Constance

CONSTANCE. - City and ancient diocese of southern Germany, situated on the lake of the same name and on the Rhine, near the borders with Switzerland. It has a predominantly Catholic population. The diocese was founded around the middle of the 6th century for the evangelization of the region; it was at first a suffragan of Besançon and later of Mainz.

Some hold that the bishopric of Vindonissa was transferred to C., but L. M. O. Duchesne (Fastes episcopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, III, Paris 1915, pp. 21 ff. and 259) and M. Besson (Recherches sur les origines des évêchés de Genève, Lausanne et Sion, Fribourg 1908, p. 140 ff.) maintain that Vindonissa must be identified with Avranches.

The first known bishop is Gaudentius, d. in 613. Mention should then be made of Solomon I (839-71), Solomon III (890-919), St. Conrad (935-75), Gerard II (979-95). Its boundaries extended so far that it became the largest diocese in Germany. It comprised ten archdeaconries and 64 deaneries.

In 1435 the diocese included 17,060 priests, 1,760 parish priests and 350 monasteries, among which the most famous were those of Reichenau and of St. Gall (v.). The latter abbey sustained a long dispute with the bishops of C. during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The diocese of C. began to lose its importance from about the middle of the 15th century. In 1821 Pope Pius VII erected the archdiocese of Fribourg in Baden and suppressed the diocese of C.

The cathedral church was that of St. Mary (Marien-Münster), erected in the 6th century above a Roman castle; in the time of Bishop Lambert (995-1018) the crypt was built; it was restored under Gerard III in 1089; a cruciform building, with three naves divided by columns; the choir is due to Simon Haider and Nicholas of Leiden (15th century). St. James (Schotten) was founded in 653, St. John erected in 1276, St. Stephen, of Romanesque age, enlarged in the 15th century. Mention should also be made of the convents of the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Augustinians, all of the 13th century, and the college of the Jesuits (1592-1774), with a Baroque church.

The COUNCIL of C. - It was convoked by a solemn bull of 30 Oct. 1413 by John XXIII, induced by the insistence of Sigismund, king of Hungary and later king of Germany. The first aim was to restore peace and unity to the Church, torn by a schism that had lasted since 1378, divided as it was into three obediences: that of Benedict XIII, the Avignon antipope, that of John XXIII of the obedience of Pisa, and that of the legitimate pontiff Gregory XII, the true successor of Urban VI. The second aim was to promote the reform of the Church and the condemnation of the heresies that had arisen in England and in Bohemia. The Council was in fact opened by John on 5 Nov. 1414, and before long Sigismund also hastened there. It immediately organized itself into the four nations as at Pisa, and doctors and representatives of the princes were also admitted to the vote. But John, frightened by the evil reports that were spreading about him, secretly left C. on 20 March 1415. The Council would have dissolved without the energy of Sigismund; instead, in the tumultuous sessions from 29 March to 6 Apr. it recognized itself as legitimately assembled, denied to anyone the right to dissolve or transfer it, and decided that it must continue in the work of pacification and reform of the Church. By this it placed itself above a pope whose legitimacy it had on its own account recognized. John, after long tergiversation, had to yield and make himself a prisoner of the Council, which, having tried him, condemned him to deposition (29 May). John accepted the sentence. Gregory XII, on the other hand, sent as his representative to King Sigismund Charles Malatesta, lord of Rimini, with the power to negotiate his renunciation; Cardinal Giovanni Dominici convoked the Council in his name, communicating to it the power to provide in the best way for the good of the Church, and presented the formal renunciation of Gregory (4 July); thus the legitimate Pope safeguarded his dignity, sacrificing himself for peace and concord. Benedict XIII would hear nothing of presenting himself or of renouncing; his protests were passed over and he was tried, which ended with his deposition (26 July 1417).

In this long interlude the Council had entrusted to Cardinal Pietro di Ailly, archbishop of Cambrai, and to a special tribunal the case of John Hus and of Jerome of Prague, who, as impenitent heretics, ended on the pyre. It was therefore necessary to provide the Church with a head: all the cardinals present were admitted to the election, by whichever of the pontiffs they had been appointed: there were 23 of them, and to these were added 30 electors chosen by the Council from the various nations. They entered the Conclave in the palace of the city on 8 Nov. 1417, and on the 11th Cardinal Oddone Colonna was elected under the name of Martin V. After promulgating certain decrees of reform and in particular imposing the periodicity of ecumenical councils, the Council dissolved on 21 March 1418 in its 45th session with a generic approval by the Pope. The long schism was thus ended; but its consequences were not removed: the feelings of suspicion and jealousy between nation and nation, the distrust of the Apostolic See, to which the principal responsibility for the past misfortunes was attributed, that kind of superior tutelage which the Council had attempted to arrogate to itself over the Church by considering itself the last supreme arbiter in matters of faith and discipline. The abuses, which, by reason of the schism, had grown enormously, could no longer be eradicated, precisely because of the ill will of those, clerics and laymen, who profited from them, while the whole blame was willingly laid upon the Roman Curia.

Pio Paschini