Pope Eugene IV

Pope Eugene IV (Latin: Eugenius IV ; 1383 23 February 1447), born Gabriele Condulmer, was Pope from 3
March 1431 to his death in 1447. He is the last pope to
take the name Eugene upon his election.

1
1.1

By far the most important feature of Eugene IVs ponticate was the great struggle between the Pope and the
Council of Basel (143139), the nal embodiment of
the Conciliar movement. On 23 July 1431, his legate
Giuliano Cesarini opened the council, which had been
convoked by Martin V, but, distrustful of its purposes and
emboldened by the small attendance, the Pope issued a
bull on 18 December 1431 that dissolved the council and
called a new one to meet in eighteen months at Bologna.
The council resisted this expression of papal prerogative.
Eugene IVs action gave some weight to the contention
that the Curia was opposed to any authentic measures
of reform. The council refused to dissolve; instead they
renewed the resolutions by which the Council of Constance had declared a council superior to the Pope and ordered Eugene IV to appear at Basel. A compromise was
arranged by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who
had been crowned emperor at Rome on 31 May 1433.
By its terms, the Pope recalled his bull of dissolution,
and, reserving all the rights of the Holy See, acknowledged the council as ecumenical on 15 December 1433
except for the initial unapproved sessions that contained
canons which exalted conciliar authority above that of the
pope.[1]

Biography
Early life

Condulmer was born in Venice to a rich merchant family.

He entered a community of Canons Regular of San Giorgio in Alga in his native city. At the age of twenty-four
he was appointed by his maternal uncle, Pope Gregory
XII, as Bishop of Siena. In Siena, the political leaders
objected to a bishop who was not only 24, but also a foreigner. Therefore, he resigned the appointment, becoming instead his uncles papal treasurer, protonotary and
Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of San Clemente. Pope
Martin V named him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica di
Santa Maria in Trastevere.

1.2

Papacy

Condulmer made himself useful to Pope Martin as legate

in Picenum and was quickly elected to succeed him in the
papal conclave of 1431. He was crowned as Eugene IV
at St. Peters Basilica on 11 March 1431. By a written
agreement made before his election he pledged to distribute to the cardinals one-half of all the revenues of the
Church and promised to consult with them on all questions of importance, both spiritual and temporal. He is
described as tall, thin, with a winning countenance, although many of his troubles were owing to his own want
of tact, which alienated parties from him.[1] Upon assuming the papal chair, Eugene IV took violent measures
against the numerous Colonna relatives of his predecessor Martin V, who had rewarded them with castles and
lands. This at once involved him in a serious contest with
the powerful house of Colonna that nominally supported
the local rights of Rome against the interests of the Papacy. A truce was soon arranged.

1.2.1

Painting of Pope Eugene rowing down the Tiber escaping Rome

These concessions also were due to the invasion of the

Papal States by the former Papal condottiero Niccol Fortebraccio and the troops of Filippo Maria Visconti led
by Niccol Piccinino in retaliation for Eugenes support
of Florence and Venice against Milan (see also Wars in
Lombardy). This situation led also to establishment of
an insurrectionary republic at Rome controlled by the
Colonna family. In early June 1434, disguised in the
robes of a Benedictine monk, Eugene was rowed down
the center of the Tiber, pelted by stones from either
bank, to a Florentine vessel waiting to pick him up at
Ostia. The city was restored to obedience by Giovanni
Vitelleschi, the militant Bishop of Recanati, in the following October.[1] In August 1435 a peace treaty was signed

Conciliar reform and papal misfortunes

Main article: The Council of Florence

2 EUGENIUS ON SLAVERY

at Ferrara by the various belligerents. The Pope moved to

Bologna in April 1436. His condottieri Francesco Sforza
and Vitelleschi in the meantime reconquered much of
the Papal States. Traditional Papal enemies such as
the Prefetti di Vico were destroyed, while the Colonna
were reduced to obedience after the destruction of their
stronghold in Palestrina in August 1436.

