Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/223

 THE CLOSE: MIDDLE EUROPE 211 the higher life. Men of learning and character could still feel that public morality would suffer if the authority of the Church were diminished. Such heresies as those of the Albigenses appeared anarchical. But the arrogance of Boniface vin., and the humiliation of his successors, destroyed that moral vigour of the papacy ; and the new reformers, in search of a moral influ- ence to take its place, were beginning in fact to appeal to scrip- ture and human reason instead of to the authority of the Church. If that authority was weakened by the captivity of Avignon, it sank still lower at the end of the fourteenth century. A pope was at last elected by the party in the Church The Great which was in revolt against French domination. Schism, 1378. The pope returned to Rome. The revolt was followed by the Great Schism, when the French cardinals elected a pope of their own in opposition to the Italian pope. Western Christendom adhered to one pope or the other for political reasons. The popes excommunicated each other, and all the adherents of the opposite party ; the authority of both popes sank to the lowest point, and Christendom realised that the scandal must be brought to an end. The remedy was found in summoning a General Council of the Church at Pisa, on the council of principle that a General Council was the last and Pisa > 1409 - highest authority to which the Church could appeal. The Council of Pisa deposed both the reigning popes and elected another to take their place, but neither of the deposed popes would retire ; so that now there were three popes, each of them pretending to be representative of St. Peter. Five years after the Council of Pisa, a fresh General Council was summoned at Constance; all the three popes were deposed or council of retired, and Martin v. was elected in 14 17. This Constance, Council was summoned primarily by the authority 1414 * of Sigismund as emperor and temporal head of Christendom. The Great Schism was brought to an end, and there was once more a single pope who was acknowledged on all hands, and whose high character began to redeem the papal authority; and the pope also once more ruled as a temporal prince over the central province of Italy, which was always supposed to be his immediate property.