Council of Basel Opens

1431

Pope Eugenius IV reluctantly convened the latest reforming council, which would spend eighteen years arguing with him over whether the Church was governed by councils or popes. The quarrel would fracture the conciliar movement, strengthen papal absolutism, and indirectly clear ideological ground for Luther a century later. Its most radical faction argued councils held supreme authority over popes, a conciliarist position that haunted papal politics for a century.