Reform Preaching and Despair at the Council of Pavia-Siena (1423-1424)

The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXIVJULY, 1998No. 3 REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424) William Patrick Hyland* Introduction According to the decree Frequens of the Council of Constance, an ecumenical council was to be convoked by the pope five years following the end of the Council of Constance. Thus Pope Martin V in due time summoned a council to meet at Pavia, where a synod was inaugurated April 23, 1423. An outbreak of plague forced the Council to move to Siena, where it lasted from July until its dissolution in March, 1424. Most of these months were filled up with disputes over administrative matters , as well as divisions among the various nations; and the antipathy of Pope Martin to the conciliarist party made it difficult to get anything done. Little or nothing in the way of reform was accomplished.1 Although often not numbered among the synods regarded as ecumenical by the Roman Catholic Church because of its relatively slight attendance, the Council of Pavia-Siena was intended to continue the work of Constance in matters of reform and to take measures against *Dr. Hyland teaches history in Columbus State University, Columbus, Georgia. 'The most detailed and recent account of the Council of Pavia-Siena is Walter Brandmuller 's magisterial two-volume v/ork,Das Konzil von Pavia-Siena (1423-1424) (Münster , 1968). See also Karl Joseph von Hefele and Henri Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, Tom. VH", part 1 (Paris, 1916), pp. 610-645. Philip Hughes devotes barely a paragraph to the council in his The Church in Crisis:A History of the General Councils, 325-1870 (New York, 1961), p. 274. 409 410REFORM PREACHING AND DESPAIR AT THE COUNCIL OF PAVIA-SIENA (1423-1424) various heretical movements, and those who did attend took their tasks seriously enough. One of those in attendance was a Camaldolese hermit known as John-Jerome of Prague, who preached two sermons at the Council. The first was on the first Sunday of Advent, which fell on November 28, 1423.John-Jerome also preached on Septuagésima Sunday, which fell on February 20, 1424. This second sermon must have been one of the last to be preached at the Council, which was dissolved soon after.2 Neither of these sermons has been noted by previous historians of the council, a significant oversight in light of the fact that only four other sermons are known to have survived from the council.3 John-Jerome was born ca. 1370 in Prague and attended the university there as a contemporary ofJohn Hus. ThereJohn-Jerome became a master of arts and also studied law. After becoming a Premonstratensian canon at Strahov near Prague, he went on to serve as a chaplain at the court of the Polish king Wladislaus, where he preached and was a royal confessor for a time. John-Jerome made a missionary journey into Lithuania, and after serving as the first abbot of the new Premonstratensian house of Nowy Sacz outside of Krakow, in 1412 he left Poland and the Premonstratensian Order to take up the eremitical life at Camaldoli. As a Camaldolese he participated in the monastic reform movement, and was quite critical of the state of the religious houses he visited in the capacity of a visitator for the Venetian province of the Order. The details of his day-to-day activity in this capacity are unknown, but a sermon which he gave as part of his role as visitator has survived. The sermon was probably repeated in each monastery on the visitation tour as a prelude to the investigatory procedure, and it is the most detailed statement on ecclesiastical reform John-Jerome produced before the Council of Pavia-Siena.4 John-Jerome begins the sermon with an assertion of God's continuing benevolent guidance of creation and in particular of the ecclesia fidelium. Making use of the frequently cited mystical work of PseudoDionysius ,5 he asserts that people are drawn to God through the threeThese two sermons can be found in Annales Camaldulenses, edited by JoannesBenedictus Mittarelli and Anselmus Costadoni (Venice, 1755-1773), IX, 720-744. Henceforth referred to as Annal. Cam. 'Brandmüller, op. cit...