BASEL, COUNCIL OF. The third of the three reforming councils of the I 5th century, after the councils of Pisa (14o9 ) and Constance (1414-18) . In these councils the aim of the ma jority was to destroy the absolute supremacy of the Pope and curb the rule of the Roman curia, in order that the power of oecumen ical or general councils and the authority of the episcopate might be re-established. The fathers of Constance succeeded in showing their superiority to the pope by bestowing the papal chair on Mar tin V. and by insisting that another such council be called in five years. The council called in obedience to this instruction was first appointed to meet at Pavia, then at Siena; but Basel was at last decided upon. At the very beginning Martin died, but his succes sor Eugenius IV. sanctioned his decrees and the council met in July 1431, under the presidency of Cardinal Julian Cesarini.
The democratic character of the assembly at Basel was the re sult both of its composition and of its organization ; not only was the number of prelates in it always small in comparison with that of the doctors, masters, representatives of chapters, monks or clerks of inferior orders, but the influence of the superior clergy had all the less weight because, instead of being separated into "nations," as at Constance, the fathers divided themselves ac cording to their tastes or aptitudes into four large committees or "deputations" (deputationes), one concerned with questions of faith (fidei), another with negotiations for peace (pacis), the third with reform (ref ormatorii), the fourth with what they called "common concerns" (pro communibus). Every decision made by three of these "deputations"—and in each of them the lower clergy formed the majority—was ratified for the sake of form in general congregation, and if necessary led to decrees promulgated in session.
The principal subjects assigned to the council were the re-union of the Greek and Latin Churches, the reconciliation of the Hus site Bohemians, and the reform of the Church according to the resolutions of Constance. Soon after the opening of the council the Roman curia took alarm at its aims, and by intrigues com pelled the pope, who was really anxious for reform, to do all he could to hinder its work. He twice tried to dissolve it ; but it re sisted, maintaining that an oecumenical council, being superior to the pope, could not be dissolved. Eugenius yielded; and the bishops refused to admit his legates until they admitted the supremacy of the council and promised to obey its decrees.
The first business to which the members addressed themselves was to curb the power of the pope and of the Roman curia. They tried to do this by stopping the flow of money from all parts of Europe to Rome. They abolished the Annates (q.v.); they de clared it illegal in a bishop to send the sum of money commonly presented on his investiture; and they passed disciplinary measures regulating the elections, the celebration of divine service, the hold ing of diocesan synods and provincial councils and so forth.
Eugenius, however much he may have wished to keep on good terms with the fathers of Basel, was neither able nor willing to accept or observe all their decrees. The question of the union with the Greek Church, especially, gave rise to a misunderstanding be tween them which soon led to a rupture. The emperor John Palaeologus, pressed hard by the Turks, showed a great desire to unite himself with the Catholics; he consented to come with the principal representatives of the Greek Church to some place in the west where the union could be concluded in the presence of the pope and of the Latin council. Hence arose a double negoti ation between him and Eugenius IV. on the one hand and the fathers of Basel on the other. The chief object of the latter was to fix the meeting-place at a place remote from the influence of the pope, and they persisted in suggesting Basel or Avignon or Savoy, which neither Eugenius nor the Greeks would on any ac count accept. The result was that Palaeologus accepted the offers of the pope, who, by a bull dated Sept. 18, 1437, again pro nounced the dissolution of the council of Basel, and summoned the fathers to Ferrara, where on Jan. 8, 1438, he opened a new synod which he later transferred to Florence. In this latter town took place the momentary union, which was more apparent than real, between the Latin and the Greek Church (July 6, During this time the council of Basel, though abandoned by Cesarini and most of its members, persisted none the less, under the presidency of Cardinal Aleman, in affirming its oecumenical character. On Jan. 24, 1438, it suspended Eugenius IV., and went on in spite of the intervention of most of the powers to pronounce his deposition (June finally giving rise to a new schism by electing on Nov. 4 Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, as pope, who took the name of Felix V.
This schism lasted fully ten years, although the antipope found hardly any adherents outside of his own hereditary states, those of Alphonso of Aragon, of the Swiss confederation and certain uni versities. Germany remained neutral; Charles VII. of France confined himself to securing to his kingdom the benefit of a great number of the reforms decreed at Basel ; by the "Pragmatic Sanc tion" of Bourges, which became law on July 13, 1438, England and Italy remained faithful to Eugenius. The prestige of the council grew rapidly weaker. In June 1448 it migrated to Lausanne, and the antipope, at the instance of France, ended by abdicating (April Eugenius IV. died in Feb. 1447, and the fathers of Lau sanne, to save appearances, gave their support to his successor, Nicholas V., who had already been governing the Church for two years. Trustworthy evidence, they said, proved to them that this pontiff accepted the dogma of the superiority of the council as it had been defined at Constance and at Basel. In reality, the struggle which they had carried on in defence of this principle for years, with a good faith which it is impossible to ignore, ended in a defeat. The papacy, which had been so fundamentally shaken by the great schism of the west, came through this trial victorious. The era of the great councils of the i 5th century was closed ; the constitution of the Church remained monarchical.
See Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History (Eng. trans. Edinburgh, , vol. iv. ; and the standard authorities, Mansi, Concilia, vol. xxix.; and Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. v. (written in view of the promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility by the Vatican Council of 1870) .