 in this context: Piccolomini argued that it was the various violations of the Compactata that had previously made John Carvajal refuse to confirm these documents,³² and he even declared that because the Compactata had been violated by all Utraquists, they were no longer valid.³³

The last diplomatic mission of the early 1450s that we discuss here is that of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who was certainly a suitable candidate for negotiations with the Utraquists due to his previous experience at the Council of Basel.³⁴ Like Carvajal and Capistrano, Nicholas arrived in Central Europe as the pope's ambassador. Unlike them, he decided to conduct negotiations with the Utraquists from outside the territory of Bohemia and Moravia. From the city of Regensburg, he sent a letter addressed to all Bohemians and Moravians, dated June 27, 1452. Cusanus was certainly aware of the immense significance of the Compactata for those he addressed and made them the key issue of his letter. He hoped to bring the Utraquists to full obedience by pointing out that when the Compactata mentioned unity in faith with the universal church, the words referred to nothing other than the Catholic Church, outside which there was no salvation.³⁵ He went on to challenge the legality of Utraquism, claiming that because of numerous violations of the Compactata by Utraquist priests, there was nothing that the Bohemians could gain from them.³⁶ Furthermore, he argued that the new license for the chalice mentioned in the Compactata had never been issued by the council as a result of the Bohemians’ numerous errors.³⁷ Cusanus's arguments could hardly have pleased the majority of Bohemian Utraquists, who were still hoping for papal confirmation of the Compactata. Surprisingly, we know of only one Utraquist letter that was written as a direct reaction to Cusanus's actions.³⁸

If we take a brief look at the missions of the early 1450s, it becomes apparent that Utraquists’ hopes for papal confirmation of the Compactata proved to be quite unfounded. The Catholic envoys were rather negative in their views of the Basel Compactata, and none of them suggested that the pope might possibly confirm the Compactata at some future point. Instead, they often focused on alleged violations contra compactata and spoke of their waning validity, or even virtual invalidity. Thus, the Catholic missions in the early 1450s indicate that there was a growing tendency among the Catholics to cast doubt upon the Compactata due to the other party's inability to act according to their provisions. Nicholas V's papacy (and the Catholic world in general) was reserved, or indeed hostile, toward the Czech requirement for the confirmation of the Compactata, but it must be noted that Nicholas V never officially declared the treaties to be invalid.

The Two Faces of Enea Silvio Piccolomini

This section addresses Piccolomini's later dealing with the Bohemian question and shows that the controversial status of the Compactata in the Utraquist–Catholic relationships could weaken and subsequently become stronger in a relatively short time, gaining unexpected significance in the early 1460s.

Piccolomini, a highly influential figure who eventually became pope, certainly kept his interest in the Compactata after the encounter with George of Poděbrady, as he devoted significant attention to them on two further occasions, in 1455 and 1462. On the first of these, his attitude seems so much at odds with his position on the latter that on first sight it is difficult to confirm that we are dealing with the same person. His changing priorities are nonetheless explicable in context.

After Nicholas V's death in 1455, Alfonso de Borgia was elected pope, taking the name Calixtus III. Shortly after his election, he heard a very remarkable speech from Piccolomini, who was still acting as Fredrick III's envoy. Piccolomini's speech, titled De compactatis, turned out to be completely different from previous Catholic treatments of the Compactata, since it actually sought to persuade Calixtus to agree to the Utraquists’ long-term request for papal ratification. Piccolomini's seemingly unexpected decision to speak in favor of the Bohemians was probably not motivated by any special tolerance of Utraquism. Instead, the Catholic diplomat hoped that ratification of the Basel Compactata would win the Bohemians over for war against the Turks. As Piccolomini saw it, Calixtus's concession of the chalice would not last forever, but only for one generation of Utraquists, and thus the Bohemians would be fully united with the church after a few decades.³⁹ The relative length of the speech suggests that the whole issue was of great importance for Piccolomini, but we can only speculate as to whether Calixtus ever considered accepting his cleverly formulated proposal.⁴⁰

