ALEMAN, LOUIS, blessed. — Cardinal, archbishop of Arles, born at Arbent (Bugey, in France) around 1390, died at Salon (Bouches-du-Rhône) on 15 October 1450. He obtained his doctorate in canon law at Avignon in 1414; while still a young man he obtained ecclesiastical benefices, was present at the Council of Pisa in 1409 and then at that of Constance, where he was elected custodian of the Conclave in which Martin V was elected (1417). The new pontiff appointed him bishop of Maguelonne on 22 June 1418 and himself consecrated him at Mantua on 20 November. He remained there at the papal court; during the Pope’s residence in Florence he was entrusted with missions for the pacification of the Papal States, and in 1423 he negotiated with the city of Siena concerning the council that had been transferred there from Pavia. In that year, on 3 December, he was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Arles. He was governor of Bologna when, on 26 May 1426, he was created cardinal of S. Cecilia; there he received the hat on 12 June and held office as legate. According to C. Ghirardacci (Storia di Bologna, in Rer. Ital. Script., XXXIII, 1, Città di Castello 1932, p. 3 ff.), however, his avarice made him unpopular with the people. The powerful Canétoli family took advantage of this and in June 1428 imprisoned him in the palace; after being freed, he left Bologna on 23 August accompanied by the elders and nobles.
He was also vice-chamberlain and revealed his inclinations when he opposed the bull by which Eugene IV, on 12 November 1431, dissolved the Council of Basel, which had begun to assemble in those months. Then, on 25 July 1432, in the church of S. Giacomo di Scossacavalli, he and four other cardinals, after recalling that they had repeatedly asked the Pope for permission to go to Basel, declared that they adhered to the Council and appointed their procurators to represent them (Hefele-Leclercq, VII, p. 753).
Later, when at its twelfth session (13 July 1433) the Council ordered the Pope to appear at Basel, A., together with Card. Giovanni Casanova, left Rome in disguise and embarked at Ostia on a galley placed at their disposal by the duke of Milan, who was extremely hostile to Eugene IV (ibid., p. 811).
After the temporary reconciliation of Eugene IV with the Council (bull of 15 December 1433), A., with the Pope’s consent, took part in the Council, in which he soon acted as the true supporter and leader of the conciliar party, “with the aim of elevating the Council into a permanent authority that would unite within itself every sovereign power and faculty and condemn the Pope to a secondary and subordinate position” (Pastor, I, p. 312).
When, concerning certain disputes of the Church of Grasse in Provence, the Pope issued a judgment contrary to that of the Council, the exasperation of the conciliarists reached such a point that on 20 January 1436 they sent A., together with the archbishop of Lyon and the bishop of Lübeck, to Florence, to Eugene IV, to order him to withdraw what he had done against the Council (Hefele-Leclercq, VII, p. 919).
A. now appeared as the party leader of those who had set themselves the task of obstructing every agreement with the Pope, with the aim of reserving exclusively to the Council the resolution of the questions then troubling Christendom. At Basel, in fact, it was desired that negotiations for the reunion of the Byzantines should proceed according to the initiatives of the Council, whether at Basel itself, in Savoy, or preferably in Avignon; the decision on this matter was formulated by A. on 5 December 1436. By now the leader of the party opposed to Cardinal Legate Cesarini, he presided over the general congregation of 23 February 1437, at which it was decided to send an embassy to Constantinople for this purpose. And since Eugene IV did not intend to follow the Council along this path and pursued negotiations with the Greeks on his own, A. and his faction dared to summon the Pope to appear before the Council within sixty days and give an account of his disobedience, misgovernment, and abuse of authority (31 July 1437). Since Eugene IV had transferred the Council to Ferrara (18 September), at Basel they dared, on 1 October, to declare him contumacious, continue the proceedings against him, and arrive on 16 May 1439 (session XXXIII) at his solemn deposition. Since only seven bishops were present that day, A. had the relics of the saints of Basel placed in the seats of the absent bishops, and declared that the Council would continue its work. The most important matter was now the election of a new pope; and since there was no cardinal at Basel other than A., it was decided on 24 October to add another 32 electors, and together they elected the antipope Felix V on 5 November. Thus the schism in the West was officially reopened. A. devoted himself entirely to seeking the adherence of all the Western nations, and especially of Germany, to the Council. For his part, Eugene IV declared Felix V a heretic and schismatic on 23 March 1440, and on 11 April deprived A. of the cardinalate. The latter continued his previous course until, after Eugene IV’s death and the election of Nicholas V, a reconciliation was reached. The Council, transferred from Basel to Lausanne, was dissolved; Felix V renounced his office (7 April 1449), and A. likewise regained the cardinalate on 19 December 1449. Otherwise an outstanding man, he was gravely at fault in stubbornly persisting to the end in his resolve to make prevail the false theory of the superiority of the council over the Pope, which he had probably adopted during his stay at Constance, and in carrying it to its extreme consequences without considering that it led directly to a tumultuous and revolutionary anarchy. He died a few months later; his tomb in the convent of the Friars Minor became an object of popular veneration, and it was said that miracles were performed there. In his bull of 7 April 1527, Clement VII decreed that A. “pro beato coli et venerari posse” (cf. Acta SS. Iulii, I, Venice 1746, pp. 491–92; Septembris, V, ibid., pp. 436–62); indeed, in some dioceses of France he is venerated on 17 September.
Le cardinal L. A., président du Concile de Bâle et la fin du grand schisme, Paris 1904; N. Valois, Le Pape et le concile (1418-50). Paris 1909, passim; Hefele-Leclercq, VII, p. 690 ff.; Pastor, I, p. 312 ff.; Eubel, II, p. 6; G. Mollat, s. V. in DIIG, II, cols. 86-88. Pio Paschini