PISA, COUNCIL OF (1409). The great schism of the west had already lasted thirty years, and the efforts which had been made to restore unity within the Church by the simultaneous resignation of the two rival pontiffs had been in vain, when in the spring of 1408, the state of affairs being desperate, the idea arose of assembling a council to effect a union without the co-operation of the popes. The initiative came from those cardinals who had one after the other seceded either from Gregory XII. or Benedict XIII. The day after the opening of the council, proceedings were started against the two popes, who, it was agreed, were to be eliminated. In order to depose them with some show of legality, it was necessary, as a preliminary, to convict them of heresy, and it began to be seen that their tenacity of power, and the ruses by which they evaded the necessity of abdicating, however harm ful might be their consequences, did not in themselves constitute a clearly-defined heresy. On the 5th of June 1409 was read the definitive sentence : that as heretics, and therefore separated from the Church, Pedro de Luna (Benedict XIII.) and Angelo Corrario (Gregory XII.) were ipso facto deposed from any office; they must not be obeyed, nor assisted, nor harboured.
In order to complete their task the cardinals present at Pisa, authorized by delegation of the council, shut themselves up in conclave, and elected one of their number, Peter Philarges, cardinal of Milan, as the new pope, who assumed the name of Alexander V. They had hoped to save the Church, but unfortu
nately the result of their efforts, generous as they were, was that the schism increased in bitterness, and that instead of the unity for which the Church craved, three popes continued to flourish. Both the deposed pontiffs protested against the legality of the council of Pisa; each had numerous partisans, and the thesis, constructed rather to meet the exigencies of the case, which attributed to a synod assembled by the cardinals the right of constituting itself judge of a sovereign pontiff, was far from being established. The council was proceeding to occupy itself with reform when it was dissolved by Alexander V. (August 1409).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.–See Jacques Lenfant, Histoire du concile de Pise (1731) ; Mansi, Concil., xxvii.; F. Stuhr, Die Organisation und Geschiiftsordnung der Pisaner und Konstanzer Konzils (1891) ; N. Valois, La France et le grand schism(' d'occident, iv. 3-107, 175 seq. (Igo2) ; see also art. CONSTANCE (Council of).