The Council of Constance Ends the Western Schism
By 1414 the Western Schism had reduced the papacy to three competing claimants who mutually excommunicated one another, shattering the constitutional authority of the Roman see. The Council of Constance, convened under imperial pressure, deposed John XXIII and Benedict XIII, accepted the resignation of Gregory XII, and in 1417 elected Martin V, ending the schism. Its decree Haec Sancta (1415) declared that a General Council derived its authority directly from Christ and that all, even the pope, were bound to obey it in matters of faith and reform. This conciliarist claim struck at the constitutional foundation of papal monarchy and, by implication, at the legitimacy of the papacy's temporal sovereignty over the Papal States. The council also condemned and burned Jan Hus in 1415, an act that triggered the Hussite Wars. For the Papal States the structural significance was a top-down institutional restructuring of the constitution of the church itself.
- Year: 1414 CE
- Category: Political
