MARTIN V, Pope. - Born in Rome in 1368, died there on 20 Feb. 1431. When the Council of Constance (v.), incapable of proceeding to the necessary reform of the Church, resolved to come to the election of the Pope, an electoral commission, of which, by an unusual procedure, there were members, along with the 23 cardinals, six prelates or doctors for each of the five nations, elected as pontiff on 11 Nov. 1417, the feast day of St. Martin, the cardinal deacon Oddone Colonna of the noble Roman family. An expert in canon law, created cardinal by Innocent VII on 12 June 1405, Colonna had taken part in the Council of Pisa (1409) and in the election of Alexander V and then of John XXIII; at Constance he had been among the supporters of the superiority of the Council over the Pope.
But, once he had ascended to the pontificate, M. wished to raise up again the authority of the head of the Church in the spiritual field as well as in the temporal: on 26 Feb. 1418 he published new rules for the papal Chancery, re-establishing in part the rights of the Holy See in the collation of benefices, without however entirely removing the abuses; and, if he was forced to conclude concordats with the nations that limited papal power to the profit of the chapters of the cathedrals and of the monasteries, he also took care that they, except for England, should be temporary, thus succeeding in making them somewhat more favorable to the Holy See. He orally ratified the deliberations of the Council, provided they had been taken "in materia fidei" and "conciliariere" (22 Apr. 1418). Then he dissolved it (22 Apr. 1418), and in a constitution, which was not published (10 June 1418), he forbade appealing from the Pope, "supreme judge," to the Council.
Having meanwhile departed from Constance, on 16 May 1418, he made a long stay at Mantua and Florence in order to prepare the way for his return to Rome, where he re-entered acclaimed on 30 Sept. 1420. After difficult negotiations with Alfonso V of Aragon, he obtained (1429) the renunciation of the antipope Clement VIII and put an end to the schism. Although, from the experience he had had of it, he abhorred "in immensum nomen concilii," in obedience to the decrees of the Council of Constance he convoked within the five years established the new Council at Pavia (22 Sept. 1423); but he soon had to transfer it, because of the plague, to Siena with few prelates and those discordant, and he had it dissolved by his legates (1424). At the insistence of the conciliar party, he reconvoked it at Basel for 1 Feb. 1431, assigning to the legate a latere in Germany, Card. Giuliano Cesarini, the task of presiding over it, with the faculty, if necessary, of transferring and dissolving it; he died before its official opening.
Of the increased pontifical authority he knew how to make good use for the most part: he created worthy cardinals, among them Capranica, Cesarini, Albergati; he granted the jubilee for 1423; he had the bones of St. Monica solemnly transported to Rome; he justified St. Bernardino of Siena against the accusations of his adversaries, approving the cult, introduced by him, of the Holy Name of Jesus (1427). He was mild with the Jews, forbidding violent preaching against them and the Baptism of their children under twelve years of age, without the consent of the parents, or the request of the grandfather. But he did not have the will or the strength for the hoped-for radical reform: a bull of 16 June 1425 and other decrees were not sufficient to correct the avarice and corruption in the Curia.
