ALEMÁN, Louis, Blessed. - Cardinal, archbishop of Arles, b. at Arbent (Bugey, in France) around 1390, d. at Salon (Bouches-du-Rhône) on 15 Oct. 1450. He obtained a doctorate in decrees 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 on 22 June 1418 named him bishop of Maguelonne and consecrated him himself at Mantua on 20 Nov. There he remained at the papal court; during the Pope's stay in Florence he had assignments for the pacification of the Papal States and in 1423 negotiated with the city of Siena concerning the council that was transferred there from Pavia. In that year, on 3 Dec., he was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Arles. He was governor at Bologna when, on 26 May 1426, he was created cardinal of St. Cecilia, and there he received the hat on 12 June and held the office as legate. However, according to C. Ghirardacci (Storia di Bologna, in Rer. Ital. Script., XXXIII, 1, Città di Castello 1932, p. 3 ff.), because of his avarice he made himself hated by the people. The powerful Canétoli family took advantage of this, and in June 1428 took him prisoner in the palace; once freed, he left Bologna on 23 Aug., accompanied by the elders and the nobles.
He was also vice-chamberlain and showed what his leanings were when he opposed the bull by which Eugene IV on 12 Nov. 1431 dissolved the Council of Basel, which in those months had begun to assemble. Then, on 25 July 1432, in the church of St. James of Scossacavalli, he and with him four other cardinals, after recalling that they had repeatedly asked the Pope for permission to go to Basel, professed their adherence to the Council, appointing their procurators to represent them (Hefele-Leclercq, VII, p. 753).
Later, when in the XII session (13 July 1433) the Council ordered the Pope to present himself at Basel, A. together with Card. Giovanni Casanova, disguised, left Rome and embarked at Ostia on a galley placed at their disposal by the duke of Milan, most hostile to Eugene IV (ibid., p. 811).
After the momentary reconciliation of Eugene IV with the Council had come about (bull of 15 Dec. 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 to a stable authority that would gather in itself every sovereign power and faculty and condemn the Pope to a secondary and subordinate position" (Pastor, I, p. 312).
When the Pope, concerning certain disputes of the Church of Grasse in Provence, had given a sentence contrary to that of the Council, the exasperation of the conciliarists then reached such a point that on 20 Jan. 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 presented himself as the party leader of those who had set out to hinder any agreement with the Pope with the intention of reserving exclusively to the Council the solution of the questions that at that moment preoccupied Christendom; at Basel in fact it was desired that the negotiations for the reunion of the Byzantines should be conducted according to the initiatives of the Council at Basel itself, in Savoy and preferably at Avignon; the decision on the matter was formulated on 5 Dec. 1436 by A. The latter, having by now become party leader against Card. Legate Cesarini, presided over the general congregation of 23 Feb. 1437 in 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 conducted the negotiations with the Greeks on his own account, A. with his faction dared to summon the Pope to appear before the Council within sixty days and give an account of his disobedience, his misgovernment and abuse of authority (31 July 1437). Since Eugene IV had transferred the Council to Ferrara (18 Sept.), at Basel they dared on 1 Oct. to note his contumacy, continue the process against him and arrive on 16 May 1439 (session XXXIII) at the solemn deposition; and since on that day only seven bishops were present, A. had the relics of the saints of Basel placed in the seats of the absent bishops, and had it declared that the Council would continue its work. The most important matter was now that of the election of a new pope; and since of cardinals there was at Basel only A., it was decided on 24 Oct. to add another 32 electors, and together they elected on 5 Nov. the antipope Felix V. Thus schism was officially opened once again in the West. A. devoted himself wholeheartedly to seeking the adherence to the Council of all the Western nations and in particular of Germany. For his part Eugene IV on 23 March 1440 declared Felix V a heretic and schismatic, and on 11 Apr. A. was deprived of the cardinalate. The latter continued in his previous conduct until, Eugene IV having died and Nicholas V having been elected, pacification came about. The Council, transferred from Basel to Lausanne, was dissolved, Felix V renounced (7 Apr. 1449), and A. too on 19 Dec. 1449 received the cardinalate back. An otherwise excellent man, he had the very grave fault of persisting in the intention of making prevail to the very last the false theory of the superiority of the council over the Pope, which he had probably made his own during his stay at Constance, and of carrying it to its extreme consequences without worrying about the fact that it led without fail to a tumultuous and revolutionary anarchy. Having died a few months later, his tomb in the convent of the Friars Minor was the object of popular veneration and it was said that miracles were worked there. In his bull of 7 Apr. 1527 Clement VII decided 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 Sept.
Bibliography7 works
Pio Paschini