206 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
When Benedict XIII. was chosen successor to Clement VII., he was sent by the French king on a confidential mission to Avignon. Benedict won his allegiance and appointed him successively bishop of Puy, 1395, and bishop of Cambray, 1397. D'Ailly was with Benedict at Genoa, 1405, and Savona, 1407, but by that time seems to have come to the conclusion that Benedict was not sincere in his profession of readiness to resign, and returned to Cambray. In his absence Cambray had decided for the subtraction of its allegiance from Avignon. D'Ailly was seized and taken to Paris, but protected by the king, who was his friend. Thenceforth he favored the assemblage of a general council.
At Pisa and at Copg^^annp, rt^^jjjy fr^r^v th^ position th.lj' a general council is superior to the pope and may_depose him. Made a cardinal by John XXIII., 1411, he attended the council held at Rome.iJie following year and in vain tried to have a reform of the calendar put through. At Constance, he took the position that the Pisan council, though it was called by the Spirit and represented the Church universal, might have erred, as did other councils reputed to be general councils. He declared that the three synods of Pisa, Rome and Constance, though not one body, yet were virtually one, even as the stream of the Rhine at different points is one and the same. It was not necessary, so he held, for the Council of Constance to pass acts confirming the Council of Pisa, for the two were on a par.i
In the proceedings against Jolin_XXIII^, tlifi_QardJliaLiiailk sides against him. He was the head of the commission which tried Huss in matters of faith, June 7, 8, 1415, and was present when the sentence of death was passed upon that Reformer. At the close of the council he appears as one of the three candidates for the office of pope, and his defeat was a disappointment to the French. 2 He was appointed legate by
1 These judgments are expressed in the Capita agendorum, a sort of programme for the guidance of the council prepared by D'Ailly, 1414. Finke, Forschungen, pp. 102-132, has no doubt that they proceeded from D'Ailly's pen, a view confirmed by MSS. in Vienna and Rome. Finke gives a r^sum^ of the articles, the original of which is given by van der Hardt., II. 201 sqq. and Mansi, XXVII. 647. ^ Tschackert, p. 295.
§ 23. JOHN GERSON. 207
Martin V., with his residence at Avignon, and spent his last days there.
D'Ailly followed Ockam as a nominalist. To his writings in the departments of philosophy, theology and Church government he added works on astronomy and geography and a much-read commentary on Aristotle's meteorology. i His work on geography. The Picture of the World^ — imago mundi, — written 1410, was a favorite book with Columbus. A printed copy of it containing marginal notes in the navigator's own hand is preserved in the hihlioteca Colombina^ Seville. This copy he probably had with him on his third journey to America, for, in writing from Hayti, 1498, he quoted at length the eighth chapter. Leaning chiefly upon Roger Bacon, the author represented the coast of India or Cathay as stretching far in the direction of Europe, so that, in a favorable wind, a ship sailing westwards would reach it in a few days. This idea was in the air, but it is possible that it was first impressed upon the mind of the discoverer of the New World by the reading of D'Ailly's work. Humboldt was the first to show its value for the history of discovery.2
§ 23. John Gerson, Theologian and Church Leader.
In John Gerson, 1363-1429>we have the most attractive and the most influential theological leader of the first half of the fifteenTIi centurjt. He was intimately identified with the University of Paris as professor and as its chancellor in the period of its most extensive influence in Europe. His voice carried great weight in the settlement of the questions rising out of the papal schism.
Jean Charlier Gerson, ^_born Dec^ IJ^ioej^j^nj^^ieyUl^^^ of Gerson, in the diocese of Rheiins* was the oldest of twelve children. In a letter to him still extant,^ his mother, a godly woman, pours out her heart in the prayer that her children may live in unity with each other and with God. Two of John's brothers became ecclesiastics. In 1377 Gerson went
1 Tschackert gives an estimate of D'Ailly's writings, pp. 303-335.
2 See Fiske, Discovery of America, I. 372. » Schwab, p. 51.