When Wenceslaus failed to show up for the Estates meeting, the electors deposed him on August 20, 1400, and the next day they elected Ruprecht III of the Palatinate. He was crowned at Cologne on January 6, 1401. In September at Augsburg he appointed his son Ludwig imperial vicar for Alemannia, Gaul, and Arles in addition to Bavaria and the Palatinate he already held. Ruprecht left for Italy, but in Brescia he was defeated by Milan’s forces on October 21. He went to Padua and Venice but could not gain allies. So he returned to Munich in May 1402. Eventually Pope Boniface IX recognized Ruprecht on October 1, 1403, but he also criticized the electors for deposing Wenceslaus without his permission. Ruprecht had difficulty gaining recognition and raising money in Germany. Southern towns again formed a general league. In September 1405 Strasbourg and seventeen Swabian towns supported Bernhard of Baden, Eberhard of Württemberg, and the elector Johannes of Mainz, and they formed the Marbach league for five years to maintain order. In 1407 Ruprecht made peace with them.
In June 1408 cardinals on both sides called for a General Council to resolve the schism, and in January 1409 German princes met in Frankfurt and favored the project, though Ruprecht was loyal to Pope Gregory XII. Wenceslaus was still king of Bohemia and supported the cardinals, and Ruprecht’s commands for loyalty to Pope Gregory were ignored. Ruprecht went to war against Johannes of Mainz, and he died at his castle near Oppenheim on May 18, 1410.
The electors were divided between Sigismund and Jost, and they were elected by separate groups in September. However, Jost died in January 1411, and Sigismund was unanimously elected on July 21. He guaranteed his older brother Wenceslaus the kingdom of Bohemia and even shared half of Germany’s revenues with him. Sigismund spoke several languages and was a patron of learning, but he could be cruel. According to Windecke he had 171 Bosnian aristocrats beheaded at Doboj, and he made a Venetian commander cut off the right hands of 180 fellow prisoners. As king of Hungary, Sigismund was involved in a war against Venice until a five-year armistice was declared in April 1413.
Pope John XXIII announced in December 1413 that the sixteenth general council would begin at Constance on November 1, 1414. Sigismund was the primary organizer, and he sent invitations with Pope John’s seal to the other two Popes and all the Christian princes and prelates. Pope John on his way appointed Count Friedrich of Tyrol captain-general of his papal army for a salary of 6,000 florins. Carlo Malatesta of Rimini persuaded Gregory XII to send two envoys, but Benedict XIII would only agree to meet Sigismund in the spring at Villefranche. Pope John opened the Council on November 5, 1414. Sigismund was crowned at Aachen on November 8 and did not show up until December 24. The Council would eventually be attended by three patriarchs, 29 cardinals, 33 archbishops, 150 bishops, more than a hundred abbots, some fifty provosts and deans, about three hundred other doctors, many envoys of kings and princes, dukes, counts, barons, and more than 1,500 knights. The lowest contemporary estimate of those visiting the town of 5,500 was 40,000; but it could have been more because there were 36,000 beds for strangers, and they slept two to a bed. Seven hundred women practiced their trade in the streets and an unknown number in private. Prices on food and beds were fixed to prevent extortion. Jan Hus was given safe conduct by Sigismund, but he was put under arrest on November 28.
The Conciliar party led by Cardinals d’Ailly and Fillastre persuaded Sigismund that all three rival popes should resign, and if necessary the Council could depose John. Gregory’s representatives promised that he would resign if the other two would. The Germans and English persuaded the more numerous Italians and French that each of these groups should vote as “nations.” The German “nation” included Scandinavia, Poland, and Hungary; the English included Scotland and Ireland but was by far the smallest delegation. The right to vote in the nations was extended to both kinds of doctors and to princes. When the four nations agreed on something, it was brought before the Council to be confirmed. On March 15, 1415 Pope John XXIII agreed to abdicate; but ten days later Count Friedrich of Tyrol organized John’s escape from Constance, and he was put under the imperial ban. The Hapsburg Friedrich was attacked on all sides by Friedrich of Hohenzollern, Ludwig of the Palatinate, and Swiss confederates. He surrendered and was brought before Sigismund on May 5. The Emperor spared his life but confiscated his possessions. Friedrich escaped from Constance, set himself up in Tyrol again, and eventually made peace with Sigismund in May 1418. The Swiss managed to keep most of the land they took from him.
