Council of Basel

The Council of Basel was a council of bishops and other ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church that was held at Basel, Switzerland, away from territories of the Papacy, the Holy Roman Emperor or the kings of Aragon or France, whose influences the council hoped to avoid.

Aftermath

In reality, the struggle which they had carried on in defence of this principle for seventeen years, with a good faith which it is impossible to ignore, ended in a defeat. The papacy, so fundamentally shaken by the great schism of the West, came through this trial with a pyrrhic victory. The era of the great councils of the 15th century closed; the constitution of the Roman Church remained monarchical, but this left unresolved the real issues which sustained the Reformation.

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Authorities:

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• Mansi, vol. xxix.-xxxi.
• Aeneas Sylvius, De rebus Basileae gestis (Fetmo, 1803)
• Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. vii. (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1874)
• 0. Richter, Die Organisation and Geschäftsordnung des Basler Konziis (Leipzig, 1877)
• Monumenta Conciliorum generalium seculi xv., Scriptorum, vol. i., ii. and iii. (Vienna, 1857-1895)
• J. Haller, Concilium Basiliense, vol. i.-v. (Basel,1896-1904)
• G. Perouse, Le Cardinal Louis Aleman, président du concile de Bâle (Paris, 1904).
• J. C. L. Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 312ff (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853).
• Johannes Helmrath, Das Basler Konzil; 1431 - 1449; Forschungsstand und Probleme, Köln 1978.
• Stefan Sudmann, Das Basler Konzil: Synodale Praxis zwischen Routine und Revolution (= Tradition - Reform - Innovation, Studien zur Modernität des Mittelalters, Bd. 8), Peter-Lang-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005 (Diss. Münster/Westf. 2004), ISBN 3-631-54266-6 http://www.peterlang.com/Index.cfm?vID=54266&vHR=1&vUR=3&vUUR=4&vLang=D