Basel Council

Basel Council, the last of the three great reforming councils of the fifteenth century, held its first session in Basel, Switzerland, in 1431. It granted the use of the cup in the Lord's Supper to the Calixtines, the most powerful section of the Hussites (q.v.) in 1433, and endeavoured to limit the abuses of the papal prerogative. Pope Eugenius IV., who refused to cross the Alps to preside at it, soon opposed its action, and summoned it to meet at Ferrara. It refused, and on his summoning a rival council at Ferrara, suspended him (1438). Part of the council, however, then migrated to Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. The majority, however, remained at Basel, and next year, after deposing Eugenius, elected Duke Amadeus of Savoy under the title of Felix V. He, however, was not generally recognised. The council (which had lost most of its Italian members on its suspension of the Pope) gradually dwindled, and in 1443 removed to Lausanne. In 1447 Eugenius IV. died, and in 1449 Felix resigned his claim to the papal office. The new Pope, Nicholas V., confirmed the acts of the council, which then submitted to him. Roman canonists deny the legality of its acts, but they were accepted as part of the canon law of France and Germany on the election of Felix, and are still partially in force.