Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/40

 these three Constitutions of Nicolas II., Alexander III., and Gregory X. comprise all the essential features in the mechanism which is now still in force at Papal elections. In the last quarter of the thirteenth century the Pontifical Court had thus definitively attained its present organism, and slid into the groove in which its wheels since have run.

Once alone has there been a memorable innovation upon what may be considered the principles embodied in these prescriptions, though on one other occasion, when the question of the transfer of the Holy See back from Avignon to Rome was at stake, a remarkable deviation from the prescribed forms was sanctioned, as will he mentioned. This innovation happened on the occasion of the Papal election which ensued in consequence of the resolutions arrived at in the Council of Constance. The Church of Rome has never since beer exposed to trials of the same intensity as those from which she delivered herself by the intervention of this Council. She has indeed been subsequently confronted by difficulties of no slight order, but these have all preserved more or less the character of an external origin, whereas then