John XXIII (Antipope)

This article deals with the antipope John XXIII. For Pope John XXIII. see John XXIII. , for further meanings see John XXIII. (Disambiguation) .

John XXIII (Antipope) in the contemporary Konstanz Council chronicle by Ulrich Richental

Coat of arms of the antipope John XXIII, modern tracing

Fall of John XXIII on the way to the Council of Constance ( Richental Chronicle)

Johannes XXIII (antipope) imprisoned in Mannheim , engraving, 1697

John XXIII (* around 1370 in Naples ; † December 22, 1419 in Florence ), actually Baldassare Cossa , served as antipope from 1410 to 1415 .

As the son of the Count of Troia , Cossa was initially an officer , became a lay cardinal and later received religious orders. In the last years of the Western Schism , during which the Popes in Rome and Avignon made competing claims, he succeeded Alexander V , who had been elected as the new Pope by the Council of Pisa in 1409 . But with that there were now three competing popes. It was not until the Council of Constance 1414-1418 that Martin V, a new, generally recognized Pope, could be elected. John XXIII submitted to the new Pope in 1419 and was appointed Dean of the College of Cardinals for the last months of his life.

Life

Early work

Baldassare Cossa came from a noble family in Naples. Little is known about its early days. He studied in Bologna, initially embarked on a military career and was in 1389 by Pope Boniface IX. - also a Neapolitan - appointed to the Roman Curia. It is not clear whether the Pope was related to Cossa, as is often claimed. Cossa did not hold a clerical office, rather his curia activity was limited to military and administrative tasks, but occasionally also included the preparation of simonist business. First he was the Pope's chamberlain, was promoted to cardinal by him on February 27, 1402 and then sent as vicar to Bologna , which he had known from his student days. He proved himself to be an excellent trustee of the papal interests, and the important commune returned completely under the sovereignty of the Roman Pope. At that time there were two popes: the Roman, whom Baldassare Cossa served, and an antipope in Avignon, France .

His patron Boniface IX. died in 1404, followed by Innocent VII , who ruled for only two years and died in 1406. That year, the 70-year-old Venetian Angelo Correr was elected as Gregory XII in Rome. to the Pope. Baldassare Cossa fell out with the latter in 1408. Since then he has been involved in a council from which he hoped for a new Pope and which he sought to influence according to his ideas. Neither recognized by the Roman pope nor the Avignon antipope Council was constituted in early 1409 in Pisa and ended - mainly at the instigation of Cardinal Cossa - June 26, 1409 with the election of a third church the Head, namely the Pisan Antipope Alexander V. That the church unity convened The council had thus made a “cursed trinity” out of the “wicked duality” , as a contemporary treatise put it.

Antipapacy

Alexander V ruled from Bologna, where he died on May 3, 1410. As his successor, the followers of Alexander elected Baldassare Cossa on May 17, 1410, who as Pope the name John XXIII. assumed. The claim that Cossa had his predecessor murdered came up when Johannes was later deposed and is now viewed as a slander.

Cossa was ordained a priest on May 24, 1410 and a bishop the following day. Then, on the same day, he was crowned Pope. Initially, the seat of his papacy remained in Bologna, and it wasn't until a year later that he went to Lodi after a stopover in Rome . The new German King Sigismund wanted to end the threefold schism (Eng. "Division, separation"), because which of the three popes should ultimately crown him emperor? Sigismund met in Lodi in 1413 with Pope John, who proposed the convening of a council in Bologna. Sigismund, on the other hand, insisted on Constance as the place of the council and prevailed.

Council of Constance, removal and imprisonment

In the late summer of 1414, John XXIII broke. to Constance. His car overturned on arrival at the Arlberg Pass , where he allegedly escaped an angry scream: Hic iaceo in nomine diaboli (“Here I am in the devil's name!”) With regard to his future fate, he said to his companions in view of the impassable mountain roads : "This is how you catch foxes."

In order to maintain his papal dignity, he first tried to get the two competitors to be deposed through his supporters in Constance. This failed and there was pressure to elect a new Pope. John XXIII agreed to resign if the other two popes also did. Contrary to his declarations of intent, for which he was celebrated at the council, he escaped, in order to maintain his power, on March 20, 1415, secretly disguised as a squire of Duke Friedrich IV of Austria, from Constance through the Emmishofer Tor along the Upper Rhine , via Steckborn to Schaffhausen and Freiburg. The onward journey to France was not possible for him. The residents of Ermatingen attribute the privilege of celebrating Groppenfasnacht to the fact that they were the antipope Johannes XXIII. entertained with bullheads on his escape .

King Sigismund had him captured on April 29 in Freiburg im Breisgau or Breisach am Rhein and ordered the imperial vicar and imperial judge Elector Ludwig III. von der Pfalz to imprison him until a new Pope is elected. He was brought to Radolfzell , arrived there on May 17, 1415, stayed here for 14 days and received his deposition pronounced by the council on May 31, 1415. He agreed to this and formally renounced his papal office . He was interned on June 3, 1415 in Gottlieben Castle. From there he came to Heidelberg Castle .

