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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Until comparatively recently, it was tacitly assumed that the supporters of the Council of Basle (1431–49) and of pope Eugenius IV (1431–47) had little to contribute to ecclesiology, and (with the exception of Nicholas of Cusa) virtually nothing to political thought. The Council of Constance has generally been taken as the climax of medieval ecclesiastical constitutionalism; and it seemed that the subject of papal sovereignty had been thoroughly exhausted in the previous centuries.
page 45 note 1 For the history of the Council of Basle, see Valois, N., Le Pape et le Concile (1418–1450): la crise réligieuse du XVe siècle, Paris 1909Google Scholar; Delaruelle, E., Labande, E.-R., Ourliac, P., L'Église au temps du Grand Schisme et de la Crise conciliaire (1378–1449), (Histoire de l'église depuis les origines jusquʼà nos jours, ed. Fliche, A. et Martin, V., xiv), Paris 1962, 227–92.Google Scholar
page 46 note 1 von Gierke, O., Political Theories of the Middle Age, trans. Maitland, F. W., Cambridge 1958, ix ff.Google Scholar (Maitland's Introduction), 6, 22 ff.
page 46 note 2 See Ourliac, P., ‘La Sociologie du Concile de Bâle’, in Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, lvi (1961), 13–14, 19–22.Google Scholar
page 46 note 3 Cf. Gierke, op. cit., 27 f., 37 f.; Ullmann, W., Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., London 1966, 215 ff.Google Scholar
page 46 note 4 Cf. Tierney, B., Foundations of Conciliar Theory: the contribution of the medieval canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, Cambridge 1955, 96–131Google Scholar; and, on Bartolus, Woolf, C. N. S., Bartolus of Sassoferrato, Cambridge 1913Google Scholar; Ullmann, W., ‘De Bartoli sententia: Concilium representat mentem populi’, in Bartolus de Sassoferrato: Studi et documenta, Perugia 1961, ii. 703–33.Google Scholar
page 46 note 5 Cf. Ullmann, W., The Origins of the Great Schism: a study in fourteenth century ecclesiastical history, London 1948, 210Google Scholar ff.; Tierney, op. cit., 220 ff.
page 47 note 1 Deutsche Reichtagsakten, ed. Weigel, H. and others (Hist. Komm. bei d. Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss.), Stuttgart–Göttingen, xiv–xvii, 1935–63Google Scholar [hereafter referred to as RTA], xvi. 483, 499, 506, 521. For Zabarella, see Ullmann, Great Schism, 211–12; Tierney, op. cit., 143 ff., 225–7. For Panormitanus, see Lefèbvre, C., ‘L'ensiegnement de Nicolas de Tudeschis et l'autorité pontificale’, in Ephemerides iuris canonici, xiv (1958), 312–39Google Scholar; Nörr, K., Kirche und Konzil bei Nicolaus de Tudeschis (Panormitanus), (Forschungen zur kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht, iv), Köln–Graz 1964.Google Scholar
page 47 note 2 ‘Jurisdictio ordinaria non est in singulis sed apud ipsam universitatem’: Super primo-quinto libro Decretalium, Lyons 1534 [hereafter referred to as Comm.], iii, part ii, on II. xxvii, 26, at fol. 84v; cf. Segovia, below, 54.
page 47 note 3 ‘Cum ergo in concilio representante ecclesiam universalem sit plenitudo potestatis … totam ecclesiam, in qua est fundamentum plenitudinis potestatis’: RTA., xvi. 485.
page 47 note 4 Ibid., 464–5, 468, 472; see below, 48, 50, 51 n. 3.
page 47 note 5 Comm., Venice 1571, vii, on V. xl, 27, at fol. 242r; and RTA., xvi. 468. Cf. Ullmann, Principles, 288.
page 47 note 6 ‘Ecclesiam dupliciter accipi, vel prout est dispersa per totum orbem terrarum, vel prout uno convenit loco, quemadmodum in generali concilio’: John, of Segovia, in Monumenta Conciliorum Generalium Seculi XV: Concilium Basiliense, Scriptorum, ed. Palacky, F., Birk, E. and others, Vienna-Basel 1857–1935 [hereafter referred to as MCG], iii. 729Google Scholar. Cf. Gierke, op. cit. 72, 171–2.
page 48 note 1 Cf. Ullmann, art. cit., 732–3. Panormitanus spoke of Basle as ‘facientes concilium’ just as he spoke of members of a chapter as ‘facientes collegium’: RTA., xvi. 504; Comm., Venice 1571, vi, on III. v, 15, at fol. 35r.
page 48 note 2 RTA., xvi. 499; cf. Nörr, op. cit., 93.
