The Council of Constance

Constance, on the Bodensee · November 1414 to April 1418 · convened by John XXIII at the urging of King Sigismund · the council that ended the Great Schism and burned Jan Hus.

Constance succeeded where Pisa had failed. When John XXIII fled the city to break up the council, the fathers declared in the decree Haec sancta of April 6, 1415, that a general council holds its power immediately from Christ, and that even a pope must obey it in matters of faith, the ending of schism, and reform. John was deposed that May, Gregory XII resigned in July, and Benedict XIII was deposed in 1417. On November 11, 1417, Martin V was elected, and the schism was over. The decree Frequens ordered that councils meet at regular intervals thereafter.

The same council condemned the teaching of John Wycliffe and ordered his bones exhumed and burned. Jan Hus, who had come under a safe-conduct from Sigismund, was imprisoned, tried, and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415, refusing to recant what he had not taught. His friend Jerome of Prague followed him to the fire in 1416. The council also forbade the cup to the laity in communion.

Principal Acts

  • Ended the Great Schism by removing all three claimants and electing Martin V.
  • Affirmed the authority of councils over the church, and required that they be called regularly.
  • Condemned Wycliffe’s teaching.
  • Tried and executed Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague.
  • Withheld the cup from the laity.

Why It Matters

At the Leipzig Disputation in July 1519, Johann Eck pressed Luther to say whether Constance had erred. Luther answered that among the articles of Hus it condemned were some that were thoroughly Christian and evangelical. With that admission he denied that councils could not err, and the Reformation’s appeal to Scripture alone was set in the open. Within months he wrote that, without knowing it, he and Staupitz had all along been Hussites.

Numbering. Rome reckons this the sixteenth ecumenical council, but the binding force of Haec sancta, which subordinated popes to councils, has long been disputed among Roman Catholic theologians. Protestants do not count it ecumenical.

The Medieval Councils

Roman Catholic Councils

Notes

  1. Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (London: Sheed & Ward; Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), vol. 1. Latin and English text, including Haec sancta and Frequens.
  2. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 6, The Middle Ages, A.D. 1294–1517 (CCEL).
  3. Matthew Spinka, trans., John Hus at the Council of Constance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965).