Elector Ludwig III, a religiously very committed man, negotiated in Constance with the representatives of the Roman Pope Gregory XII. and made him abdicate on July 4th, 1415. In return, the old man was appointed papal legate for life.

The resigned Pope John XXIII. remained in captivity in the Electoral Palatinate. In the spring of 1416 a liberation plot was uncovered, which is why he came from Heidelberg to the safer Eichelsheim Castle in the course of the summer , which was located on the site of what is now Mannheim's urban area.

This paved the way for the papal election, since the Avignon antipope Benedict XIII. had not appeared for the council and anyway had only a few followers. The council deemed his papacy to be invalid and officially declared him deposed on July 26, 1417, which he ignored until the end of his life.

On November 11, 1417, Pope Martin V was elected in Constance , and the occidental schism was considered over. Then you lifted the imprisonment against John XXIII. on; he gained his freedom, however, only in the spring of 1419, since Elector Ludwig III. made him liable for the costs resulting from his escape from the council and only let him go after they had been paid.

The antipope - who, according to contemporary witnesses, was unusually tall - complained about the conditions of detention in statements like this:

“My accommodation was cramped, I slept with my limbs twisted, my bed was too short and I had to wear dirty clothes. Nothing good happened to me from the Count Palatinate, but mockery and many offenses I had to endure. "

- Michael Oberweis : The imprisoned Pope Johannes - Mannheim's contribution to ending the great western schism , Mannheim City Archives, 2004, p. 74

A representative of Elector Ludwig III countered in a reply:

“Judging by what a cardinal is entitled to, he may not have treated you quite appropriately. But since he had to torture you as a prisoner, he gave you far more than he owed you. "

- Michael Oberweis : The imprisoned Pope Johannes - Mannheim's contribution to ending the great western schism , Mannheim City Archives, 2004, p. 74

Cardinal Bishop and Death

Pope Martin V pardoned Baldassare Cossa, who visited him in Florence and threw himself at his feet. Ready for reconciliation, he then appointed him Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum (today Diocese of Frascati ) and Dean of the College of Cardinals. Cossa spent the short remaining life span as a refined. He even sent a warning letter to his stubborn rival Benedict XIII. in Avignon, who persisted in his pseudo-papacy and later even tried to expand it through four cardinals. In the letter he implored the Avignese to give in and to trust in the gentleness and justice of the new Pope Martin V. Cossa only served as cardinal bishop for about half a year and died on December 22nd, 1419 in Florence , where he was buried in the baptistery of the cathedral. Giovanni di Bicci de 'Medici and his son Cosimo de' Medici , both of whom had benefited greatly financially from his papacy, had a magnificent tomb erected for him.

Historical assessment

Grave monument John XXIII. in Florence: IOAN [N] ES QUONDAM PAPA XXIII OBIIT FLORENTIE AN [N] OD [OMI] NI MCCCCXVIII XI KALENDAS IANVARII (“John, once Pope XXIII, he died in Florence in the year of the Lord 1419, on the eleventh day before the calendar of January ")

In the official reading of the Church, the two Pisan Popes Alexander V and John XXIII. From the beginning they were regarded as antipopes, even if some papal lists, encyclopedias and historical works kept them as legitimate. Even Martin V fought vehemently against the burial motto of John XXIII, which the Florentines had set for him: "... he was once Pope" . The pontiff asked the city government in vain to change this inscription to "Cardinal of Naples" .

The same applies to the ecclesiastical history publications approved by the Holy See. Both the standard work “Wetzers und Weltes Kirchenlexikon” from 1847 and Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther in his three-volume church history from 1876 represent this view in several places.

Ultimately, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli took the name John XXIII when he was elected Pope in 1958 . whom Baldassare Cossa had already led as antipope before him. This would not have been possible if the church had viewed the latter as the legitimate head. Roncalli himself wrote on taking office:

“Twenty-two popes with the name of John are of undisputed legitimacy . Almost all of them had a short pontificate. Let us hide the insignificance of Our Name behind this splendid row of Roman Popes. "

- Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller : The history of the papal names . Münster 1980, p. 226

It is even more difficult to grasp one's personality after the long period of time. Morally speaking, he was a typical child of his time and more a military man or a politician than a cleric. For the purposes of his dismissal, many allegations were certainly fabricated or aggravated. The mere fact that Pope Martin V made him bishop and dean of the college of cardinals without need after his submission is an indication that his misconduct did not go beyond those of many contemporary peers. Wetzers and Weltes Kirchenlexikon states in its 1889 edition:

“Branded as a moral monster by the opponents, he was showered with praise by others. As much as the accusations may be exaggerated, especially in Constance, the stains of covetousness, cruelty, lust and violence still cling to him, vices some of which were not particularly badly struck in that depraved time, and in part with his too earlier position as warrior and governor and found no counterbalance in a church-religious sentiment. "

- Wetzers and Weltes Kirchenlexikon . Herder Verlag, Freiburg, 1889, Volume 6, p. 1598

Cardinal Cossa certainly changed in the end through imprisonment and his personal fate. Reliable contemporary witnesses prove that he “retained an impressive dignity to the end despite all adversities” . Joseph Hergenröther states:

