Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/146

 PISANO

114

PISCATAWAY

revolutionary. For if Gregory and Benedict were doubtful, so were tlie cardinals whom they had created. If the fountain of their authority was un- certain, so was their competence to convoke the uni- versal Church and to elect a pope. Plainly, this is arguing in a circle. How then could Alexander V, elected by them, have indisputable rights to the recog- nition of the whole of Christendom? Further, it was to be feared that certain spirits would make use of this temporary expedient to transform it into a general rule, to proclaim the superiority of the sacred college and of the council to the pope, and to legalize henceforth the appeals to a future council, which had already commenced under King Philip the P^air. The means used by the cardinals could not succeed even temporarily. The position of the Church became still more precarious; instead of two heads there were three wandering popes, persecuted and exiled from their capitals. Yet, inasmuch as Alexander was not elected in opposition to a generally recognized pontiff, nor by schismatic methods, his position was better than that of Clement VII and Benedict XIII, the popes of Avignon. An almost general opinion asserts that both he and his successor, John XXIII, were true popes. If the pontiffs of Avignon had a colourable title in their own obedience, such a title can be made out still more clearly for Alexander V in the eyes of the universal Church. In fact the Pisan pope was acknowkdgcd by the majority of the Church, i. e. by France, England, Portugal, Bohemia, Prussia, a few countries of Germany, Italy, and the County Venaissin, while Naples, Poland, Bavaria, and part of Germany continued to obey Gregory, and Spain and Scotland remained subject to Benedict.

Theologians and canonists are severe on the Council of Pisa. On the one hand, a violent partisan of Benedict's, Boniface Ferrer, calls it "a conventicle of demons". Theodore Urie, a supporter of Gregory, seems to doubt whether they gathered at Pisa with the sentiments of Dathan and Abiron or those of Moses. St. Antoninus, Cajetan, Turrecremata, and Raynald openly call it a conventicle, or at any rate cast doubt on its authority. On the other hand, the Gallican school either approves of it or pleads extenu- ating circumstances. Noel Alexander asserts that the council destroyed the schism as far as it could. Bossuet says in his turn: "If the schism that de- vastated the Church of God was not exterminated at Pisa, at any rate it received there a mortal blow and the Council of Constance consummated it." Protest- ants, faithful to the consequences of their principles, applaud this council unreservedly, for they see in it "the first step to the dehverance of the world", and greet it as the dawn of the Reformation (Gregorovius). Perhaps it is wise to say with Bellarniine that this assembly is a general council which is neither ap- proved nor disapproved. On account of its illegalities and inconsistencies it cannot be quoted as an oecu- menical council. And yet it would be unfair to brand it as a conventicle, to compare it with the "robber council" of Ephesus, the pseudo-council of Basle, or the Jansenist council of Pistoia. This synod is not a pretentious, rebellious, and sacrilegious coterie. The number of the fathers, their quality, authority, in- telligence and their zealous and generous intentions, the almost unanimous accord with which they came to their decisions, the royal support they met with, remove every suspicion of intrigue or cabal. It resembles no other council, and has a place by itself in the history of the Church, as unlawful in the m.an- ner in which it was convoked, unpractical in its choice of means, not indisputable in its results, and having no claim to represent the Universal Church. It is the original source of all the ecclesiastico-historical events that took place from 1409 to 1414, and opens the way for the Council of Constance. D'AcHl^Ry, Spicilcdium. I (Paris, 1723), 853. see names of the

