Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/545

Rh out that, of the four papal representatives concerned in thus strangling the council, three died within a year, of terrible deaths, manifestly the divine vengeance on their wickedness. Martin made a show of supplementing this lack of performance by appointing a commission of three cardinals to carry on the work of reform, and requested all complaints and suggestions to be sent to them-a measure which was as profitless in result as it was intended to be. Equally illusory was a constitution issued shortly after, restraining the ostentation and extravagance of the cardinals, and prohibiting them from assuming the "protection" of any prince or potentate, or asking favors except for the poor or for their own retainers and kindred, thus reducing the importance of the Sacred College as a factor of the Holy See and exalting his own.

The time fixed for the assembling of the Council of Basle, March, 1431, was rapidly drawing nigh without any action on the part of Martin looking to its convocation. He who owed his election to a general council was notorious for abhorring the very name of council. At length, on November 8, 1430, there appeared on the doors of the papal palace, and in the most conspicuous places in Rome, an anonymous notice, purporting to be issued by two Christian kings, reciting the necessity of holding a council in obedience to the decrees of Constance, and appending some conclusions of a threatening character, to the effect that if the pope and cardinals impede it, or even evade promoting it, they are to be held as fautors of heresy; that if the pope does not open the council himself or by his deputies, those who may be present will be compelled by divine law to withdraw obedience from him, and Christendom will be bound to obey them, and that they will be forced to proceed summarily to his deposition and that of the cardinals as fautors of heresy. It was evident that Christendom was determined to have the council, with the pope or without him, and Martin, after holding out till the last moment, was compelled to yield. He had appointed, January 11, 1431, Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini as legate to preach another crusade with plenary indul-