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Medieval Sourcebook:
The Great Schism: Council of Pisa, Competency to Try Popes, 1409

[Thatcher Introduction] There was no recognized legal machinery in the church by which the schism could be ended, and there was no emperor, as in the days of Innocent II, who was willing to end it by force. It was decided to leave the matter to a general council, but there was some doubt as to (1) whether a council could be legally called by anyone except a pope, and (2) whether the council was legally empowered to cite the two papal claimants before it and decide the case between them. Finally a council was called by the cardinals; it met at Pisa and proceeded first to assert its legality and authority. The conciliar movement begun by this council, was foreshadowed in earlier documents by Marsigilo of Padua and the University of Paris

This holy and general council, representing the universal church, decrees and declares that the united college of cardinals was empowered to call the council, and that the power to call such a council belongs of right to the aforesaid when there is a holy college of cardinals, especially now declared that this detestable schism. The council further declared that this holy council representing the universal Church, caused both claimants of the papal throne to be cited in the gates and doors of the churches of Pisa to come and hear the final decision [in the matter of thre schism] pronounced or to give a good an sufficient reason why such a sentence should not be rendered.

trans in Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), pp. 327-328

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(c)Paul Halsall Mar 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu