Ended the Great Western Schism of three rival claimants and elected Martin V; condemned Wyclif, and burned Jan Hus.
- Where
- Constance — Konstanz, Germany
- Convoked by
- The Pisan claimant John XXIII, under heavy pressure from the emperor Sigismund
- Pope
- Contested — that was the problem. The council became ecumenical only on 4 July 1415, when Gregory XII reconvoked it before resigning
- Emperor
- Sigismund, who drove the whole enterprise
- Sat
- Opened 5 November 1414; closed 22 April 1418
- Sessions
- Forty-five sessions in Constance, a free imperial city chosen as neutral ground
- Bishops present
- Enormous — hundreds of bishops and abbots with thousands of clerks, scholars and servants. Voting was by nation rather than by head, a new procedure adopted so that the Italian bishops could not simply outnumber everyone else
What it faced
In 1378 the cardinals elected Urban VI, regretted it within months, and elected Clement VII instead. Neither would yield, and Europe divided along political lines: France, Scotland and Aragon for Avignon; England, the Empire and most of Italy for Rome. Saints lined up on both sides — Catherine of Siena for Rome, Vincent Ferrer for Avignon — which is the clearest possible proof that holiness does not confer information.
In 1409 a council at Pisa tried to end it by deposing both and electing a third. Both refused to go. There were now three claimants, and no authority left that everyone recognised as competent to judge between them.
Alongside the schism ran a doctrinal crisis. John Wyclif in England had attacked transubstantiation, the priesthood and Church property; Jan Hus in Bohemia had taken up his cause with a reforming programme rooted in real grievances about clerical corruption and Czech grievances against German dominance. Sigismund gave Hus a safe-conduct to come and argue his case at Constance.
What it defined
- ✠The end of the Great Western Schism: John XXIII deposed, Gregory XII resigned, Benedict XIII abandoned, and Martin V elected on 11 November 1417.
- ✠The condemnation of 45 articles of John Wyclif and of 30 articles of Jan Hus.
- ✠The decree Frequens, requiring general councils at fixed intervals — five years, then seven, then every ten.
- ✠That communion under one kind is legitimate for the laity, against the Hussite demand for the chalice.
In its own words
“…legitimately assembled in the holy Spirit, constituting a general council and representing the catholic church militant, it has power immediately from Christ; and that everyone of whatever state or dignity, even papal, is bound to obey it in those matters which pertain to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the general reform of the said church of God in head and members.”
“The frequent holding of general councils is the best method of cultivating the field of the Lord…”
Its sessions
Constance is best read session by session, because which sessions count is itself the question.
- Session 5Haec sancta declares the council's authority over any claimant to the papacy in matters of faith, schism and reform.
- Session 8Condemns 45 articles of Wyclif and orders his books burned and his remains exhumed.
- Session 12Deposes John XXIII, who had fled the city in disguise.
- Session 13Upholds communion under one kind for the laity, against the Hussite demand for the chalice.
- Session 14Gregory XII reconvokes the council and then resigns — the act that makes it, on the Catholic reading, an ecumenical council.
- Session 15Condemns Jan Hus, degrades him from the priesthood and hands him to the secular arm; he was burned the same day, 6 July 1415.
- Session 39Frequens: a council in five years, another seven years later, and thereafter every ten.
- ✕It did not, on the Catholic reading, establish that a council outranks the pope. Sessions 1 to 12 were held under a claimant the Church does not recognise, and Haec sancta belongs to session 5 — before the council became ecumenical on 4 July 1415. Martin V's confirmation in Inter cunctas of 22 February 1418 approved what the council had decided 'conciliariter' in matters of faith, a formula narrow enough to have been argued over ever since.
- ✕It did not honour Hus's safe-conduct. Sigismund had given it and did not enforce it. The council held that a promise made to a heretic did not bind — a position the Church has since abandoned entirely, and one no Catholic today should defend.
- ✕It did not reform the Church, which was the third of its stated aims. Martin V dissolved it before the reform decrees could bite, and a century later the reformation came from outside instead.
What people think it did
Constance proves that councils are superior to popes, since it deposed three of them.
What happened: It deposed one man the Church now counts an antipope, accepted the resignation of the one it counts as the true pope, and ignored a third. The decisive act — Gregory XII's reconvocation on 4 July 1415 — was precisely an assertion that the council needed papal authority to be a council at all. That is why Catholic reckoning treats the sessions before that date as not ecumenical, and why <em>Haec sancta</em>, from session 5, has never been received as binding doctrine.
The Church has never admitted that burning Hus was wrong.
What happened: In 1999, at a symposium he had commissioned on Hus, John Paul II expressed deep regret for the cruel death inflicted on him and praised his moral courage. The Church has not reversed the condemnation of the propositions attributed to him, and the historical question of whether they were fairly drawn from his writings is still argued. But the killing has been repented of by name.
What followed
The schism ended, and that is not a small thing: for thirty-nine years no Catholic could be certain who the pope was, and Constance restored a single visible head to the Church.
Hus was burned on 6 July 1415, singing. His death made him a Czech national martyr and started the Hussite wars, which cost Bohemia a generation. In 1999 John Paul II expressed 'deep regret for the cruel death inflicted on Jan Hus' and acknowledged him as a reformer of the Church, though without reversing the doctrinal condemnation.
Frequens and Haec sancta together are the high-water mark of conciliarism — the theory that a general council, not the pope, holds supreme authority. The theory was defeated at Florence a generation later and buried at Vatican I, but the questions it raised about how popes are held accountable have never entirely gone away.
Follow it further
Sources
Every date, figure and quotation on this page was checked against the conciliar text or a published translation before it was written, and independently re-checked by three separate passes over dates, quotations and theology. Where the sources disagree — attendance figures above all — the page gives the range rather than choosing.