THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
For the organization of the Lutheran churches in America see Lutherans. In the Reformed Dutch and Reformed French churches the consistory is an ecclesiastical court corresponding to the Presbyterian session in the former, and to the presbytery in the latter; in the Church of England it is a diocesan court presided over by the chancellor of the diocese.
CONSTANCE, BISHOPRIC OF: The origin of the see of Constance can not be positively determined. In the Roman period no bishopric is mentioned in northwestern Helvetia; but among the subscriptions to the Burgundian Synod of Epao (517) and the Frankish synods of Orleans (541, 549) occur the names of two bishops of Vindonissa, a name which is still preserved in that of the village of Windisch at the confluence of the Aar and the Reuss. This was the headquarters of the eleventh and twelfth legions, and it is likely that a Christian church existed there in Roman days. The last mention of such a bishopric is the signature of Grammaticus as episcopus ecclesice Uindunnensis in 549. Early in the seventh century a good authority, the Vita Columbani, mentions a bishop in one of the " neighbor " towns to Bregenz. The nearest episcopal sees are Augsburg, Chur, and Vindonissa; but none of these could quite be called vicina urbs. It is a natural supposition, therefore, that the town of Constance, founded at the end of the Roman period, was at this time an episcopal see, which probably replaced that of Vindonissa between 519 and 610. It included all the territory of the Alemanni not included in the older dioceses of Chur, Augsburg, Strasburg, and Basel, and extended from the Aar and the Rhine to the Iller, and from the middle course of the Neckar to the St. Gothard, including the Swabian liighlands — thus embracing the greater part of modern Wilrttemberg, southern Baden, central and northeastern Switzerland. No German diocese was so rich in prominent monasteries; among the best-known may be mentioned St. Gall, Reichenau, Kempten, Zurich, Lindau, Einsiedeln, St. Blasien, Petershausen, Muri, and AVeingarten. (A. Hauck.)
Originally subject to the archbishop of Besan5on, Constance was placed under the jurisdiction of Mainz when the latter was raised by Boniface to the dignity of the metropolitan see of Germany. Here as elsewhere during the Middle Ages, canonical election of the bishops gave way to royal nomination, ■ and probably all the bishops of the eleventh century owed their elevation to this source. Otto I. (1071-86) was a strong partizan of Henry IV., and, though the two bishops who covered the period from 1127 to 1165 were canonically chosen, during the struggle with Barbarossa Constance was usually on the side of the imperial claimant of the papacy. In 1220 the process of acquiring the temporal dignity of a prince of the empire for the bishop was completed, though the secular jurisdiction embracetl only twenty-two square miles, only a small l)art of the diocese, and did not include the see city. In the fourteenth century contested papal and episcopal elections brought much unrest, until the long rule of Henry III. of Brandis, abbot of Einsie-
deln (1357-83), restored order. At the Reformation most of the Swiss part of the diocese adopted the new religion, while Duke Ulrich introduced Protestantism into Wiirttemberg in 1534. The city of Constance declared for Zwinglian tenets, and was one of the four towns which presented the Tetrapolitan Confession (q.v.) at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. In 1526 the bishop transferred his residence to Meerstadt, where his successors preferred to remain, even after the victory of the imperial arms had crushed out both the Protestantism and the freedom of the city. But though the diocese had come through many perils without hopeless loss, it fell a victim to the changes brought about by the French Revolution. The Peace of Lun^ville (1802) abolished the temporal sovereignty of the bishop, which was divided between Baden and Switzerland. The bishopric itself went down in the general upheaval, and the Swiss territory, after being administered for a time by a vicar-apostolic, was assigned to the sees of Basel, Chur, and St. Gall, that now in Wiirttemberg to the new see of Rottenberg, and the Bavarian section to Augsburg. The last vestige of the old diocese disappeared in 1821, when the small remainder was incorporated with the diocese of Freiburg, the metropolitan see of the new province of the Upper Rhine.
Bibliography: Sources are in Wirtembergischei Urkundenbuch, 6 vols., Stuttgart, 1849-54; Regesta Bademia, ed. C. G. Diimg^, Carlsruhe, 1839; MGH, Script., xiii (1881), 324 sqq., xv (1888), 1023-24, 1284 sqq.; Regesta episcoporum Constantiensium, 2vol3., Innsbruck, 1894-96. C!onsuIt: Rettberg, KD, ii. 98 sqq.; Friedrich, KD, 2 vols.; Hauck, KD, vols, i.-iii. ; E. Egli, Kirckengeschichte der Schweiz, Zurich, 1893.
CONSTANCE, COUNCIL OF: The second of the three " reforming councils " of the fifteenth century. It was called by Pope John XXIII. and the Emperor Sigismund, and sat from Nov. 5, 1414, to Apr. 22, 1418. Its three great objects were to heal the papal schism (see Schism), to examine the heresy of Wyclif and Huss and the religious disturbances thereby caused in Bohemia, and to carry through a general reform of the Church. It was attended by twenty-nine cardinals, three patriarchs, thirty-three archbishops, about one hundred and fifty bishops, more than one hundred abbots, a larger number of professors and doctors of theology and
General canon law, and more t han 5,000 monks. Character, besides princes, noblemen, ambassadors, etc. Beside an ecclesiastical assembly a general European congress was in progress. The number of strangers in Constance is put by the lowest estimate at 50,000, and among them such characters as money-lenders, strolling actors, and low women were well represented. The pope rode into the city on Oct. 28, with great magnificence, sixteen hundred horses carrying his retinue and luggage. The emperor arrived on Christmas Eve with an imposing following. The most prominent and most influential members of the council were Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson, who soon became its soul.
The Council of Pisa (1409) had attempted to put an end to the schism by deposing both Gregory XII., who resided in Rome, and Benedict XIII., who resided at Avignon, and electing in their stead