In the history of the Catholic Church, the Council of Pavia-Siena (1423 - 1424) marked a rather inconclusive stage of the conciliarist movement attempting to reform the Church. If it continued, it would be classified as ecumenical council. The Council of Pavia-Siena is no longer listed among the official ecumenical conciliators since the conciliarism expressed there was subsequently labeled as heresy. Pope Martino V convened a council in Pavia, inaugurated on April 23, 1423. As the plague broke out in the same city, Pope Martino V summoned a council to Pavia, the council was quickly upgraded to Siena.
In Siena, the Council proceeding was the one established in Constance. From the outset, some formality of the conscripts issued by the city for members of the Council was the cause of judicial friction with papal prerogatives. Nonetheless, on November 8, four decrees were issued, all aimed at easy targets: against the followers of heretical reformers, such as Jan Hus, burned on the stake shortly before the Concil of Constance, whether or not saved, and against the English followers by John Wyclif, who claimed that the Bible was the highest authority; against the followers of Antipope Benedict XIII; a decree that held negotiations with the Greeks and other Eastern Orthodox churches (which were later elaborated in compromises acceptable in the long sessions of the Council of Florence from 1438 to 1445); and a decree recommending greater vigilance towards heresy, the easiest target of all.
Proposals for genuine institutional reform within the Catholic Church were mumble. French proposals for greater local control ("gallic" proposals, generally speaking) produced resistance from the loyalists of the papal curia. In Siena, nothing was done in that sense.
On February 19, 1424, Basel was elected as the seat of the next council and the Council dissolved the following day (decree issued March 7). French members would have preferred to continue until a profound reform of the Church had been carried out, "in capite et in membris" ("in his head and in his members"); they went to avoid a new schism or fear of the pope (since Siena, in the south of Tuscany, was close to the Pontifical State). Significant was the selection of the seat of the next council, far from the armed temporal authority of the Papacy.
The magistrates of Siena made sure they did not allow anyone to leave, until they had paid their debts. Fontimodifica wikitesto
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