On April 6, 1415 the Council of Constance resolved that all Christians, even the Pope, must obey a General Council so that schism could be extinguished and Church reforms could be made. John XXIII was summoned to return and was threatened with punishment if he did not. On May 2 John was charged with heresy, simony, misusing Church funds, and moral turpitude, and a commission was appointed to collect evidence. On May 14 the Council suspended him from office. Friedrich of Hohenzollern imprisoned John Radolfzell. The commission charged Pope John in seventy articles that included fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy, poisoning Pope Alexander V and his physician, and denying the immortality of the soul. In its report on May 25 John was convicted on 54 of the charges. By the end of the month the Council had deposed him.
On July 4 Malatesta announced Pope Gregory’s resignation, and two days later Hus was burned for heresy. On July 18 Sigismund with twelve delegates left Constance to go to Nice. While he was gone for eighteen months, the Council had a commission assign issues to subcommittees for investigation and discussion. The Emperor met Benedict at Narbonne and negotiated with him at Perpignan until December. He managed to persuade most of Benedict’s supporters to abandon him, including his own cardinals, and in January 1416 King Fernando of Aragon and then Castile withdrew their obedience from Benedict. The Council ratified this on February 4, but Aragon’s embassy did not reach Constance until September. On October 15 a Spanish nation made up of Aragonese and Portuguese was added to the other four. The Council also decided that the cardinals must consent to every conciliar act. The envoys of Castile arrived on March 29, 1417, and they insisted that cardinals participate in the election of the pope. On July 26 the Council finally deposed and excommunicated Benedict as a heretic and schismatic. Sigismund gave Brandenburg to Friedrich of Hohenzollern and received from him 250,000 marks, which he used to pay the expenses of his visit to Benedict.
In their 39th public session on October 9 the Council decreed that the next council would be held five years after Constance, followed by a another seven years later, and then one every ten years. Every pope elected was to follow the traditions of the apostles, fathers, and general councils. To be elected a candidate must receive two-thirds of the cardinals’ votes and four of the six votes by each of the nations. The Council would assist the new pope to reform the Church on eighteen points. Cardinal Oddone Colonna was elected in November and was named Pope Martin V. The Council found it too difficult to agree on significant reforms. On February 22, 1418 Pope Martin and the Council condemned the Hussite heresy. A deputation from the Orthodox Church arrived and made speeches for reuniting the Eastern and Western Churches.
On March 21 the Council approved seven reform decrees on abolishing exemptions from canonical obligations without the local bishop’s permission, abolishing incorporation of churches, abolishing papal revenues from vacant benefices, mandating severe punishment for simony, revoking all dispensations to those not ordained, abolishing papal tithing to princes, and reviving the dress code of the clergy. Martin set the next council at Pavia, though the French failed to ratify this. John recognized Pope Martin in 1419 and died a cardinal. Martin favored a strong papacy. The Hussite revolution in Bohemia became a war as several German armies invaded; each time the imperial crusaders were defeated and fled.
Sigismund held Reichstags at Constance in 1415 and 1417 to work on imperial reforms. He allowed the chamberlain Konrad von Weinsberg to organize the royal revenue, tried to improve public security, suppressed illegal tolls, reformed the currency, designated imperial agents to preside over town leagues, and organized southern and central Germany into four districts that were to assist each other in keeping the peace. However, he had difficulty responding to the towns’ petitions, and he was distracted by foreign relations that included the Turkish menace, alliance with England against France, and conflicts with Venice. The problems were how to pay for the reforms and who was to implement them. Mainz archbishop Johannes of Nassau, Ludwig of the Palatinate, and two Rhenish electors joined to oppose his reforms. They formed a defensive alliance, and the towns withdrew with trepidation.
When the war against Venice resumed in 1418, Sigismund appointed Friedrich of Brandenburg vice-regent in Germany and went back to Hungary. When his brother Wenceslaus died of apoplexy in Prague in 1419, Sigismund also became king of Bohemia. He tried to suppress the Hussite revolution by invading Bohemia with imperial troops from Germany with support from Bavarian dukes, the margrave of Meissen, and young Albrecht of Austria. They occupied Prague, and he was crowned in St. Vitus’ Cathedral on July 28, 1420. However, the Czechs insisted that the Germans leave their country. Without German troops he could do little, and Sigismund left for Hungary in March 1421.
The Rhenish electors dominated the Reichstag at Wesel in May 1421, and in August they raised an army of 100,000 for the second Bohemian crusade; but when Sigismund failed to invade eastern Bohemia, they retreated. Sigismund’s 23,000 troops invaded Moravia in October, but they were defeated in January 1422 and fled. That month Friedrich of Brandenburg joined with the Rhenish electors in demanding that Sigismund return to Germany or be deposed. Sigismund attended a Reichstag at Nuremberg, where a mercenary force was planned to invade Bohemia again. Sigismund appointed Friedrich commander and made Archbishop Konrad of Mainz imperial vicar for German before leaving again. The campaign raised only a fifth of the 50,000 troops they planned, and Friedrich soon quit. The Palatine Ludwig and others protested the appointment of Konrad, who also resigned. Sigismund kept Friedrich of Hohenzollern from increasing his power by naming Friedrich the Quarrelsome, the margrave of Meissen, to replace Albrecht III, the last Ascanian duke of Saxe-Wittenberg.
In March 1426 Friedrich of Brandenburg made peace with Sigismund at Vienna, and the Emperor reduced discontent by transferring the Reichstag from Vienna to Nuremberg. While Sigismund was fighting the Turks, Albrecht of Austria and Friedrich of Saxony attacked the Hussites from the opposite sides of Bohemia. Friedrich of Brandenburg and the electors raised an army in Germany but fled from Stribro when the Bohemian Taborites arrived on August 27, 1427. Cardinal Heinrich of Winchester had accompanied this expedition, and at a Reichstag in Frankfurt in November he proposed a general tax to pay for a permanent force. Five tax districts were organized, and a war cabinet of electors was set up with the Cardinal as president. In December 1429 Sigismund met with the Archbishop of Mainz, Friedrich of Brandenburg, and other princes at Bratislava, and he urged support for the Hussite war. The Hussites were ravaging Franconia and threatened Nuremberg, and in February 1430 Friedrich of Brandenburg arranged a truce. A General Council was planned for 1431. After an eight-year absence, Sigismund returned to Germany in August 1430. Friedrich led a large army into Bohemia, but on August 14, 1431 they were defeated at Taus and fled once again. The towns refused to support the war anymore even though some feared the Hussite heresy was spreading to Germany. Zizka’s use of gunpowder and infantry and the Hussite revolution’s use of mercenaries destroyed the military domination by the knights and marked the end of chivalry.
Sigismund received the iron crown in Milan on November 25, 1431, and finally on May 31, 1433 Pope Eugene IV crowned him emperor in Rome. The Germans went to the Council of Basel with moderate views, and Sigismund returned to Prague on August 12, 1436 as Bohemia’s king. Sigismund died at Znaim on December 7, 1437.
Soon after Sigismund’s death the anonymous Reformation Kaiser Sigmunds was published as an expression of his intended reforms. These included the following: secularizing ecclesiastical principalities and property, paying salaries to the clergy, increasing discipline of religious houses, equal pay for men in the same craft, limiting each person to one trade, abolishing serfdom, allowing free movement, facilitating burgher rights, setting maximum prices for the necessities of life, making speculation in food a sin, prohibiting capitalist associations, levying tolls only for maintaining bridges and roads, stamping coins to prevent lords from depreciating the currency, and appointing four imperial vicars in the four quarters of the empire.
Johannes von Saaz (also known as Johannes von Tepl) was a Bohemian lawyer. Some time after his wife Margaretha died on August 1, 1400, he wrote The Plowman from Bohemia, an early humanistic dialog between himself and Death. His poem was one of the first written in New High German, and it was first printed in 1460.
The Plowman begins by cursing Death for taking away his beautiful wife while she was still young. Death replies that he is confident he can defend the justice of all his deeds. The Plowman says the plow is his pen, and he is weeping and lamenting in his sorrow and despair. Death praises his wife for having a clear conscience and for being gracious, loyal, true, just, and kind. The Plowman blames Death and hopes God will take away his power. Death says that his power is like the sun that shines on the good and the wicked. Everyone, even adepts, must surrender their spirit to them. If they let people live because of gifts, all kings and popes would be in their power. The Plowman believes all of God’s kingdom stands against Death, who replies that God has allotted heaven to reward the virtuous and hell to punish the sinners. If there were no death, living things would devour each other for food as the earth became crowded. Death asks him to examine the works of Nature. All living things must die, and he will not escape either. The Plowman trusts in God to avenge him against the evil deed. Death suggests that the Plowman find another virtuous woman to marry or to teach another to be virtuous.
The Plowman continues to argue, and Death notes that foolish talk becomes a dispute, then enmity, trouble, injury, suffering, and remorse. His wife will come into eternal joy in life everlasting. The Lord Death is only God’s instrument. The Plowman asks Death to go with him before God to be judged. Death explains that what begins must end, what is sent out must come home, and what a person borrows must be returned. Either age or death will destroy all human beauty. After joy comes sadness, and after love there is sorrow. Lust seeks pleasure; greed desires possessions; and pride strives for honor. Lusting causes lechery; possessing leads to coveting and avarice; and honor brings arrogance and vanity.
The Plowman asks Death what will become of him after there is no more life, when all the good spirits are in heaven. Death says humans cannot know when or how they will die, and he advises them to shun evil, do good, and seek peace. Above all they should cherish a clear conscience, and Death goes with them before God. In the last chapter God speaks and says that Death’s power came from them. God honors the plaintiff but gives the victory to Death. Finally Johannes asks the Lord Jesus to receive the soul of his beloved wife Margaretha.
Sigismund died without a male heir. The Hapsburg Albrecht II was crowned king of Hungary on January 1, 1438. The electors asked him to make certain promises; but he said he could not accept the German crown without the consent of the Magyars. So they dropped their demands and elected him on March 18, 1438. Albrecht was also elected king of Bohemia on May 6 and was crowned on June 29, though he never really governed there. Albrecht was crowned king of Germany at Aachen on May 30, and he summoned a Reichstag at Nuremberg in July that discussed reforms which excluded his own lands. The most important reform tried to end feuds by outlawing private wars and appointing an arbitration tribunal. He also divided Germany into four circles that combined Bavaria with Franconia, the Rhine with Alsace, and Westphalia with the Belgian provinces while keeping Saxony by itself. When Poland’s army left Bohemia and invaded Silesia, Albrecht went north. With support from Saxony, Bavaria, and Albrecht Achilles of Hohenzollern he pushed back the Polish army and gained an armistice in January 1439. This allowed him to go and attack the Turks. A Reichstag at Mainz discussed ecclesiastical reforms, and they agreed to accept the Council of Basel’s anti-papal legislation. However, Albrecht never confirmed this, and it was not implemented. While fighting the Muslims in Serbia, Albrecht fell ill with dysentery. He tried to return to Vienna but died on the way on October 27, 1439.
The German electors chose the oldest Hapsburg prince, Albrecht’s cousin Friedrich III of Styria on February 2, 1440. Twenty days later Albrecht’s widow Elizabeth gave birth to Ladislaus, whom the Hungarians crowned Laszlo V on May 15. However, Friedrich was his guardian and refused to surrender him to the Magyar Diet in 1444. He also used the child as a hostage in his conflict with his brother Albrecht VI over Tyrol. Friedrich was crowned at Aachen on June 17, 1442. That year he defeated the commune of Berlin, and they had to accept the elector’s confirmation of the city council. All leagues in Brandenburg with the prince’s consent were forbidden. Thus the towns in the north had to withdraw from the Hanseatic League. After he made an alliance with Zürich on June 14, 1443, the Swiss Confederation attacked Zürich. Friedrich could not get support from Swabian towns and borrowed 6,000 French troops from King Charles VI. In the summer of 1444 the Dauphin Louis led 40,000 Armagnacs through Sundgau toward Basel, and they plundered the Rhine valley. The King retired to Austria in October and was blamed for letting French troops occupy Alsace, which had to be defended by other Germans led by the Palatine elector Ludwig IV. A treaty signed at Trèves in February 1445 called for the French to evacuate Alsace, but many of the retreating French troops were massacred by angry Germans. Pope Eugene IV conferred privileges on Brandenburg and Austria so that they would have the support of territorial princes.
