142 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
Ill certain cases the cardinals are left no option whether they shall act or not, as when a pope is insane or falls into heresy or refuses to summon a council at a time when ortliodox doctrine is at stake. The temporal power has the right to expel a pope who acts illegally.
In an address on Hosea 1 : 11, "and the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and shall appoint themselves one head," Peter Plaoul, of the University of Paris, clearly placed the council above the pope, an opinion which had the support of his own university as well as the support of the universities of Toulouse, Angers, and Orleans. The learned canonist, Zabarella, afterwards appointed cardinal, took the same ground.
The trial was carried on with all decorum and, at the end of two months, on June 5, sentence was pronounced, declaring, both popes " notorious schismatics, promoters of schism, and notorious heretics, errant from the faith, and guilty of tlie no^ torious and enormous crimes of perjury and violated oaths." ^
Deputies arriving from Perpignan a week later, June 11, were hooted by the council when the archbishop of Tarragona, one of their number, declared them to be " the representatives of the venerable pope, Benedict XIII." Benedict had a short time before shown his defiance of the Pisan fathers by adding twelve members to his cabinet. When the deputies announced their intention of waiting upon Gregory, and asked for a letter of safe conduct, Balthazar Cossa, afterwards John XXIII., the master of Bologna, is said to have declared, " Whether they come with a letter or without it, lie would burn them all if he could lay his hands upon them."
The rival popes being disposed of, it remained for the council to proceed to a^new^electiqn^ and^t was agreed to leaye the matter to the cardinals, who met in the archiepiscopal palace of Pisa, June 26, and chose the archbishop of Milan, Philargi, who took the name of Alexander V., He was about seventy,
"^ Eorum utrumque fuisse et esse notorios schismaticos et antiqui schismatis nnlritores . . . necnon notorios hmreticos et a fide devios, notoriisque criminihus enormibus perjuriis et violationis voti irretitos, etc., Mansi, XXVI. 1147, 1225 sq. Hefele, VI. 1025 sq., also gives the judgment in full.
§ 15. THE COUNCIL OF PISA. 143
a member of the Franciscan order, and had received the red hat from Innocent VII. He was a Cretanby bij^th, and the firs,t Greek to wear the tiara since John VII., in 70^. He had never known his father or mother and, rescued from poverty by the Minorites, he was taken to Italy to be educated, and later sent to Oxford. After his election as pope, he is reported to have said, " as a bishop I was rich, as a cardinal poor, and as pope I am a beggar again." ^
In^jthe meantime Gregory's side council at Cividale, near Aquileja, was running its course. There was scarcely an attendant at the first session. Later, Ruprecht and king Ladislaus were represented by deputies. The assumption of the body was out of all proportion to its size. It pronounced t]ie pontiffs of the Roman line the legitimate rulers of Christendom, and appointed nuncios to all the kingdoms. However, not unmindful of his former professions, Gregory anew expressed his readiness to resign if his rivals, Peter of Luna and Peter of Candia (Crete), would do the same. Venice had declared for Alexander, and Gregory, obliged to flee in the disguise of a merchant, found refuge in the ships of Ladislaus.
Benedict's council met in Perpignan six moiiths before, November, 1408. One hundred and twenty prelates were in attendance, most of them from Spain. The council adjourned March 26, 1409, after appointing a delegation of seven to pro^ ceed to Pisa and negotiate for the healing of the schisiji.
After Alexander's election, the members lost interest in the synod and began to withdraw from Pisa, and it was found impossible to keep the promise made by the cardinals that there should be no adjournment till measures had been taken to reform the Church " in head and members." Commissions were appointed to consider reforms, and Alexander prorogued the body, Aug. 7, 1409, after appointing another council for April 12, 1412.2
^Nieheim, p. 320 sqq., gives an account of Alexander's early life.
2 Creighton is unduly severe upon Alexander and the council for adjourning, without carrying out the promise of reform. Hefele, VI. 1042, treats the matter with fairness, and shows the diflficulty involved in a disciplinary reform where the evils were of such long standing.