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1 Councils of the Catholic Reformation AHistoricalSurvey } nelson h. minniCh The general councils of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have attracted the attention of scholars interested in questions of ultimate authority and the cause of reform in the church. Those concerned with limiting papal power (e.g., conciliarists, episcopalists, Gallicans, Febronianists,andProtestants)havefoundsupportfortheirideasinthe actionsanddecreesof theCouncilsof Pisa(PisaI,1409),whichdeposed two rival popes,Constance (1414–18),which declared a council superior to a pope,Basel-Lausanne (1431–49),which declared conciliar supremacy an article of faith, and Pisa-Milan-Asti-Lyon (Pisa II, 1511–12), which reiteratedthedeclarationsof ConstanceandBaselandsuspendedapope from his administration of the church.Scholars wishing to defend papal power looked to the actions of the papal legates at Pavia-Siena (1423– 24) and at Trent-Bologna-Trent (1545–63) and to the decrees of FerraraFlorence -Rome (1438–45) on papal primacy and of Lateran V (1512–17) on the pope’s power to convoke,transfer,and close a council.Both sides have subjected the decrees of these councils to interpretations favoring their positions. To promote their ecclesiological views and ideas on church reform, conciliar fathers and popes have ordered the publication of the acta and 27 Permission has been granted by the publisher to reprint this, a revised version of Nelson H. Minnich, “Councils of the Catholic Reformation (Pisa I to Trent): An Historiographical Survey,” Annuariumhistoriaeconciliorum 32,no.2 (2000):303–37. other documents related to these councils. Scholars have also done the same on their own.The Council of Basel in 1442 ordered the publication of an epitome of the acta of Constance that was not effected until 1500 by the printing in Hagenau by Jerome of Croaria of Acta scitu dignissima docteque concinnata Constantiensis concilii celebratissimi.1 Zaccaria Ferreri (1479–1524), the ardent conciliarist and secretary of Pisa II, reprinted in Milan in 1511 the acta of the Council of Basel, published a dozen years earlier by the reformer Sebastian Brant (c.1457–1521);Ferreri also saw to the publication in Paris in 1512 of the acta of Pisa II ordered by that council.2 An anonymous editor published on the press of the Huguenot “Melchior Mondiere ” in Paris in 1612 the acta of Pisa I, Pavia-Siena, and Pisa II, which were omitted from the Roman edition (1608–12) of the councils published under Paul V (r.1605–21).3 The Lutheran scholar Hermann van der Hardt (1660–1746),librarian to the Duke of Brunswick, published in six tomes the Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense concilium de universali ecclesiae reformatione, unione et fide.4 The grand 1.Nelson H. Minnich, “The First Printed Editions of the Modern Councils: From Konstanz to Lateran V,” Annali dell’ Istituto storico italo-germanico di Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 29 (2003): 447–68, at 450–52; Ansgar Frenken, “Die Quellen des Konstanzer Konzils im den Sammlungen des 17.und 18.Jahrhunderts,”AHC 30 (1998):416–39,at 417n6;and COD,1:403.] 2. On Ferreri, see Alessandro Ferrajoli, Il ruolo della corte di Leone X (1514–1516), ed. Vincenzo De Caprio (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), 531–44; on his reprinting of Basel, see Minnich, “First Printed Editions,” 453; on the ordering by Pisa II of the publication of its acta,see Ferreri’s autograph comments on the copy (preserved in the Bibliotheca apostolica vaticana as R.G. Concilli II. 55) of Promotiones et progressus sacrosancti pisani concilii moderni indicti et incohati anno domini.M.D.XI., ed. Zaccaria Ferreri (Paris: Jean Petit, 1512), fol. [XLI] verso and on Decreta sacrosanctae tertiae pisanae Synodi praelibate de eius e Mediolano translatione, ed. Zaccaria Ferreri (Paris: Jean Petit, 1512),sig.[Aiii] recto.For a fuller description of these acta,see Minnich,“First Printed Editions,”449,452–54. 3.Acta Primi Concilii Pisani celebrati ad tollendum schisma anno d[omini] M.CCCC.IX.et concilii Senensis M.CCCC. XXIII.ex codice M.S.Item constitutiones factae in diversis sessionibus sacri generalis concilii Pisani II.M.D.XI.ex Bibliotheca Regia. Reliqua hoc in novo opere contenta, sequens pagina indicabit (Paris: Sumptis Melchioris Mondiere, 1612). The identification of Melchior Mondiere as a pseudonym for Charles Mondier was made in note 5 of Charles-Joseph Hefele, Histoire des conciles d’après les documents originaux, trans. and rev. Henri Leclercq, 11 vols. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1917), 8/1:323; Dieter Girgensohn, “Materialsammlungen zum Pisaner Konzil von 1409: Erler, Finke, Schmitz-Kallenberg,Vincke,”AHC 30 (1998):456–519,at 481–83. 4. On Hardt, see the...

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