Ep. 171: Council of Constance (1414-1418) - Removing surplus Popes
History of the Germans
Dirk Hoffmann-Becking
4.9 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Council of Constance marked a pivotal moment in the history of the Catholic Church and the history of Europe in general.
One issue on the agenda was the ongoing schism that the council of Pisa had failed to resolve. Another the reform of the increasingly corrupt clergy all the way up to the pope himself. And then there were a number of individual questions this gathering of thousands had to address.
Whilst all these were crucial questions, the way the council constituted itself foreshadowed a fundamental change in the way European saw themselves.
This part 1 deals with the establishment of the council and the removal of the popes, most importantly the pope who had convened the council on the first place, John XXIII and his counterpart, the emperor Sigismund.
Chapters:
- 00:18 - The Unusual Procession
- 03:54 - The Journey to Constance
- 10:35 - The Council of Constance: A New Chapter in Church History
- 16:51 - The Arrival of Sigismund
- 20:15 - The Shift Towards National Identity in the Church Council
- 27:41 - The Turning Point: The Council's Decree
- 34:47 - The End of the Schism and the Rise of New Leadership
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans. |
| 0:10.2 | Episode 171, the Council of Constance, Part 1, Cleaning House, which is also episode 8 |
| 0:17.9 | of Season 9, the Reformation before the Reformation. |
| 0:30.6 | On a cold night in October 1414, a most unusual procession appeared near the village of Klosterle on the Alberg Pass. Not an army, but almost as large. |
| 0:33.6 | 600 men, some soldiers and bodyguards, a few high-ranking aristocrats, but mostly men of the cloth, |
| 0:41.3 | clerics, doctors of theology, but also abbots, bishops and archbishops, as well as the true |
| 0:47.3 | princes of the church, cardinals, dozens of them. And at the center of the procession an enormous |
| 0:53.1 | cart, and in it the true Lord of all |
| 0:56.0 | of Christendom, the bearer of both sorts, the temporal and the spiritual, Pope John the 23rd. |
| 1:04.5 | The roads that had travelled on for days were terrible. Whatever was left of the old Roman |
| 1:09.3 | infrastructure had long been buried underground |
| 1:11.9 | or had deteriorated so badly it had gone out of use. Through the autumn mud the procession ploughed |
| 1:18.6 | on. And just as they were passing the hamlet of Clostale, in the hollow way that masked as one of |
| 1:25.7 | of Europe's busiest north-south connections, the attendants watched in panic |
| 1:29.9 | as the right-hand side wheels of the papal wagon climbed the bank of the road. Before anyone could |
| 1:38.7 | rein in the horses and prevent disaster, the carriage rose, went past the point of vanishing stability, and with a terrifying |
| 1:46.1 | thumb landed on its side. |
| 1:49.7 | The Holy Father was thrown out of his vehicle and lay buried deep in the snow. |
| 1:54.9 | His lords and bishops ran to him and asked, |
| 1:56.8 | A Holy Father, has your holiness been harmed? |
| 2:00.6 | And he responded, |
| 2:02.6 | Here, for the devil's sake, I lie. |
... |
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