When Piccolomini himself became Pope Pius II in 1458, the solution that he had recommended in 1455 evidently no longer mattered to him. If it had, he would certainly have made an effort to confirm the Compactata. Instead, he took a very different approach to Bohemian Utraquism, which became clear when a Czech delegation visited Rome in March 1462. Just as in 1447, one of the aims of the ambassadors was to persuade the pope to confirm the Compactata, but this time the Bohemians represented a legitimate king, George of Poděbrady—a situation that had been impossible fifteen years before.⁴¹ Much to the ambassadors’ disappointment, Pius II patently wanted to end George's rule over two religious groups in the Bohemian Kingdom. As the head of the Catholic Church, he could accept nothing less than universal conversion of the Utraquists to communion in one kind. The need for perfect ecclesiastical unity was promoted not only by Pius II, but also by other representatives of the church who were negotiating with the Utraquists. One was John Carvajal, who repeated his appeal from the 1440s that the Bohemians ought to abandon the Compactata and return to unity with the Church.⁴²

The Czech ambassadors must soon have gathered that the chances of confirmation of the Compactata by the Apostolic See were very low, but they did not immediately give up. One of the delegates, Wenceslaus Koranda, gave a lengthy speech in front of Pius in which he stressed that the Compactata served as a guarantee of peace in Bohemia.⁴³ On March 31, however, the ambassadors finally realized that neither Koranda nor anyone else had changed the pope's mind. Like Nicholas of Cusa in 1452, Pius stated that Utraquism had never been valid, as the Bohemians had not returned to unity with the church on the basis of the Compactata and had never obtained any additional license of the chalice.⁴⁴ Pius firmly refused to confirm the Compactata, and before having them officially proclaimed invalid, he gave no fewer than five reasons for his stance: no confirmation of the treaties meant (1) preventing the laity from holding heretical views concerning the Eucharist; (2) preventing the unwanted spilling of Christ's blood; (3) bringing unity and peace to the Bohemian Kingdom; (4) a cessation of complaints from the neighboring nations; and (5) zero chance of the Bohemians boasting about the pope's favor.⁴⁵

The official annulment of the Compactata by the Holy See was a failure for the Czech delegation, which had arrived in Rome in order to achieve the very opposite. But did the Catholic Church thereby gain an indisputable victory over the Utraquists? Not at all. In August 1462, King George of Poděbrady publicly declared his allegiance to Utraquism and the Compactata and refused to accept Pius's radical move.⁴⁶ The Compactata were still respected as law in Bohemia, and so the legal coexistence of Catholics and Utraquists would endure. It may be argued that in the 1462 events, the controversial character of the Compactata reached its absolute peak, for the Utraquists’ attachment to them now went hand in hand with their open resistance to the pope's verdict.

George's disobedience to Pius might seem radical, but there had already been a certain parallel to it in the history of the Bohemian reformation. When the Council of Constance had issued the decree Cum in nonnullis (1415) against the use of the lay chalice in Bohemia, the Bohemians, viewing Utraquism as a principle based on the Bible, rejected the council's decision and did not return to communion in one kind.⁴⁷ The circumstances of 1462 were similar: even though the pope himself forbade Utraquism by annulling the Compactata, it was unimaginable that the Utraquists would respect his decision, since they traditionally valued biblical testimony over human decisions. Also similar to 1415 was the result of George's refusal to obey the institutional church, as in both cases the Czech Lands maintained or even entrenched their distinctive position within Western Christendom, which eventually led to a regular war.⁴⁸

The Role of Conciliarism in the Catholic Understanding of the Treaties

One important question—already discussed in part in connection with Carvajal—is raised by Cusa, Capistrano, and Piccolomini's quite frequent attempts to present the Compactata as frequently violated, and even void agreements. That is, were they seriously motivated by perception of the Compactata as an unwanted legacy of Basel conciliarism? This seemingly plausible notion is sometimes presented in particular relation to Pius II. For instance, M. Lambert wrote: “It was not realized . . . how determined the post-Basle papacy was to liquidate the effects of conciliarism, including the agreement with the Utraquists.”⁴⁹ Similarly, E. O'Brien claims that the Compactata were one of “two unwelcome reminders for both Pius and the papacy of the enduring authority of the Council of Basel.”⁵⁰ The same idea has been promoted by Czech historians, including P. Čornej⁵¹ and J. Červenka.⁵²

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find any solid evidence to support such claims.⁵³ Despite their numerous references to the Compactata, these Catholic scholars do not appear ever to have explicitly characterized these documents as harmful or invalid due to their close association with the Council of Basel. For instance, in Pius II's five reasons for not confirming the Compactata, there was not a single trace of anticonciliarism and the pope emphasized theological and practical matters instead.⁵⁴ The one exception might be an ambiguous statement in Capistrano's letter to the priest John of Borotín, which seems to suggest that Utraquists ought not to rely on the Compactata because of the council's questionable actions after 1438.⁵⁵ Yet even if that was indeed Capistrano's meaning, the fact remains that the vast majority of his arguments regarding the Compactata had nothing to do with criticism of the Council of Basel.