der the name of Felix V.[3] The Diet of Mainz had deprived the Pope of most of his rights in the Empire (26
March 1439).
At Florence, where the council of Ferrara had been transferred as a result of an outbreak of the plague, a union
with the Eastern Orthodox Church was eected in July
1439, which, as the result of political necessities, proved
but a temporary bolster to the papacys prestige.[2] This
union was followed by others of even less stability. Eugene IV signed an agreement with the Armenians on 22
November 1439, and with a part of the Jacobites of Syria
in 1443, and in 1445 he received the Nestorians and the
Maronites.[4] He did his best to stem the Turkish advance,
pledging one-fth of the papal income to a crusade which
set out in 1443, but which met with overwhelming defeat at the Battle of Varna. Cardinal Cesarini, the papal
legate, perished in the rout.
Eugenes rival Felix V in the meantime obtained scant
recognition, even in the Empire. Eventually Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III moved toward acceptance of
Eugene. One of the kings ablest advisers, the humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who was later to be Pope
Pius II, made peace with Eugene in 1442. The Popes
recognition of the claim to Naples of King Alfonso V of
Aragon (in the treaty of Terracina, approved by Eugenius
at Siena somewhat later) withdrew the last important support in Italy from the Council of Basel. In 1442 Eugene,
Alfonso and Visconti sent Niccol Piccinino to reconquer
the March of Ancona from Francesco Sforza; but the defeat of the allied army at the Battle of Montolmo pushed
the Pope to reconcile with Sforza.
So enabled, Eugene IV made a victorious entry into Rome
on 28 September 1443 after an exile of nearly ten years.

Portrait of Pope Eugenius IV, after Jean Fouquet.

1.2.2

Eugenius resurgent

Meanwhile, the struggle with the council sitting at

Basel broke out anew. Eugene IV at length convened a rival council at Ferrara on 8 January 1438 and
excommunicated the prelates assembled at Basel.[2] King
Charles VII of France had forbidden members of the
clergy in his kingdom from attending the counsel in Ferrara, and introduced the decrees of the Council of Basel,
with slight changes, into France through the Pragmatic
Sanction of Bourges (7 July 1438). The King of England
and the Duke of Burgundy, who felt that the council was
partial to France, decided not to recognize the council at
Basel.[2] Castile, Aragon, Milan, and Bavaria withdrew
support. [3]

His protests against the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges

were ineectual, but by means of the Concordat of the
Princes, negotiated by Piccolomini with the electors in
February 1447, the whole of Germany declared against
the antipope. This agreement was completed only after
Eugenes death.

2 Eugenius on slavery
See also: Creator Omnium and Sicut Dudum

Christianity had gained many converts in the Canary Islands by the early 1430s. However, the ownership of the
lands had been the subject of dispute between Portugal
and the Kingdom of Castille. The lack of eective control had resulted in periodic raids on the islands to procure slaves. As early as the Council of Koblenz in 922,
as slaves by other Christians had
The Council of Basel suspended Eugene on 24 January the capture of Christians
[5]
been
condemned.
1438, then formally deposed him as a heretic on 25 June
1439. In the following November the council elected the Acting on a complaint by Fernando Calvetos, bishop
ambitious Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, as antipope un- of the islands,[6] Pope Eugene IV issued a Papal bull,

3
"Creator Omnium", on 17 December 1434, annulling
previous permission granted to Portugal to conquer those
islands still pagan. Eugene excommunicated anyone
who enslaved newly converted Christians, the penalty to
stand until the captive was restored to their liberty and
possessions.[7]
Portuguese soldiers continued to raid the islands during
1435, and Eugene issued a further edict Sicut Dudum that
prohibited wars being waged against the islands and afrming the ban on enslavement. Eugene condemned the
enslavement of the peoples of the newly colonized Canary
Islands and, under pain of excommunication, ordered all
such slaves to be immediately set free.[8]
Eugene tempered Sicut Dudum in September 1436 with
the issuance of a papal bull in response to complaints
made by King Edward of Portugal that allowed the Portuguese to conquer any unconverted parts of the Canary Islands. According to Raiswell (1997), any Christian would be protected by the earlier edict but the unbaptized were implicitly allowed to be enslaved.[9]
Following the arrival of the rst African slaves in Lisbon
during the year 1441, Prince Henry asked Eugene to designate Portugals raids along the West African coast as
a crusade, a consequence of which would be the legitimization of enslavement for captives taken during the
crusade. On 19 December 1442, Eugene replied by issuing the bull Illius qui, in which he granted full remission
of sins to those who took part in any expeditions against
the Saracens.[10] Davidson (1961) asserts that In Christianity as in Islam...the heathen was expendable.[11]