“You could believe him when he said he hadn't had a good day since he'd worn the tiara; he demonstrated a dignity that he had not shown before. "

- Joseph Hergenröther : Handbook of general church history . 1880, Volume 2, p. 81

literature

• Walter Brandmüller : Infeliciter electus fuit in Papam. For the election of John XXIII. In: Dieter Berg , Hans-Werner Goetz (ed.): Ecclesia et Regnum. Contributions to the history of church, law and state in the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Franz-Josef Schmale on his 65th birthday. Winkler-Verlag, Bochum 1998, ISBN 978-3-924517-24-3 , pp. 309-322.
• Walter Brandmüller: Johannes XXIII. in the judgment of history - or the power of the cliché. In: Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum. Vol. 32, 2000, ISSN  0003-5157 , pp. 106-145.
• Thomas Martin Buck: text, image, story. Pope John XXIII is overturned on the Arlberg. In: Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum. Vol. 30, 1998, pp. 37-110.
• Ansgar Frenken: Johannes XXIII. In: Karl-Heinz Braun, Mathias Herweg, Hans W. Hubert, Joachim Schneider, Thomas Zotz (eds.): The Council of Constance. Essays. 1414-1418. World event of the Middle Ages . Theiss Verlag, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8062-2849-6 , pp. 47-51.
• Michael Oberweis: The imprisoned Pope Johannes - Mannheim's contribution to ending the great western schism. In: Ulrich Nieß, Michael Oberweis: A rebellious village and a trapped Pope. Mannheim before the city was founded. 2nd improved edition. Mannheim City Archives, Mannheim 2005, ISBN 3-926260-66-1 ( Small publications of the Mannheim City Archives 21).
• François Charles Uginet:  Giovanni XXIII, antipapa. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 55:  Ginammi – Giovanni da Crema. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2000.
• Lothar Waldmüller , materials on the story of Johannes'XXIII. (1410-1414) . In: Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum (AHC). Volume 7, 1975 (= Hubert Jedin 's 75th birthday celebration, Volume 1), ISSN  0003-5157 , pp. 229-237.
• Michael Hanst:  Johannes XXIII. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 233-237.
• Johann Peter Kirsch :  John XXIII . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 8, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1910.

Web links

Commons : John XXIII. (Antipope)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about John XXIII. in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Johannes XXIII.  in the German Digital Library
• Publications on John XXIII. in the opac of the Regesta Imperii
• Publications on Baldassarre Cossa in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
• Website of the University of Heidelberg in wayback.archive.org, about the captivity of Johannes XXIII. in the Electoral Palatinate ( Memento from December 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Arnold Esch : Simonie-deal in Rome 1400: "No Pope will do what he does." In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 61, 1974, pp. 433–457.
2. ↑ Cf. Franz Xaver Seppelt: Papal history, from the beginnings to the present. 5. verb. and exp. Ed., Kösel-Verlag, Munich 1949, p. 181.
3. ^ On the circumstances, see Walter Brandmüller : Infeliciter electus fuit in Papam. For the election of John XXIII. In: Ecclesia et Regnum. Contributions to the history of church, law and state in the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Franz-Josef Schmale on his 65th birthday. Edited by Dieter Berg and Hans-Werner Goetz. Winkler-Verlag, Bochum 1998, pp. 309-322.
4. ↑ To the incident in detail Thomas Martin Buck: Text, Bild, Geschichte. Pope John XXIII is overturned on the Arlberg. In: Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum Vol. 30, 1998, pp. 37-110.
5. ↑ Ulrich Büttner, Egon Schwär: The spectacular escape. The squire Baldassare rides out. In: Ulrich Büttner and Egon Schwär: Konstanzer Council story (s) . Publishing house Stadler. Constance 2014. ISBN 978-3-7977-0580-8 . Pp. 165 to 166.
6. ↑ Doris Burger: The escape route of the antipope. In: Südkurier from January 25, 2017.
7. ↑ RHEIN WHISPERS: fled as the 1415 anti-pope to Breisach. In: Badische Zeitung of September 24, 2011.
8. ↑ Ulrich Büttner, Egon Schwär: The spectacular escape. The squire Baldassare rides out. In: Ulrich Büttner and Egon Schwär: Konstanzer Council story (s) . Publishing house Stadler. Constance 2014. ISBN 978-3-7977-0580-8 . Pp. 165 to 166.
9. ↑ Doris Burger: The escape route of the antipope. In: Südkurier from January 25, 2017.
10. ↑ Michael Oberweis: The captured Pope Johannes - Mannheim's contribution to ending the great occidental schism . In: A rebellious village and a trapped Pope - Mannheim before the city was founded . Mannheim City Archives, 2005, p. 81.
11. ↑ Michael Oberweis: The captured Pope Johannes - Mannheim's contribution to ending the great occidental schism . In: A rebellious village and a trapped Pope - Mannheim before the city was founded . Mannheim City Archives, 2005, p. 76.

predecessor	Office	successor
Angelo Correr	Bishop of Frascati 1419	Antonio Panciera