The Council of Basel began in 1431 with a few bishops and abbots but gradually increased its attendance. Pope Martin V appointed Cardinal Cesarini to preside; but he was on a crusade against the Hussites and did not arrive until September. Sigismund was also the patron of this Council, and he assigned Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria to be its protector. After much resistance Pope Eugene IV (1431-47) issued a bull authorizing the general council on February 14, 1433, and on May 31 he crowned Sigismund emperor at Rome. In July he forbade the Council to go beyond suppressing heresy, restoring peace, and reforming the Church, and he annulled everything else they had done, including acts against himself. However, in December he revoked his three bulls and declared the Council of Basel legitimate. The great debate was whether the Pope or the Council had the supreme authority. Nicholas of Cusa favored the councils and published Concordantia catholica, but he was opposed by the Dominican John of Turrecremata, who defended the Pope in his Summa de ecclesia et ejus auctorite. When the Romans revolted against Pope Eugene in May 1434, he fled into exile at Florence until 1443. On July 5, 1436 Bohemians signed the Compact of Prague at Iglau and were reconciled with the Church.
In September 1437 Pope Eugene threatened to move the Council to Ferrara, and the next month the Council judged him contumacious. Eugene decreed that the Council move to Ferrara, and it opened there on January 5, 1438. A plague caused it to move again the next year to Florence. When Eugene announced that the Eastern Orthodox Church was being united with the Catholic Church in 1439, a rump council remaining at Basel deposed Eugene on June 25 and elected Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy to be Pope Felix V on November 5. Friedrich III declined an offer to marry Felix’s daughter Margaret, widow of Louis of Anjou, even though a dowry of 200,000 ducats was offered.
During the Reichstag at Nuremberg in August 1444 Friedrich III tried to prevent the electors from implementing the Basel reforms with stalling tactics. In 1446 he and Chancellor Kaspar Schlick recognized the supremacy of the Pope over the Council. The humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini had become secretary for Emperor Friedrich in 1442 and later secretary for Pope Eugene, who deposed the archbishops of Trèves and Cologne for supporting the Basel Council. In October 1446 Piccolomini helped persuaded the electors that they should negotiate with Pope Eugene IV, who issued four bulls before he died on February 23, 1447. That year Piccolomini was ordained a priest and was appointed bishop of Trieste. Friedrich’s supporters agreed to recognize Pope Nicholas V, and the Emperor negotiated with him the final Concordat of Vienna in February 1448 in the name of the German princes and electors. All the estates of the empire would eventually accept this Concordat. The election of bishops was to be free of interference, but the Pope had to confirm them. Yet this gave the German princes more authority over the German church. On April 7, 1449 Felix resigned to become a cardinal, marking the defeat of the conciliar movement.
Swabian towns formed a league for defense in 1441, and by 1446 a confederation of 31 towns was led by Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Esslingen. They were opposed by a league of princes led by Margrave Albrecht Achilles of Hohenzollern, and war broke out in June 1449. Friedrich III refused to intervene because of Austrian politics, but finally in April 1453 the treaty of Lauf ended the war. Albrecht Achilles surrendered his conquests for a payment of money, and Nuremberg remained independent. The towns learned that the selfish interests of their members prevented them from challenging the princes, and they became defensive and avoided wars.
Dietrich von Möers, the archbishop of Cologne, and his older brother Count Friedrich of Möers came into conflict with the Saxon town of Soest and won an arbitration in 1444. Soest turned to Adolf of Cleve and went to war against the Archbishop for five years. Dietrich put them under interdict, but Pope Eugene transferred Soest to Bishop Rudolf of Utrecht, deposing Dietrich in 1446. Dietrich gathered 16,000 Czech and Saxon mercenaries to besiege Soest in July 1447. The town resisted, and starvation led to the siege being abandoned. Finally both sides were financially exhausted, and Cardinal Carvajal arbitrated a peace agreement at Maestricht in April 1449.
Friedrich III went to Italy, and on March 18, 1452 in Rome he was married to Princess Eleanora of Portugal and was crowned emperor by Pope Nicholas V. Upon his return he surrendered young Ladislaus to Ulrich of Celje (Cilli), who took him to Vienna. Friedrich made peace in March 1453, and Rudolf IV’s Hapsburg Privilege promulgated that the archduke of Austria was relieved of obligations to the empire. The Hapsburg Friedrich would rule Germany and the empire until his death in 1493.