In fact, in their anti-Utraquist polemics, Cusa, Capistrano, and Piccolomini frequently appealed to the authority of the Council of Basel, especially the Basel decree Ut lucidius videatur of December 1437, which condemned the Utraquist doctrine that the chalice was necessary for salvation and which was supposed to be published by the very terms of the Compactata.⁵⁶ Had these Catholics considered the Compactata to be harmful because of the controversial nature of the council, their reliance on the authority of the very same council on many other occasions would have made their argumentation and thinking highly inconsistent. They most probably regarded the council, despite its many struggles with Eugene IV, as legitimate until the beginning of 1438, as we have already argued in the case of Nicholas V and Juan Carvajal.

Regarding the alleged association with conciliarism, we must also note that although the Compactata sporadically recognized the representation of the church by the Council of Basel,⁵⁷ their wording did not openly promote conciliarism, that is, the council's supremacy over the pope. This is in clear contrast with the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), another well-known document associated with the council, in which the French king accepted several Basel reforms.⁵⁸ Altogether, the Compactata as agreed between the representatives of the council and the Utraquists include only one formulation that might theoretically be interpreted as placing the Council of Basel above the papacy.⁵⁹ It is therefore highly improbable that anyone ever employed the Compactata as evidence for the claim that general councils were superior to popes.⁶⁰

It might be objected that even if the text of the Compactata did not promote any genuine notion of conciliarism, it had conciliarist overtones because the negotiations leading to their conclusion had temporarily become a grave bone of contention between Eugene IV and the Basel fathers.⁶¹ Yet Eugene himself later recognized the importance of the Bohemian issue in Basel in his 1437 bull, and was even willing to resume negotiations with the Bohemians in Ferrara.⁶² Moreover, the Compactata in the role of Bohemian law after 1436 posed no serious threat to the dominant position of the pope within the Catholic Church. On the contrary, after 1436 the Compactata somewhat elevated the role of the papacy in the Czech Lands precisely thanks to the continuing desire of the Utraquists to have them confirmed by the pope.

It thus appears that the Catholic attempt to undermine or annul the Compactata was primarily based on different considerations. On the basis of contemporary sources, we can identify at least three reasons why the Catholics were hostile toward the Compactata: (1) the Catholic Church craved perfect ecclesiastical unity, which was impossible as long as the Bohemians and Moravians continued to practice Utraquism⁶³; (2) the Catholics saw the Basel Compactata merely as a short-term license of the chalice, which had been agreed in order to achieve peace and should not last longer than necessary⁶⁴; and (3) the actual application of the Compactata in Bohemia and Moravia left the Catholics in a state of severe disillusion, as there was allegedly hardly any willingness from the Utraquist side to abide by the spirit of the agreement between the Bohemian Kingdom and the council.⁶⁵ All this was reason enough for Catholics like Piccolomini to want the Compactata to disappear from the face of the earth and their Basel origins were most probably irrelevant. Had the Compactata been concluded with a pope instead of a general council, the aforementioned reasons for their annulment would still have existed.

Imperfect Peace Treaties: Text of the Compactata as a Bone of Contention

One of the most remarkable features of the Basel Compactata is that they were very much a compromise, and precisely as such the cause of frequent disputes between Catholics and Utraquists over their correct interpretation.⁶⁶ Thus, even though the Basel legates undoubtedly viewed the Jihlava conclusion of the Compactata as an act of restoring peace and bringing the Bohemians and Moravians back into unity with the Church, continuous quarrels between Utraquists and Catholics over the true meaning of the Compactata in the following months and years showed this peace and unity to be very imperfect.⁶⁷

As time went by, more and more Catholics, and not just representatives of the council but others in the Czech Lands or abroad, started to express views on the Compactata. We have already looked at Catholic diplomats such as Carvajal, Capistrano, Cusanus, and Piccolomini. Naturally, representatives of Utraquism, including those who had negotiated the Compactata face to face with the Basel legates, were not slow to present their own opinions. In this way the Basel Compactata became an important part of the Catholic–Utraquist polemic. Unfortunately, this phenomenon has been largely neglected in the historiography.⁶⁸

