The selfish and futile negotiations between the colleges of cardinals and the popes justified the notion that there might perhaps be a power in Christendom superior even to that of the pope. Might not a council, representing all Christendom, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, judge even a pope? Such councils had been held in the East during the later Roman Empire, beginning with the first general or ecumenical council of Nicæa under Constantine. They had established the teachings of the Church and had legislated for all Christian people and clergy.[205] [Sidenote: Question whether the pope or a general council is the supreme authority in the Church.] As early as 1381 the University of Paris advocated the summoning of a general council which should adjust the claims of the rival popes and give Christendom once more a single head. This raised the question whether a council was really superior to the pope or not. Those who believed that it was, maintained that the Church at large had deputed the election of the pope to the cardinals and that it might, therefore, interfere when the cardinals had brought the papacy into disrepute; that a general assembly of all Christendom, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was a higher authority than even the successor of St. Peter. Others strenuously denied this. They claimed that the pope received his authority over the Church immediately from Christ, and that he had always possessed supreme power from the very first, although he had not always exercised it and had permitted the earlier councils a certain freedom. No council, they urged, could be considered a general one which was called against the will of the pope, because, without the bishop of the Roman or mother church, the council obviously could not lay claim to represent all Christendom. The defenders of the papal power maintained, moreover, that the pope was the supreme legislator, that he might change or annul the act of any council or of a previous pope, that he might judge others but might not himself be judged by any one.[206] [Sidenote: The Council of Pisa, 1409 adds a third rival pope.]