page 48 note 3 See especially Segovia in RTA., xv. 681; and in MCG., iii. 729.
page 48 note 4 Cf. Ullmann, art. cit., 716–17.
page 48 note 5 De Concordantia Catholica, in Opera Omnia, Basel 1565 [hereafter referred to as CC], ii. 13 (pp. 741–2).
page 48 note 6 See below, 51, 57.
page 48 note 7 J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et ampliss. collectio, xxix, 57D; cf. Concilium Basiliense: Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte des Conzils von Basel, ed. J. Haller and others, Basel 1896–1936 [hereafter referred to as CB], vi. 551, 554; Mansi, xxx. 1234. As Figgis observed, this constituted a precedent for the Long Parliament: Figgis, J. N., Studies in Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1625, Cambridge 1914, 41.Google Scholar
page 49 note 1 See MCG., iii. 477; CB., vi. 452.
page 49 note 2 Cf. Ourliac, art. cit., 11, 27.
page 49 note 3 RTA., xvi. 438; this was also a standard defence of the decree of the majority in 1437, against that of the minority, contending that it was the ‘sanior pars’ (in the famous controversy—which split the council—on where to hold the proposed council with the Eastern Church).
page 49 note 4 Panormitanus, Comm., Lyons 1534, iii, part ii, on II. xxvii, 26, at fol. 84v. For Bartolus, cf. Ullmann, art. cit., 719–20.
page 49 note 5 MCG., iii. 276.
page 49 note 6 RTA., xvi. 456; and ibid., xv. 699.
page 49 note 7 MCG., iii. 704, 724, 727, 731; Mansi, xxix. 180 (deposition decree).
page 49 note 8 Mansi, xxix. 180.
page 50 note 1 MCG., iii. 489.
page 50 note 2 ‘Cum enim certa forma per hoc decretum indicatur papae, tenetur ipsam servare; alioquin frustra ipsi lex indiceretur’: MCG., ii. 251.
page 50 note 3 These are stipulations clearly derived from the papal electoral pacts; cf. Ullmann, W., ‘The Legality of the papal electoral pacts’, in Ephem. iuris canon., xii (1956), 312 ff.Google Scholar
page 50 note 5 ‘Papa cum cardinalibus tenet locum concilii; ut que constituit concilium exequantur, que inhibuit caveantur’: RTA., xvii. 351.
page 50 note 6 Cf. Tierney, op. cit., 226.
page 50 note 7 Cf. Ullmann, art. cit., 718 f.
page 50 note 8 Cf. Lewis, E., Medieval Political Ideas, London 1954, 375, 412.Google Scholar
page 50 note 9 CC., ii. 13 (p. 726).
page 50 note 10 Sigmund, P., ‘Cusanus' Concordantia: a re-interpretation’, in Political Studies, x (1962), 196.Google Scholar
page 51 note 1 Ullmann, W., The Relevance of Medieval Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge 1966, 25.Google Scholar
page 51 note 2 In 1904 Trotsky wrote: ‘Lenin's method leads to this: the party organisation at first substitutes itself for the party as a whole; then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the organisation; and finally a single “dictator” substitutes himself for the Central Committee’: cited in Deutscher, I., The Prophet Armed, Oxford 1954, 90.Google Scholar
page 51 note 3 Cf. Ullmann, art. cit., 713 ff. An example of this influence may be seen in Panormitanus's use of the same terms for the council as Bartolus had used for the ‘populus liber’. Bartolus had said, ‘Quando populus habet omnem iurisdictionem, potest facere statutum’: cited in Ullmann, art. cit. 713. Panormitanus said of the council, ‘posstmt facere statuta et precepta et omnem iurisdictionem ecclesie exercere’: RTA., xvi. 504.
page 51 note 4 CC., iii. 12 (p. 793).
page 51 note 5 Cf. Cusa, CC, ii. 13 (p. 727); where he distinguishes between iurisdictio and administratio—a distinction which he might owe to his teacher, Heimericus de Campo: RTA., xv. 469. One might of course say that this was already implicit in the Gelasian notion of a ‘division of labour’ between ecclesiastical and secular rulers, and in the later development of this distinction as the temporal power of the pope in habitu and of the secular ruler in exercitio: see Ullmann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., London 1962, 21.Google Scholar
page 52 note 1 Aristotle, Politics, trans. Sinclair, T., London 1962, iii. xv, 142Google Scholar: ‘He (sc. the king) must have an armed force, and it should be strong enough to overpower one man or a band of men, but not the whole population’.
