It first of all proclaimed the indissolubility of the general council, and its superiority over the papal power. It endeavoured to make these principles recognised as fundamental in the church, and then set about the task of reforming the abuses which had crept into it, especially the exactions by which the court of Rome drew money from the faithful. {192} The better to attain its object, the council named what we would call a committee of inquiry--that is to say, a _reforming college_, composed of deputies taken from the different nations represented in it. This college was charged to investigate the abuses which tarnished the church, and the means of remedying them, and to make a report to the council, which would deliberate on the modes of execution. But whilst the council was engaged upon the labour, a question was submitted to it--Whether it could proceed to the reform of abuses without the participation of the head of the Church, without the sanction of the pope? It was decided in the negative, by the influence of the Romanist party, supported by honest but timid men; so the council elected a new pope, Martin V ., in 1417. This pope was instructed to present a plan of reform for the church, which was not acceptable, and the council separated. In 1431, a fresh council assembled at Basle, with the same design. It took up and continued the reforming labour of the Council of Constance, but had no better success. The schism which divided Christianity broke out in the assembly likewise. The pope removed the Council of Basle to Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence. A portion of the prelates refused to obey the pope, and remained at Basle; so as there were formerly two popes, there were then also two councils. That of Basle stuck to its projects of reform, and named its own pope, Felix V. After a certain period it migrated to Lausanne, and finally broke up in 1449, without having effected a single object. Thus the papacy ultimately prevailed, and remained in possession of the field of battle and of the government of the church. The councils had been unable to accomplish what they had undertaken, but the consequences of their acts survived their failure. At the time the Council of Basle miscarried in its essays at reform, certain sovereigns availed themselves of the ideas which it had promulgated, and of the institutions it had recommended. In France, Charles VII. issued the pragmatic sanction, founded on the decrees of the Council of Basle, which he proclaimed at Bourges in 1438. It maintained the election of bishops, the suppression of first fruits, and the reform of the principal abuses prevalent in the church. The pragmatic sanction was declared the law of the state in France. In Germany, the diet of Mayence adopted it in 1439, and likewise made it a law of the German empire. Thus what the spiritual power had attempted without success, the temporal power seemed determined upon accomplishing. {193}