The declining age of chivalry brought hard times to knights, and some turned to plundering villages, monasteries, and traveling merchants. A peasant court in Westphalia called the “Holy Veme” organized secret vigilantes to curtail crime. They held secret trials and sentenced offenders to be hanged. Those who refused to appear were declared outlaws, and every member was obligated to punish them. Westphalia had some four hundred of these courts for a while. Augsburg had 36 assessors, and they spread to other districts. In the 15th century the Veme courts became corrupted by selling assessorships, and they deteriorated. Albrecht II tried to reform the Veme. The Minnesingers of the chivalry culture were replaced by the Mastersingers of the guilds and the burgher class.
Augsburg banished Jews in 1438 and Munich did so in 1440. Luxuries were also criticized. In 1445 the city of Regensburg enacted a law limiting a woman’s wardrobe to eighteen dresses and eighteen coats. Women often married young and had many children. Birth control was primitive if at all, and the Church set severe penalties for abortion. The child mortality rate was high as conditions were often unsanitary. Public morals were looser. Brothels were legal, and prostitutes were required to wear a distinctive veil, headdress, or cloak. Aging prostitutes who repented found refuge in the homes of Saint Magdalene.
Manuscript books spread beyond monastic libraries as the Brothers of the Common Life became professional copyists. Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type about 1439, but he did not get a press operating until the 1450s. In 1455 he printed about 180 copies of his 42-line Bible. This invention greatly increased the quantity of books and moderated their cost, enabling humanists and reformers to get their messages to more people. Public and private education was developing in Germany, and universities were established at Heidelberg in 1385, Cologne in 1388, Erfurt in 1392, Würzburg in 1402, Leipzig in 1409, and Rostock in 1419. Graduates provided more academic education than the religious schools of the monasteries and convents.
Nikolaus of Cusa (1401-64) was born at Kues between Trier and Koblenz. He attended the same school of the Brothers of the Common Life in Deventer, Holland that Thomas a Kempis went to twenty years before him. In 1416 Nikolaus began studying philosophy at Heidelberg University. He spent six years at Padua, where he earned a doctorate in canon law. In 1425 he studied theology and taught at Cologne. The next year he gave legal advice to Cardinal Orsini, the papal legate in Germany. Nikolaus collected classical manuscripts for his library, and he discovered twelve lost comedies by Plautus. He participated in the Council of Basel and wrote his De Concordantia Catholica in 1433. In this book he argued that humans are created equal and that God has endowed them with freedom and reason, enabling them to choose all authority by election. Legislation is based on natural law, which is based on reason. Thus Nikolaus favored the council over the Pope to reform the Church. However, when the Council of Basel opposed the proposal by Pope Eugene IV for an ecumenical council in Italy for reunification with the Eastern Orthodox Church, Nikolaus changed his position and carried out missions for the pope. He became such a strong advocate for Pope Eugene that he was called his Hercules.
Nikolaus was on the committee of three that negotiated with the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople. While he was bringing 28 archbishops of the Eastern Church to the Council in Italy, Nikolaus had a mystical experience on the ship that sparked his interest in theology, philosophy, and mathematics. By persuading the Greeks that the Holy Spirit comes from the Son as well as from the Father, they accepted the Filioque clause as legitimate. Thus he helped bring about their reunion with the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Florence in 1439, though the agreement did not hold. The next year he wrote his philosophical De Docta Ignorantia. In 1448 Nikolaus was made a cardinal, and he became the bishop of Brixen in South Tyrol in 1450. That year Pope Nicolaus V sent him as legate to Germany and Bohemia to implement Church reforms, which caused such violent opposition that he was forced to flee to Rome in 1452. Nikolaus served as papal vicar when Pope Pius II was at the Congress of Mantua in 1459. In his sermons as papal legate Nikolaus criticized the superstitious veneration of relics, and he convened a synod for Church reform. He and Pius both died in 1464 while working on a failed crusade.
Nikolaus believed that wisdom is knowing one’s ignorance. Reasoning compares things and can never know the infinite truth that is God. Rational investigation can proceed step by step toward God but can never get there by itself. One can add more sides to a polygon; but to make a circle the number of sides must be infinite, and the circumference is no longer curved but is a straight line. Nikolaus preferred Neo-Platonism to Aristotle, and he recognized intuition as a higher faculty than reason. He transcended Aristotelian contradiction because he perceived a higher unity of opposites. He was especially influenced by Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, Ramon Lull, and Meister Eckhart. God as the infinite cannot be compared to finite beings and reconciles all opposites in perfect unity. Nikolaus also studied science and mathematics, and he argued that finite beings are impossible without an infinite being that accounts for their beginning and end. Nikolaus was a panentheist in that he believed God is both immanent in the universe and transcendent of all creation. Individuals are “contractions” of species, and the entire universe is a contraction of God; but even the universe is finite.