The aim of the following sections is to discuss selected themes of controversy directly related to the text of the Basel Compactata and employed both in the Czech Lands and abroad.⁶⁹ This will enable us to see clearly why the 1436 treaties failed to ensure completely peaceful coexistence between the two religious groups residing in Bohemia and Moravia. There are certainly many vague formulations in the Compactata, but we will focus primarily on the most relevant part of these agreements, that is, the right to communion in both kinds in the section known as Cedula A.⁷⁰ Together with Cedulae B and C, it was drafted for the first time during the second Prague negotiations between the Basel legates and the Utraquists in late 1433 (thus these three Cedulae are sometimes labelled the “Prague Compactata”) and remained virtually unchanged during all the subsequent negotiations, including the 1436 finale in Jihlava.

Let us briefly recapitulate what the agreement in question states. It declares that those inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia who are united with the universal church in faith and rite and are accustomed to communion in both kinds will take such communion by the authority of Jesus Christ and the church as his true bride. The question of whether the chalice is necessary for salvation will be decided later (the exact time is not specified) by the Holy Council. If, after the council's verdict, the Bohemians and Moravians still desire communion in both kinds and this desire is communicated by their ambassadors, the council will issue a license for the Czech and Moravian clergy allowing them to administer in both kinds to adult persons who ask devoutly for the chalice. The clergy will nonetheless always inform the communicants that Jesus Christ is fully and entirely present even in one kind.⁷¹ It is evident that the crucial passage of the Compactata actually mentions two separate permissions for communion in both kinds—the first one, for persons accustomed to the chalice, was implemented by the Compactata themselves, whereas the second one, for adults requesting the chalice, was to be issued after the Basel verdict on the necessity of communion in both kinds.⁷² This complication, which is often surprisingly ignored in the historiography,⁷³ must be kept in mind in any analysis of subsequent disputes.

The Limited or Unlimited Legitimacy of Utraquism?

The first controversy is related to the period for which communion in both kinds was guaranteed by the Compactata. According to the standard Catholic interpretation, the Bohemians and Moravians were to be allowed to practice Utraquism only for a relatively short period of time. The position typical of the Utraquist milieu was that the treaties did not limit the period of permission for the chalice. Clearly, these positions were fundamentally irreconcilable, but as I shall show, both parties were able to base them on quite reasonable interpretations of the text.

There were at least two Catholic arguments in favor of regarding the Compactata as valid only for a limited time period, each of them involving a different period. According to one argument, because the 1436 treaties allow the chalice using a formulation in the present tense, that is, “who have such a custom” (qui talem usum habent), Utraquism is legal only for those Bohemians and Moravians who were accustomed to the chalice at the very moment the Compactata were concluded (July 5, 1436). Had the treaties been intended to apply to people not yet inclining to Utraquism in the summer of 1436, they would certainly have employed the words “will have” (habebunt). Therefore, the practice of Utraquism was legalized only for a limited number of people, and a number that was bound to decrease slowly, eventually dropping to zero after several decades when all the Utraquists living at the time of the conclusion of the Compactata would be dead.⁷⁴

The other argument also appeals to the wording of Cedula A, specifically to the provision that after the council gives its verdict on the chalice, the Bohemians and Moravians will be eligible for a concession allowing Utraquism for laypersons who piously request it. It was logical to assume that the previous concession (illi et illae, qui talem usum habent, communicabunt sub utraque specie) would lose its force when the new concession was ready to be issued. To put it another way, there would be no reason for the council to issue a new facultas for Utraquism if the old concession were to remain in force. Using this logic, Catholic scholars came to the conclusion that the Compactata legalized communion in both kinds only until the publication and dissemination of the Ut lucidius videatur decree.⁷⁵ That meant rather a short period, as the Basel verdict was issued on December 23, 1437, not even eighteen months after the Jihlava conclusion of the Compactata.

