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9. Angelo da Vallombrosa and the Pisan Schism
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9 Angelo da Vallombrosa and the Pisan Schism } J. h. bUrns The Council of Pisa and Milan (1511–12)—small in membership and devoid of significant results—has had what may seem disproportionate scholarly attention. For many at the time it was a mere conciliabulum ; for the subject of this essay, it was, still more contemptuously, a conventiculum. Yet eighty years ago Augustin Renaudet published substantial documentation of “the Gallican Council of Pisa-Milan.” Even earlier, Joseph Hergenrother, in his continuation of Hefele’s Konziliengeschichte , had examined this conciliabulum in some detail.1 Much of the historical interest in the subject concentrated on its diplomatic aspects; and it is indeed clear that the move by a group of cardinals in spring 1511 to summon a council of the church at Pisa was part of Louis XII’s campaign against Julius II and would have been impossible without the French king’s support. Again, the relations of both France and the papacy with the emperor Maximilian were an essential part of the context in which the assembly met.It was,of course,recognized that the politics of all this had an ideological dimension. The first volume of The New Cambridge Modern History, for instance, included the suggestion that the pamphleteering generated by the conciliabulum constituted “one of the 194 1.Augustin Renaudet,LeconcilegallicandePise-Milan (Paris:Champion,1922);Carl Joseph von Hefele and Joseph Hergenrother, Konziliengeschichte, 9 vols. (Freiburg: Herder, 1873–90), vol. 8 [= Henri Leclercq,Histoiredesconciles, 11 vols.(Paris:Letouzey et Ané,1907–52),vol.7]. first modern examples of the use of propaganda in politics.”2 That claim,however, was not concerned with the intellectual content or the doctrinal context of what the author called “these innumerable pamphlets”:they were considered simply as part of an attempt (largely unsuccessful) to manipulate public opinion. When the matter was considered in relation, rather, to controversy within the church and concern for ecclesiastical reform, a somewhat different perspective was revealed. Ullmann in 1972 and Thomson in 1980 were concerned, each in his own way, to insist that the 1511 assembly at Pisa was not merely a political maneuver in the French monarchy’s campaign to secure its position in Italy. Ullmann sought to show that the action of the dissident cardinals in summoning the council was not necessarily schismatic and that there were legitimate ecclesiastical grounds for protesting against papal policies.3 Thomson argued that “the last serious attempt by a council to proceed against a pope” and “the last great debate about the authority of pope and council before the Reformation” showed that “the issues contested between the papacy and the Councils of Constance and Basel” were still very much alive.4 And at an earlier date de la Brosse had examined at length the ecclesiological debate “on the eve of the Reformation”in which the Council of Pisa-Milan had played a major part.5 Ecclesiology,again,brought the subject close to,if not into,the realm of “political ideas.”Already in 1936,when the final volume of the Carlyles’monumental History was published, one major figure in the polemics of 1511–12 received substantial attention. A. J. Carlyle remarked that the work of “James Almain of Sens .....seems to us to have been somewhat overlooked.”Half a dozen pages were devoted to Almain’s arguments,followed by a briefer account of those of his teacher JohnMair—theanalysessupportedbygenerouscitationsfromthesources.There was,however,only a passing reference to “the ecclesiastical questions of the relation between the Pope and the General Council,” with no mention of Almain’s immediate adversary Thomas de Vio (Cajetan). And while Filippo Decio—a key figure, as Ullmann in particular shows—was cited earlier in the volume, it was 2.Roger Aubenas,in The New Cambridge Modern History, ed.G.R.Potter (Cambridge:Cambridge University, 1957),1:83.Adetailedhistoryof the“schism”isprovidedbyNelsonH.Minnich,TheFifthLateranCouncil(1512–17): StudiesinitsMembership,Diplomacy,andProposalsforReform (Aldershot:Ashgate,1994),99*–102*,138*–97*. 3. Walter Ullmann, “Julius II and the Schismatic Cardinals,” in Schism,Heresy,and Religious Protest, Studies in Church History 2 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1972),177–92;reprinted in Ullmann,ThePapacy andPoliticalIdeasintheMiddleAges (London:Variorum,1976). 4. J. A. F. Thomson, Popes and Princes,1417–1517:Politics and Polity in the Late Medieval Church (London: Allen & Unwin,1980),20,21. 5. Olivier de la Brosse, Le pape et le concile:La comparaison de leurs pouvoirs à la veille de la Réforme (Paris: Cerf, 1965). See also Remigius Bäumer, Nachwirkungen des konziliaren Gedankens in der...