Nikolaus favored the Christian religion in his On the Peace of Faith (1453), and he tried to resolve its conflicts. He doubted there is more than one wisdom because he believed that all plurality comes from the original unity. He hoped that when humans recognize the fundamental unity and harmony, there will be universal peace. He observed that few people have enough leisure time to know themselves well. They are distracted by corporeal cares and do not seek the concealed God. He believed that no one desires anything but the good that is God. He predicted that everyone will know that there is only one religion; but there is a variety of rites that no one will be able to annul. Nikolaus held that God clothed the Word with humanity in order to illumine free will so that one may walk in accordance with the inner person rather than the outer. He argued that because the truth is one, all diversity in religion should be brought into one orthodox faith. In On the Peace of Faith the Word has a dialog with a Greek, an Italian, an Arab, an Indian, a Chaldean, a Jew, a Scythian, and a Gaul. Then Peter converses with a Persian, a Syrian, a Spaniard, a German, and a Tatar. Then Paul joins the conversation and talks with the Tatar, an Armenian, a Bohemian, and an Englander. However, Nikolaus seems to expect all these diverse nationalities to accept Christian dogma, including the trinity.
Albrecht IV (r. 1395-1404) ruled Lower Austria. Wilhelm (r. 1386-1406) ruled Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and part of Tyrol, and he was succeeded by Leopold IV (r. 1386-1411), and Friedrich IV (r. 1402-39). Albrecht V (r. 1404-39) became archduke of Austria at the age seven. When Leopold IV died in 1411, Emperor Sigismund declared Albrecht V old enough to rule. He supported Sigismund’s campaigns against the Hussites and was designated his successor. Albrecht added taxes on Jews to finance his campaigns. He accused Jews of collaborating with Austria’s enemies, and in 1420 he ordered their community destroyed. Those who did not convert were deported. On March 12, 1421 Albrecht had the remaining 212 Jews burned at the stake. Jews were put under an “eternal ban,” and their synagogue was destroyed. In 1422 Albrecht married Sigismund’s daughter Elisabeth of Bohemia. After Sigismund died on December 9, 1437, Albrecht (II) was elected king of Hungary and then king of the Romans. He went off to fight Ottoman imperialism in the Balkans but came down with dysentery and died on his way back to Vienna on October 27, 1439. Albrecht was a patron of the arts, and he collected humanistic manuscripts, which he added to the Luxembourg collection he inherited.
After Albrecht V died, his son Ladislaus was born on February 22, 1440. His mother Elisabeth and he were given refuge by Friedrich of Styria. The League of Mailberg brought together Janos Hunyadi and Jiri of Podebrady with the Estates of Upper Austria, of Moravia, and of Lower Austria. Friedrich was elected king of Germany in 1440. In 1442 he supported Rudolf Stüssi of Zurich against the Old Swiss Confederacy. In 1452 he married Eleonora, the niece of Portugal’s Prince Henrique the Navigator, and that year Pope Nicholas V crowned him Emperor Friedrich III in Rome. On October 28, 1453 Ladislaus was crowned king of Bohemia, and he was advised by Podebrady.
On June 3, 1403 Bishop William V de Barogne with the peasants of Valai broke away from Savoy and formed an alliance with Uri, Unterwalden, and Lucerne, and on June 12, 1410 Urseren was admitted into Uri. The men of Appenzell rebelled against imperial towns in 1403 and defeated the Austrian troops of Duke Friedrich IV in 1405. On November 13, 1411 they became combourgoisie of seven cantons, and the city of St. Gall made such a treaty for ten years on December 7, 1412. After Emperor Sigismund put an imperial ban on Duke Friedrich of Austria on March 30, 1415, the confederates conquered some of his territory in Aargau; Sigismund let them keep most of it.