page 52 note 2 MCG., iii. 261; this was an elaboration of the traditional view that the king was ‘maior singulis, universis minor’. Piccolomini observed: ‘Omnes ab eius ore dependerent, iam non (ut in aliis) orationis finem, sed longam continuationem desiderantes, ipsumque unicum esse scientiae speculum predicarent’: A. S. Piccolomini, Commentarii de gestis Basiliensis concilii, in his Opera Omnia, Basel 1571, 7.
page 52 note 3 Piccolomini, Commentarii, 8. For the earlier and quite different use of this analogy, cf. Ullmann, The Growth …, 313–15; and Wilks, M. J., The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, N.S., ix), Cambridge 1963, 278, 334 f.Google Scholar
page 53 note 1 Loc. cit. For Courcelles, cf. Valois, Pape et Concile, ii. 231 f. It is possible that he had in mind the ‘deposition’ of Richard II in 1399 (the quasi-parliamentary nature of which has been much discussed: cf. Jacob, E. F., The Fifteenth Century, 1399–1485, Oxford 1961, 14 ff.)Google Scholar, particularly in view of the fact that he came from Lancastrian France, and had been in English service.
page 53 note 2 ‘Simile est videre in regimine Venetiarum. Nam dux est primus et in conciliis et inter membra civium; si tamen errat, sibi resistitur per civitatem, et si opus est deponitur; quia fundamentum iurisdictionis est in corpore civitatis, et in duce tanquam in principali ministro’: RTA., xvi. 521.
page 53 note 3 Cf. Sigmund, P., Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Harvard 1963, 188 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 53 note 4 MCG., iii. 695 ff. For Segovia, see Fromherz, U., Johannes von Segovia als Geschichtsschreiber des Konzils von Basel (Basler Beiträge zum Geschichtswissenschaft, 81), Basel 1960.Google Scholar
page 53 note 5 MCG., iii. 709 ff.
page 53 note 6 Ibid., 711 ff., 719.
page 53 note 7 Cf. Chrimes, S. B., English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge 1936, 304 ff.Google Scholar
page 54 note 1 Ibid., 720 f.
page 54 note 2 Ibid., 894.
page 54 note 3 Ibid., 803.
page 54 note 4 McIlwain, C. H., Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern, Cornell 1958, 90–3.Google Scholar
page 55 note 1 ‘The road from Constance to 1688 is a direct one; Nicholas of Cusa, Gerson and Zabarella are the ancestors, through pamphlets like the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, of Sidney and Locke’: Laski, H. J., ‘Political Theory in the Later Middle Ages’, in Cambridge Medieval History, viii, Cambridge 1936, 638Google Scholar. The idea originally came from Figgis, Gerson to Grotius, 31, 34, 42, 47. Some relevant evidence is cited in Oakley, F., The Political Thought of Pierre D'Ailly, Yale 1964, 211 ff.Google Scholar
page 55 note 2 For the general history of the papacy in this period, see particularly Haller, J., Vier Kapitel zur Geschichte des ausgehenden Mittelalters, i, Berlin 1903Google Scholar; Gill, J., The Council of Florence, Cambridge 1959.Google Scholar
For papal doctrine at this time, see especially Jedin, H., History of the Council of Trent, trans. Graf, E., i, London 1957, 17 ff.Google Scholar; Buisson, L., Potestas und Caritas; die päpstliche Gewalt im Spätmittelalter (Forsch. z. kirchl. Rechtsgesch. u.z. Kirchenrecht, ii), Köln- Graz 1958Google Scholar; and, in some ways the most original interpretation, Eckermann, K., Studien zur Geschichte des monarchischen Gedankens im 15 Jahrhundert (Abhandlungen zum mittleren und neueren Geschichte, lxxiii), Berlin 1933.Google Scholar
page 55 note 3 Cf. Eckermann, op. cit., 53–4, 106–7; Jedin, op. cit., 137 n.
page 55 note 4 For Torquemada, see Lederer, S., Der spanische Cardinal Johann von Torquemada; sein Leben und seine Schriften, Freiburg-i-Br. 1879Google Scholar; Stockmann, J- F., Joannes de Turrecremata, O.P., Vita eiusque doctrina de corpore Christi mystico, Bologna 1951Google Scholar; Binder, K., Wesen und Eigenschaften der Kirche bei Kardinal Juan de Turrecremata, Innsbruck 1955Google Scholar; Theeuws, P., ‘Jean de Turrecremata, Les rélations entre l'église et le pouvoir civil d'après un theologien du XVe siècle’, in Receuil des travaux d'histoire et de philologie, 3 ser., 18 fasc, Louvain 1943, 138–78Google Scholar; Massi, G., Magistero infallibile del papa nella teologia di G. da Torquemada (Scrinium Theologiae, viii), Turin 1957.Google Scholar
page 56 note 1 Cf. Ullmann, The Growth…, 276, 313–15, 319; Wilks, op. cit., 278, 334 f., 377.
