Supporters of the conciliar way wanted the council to undertake a reform of the Church, especially of papal taxation and papal appointments to senior benefices. On 26 June Peter Philarge, cardinal-archbishop of Milan, was elected pope and took the name Alexander V. The ensuing military and political events had a decisive impact on church history. The project of reunion through a council had been attracting strong support among the universities, especially Paris, and the numerous clerics, including senior prelates, who had been educated there. The defeat of the Council of Basle proved decisive for the western Church, for western Christendom and for European civilisation. Public opinion, amongst intellectuals and in court circles, seems to have favoured the more moderate view that a council was the emergency superior of the pope in cases of heresy, schism and the urgent need for reform. A look at popes and councils shows that the politics and ideology had an effect in shaping European culture.