Statue of Pope Eugene at the Florence Cathedral

the monastic orders, especially the Franciscans, and was

never guilty of nepotism. Although austere in his private
life, he was a sincere friend of art and learning, and in
1431 he re-established the university at Rome. He also
consecrated Florence Cathedral on 25 March 1436. EuRichard Raiswell argues that the bulls of Eugene helped
gene was buried at Saint Peters by the tomb of Pope Euin some way the development of thought which perceived
gene III. Later his tomb was transferred to San Salvatore
the enslavement of Africans by the Portuguese and later
in Lauro, a parish church on the other bank of the Tiber
Europeans as dealing a blow for Christendom.[12] Joel S
River.
Panzer views Sicut Dudum as a signicant condemnation
of slavery, issued sixty years before the Europeans found
the New World.[13]

4 Notes

Death and legacy

Although his ponticate had been so stormy and unhappy that he is said to have regretted on his deathbed
that he ever left his monastery, Eugene IVs victory over
the Council of Basel and his eorts on behalf of church
unity nevertheless contributed greatly to the breakdown
of the conciliar movement and restored the papacy to a
semblance of the dominant position it had held before
the Western Schism (13781417). This victory had been
gained, however, by making concessions to the princes of
Europe. Thereafter, the papacy had to depend more for
its revenues on the Papal States.
Eugene IV was dignied in demeanour, but inexperienced and vacillating in action and excitable in temper. Bitter in his hatred of heresy, he nevertheless displayed great kindness to the poor. He laboured to reform

[1] Loughlin, James. Pope Eugene IV. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company,
1909. 23 Jul. 2014
[2] Stieber, Joachim W., Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of
Basel and the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the
Empire: The Conict Over Supreme Authority and Power
in the Church, Brill, 1978 ISBN 9789004052406
[3] MacCarey, James. Council of Basle. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 24 Jul. 2014
[4] Van der Essen, Lon. The Council of Florence. The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 24 Jul. 2014
[5] Decrees on Sale of Unfree Christians, Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University

[6] Housley, Norman.

Religious Warfare in Europe
1400-1536, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN
9780198208112
[7] Raiswell, Richard. Eugene IV, Papal bulls of, The
Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Junius P. Rodriguez ed., ABC-CLIO, 1997 ISBN 9780874368857
[8] Dulles, 2005
[9] Richard Raiswell, p. 260 & Sued-Badillo, 2007
[10] Raiswell, p. 261
[11] The African Slave Trade, p. 55
[12] The Historical encyclopedia of world slavery, Richard
Raiswell, p. 261
[13] Panzer, 2008

References
This article incorporates text from a publication now
in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).
Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge
University Press.
Dulles, S.J., Avery. Development or Reversal?",
First Things Magazine, October 2005
Maxwell, John Francis. Slavery and the Catholic
Church, Barry Rose Publishers, 1975
Panzer, Joel S. The Popes and Slavery, The
Church In History Centre, 22 April 2008
Rendina, Claudio (1994). I capitani di ventura.
Rome: Newton Compton. p. 355.
The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Contributor Richard Raiswell, Editor Junius P. Rodriguez, ABC-CLIO, 1997, ISBN 0-87436-885-5
Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of the
Amerindians in the Caribbean. (Columbus and the
New World Order 14921992)., Sued-Badillo, Jalil,
Monthly Review. Monthly Review Foundation, Inc.
1992. HighBeam Research. 10 August 2009
A Violent Evangelism, Luis N. Rivera, Luis Rivera
Pagn , Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, ISBN
0-664-25367-9
The African Slave Trade, Basil Davidson, James
Currey Publishers, 1961, ISBN 0-85255-798-1
A Successful Defeat. Eugenius IVs Struggle with
the Council of Basel for Ultimate Authority in the
Church, 1431/1449, M. Decaluwe, Brepols Publishers, 2010, ISBN 978-90-74461-73-3
Joseph Gill, Eugenius IV, Pope of Christian Union
(Westminster, Md., Newman Press, 1961).

EXTERNAL LINKS

6 External links
Curp, T. David. A Necessary Bondage? When the
Church Endorsed Slavery, Crisis Vol. 23, No. 8
(September 2005)

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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