page 56 note 2 Cf. in particular Ullmann, W., Medieval Papalism: the political theories of the medieval canonists, London 1949, 76 ff.Google Scholar; Wilks, op. cit., 151 ff.
page 56 note 3 Buisson, op. cit., 216–21, 229, 306; Ullmann, Principles, 205–6, 254; Wilks, op. cit., 318.
page 56 note 4 Cf. Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, London 1955, 81–5Google Scholar; also, Ullmann, Principles, 46 ff. The idea and the term hierarchia were introduced by him: Ullmann, Principles, 306.
page 56 note 5 Peter of Versailles in MS. Vat. Lat. 4140, fol. 30r. On him, see Coville, A., ‘Pierre de Versailles (1380–1446)’, in Bibliothèque de l'école des Chartes, xciii (1932), 208–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 56 note 6 Torquemada, Summa de Ecclesia, Venice 1561, i. 34, fol. 40v. Cf. Wilks, op. cit. 49, and Kantorowicz, E. H., The King's Two Bodies: a study in medieval political theology, Princeton 1957, 203 n., for precedents.Google Scholar
page 57 note 1 Cusa, CC., iii. 30 (p. 813).
page 57 note 2 RTA., xv. 183; cf. Cusa., CC, ii. 32 (p. 766). The first part of this is taken directly from Gregory VII: cited by Ullmann, The Growth …, 289.
page 57 note 3 Summa, i. 95 and ii. 70 contain summaries of Baslean conciliarism. It is interesting to note that Torquemada considered that the idea that the whole is greater than the part was the ‘Achilles’ of their doctrine: Summa, ii. 83, fol. 215v.
page 57 note 4 Summa, ii. 71, fol. 195v; cf. Poggio Bracciolini, De Potestate Papae et Concilii, Rome 1524 (unpaginated), argt. 14. This was an adaptation of Baldus: ‘Imperium non habet animum, ergo non habet velle neque nolle’: cited in Gierke, op. cit., 70.
page 57 note 5 Summa, ii. 71, fol. 195v.
page 57 note 6 Torquemada, Summa, iii. 12, fol. 288r, and ibid., 14, fol. 288v, where the ‘prelati’ as maiores de universitate’, are considered to represent the whole church ex officio.
page 57 note 7 ‘Nullus enim doctus ignorat quod subiectum capax (sc. potestatis clavium) esse non potest ipsa communitas’: Torquemada, Summa, ii. 72, fol. 199v; cf. ibid., ii. 92, fol. 224v–1226r; and Versailles, in MS. Vat. Lat. 4140, fol. 31r-v; and Poggio, op. cit., argts. 14, 35.
page 57 note 8 Cf. Ullmann, Principles, 46.
page 58 note 1 For example: ‘Quam principis unitatem quidem, et instingit natura phisica … sacra docet scriptura, et cottidiana return magistra experiential: RTA., xvii. 651.
page 58 note 2 RTA., xvii. 40. Elizabeth of England was to speak of princes as ‘not bound to yield account or render the reasons of their actions to any others but to God’: cited by Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century, London 1960, 252.Google Scholar
page 58 note 3 Cf. Ullmann, Principles, 46–51.
page 58 note 4 Ibid., 46–7.
page 58 note 5 Torquemada in Oratio synodalis de primatu, ed. Candal, E., Rome 1954, 23–4Google Scholar; cf. id., Commentarium super toto Decreto, Venice 1578, i. 206a, on Dist. XXII, i; and Summa, ii. 55, fol. 171v. Cusa, after his espousal of Eugenius's cause in 1437, produces a similar doctrine: see Sigmund, op. cit., 266. For earlier versions, cf. Ullmann, Principles, 53.
page 58 note 6 Summa, ii. 65, fol. 188r; cf. ibid., 52, fol. 169v, on the pope as ‘immediatus pastor et praelatus quando viderit expedire’.
page 59 note 1 Cf. Gierke, op. cit., 84, 97 f.; Ullmann, Principles, 120 f.
page 59 note 2 Torquemada, Summa, ii. 75, fol. 203r; cf. ibid., 61, fol. 179r. This was a development of Aquinas's, ‘Quod rector civitatis facit, dicitur tota civitas facere’: Summa Theologiae, I. qu. 75, art. 4, ad (i), which Torquemada himself cites here. Cf. Ullmann, Principles, 255.
page 59 note 3 Summa, ii. 83, fol. 215v-216r.
