Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/43

 of the necessity of special measures for special situations, and this dispensation from a pedantic observance of specified forms, when felt to be hurtful to vital interests— a dispensation which has been ratified in the unhesitating acknowledgment by the Church of what was done on this occasion, —which renders the election of Martin V. a most memorable event. At this time the exclusive prerogative of the Cardinals to provide a Pope had been in force nearly four centuries without challenge. All popular memory of those other rights of franchise which once existed had quite passed away. No antiquarian reminiscences weighed with the assembled divines, but simply the living instinct of what was demanded by the gravity of the moment, too great to be trifled with, and by the claims of interests too important to be sacrificed from a rigid spirit of formalism. Accordingly, the Council constituted an especial electoral college, composed of the Cardinals and thirty divines, selected from out of its members, five from each nation present, who together could represent the genuine conscience of the Church; and these were able to supply a Pontiff who was in a condition to ap-