Eugene IV

Conciliar reform

By far the most important feature of Eugene IV's pontificate was the great struggle between the Pope and the Council of Basel (1431–1439), the final embodiment of the Conciliar movement. On 23 July 1431, his legate Giuliano Cesarini opened the council, which had been convoked by Martin V. Canon Beaupère of Besançon, who had been sent from Basel to Rome, gave the pope an unfavourable and exaggerated account of the temper of the people of Basel and its environs. Distrustful of its purposes and emboldened by the small attendance, the Pope issued a bull on 18 December 1431 that dissolved the council and called a new one to meet in eighteen months at Bologna. He gave as his reason that it would be easier for the delegates from the eastern churches to assemble there with the European prelates. The council resisted this expression of papal prerogative. Eugene IV's action gave some weight to the contention that the Curia was opposed to any authentic measures of reform. The council refused to dissolve; instead they renewed the resolutions by which the Council of Constance had declared a council superior to the Pope and ordered Eugene IV to appear at Basel. A compromise was arranged by the Holy Roman EmperorSigismund, who had been crowned emperor at Rome on 31 May 1433. The first version of Eugene's recognition of the legitimacy of the council was signed on 1 August 1433, and subscribed by three cardinals. By its terms, the Pope recalled his bull of dissolution, and, reserving all the rights of the Holy See, acknowledged the council as ecumenical. In the amended version, signed on 15 December 1433, he withheld his approval of the initial decrees of the Council which had contained canons exalting conciliar authority above that of the pope.