Haec sancta, the chief prop of Basel’s new dogma, as merely the act of one obedience in
the Great Schism, and launched a diplomatic offensive against them. England and
Burgundy supported Eugenius. Other princes, including the king of France and the
powers of the empire, temporized, often maintaining a neutral stance and proposing a
council that would absorb the assemblies at Florence and Basel. Papal diplomats slowly
won them over, often more by bribery than by the effectiveness of their arguments. At the
same time, a new generation of papalists, led by Torquemada, advanced refutations of
conciliarism and new defenses of papal primacy. Finally, the last of the princes, those in
Germany, embraced Eugenius’s successor, Nicholas V (r. 1447–55). Felix resigned his
claim. Even the remainder of the Basel assembly gave up, and nominal unity was
restored.
The Renaissance papacy, freed of the threat from the Council of Basel, would act
increasingly like a secular monarchy; but even before the Reformation it did not go
uncriticized. Conciliar thought and demands for reform flourished, even in the curia.
Conciliarism endured, moreover, in Paris as a constituent element in Gallican thought,
influencing the development of Monarchomach theory. Fear of a council like that at
Basel would slow the papacy’s response to the Reformation, putting off wide
consultation on defense of the faith and reform until Paul III (r. 1534–49) summoned the
Council of Trent in 1545.
Thomas M.Izbicki
[See also: AVIGNON PAPACY; D’AILLY, PIERRE; GALLICANISM; GERSON,
JEAN; GRATIAN; HENRY OF LANGENSTEIN; PEACE OF GOD; SUBTRACTION
OF OBEDIENCE; WILLIAM OF SAINT-AMOUR]
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