page 59 note 4 Sigmund emphasises that it was his theory of representation which enabled Cusa to move from conciliarism to support of the papacy without very much alteration in his political philosophy: op. cit., 259–80.
page 59 note 5 Cf. Kantorowicz, op. cit., 95–6, 312.
page 60 note 1 Cf. Gierke, op. cit., 62–3, 162–3.
page 60 note 2 Diplomatico Aragonesc, Re Alfonso I (1435–58). ed. Rogadeo, E. in Codice Diplomatic Barese, xi, Bari 1931, 122Google Scholar; cf. ibid., 111–12.
page 60 note 3 MS. Vat. Lat. 4140, fol. 30r. Cf. Buisson, op. cit., 399: ‘Dieser königliche Wille war eins mit seinen Ständen und lässt den Sinn jenes einfachen und stoken Wortes des Konigs begreifen: “Ich bin Frankreich”’.
page 60 note 4 Versailles, in a debate before the royal court at Bourges, August 1440: MCG., iii. 507. Cf. Figgis, J. N., The Divine Right of Kings, Cambridge 1914, 49Google Scholar; and id., Gerson to Grotius, 60; and Wilks, op. cit., viii.
page 61 note 1 Petrus de Monte in MS. Vat. Lat. 4279, fol. 60 and fol. 74. On him, see Haller, J., Piero da Monte, ein Gelehrter und pāpstlicher Beamter des 75 Jahrhunderts: seine Briefsammlung (Bibliothek des deutschen historischen Institute in Rom, xix), Rome 1941.Google Scholar
page 61 note 2 Torquemada: Mansi, xxx. 602B; cf. id.: Mansi, xxix. 484C.
page 61 note 3 Sanchez de Arevalo in MS. Barb. Lat. 1487, fol. 83v; cf. Torquemada, Summa, ii. 70. On Arevalo, see Toni, T., Don Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, Madrid 1935Google Scholar; and Trame, R. H., Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo (1404–1470), Washington 1958.Google Scholar
page 61 note 4 For example, Torquemada, Summa, ii. 71, fol. 198r; Poggio, op. cit, argt. 8; Pius II in Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici, xxix, Barri-Ducis 1874, 388; cf. RTA., xv. 187, and xvii. 651.
page 61 note 5 Torquemada, Summa, ii. 71, fol. 198r.
page 62 note 1 Torquemada: Mansi, xxx. 557D.
page 62 note 2 Nicholas Boerius, De Ordine et Precedentia Graduum, in Tractates Universi Iuris, xiv, fol. 307 (n. 59); cf. Laski, op. cit., 642.
page 62 note 3 RTA., xvii. 162. (I have substituted a comma for a full-stop after ‘terminentur’.)
page 62 note 4 See Dictiormaire de Droit Canonique, s.v.
page 62 note 5 Torquemada, Summa, ii. 52, fol. 166r. This was a very different twist put on the traditional papal argument from the ruler's ‘usefulness’; cf. Ullmann, The Growth …, 287 n., 293; and id., Principles, 67 f.
page 63 note 1 Petrus de Monte: MS. Vat. Lat. 4145, fol. 36v.
page 63 note 2 Versailles: MS. Vat. Lat. 4140, fol. 30v. Cf. Buisson, op. cit., 389. The emphasis on the bonum commune stems above all from Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle; and also from John of Salisbury's ‘publica utilitas’: see Ullmann, The Growth …, 425 f.
page 63 note 3 Torquemada: Mansi xxx. 557D; cf. id., Summa, ii. 69, fol. 191v.
page 63 note 4 Torquemada, Summa, ii. 107, fol. 248r. This idea may well have been inspired by Aquinas-Ptolemy, De Regimine Principum, xv: ‘ad regis officium pertinet ea ratione vitam multitudinis bonam procurare … ut conservatam ad meliora promoveat… Sic igitur bonae multitudinis institutioni tertium restat ad regis officium pertinens, ut sit de promotions sollicitus … si quid inordinatum est corrigere, si quid deest supplere, si quid melius fieri potest, studet perficere’: Aquinas: selected Political Writings, ed. D'Entrèves, A. P., Oxford 1954, 78–83.Google Scholar
page 63 note 5 Summa, ii. 15, fol. 130r.
page 64 note 1 Torquemada, Summa, ii. 83, fol. 215v–216r.
page 64 note 2 A word that creeps into royal arengae about this time: see Fichtenau, H., Arenga: Spätantike und Mittelalter im Spiegel von Urkundformeln (Mitteilungen des Institute für österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsbd., xviii), Graz 1957, 185.Google Scholar