I have so far identified only one Utraquist author directly opposing the Catholic doctrine of the limited validity of the Compactata, but it presents well-thought-out argumentation, and so suggests that the Utraquists had expected the kind of objections made by the Catholics. Let us rephrase the three crucial arguments put forward by Martin Lupáč. First, Emperor Sigismund bound himself and his successors to maintain “all things” (that is, all that the Utraquists had gained in 1436) for eternity. That is hardly compatible with the claim that the Compactata allowed the chalice for a short time only.⁷⁶ Second, one of the documents pertaining to the Compactata (Litera expurgationis et abolitionis) contains the Basel legates’ order that bishops and priests administer communion in both kinds. What is important here is that the addressees of this mandate are not just contemporary clerics, but also those who hold clerical office in the future, and hence the Compactata did not limit the time of the legal validity of Utraquism in any way.⁷⁷ Finally, the word “have” (habent) was undoubtedly in the present tense, but that did not forbid communion in both kinds for persons inclining to it after the conclusion of the Compactata. After all, the Bible contained commands formulated in the present tense, yet their application was definitely not restricted only to persons living in the biblical era; they were binding for all the future generations, too.⁷⁸

A Church Grant, or Merely an Act of Assent?

Another subject of a dispute was closely related to theology. Whereas Catholic scholars were of the opinion that the Council of Basel, by concluding the Compactata, had granted a liturgical concession of the chalice to the Bohemians, Utraquist thinkers believed firmly in the biblical origins of communion in both kinds, and so interpreted the Compactata as mere assent to the chalice on the part of the council. This disagreement had already become evident by 1433 during the negotiations over the Compactata. The council's proposals concerning the First Article of Prague (chalice) left no doubt that the Basel theologians were openly promoting the idea that it would be the institutional church who bestowed communion in both kinds on the Bohemians, thus making this practice legal and permitted. For instance, the proposals included the words that communion in both kinds was not allowed without the church's consent, but that the church might, for sensible reasons, grant such communion.⁷⁹ Furthermore, the agreement on the chalice itself was clearly formulated as a liturgical concession in the Basel proposals: “Those of you who have such a custom will take communion in both kinds by the authority of the Church.”⁸⁰

If we examine the Prague Compactata of 1433 as well as the final version concluded in Jihlava in 1436, it becomes obvious that this council tactic was a partial failure, presumably because of the resistance of the Czech negotiators. The eventual agreement between the Utraquists and the council did not state that the chalice could be permitted solely on the basis of the church's concession. Even more important is the wording of the agreement on communion in both kinds, which, as previously noted, declares that men and women accustomed to the chalice “will take communion in both kinds by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church, his true bride.”⁸¹ As there was no mention of Jesus's authority in the Basel proposals, it was unlikely to have been the council's legates who pushed through the new wording. The Czech negotiators, who held that the chalice had been ordained by Christ, must have been responsible for this significant change.⁸²

Naturally, while the passage “will take communion . . . his true bride” did not give the impression of a perfect and indisputable liturgical concession (unlike the previous council proposals), the Basel legates had no doubt that the church mentioned in the treaties alongside Jesus was the institutional one represented by the council.⁸³ Thus, despite all the vagueness, they still interpreted the Compactata as a concession of the chalice, unlike the Bohemians, who most certainly did not identify the words ecclesiae, verae sponsae ejus with the church represented by the Council of Basel.

This difference in perspective was not limited to the 1430s, as we can conclude from treatises written throughout the fifteenth century and even later. Numerous Catholics wrote or spoke about the Compactata in a way that made it clear that they interpreted the agreement on the chalice as a liturgical concession, without which Utraquism would never have been justifiable in Bohemia and Moravia. Not surprisingly, they often used the Latin words concedo or indulgeo (“concede”/“grant”/“bestow”) when mentioning the conclusion of the Compactata. As an example, let us quote an anonymous quaestio from the fifteenth century: “In the Council of Basel, communion in both kinds was, for certain and sensible reasons, temporarily bestowed on some Bohemians under certain Compactata. Had they observed these Compactata, they could have taken such communion permissibly and deservedly.”⁸⁴

The Utraquists would have strongly disagreed with such an interpretation. Their conviction that the origins of the chalice must be sought in the Bible, not in the Compactata, was obvious even decades after 1436. For instance, the Postilla written by priest Michal Polák in the late fifteenth century states that representatives of the council “did not authorize communion in both kinds, as we have an authorization from Christ and his law; they solely agreed and sealed that it is holy and redeeming.”⁸⁵ The 1513 printed version of the Compactata promotes the same idea, taking into account the historical context. When the author of the accompanying texts addresses the negotiations between the council and Utraquists, he emphasizes the fact that the treaties concluded in Jihlava contained the phrase auctoritate Christi et ecclesiae, verae sponsae sue, and not auctoritate concilii, as the Basel legates allegedly wanted.⁸⁶

