258 Ferrer, Vincent, Saint
moved to FLORENCE, where it was better financed and
started meeting in January 1439. It achieved a union of
the Western and Eastern Churches on paper, though not
in reality. The principle underlying this temporary union
was one based on unity of doctrinal faith but diversity of
rite. In return for accepting the papacy’s position on such
crucial doctrines as papal primacy, PURGATORY, the FIL-
IOQUECLAUSEconcerning the Trinity, and doctrines about
the Eucharist, Byzantium expected military aid against
the OTTOMANS. The subsequent Crusade that Pope
EUGENIUSIV promoted was destroyed at the Battle of
Varna in 1444.
Emperor John VIII (r. 1425–48) and his entourage
were subjected to harsh criticism upon their return after
a decree of unity was signed on July 5, 1439 (Laetentur
coeli). The patriarch Joseph II (r. 1416–39) escaped
direct abuse and perhaps deposition by dying in Florence.
The metropolitan of all Russia, Isidore of Kiev (ca.
1385–1463), was deposed and imprisoned upon his
return to MOSCOWin 1440, but later escaped back to the
west. The meetings of the next few years dealt with rela-
tions between Rome and other Eastern Churches such as
those of the Armenians Syrians, Chaldeans and the COPTS
of Egypt. During this period the council also declared all
the members of the Council of Basel excommunicated
and heretics. In 1443 it moved to Rome, where it more
or less petered out without any kind of formal closing,
essentially marking the end of CONCILIARISM and the
Conciliar Movement.
See alsoBESSARION,JOHNCARDINAL.
Further reading:Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of
the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1, Nicaea to Lateran V(Lon-
don: Sheed & Ward, 1990), 453–591; Joseph Gill, The
Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1959); Joseph Gill, Personalities of the Council of
Florence(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964).
Ferrer, Vincent, Saint (1350–1419) Dominican preacher
Vincent Ferrer was born the son of an English father and
an Aragonese mother at VALENCIA in ARAGONabout
- As a young man, he entered the novitiate of the
DOMINICANOrder in Valencia in 1367. After studying at
Lerida, BARCELONA, and TOULOUSE, he began a career as a
teacher and friar. Right from the beginning of his career,
he earned renown as a preacher and promoter of charita-
ble works. During the Great SCHISMof 1378 between
URBANVI at Rome and Clement VII (r. 1378–94) at AVI-
GNON, Vincent joined the Avignonese obedience and sup-
ported it in his preaching and writing. He also had the
political support of the king of ARAGON. In 1394, the car-
dinal of Aragon, Benedict XIII (r. 1394–1417, d. 1423),
who was the successor to Clement VII, called Ferrer to
the court of Avignon as a chaplain and a confessor to
the pope. There Vincent strongly urged Benedict to settle
the schism and reconcile with the pope in Rome. He
repeated this admonition to Benedict years later during
the Council of CONSTANCE. He soon grew disillusioned
with the intransigency of the pontiff and retired from the
papal court in 1398. He then started to travel and preach,
concentrating his attention on the conversion of the Jews.
With a group of followers and disciples, both clerical and
lay, he moved through PROVENCEto the Dauphiné, SAVOY,
Piedmont, CATALONIA,CASTILE, and then southern
France. He then traveled north to BRITTANY, where he
died at Vannes on April 5, 1419.
His popular and scary preaching and his miracles cap-
tivated huge audiences and produced numerous groups of
FLAGELLANTS. Wherever he went, there were always sto-
ries of much repentance and cessation of sin among his
listeners. A spontaneous cult quickly arose from the
moment of his death and Ferrer was canonized in 1455.
Further reading:Vincent Ferrer, A Treatise on the
Spiritual Life: With a Commentary by Julienne Morrell,
trans. Dominican Nuns, Corpus Christi Monastery,
Menlo Park, Calif. (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press,
1957); Henri Ghéon, Saint Vincent Ferrer, trans. F. J.
Sheed (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1954).feudalism and the feudal system The term feudal-
ismwas first used by jurists and legal historians in the
17th century to characterize many aspects of medieval
society. According to their conceptualization, feudalism
was a form of social and political organization based on
personal ties and specific to the Western Middle Ages.
The term, derived from FIEF, emphasized person-to-per-
son relationships supported by landed property and its
rights and revenues. A major aspect of this was vas-
salage, which was the basis for these personal ties and
was highlighted in the rituals that surrounded acts of
homage and loyalty. These personal ties were in turn
based on the holding of fiefs or incomes that mutually
bound a lord and a vassal. These feudal and vassal rela-
tionships were viewed as concerning really only the
aristocratic level of society. In the minds of these 17th-
century lawyers, however, the ideological and economic
substructures directly or indirectly influenced most
social ties.
Such feudalism existed, if in any detail at all, primar-
ily in the period between the 10th and 13th centuries.
During these centuries western Europe experienced the
weakening and dislocation of the state and public author-
ity. Public authority, such as it was, no longer controlled
the resources essential for keeping order such as
fortresses, the effective power to constrain, impose, and
administer justice, and the coinage of money. Authority
depended on private ties and cohesion on the coopera-
tion of local, family, or clan groups. Feudalism was a way
of coping with this climate of dispersed authority, which
favored uncontrolled competition, rivalries, weak states,
marauding, wars, and military force. Feudalism arose