one may distinguish three levels in the story of popes and councils in the fifteenth century: the political, or diplomatic and institutional; the doctrinal, or ideological; and the cultural, relating to the longer-term development of Europe and her peoples.

When the Council of Pisa opened on 25 March 1409, long years of patient diplomacy by churchmen and statesmen seemed at last to be bearing fruit. Since the schism of 1378 between Urban VI and Clement VII and their successors, rulers and clergy had opted for one ‘allegiance’ or the other, partly on grounds of domestic or inter-state politics. After more than a quarter of a century, with the ‘Roman’ Pope Gregory XII (Angelo Correr) and the ‘Avignonese’ Pope Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna) showing no sign of willingness to give way or permit procedures for a mutual abdication, the French led the way by withdrawing their allegiance from Benedict in 1398. From then on the idea of resolving the schism by ‘the way of the council’ gathered momentum: the emergency, it was felt, was such that a general council could be called by special procedures, with powers to impose a solution on both claimants in the name of the whole Church.