members of the Council, I, 844; d'Ailly in Operihus Gersonii, ed. Ellies Dupin (1706); .St. Antoninus, Summa Historialis, III, x.xii, c. V, §2; Bellarmine, De concil.. I (Paris, 1608). viii, 13 ; Bess, Johannes Gerson und die kirchenpolitischen Parteien Frankreichs vor dem Konzil zu Pisa (Marburg, 1890) ; Bliemetzrieder, Das gene- ral Komil im grossen abendl&ndischen Schisma (Paderborn, 1904); Boui.x. De Papa. I, 497; Chronicon S. Dionysii. IV, 52. 216-38; Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Ellies Dupin, II (1706), 123 sqq.; Hardouin, Concilia, VIII, 85; Hefele, Histoire des ConcileSt Leclercq, X, 255; Mansi, CoUectio Condliorum, XXVI, 1090- 1240, XXVII, 114-368; MartI;ne and Durand, Amplissima Col- lectio, VII, 894; Idem, Thesaurus, II, 1374-1476; Muzzarelli, De auctor. Rom. pontificis, II. 414; NiEM. De Schismate. ed. Erler, III (Leipzig, 1890), 26-40, 262 sqq.; Pastor, Histoire des Papes. 1, 200-3; Salembier, Le grand schisme d'Occident (Paris, 1900), 251- 74, tr. Mitchell (London, 1907) ; Idem, Pelrus ab Alliaco (Lille, 1886), 76 sqq.; Tiraboschi, Sloria litl. ital., II, 370; Tschackeht, Peter von Ailli (Gotha, 1877), see especially Appendix, p. 29; Va- lois, La France et le grand Schisme d'Occident. IV, 75 sqq.; Weiz- SACKER, Deutsche Reichstag sakten, VI, 496 sqq. ; Bliemetzrieder, Literarische Polemik zu Beginn des grossen abendlandischen Schis- mas; Ungedruckte texie und Untersuchungen (Vienna and Leipzig, 1909); Die kirchenrechtlichen Schri/ten Peters von Luna. tr. Erhle in Archivfur Literalur\und Kirchengeschichle, VII (1900), 387. 514; ScHMlTZ, Zur Geschichte des Komils V07i Pisa in Rom. Quartalschr,

('895). L. Salembier.

Pisano, Niccola. See Niccola Pisano.

Piscataway Indians, a tribe of Algonquian lin- guistic i^tork I'drinerly occupying the peninsula of lower .Maryland between the Potomac River and Chesa])eake Bay and northward to the Patapsco, including the present District of Columbia, and not- able as being the first tribe whose Christianization was attempted under English auspices. The name by which they were commonly known to the Mary- land colonists Pascatse in the Latin form — was properly that of their principal village, on Piscataway Creek near its mouth, within the present Prince George county. After their removal to the north they were known as Conoy, a corruption of their Iroquois name. There seems to be no good ground for the assertion of Smith (1608) that they were sub- ject to the Powhatan tribes of Virginia. Besides Piscataway, which was a palisaded village or "fort", they had about thirty other settlements, among which may be named Yaocomoco, Potopaco (Port Tobacco), Patuxent, Mattapanient (Mattapony), Mattawoman, and Nacochtank (Lat. Anacoslan, now Anacostia, D. C). The original relation of these towns to one another is not very clear, but under the Maryland Government their chiefs or "kings" all recognized the chief of Piscataway as their "em- peror", and held the succession subject to'the ratifica- tion of the colonial "assembly". Their original population was probably nearly 2500.

The recorded history of the Piscatawaj' begins in 1608, when Captain John Smith of Virginia sailed up the Potomac and touched at several of their villages, including Nacochtank, where "the people did their best to content us". In 1822 the same town was destroyed by a band of plunderers from Vir- ginia, but afterward rebuilt. On 25 March, 1634, the Catholic English colony of Lord Baltimore, includ- ing the Jesuit Fathers Andrew White and John Altham, and two lay brothers, landed on St. Clement's (Blackistone's) Island and established friendly rela- tions with the people of Yaocomoco, as well as with the great chief of Piscataway, as also the chief of Potomac town on the Virginia side. The first altar was set up in an Indian wigwam. Owing to the at- tacks of the powerful Susquehanna at the head of the bay the people of Yaocomoco were about to remo\e, apparently to combine with those of Piscat- away, and tlic English settlers bargained with them for the abaiuloncd site.

The .lesuits at once set to work to study the lan- guage and customs of the Indians in order to reach them with Christianity. Father \Miitc, superior of the mission, whose valuable "Relatio" is almost our only monument to the Maryland tribes, composed a grammar, dictionary, and catechism in the Pis- cataway dialect, of which the last, if not the others.