The Question of Age

The last controversy to be discussed here may have been the most noticeable, as it was directly connected to actual liturgical practice. The two parties disagreed on the issue of whether the Compactata of Basel forbade holy communion of infants (communion parvulorum). This controversial practice was introduced in Bohemia nearly two decades before the conclusion of the Compactata, on the basis of the belief that holy communion was necessary for every single person. The Catholics did not approve of such a rite, as it had not been common in the Latin Church for hundreds of years. The Basel legates certainly hoped that the conclusion of the Compactata would force the Utraquists to stop administering communion to infants and small children, since they considered it to be a violation of the Utraquist–council treaties, but in fact communion of infants did not cease to be administered in the Bohemian milieu after 1436. The Catholics clearly regarded this as a violation of the Compactata, yet according to some Utraquist scholars, there was no contradiction between communio parvulorum and the wording of the Compactata.

Let us first focus on the Catholic position. There were at least two formulations in the Compactata that Catholic scholars interpreted as clear prohibition of communion of infants. First, there was the mention of priests being permitted to give communion in both kinds to piously requesting laypeople “at the age of reason” (in annis discrecionis). As discussed above, this formulation actually refers to the content of a new concession of the chalice, the promulgation of which was to take place after the council's verdict on holy communion. Nevertheless, the very presence of such an expression in the Compactata was sufficient reason for Catholic scholars, such as the administrator of the Prague diocese Hilarius of Litoměřice, to claim that the Utraquist–council treaties did not permit communio parvulorum.⁸⁷ Second, the Catholics referred to the well-known clause that communion in both kinds would be possible for those who “have such a custom.” They reasoned that having a custom meant actively adopting it, which infants and small children could never do.⁸⁸ Thus, the words qui talem usum habent evidently excluded communion of infants. It should be stressed that communio parvulorum was the alleged violation of the Compactata most frequently mentioned by the Catholics.⁸⁹

By contrast, the Utraquists, namely John Rokycana, Martin Lupáč, and the editor of the printed Compactata (1513), put forward various arguments in support of the idea that communion of infants was in accordance with the Compactata. Rokycana simply appealed to the fact that the Compactata approved the authority of the so-called Judge of Cheb (iudex Egrensis). This “judge” was in fact a transpersonal authority, negotiated during the first Utraquist–council meeting in Cheb in 1432 for the purpose of the anticipated Basel disputations; its role was later extended by the Compactata to that of determining what Christians must believe, especially in disputable matters.⁹⁰ According to Rokycana, the Judge of Cheb—defined as “the divine law, the practice of Christ, the apostles, and early church, together with doctors and councils grounded truthfully in these”—does not speak against communion of infants, but in fact confirms it.⁹¹

The other two Utraquists offered more elaborate argumentation. They promoted the idea that only the clause illi et illae, qui talem usum habent, communicabunt was binding for the Utraquists. Unlike Catholic scholars, they did not believe that it was necessary to actively adopt the chalice in order to have such a custom; they held the view that “having a custom” was identical to “practicing it,” regardless of one's will. Therefore, the formulation qui talem usum habent included persons of all ages in their interpretation.⁹² Concerning the words annis discrecionis, Lupáč and the anonymous editor proposed the following line of reasoning: as communion in both kinds for the Utraquists was clearly approved by the clause “illi . . . communicabunt,” the anticipated concession of the chalice containing the expression annis discrecionis was intended for different persons. The two Utraquist scholars explained that this concession was to be addressed to all the Catholic clergymen residing in Bohemia and Moravia, so that these priests would be obliged to administer in both kinds to those requesting for it.⁹³ Thus, a person wishing to take communion in both kinds would be given it even when attending a Catholic mass.

The Foundation of a Bi-Confessional Society?

It is important to emphasize that differences in the interpretation of the Compactata had an enormous impact on the religious and political conditions in the Bohemian Kingdom, as these differences were closely related to the existence of a bi-confessional society in the Czech Lands. From the Catholic point of view, the 1436 treaties demanded that Bohemians and Moravians be fully united with the church except for communion in both kinds, which was only temporarily and under strict conditions permitted to persons adhering to Utraquism in July 1436. Even if the Council of Basel had later issued the promised facultas for the Bohemian and Moravian clergy, the only permitted difference between the Utraquists and Catholics would still have been communion in both kinds (albeit indefinitely?⁹⁴) and nothing else. Thus, the Catholic interpretation of the Compactata left no space for the emergence of the Utraquist Church as a distinctive part of the Catholic Church.

