Council of Basel

Council of Basel (1431-1449), the most troubled of the ecumenical councils of the Middle Ages, still not recognized as legitimate (at least in its entirety) by many historians and theologians. Held in Basel, Switzerland, it was properly convoked by Pope Martin V (reigned 1417-1431) in conformity with the decree Frequens of the Council of Constance (1414-1418), which required periodic councils; after Martin's death it was confirmed by Pope Eugene IV (r. 1431-1447). In 1437 Eugene transferred it to Ferrara, Italy, and in 1438 to Florence, where in effect an altogether new council was assembled that won practically universal recognition. The council at Basel defiantly continued as an anticouncil, however; in 1439 it declared Eugene deposed and elected an antipope, Felix V. Perceived at the moment as threatening to reopen the Great Schism (see Schism, Great), the council lost most of the support it still had. In 1449, by then a mere remnant, the council recognized the new pope, Nicholas V, and decreed its own dissolution.

The Council of Basel can best be understood as the outcome of problems left unresolved by the Council of Constance. That council had called for a general reform of the church and, in its decree Sacrosancta (the precise meaning of which historians continue to debate), seemed to place a council's authority above that of a pope. For many churchmen this conjunction meant that a thoroughgoing reform of the church could be accomplished only if councils exercised supreme authority, with power especially to regulate and reform the pope and his Curia. Certainly self-serving motives contributed as well to the adoption by prelates and princes of the radical conciliar theory that animated the council from the beginning.

Eugene, not always diplomatically adroit in dealing with the council, resented and feared its conciliarism, its antipapalism, its independent efforts to deal with the Hussite heretics, and its attempts to strengthen its hand by seeking a reconciliation with the Eastern church. Eugene himself carried this last project to a successful, if temporary, conclusion at the Council of Florence (1438-1445; see Ferrara-Florence, Council of).

The Council of Basel at its height had some 500 members, but bishops and abbots were never well represented. The most celebrated participants were the German theologian Nicholas of Cusa and the Italian humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II), both of whom later abandoned conciliarist positions. Basel signified the peak and the effective defeat of radical conciliar theory, which, amid the circumstances of this council, degenerated into mere antipapalism.