Black Death And Papal Resignation

I read this morning that Pope Benedict XVI has announced his resignation. The Washington Post account mentioned that the last papal resignation was in 1415.

The 1415 resignation is one of the most interesting events in European history. It was preceded by the Babylonian Captivity of the Pope, the Black Death, and the Burning of Jan Hus. It was followed by the first Protestant regime in Europe, that of Bohemia and Moravia, the subsequent Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance and Enlightenment. These events were all accompanied by the end of serfdom in Europe, at least until 1619.

And by the way, the 100 Years' War between England and France.

It was all set in motion, or at least accelerated, by the Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1348, which killed from a quarter to two-thirds of the population of Europe.

Survivors wanted to know who to blame. In Germany and much of France, the answer was obvious: Jews had poisoned the wells. Thousands of Jews (who by the way were dying in great numbers also) were rounded up and slaughtered.

In Bohemia, however, many saw the plague as God's punishment for a corrupt church. One manifestation of that corruption was the fact that, since 1309, the Catholic Church had had two Popes, one in Avignon, under influence of the King of France and one in Rome. Another example of the church's corruption in the view of many clerics was the sale of indulgences, which so offended Martin Luther a century later.

The situation was exacerbated, in the eyes of the church hierarchy, by dissident priests challenging central tenets of Catholicism. The most prominent of these in the late 14th century was John Wycliffe of England, who escaped papal retribution by dying in December, 1384. The other prominent voice of dissent was the Bohemian Jan Hus, who was very much alive.

By 1415 there were three popes. Church authorities hoped to resolve the problem by scheduling a Council at Constanz, in present-day Germany. They also hoped to resolve the matter of their troublesome priests. John Wycliffe was already dead, but the Council declared him a heretic, ordered his body exhumed, decreed that his books be burned. The exhumation was carried out in 1428 when, at the command of Pope Martin V, his remains were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the River Swift.

Jan Hus was "invited" to the Council under a safe conduct. The safe conduct was not enforced. He refused to recant, and was burned at the stake.

Gregory XII, the Roman pope,  resigned so that a special council in Constance, which is today a German city, could excommunicate the Avignon-based pope and start fresh with a new, single leader of the Catholic church.

A year later, just to show they weren't kidding, the Council burned Jerome, Jan Hus' deputy, at the stake.

If the new pope thought that would end the problems with Bohemia and Moravia, he was badly mistaken. The countryside rose up against the pope and his supporters among the nobility. The supporters of Hus fled to the Bohemian hills and fortified their headquarters. Appointing a one-eyed general (Jan Zizka) to lead their peasant army,during the following seventeen years, the Hussites fought back against seven different papal crusades, defeating the Catholic Nobles at every turn.

Eventually cutting a deal with the least militant Hussites, the Utraquists, the pope looked the other way while Bohemia and Moravia were allowed to practice what amounted to protestantism for nearly two centuries.