Yet the reality was that after the conclusion of the Compactata, there existed a nearly independent church, or rather churches, consisting of adherents of the chalice.⁹⁵ Although the Utraquists remained dependent on Catholic bishops when it came to the ordination of priests, they were different from the Catholic Church in several ways that did not meet the Catholic requirement for full unity in faith and rite except for the chalice. Not only did the Utraquists build their own system of ecclesiastical administration and synods, but they also differed from the Catholics in terms of liturgy and even faith. Some, if not all, of these differences could be justified using the Utraquist interpretation of the Compactata, as I have demonstrated on the examples of communion of infants and the belief that holy communion in both kinds originated from the Bible. Similarly, it was possible to reject the use of the aspergillum on the basis of the Compactata, as can be inferred from Martin Lupáč's treatise O kropení (“About Sprinkling”).⁹⁶

Thus, if we accept Eberhard's thesis that the Bohemian Kingdom went through a phase of early, estates-driven (proto)confessionalization in the fifteenth century,⁹⁷ it needs to be stressed that this confessionalization sui generis—or to put it alternatively, the co-existence of two major confessions—was actually made possible by the fact that the Utraquists adopted an interpretation of the Compactata that was totally incompatible with the Catholic stance. It appears that the Utraquists’ “functional, anti-Rome understanding of the Compactata”⁹⁸—together with their adherence to the controversial charters issued by Sigismund in 1435–1436⁹⁹—was the key reason why the Council of Basel did not ultimately succeed in restoring ecclesiastical unity in the Czech Lands.

For the reasons stated above, it is inaccurate to characterize the Compactata as “a treaty that recognized the legitimacy of the Czech Utraquist church”¹⁰⁰ or “the first recognition of a separate confessional group within Western Christendom.”¹⁰¹ We must bear in mind that there is no passage in the 1436 treaties that explicitly and unambiguously allows the establishment of a (semi-)independent church or confessional group. A more accurate view of the Compactata has been advanced by Blanka Zilynská who, in her essay on the Utraquist Church, writes that that the 1436 treaties “did not necessarily foresee the establishment of a dual institution. The Compactata only dealt with the matter of ordaining clerical novices and the dual forms of performing the Eucharist but were silent on the construction of individual administrative institutions.”¹⁰²

Conclusion: Treaties with an Unforeseen Impact

Current research demonstrates that the impact of the Compactata on Bohemian and Moravian society was strikingly ambivalent. On the one hand, the Compactata marked the end of the long period of war and had a stabilizing political effect through the obligation imposed on Bohemian kings to approve the Compactat prior to coronation.¹⁰³ On the other hand, there was constant discord over the Compactata, so they should also be regarded as an enduring bone of contention both at home and abroad. This is evident from the various diplomatic missions and polemic treatises discussed above. One of the greatest complications lay in the fact that the papacy never acceded to the Utraquists’ request to have the Compactata ratified by the Holy See, eventually proclaiming them invalid. Surprising as it may seem, the hostile Catholic policy toward the Compactata was hardly influenced by anti-conciliarist thinking at all, but rather other phenomena, such as the Catholics’ longing for perfect unity, appear to have played a more prominent role.

Another problem arose from the nature of the Compactata: their compromise wording may have helped to ensure their conclusion in the 1430s, but in the end, this wording was responsible for constant and unproductive disputes over their meaning. The two parties turned out to disagree with one another on a number of seemingly resolved issues, such as how long Utraquism was intended to be valid, which persons it was allowed for, and whether the relevant agreement in the Compactata contained the institutional church's grant of, or merely assent to, Utraquism. Another controversy was also generated by the fact that the Utraquists’ understanding of the Compactata was compatible with the existence of a semi-independent church, unwanted by the other party who claimed that the 1436 treaties did not approve of any Utraquist church whatsoever. All in all, the Compactata served as a contributing factor to the stabilization of the political situation in the Czech Lands on the one hand and to the emergence of new, religiously motivated disputes in the field of diplomacy and literary polemic on the other hand.

Despite all the controversy and ambivalence, the Compactata proved to be one of the most influential documents associated with the Council of Basel. Hardly any other document negotiated and ratified by the council in its long history had such a radical impact on a European country as the Compactata on the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, especially Bohemia.