When Count Friedrich of Toggenburg died childless in 1436, Zurich and Schwyz went to war over the division of the inheritance. Zurich formed an alliance with Emperor Friedrich III in 1442. On May 20, 1443 Schwyz and Glarus declared war on Austria and Zurich, and the other cantons joined them. Zurich was besieged by 20,000 confederates on June 21, 1444. Charles VII of France allied with Friedrich and sent irregular forces to Basel. Outnumbered ten to one, the Swiss fought on August 26 until only a few wounded were left. After that the French mercenaries tried to negotiate in Alsace, and on October 21 at Zofingen they made a treaty with the seven cantons, Basel, and Solothurn. In June 1446 Zurich and the Confederation concluded the Peace of Constance, and the Rhine became the border with Austria. Zurich renewed its alliance with Glarus in 1450 and was accepted back into the Confederation on almost the same conditions. Basel had its autonomy guaranteed in the treaty signed at Breisach on May 14, 1449. Freiburg had attacked Savoy in 1447, and Bern in a treaty at Morat on July 16, 1448 made Freiburg cede to it Grasburg and pay 40,000 florins to the duke of Savoy. The Savoyard party persuaded the assembly of burgesses on June 10, 1452 to abolish Austrian suzerainty and accept Louis of Savoy while retaining their rights. The abbot of St. Gall gained protection from the Confederation on August 17, 1451 by making a treaty with Zurich, Lucerne, Schwyz, and Glarus, and on November 15, 1452 the seven eastern cantons granted Apenzell an alliance.
The Teutonic Order recaptured the island of Gotland with 15,000 troops in 1404 and the fortress of Memel in 1406. The Hansa moved into the capital at Visby. In 1407 Grand Master Ulrich von Juningen ceded it to Denmark’s Margrethe in exchange for protection of the Hansa. In 1402 all married Englishmen were required to leave Prussia, and others could only trade with burghers at the port. Two years later the import of English cloth was excluded, and the English were expelled. In 1405 the Dutch were banned from Danzig for three years. However, in 1409 Prussia and England signed a commercial treaty that permitted all English-Prussian trade.
In 1402 the Teutonic Order purchased Neumark in West Pomerania, and by occupying Samogitia they had contiguous territory from the Narva to the Oder. The grand master governed these domains from the castle at Marienburg. The senior commanders of the Order made nominations, and twelve electors selected the grand master, who served for life and was advised by a council of five officials. The Teutonic Order was religious, and Prussia had four bishops under the archbishop of Riga. Numerous serfs in Livonia attracted nobles and traders, and all classes in Germany migrated to Prussia. While the Prussians were fighting the Lithuanians, the Livonians engaged in some thirty wars against Russians over two centuries. They used their monopoly to keep grain out of Novgorod, but in 1448 the Livonian knights made peace with the Russians.
In 1409 Lithuania’s grand duke Vytautas (Witold) joined with Poland in using 150,000 troops in a war against the Order’s 80,000 men. On July 15, 1410 in the battle the Germans called Tannenberg they defeated the Order and occupied most of the country. The Order had 18,000 men killed and 14,000 captured. Commander Heinrich von Plauen of Schwertz led 3,000 men from Pomerania to Marienburg and defended it against a large army. After two months Jagiello abandoned the siege, and in the peace treaty of Thorn the next year the Order lost only Samogitia to Lithuania and Dobrzyn to Poland. In 1412 Heinrich von Plauen became grand master and formed a general assembly of the estates of Prussia with 20 nobles and 27 burghers; but Plauen made enemies in Danzig, where he had leading burghers beheaded for having welcomed the Poles after Tannenberg. The Prussian nobility forced peasants to prove they had their lord’s consent to move their home. A second war dragged on from 1414 to 1422, when Grand Master Paul von Rusdorf (1422-41) gave up Samogitia and the town of Nieszawa. Maximum wages were imposed in 1417 and were put in the ordinances of 1420.
Facing the Ottoman threat, in 1430 Emperor Sigismund suggested the Teutonic knights move their headquarters to Transylvania, but he killed the deal by proposing that their Prussian lands be shared by neighboring princes. A third war started in 1431, when Grand Master Paul sided with Svitrigaila in a Lithuanian succession dispute that attacked Poland; but the Order lost the war in 1435. Prussia suffered devastating crop failures 1437-39. By 1450 the number of Teutonic knights had decreased by a third, and membership standards were lowered. The last war of the Teutonic knights against Poland would be fought from 1453 to 1466.