Soon after the meeting of the council of Basel, the pope, whose name was Eugenius IV., grew jealous lest it should get too much power, and sent orders that it should break up. But the members were not disposed to bear this. They declared that the council was the highest authority in the Church, and superior to the pope; and they asked Eugenius to join them at Basel, and threatened him in case of his refusal. Just at that time Eugenius was driven from Rome by his people, and therefore he found it convenient to try to smooth over differences, and to keep good terms with the council; but after a while the disagreement broke out again. The pope had called a council to meet at Ferrara, in Italy, in order to consult with some Greeks (at the head of whom were the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople) as to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches; and he desired the members of the Basel council to remove to Ferrara, that they might take part in the new assembly. But only a few obeyed; and those who remained at Basel were resolved to carry on their quarrel to the uttermost. First, they allowed Eugenius a certain time, within which they required him either to appear at Basel or to send some one in his stead; then, they lengthened out this time somewhat; and as he still did not appear, they first suspended him from his office, then declared him to be deposed, and at length went on to choose another pope in his stead (Nov. 17, 1439). The person thus chosen was Amadeus, who for nearly thirty years had been duke of Savoy, but had lately given over his dukedom to his son, and had put himself at the head of twelve old knights, who had formed themselves into an order of hermits at Ripaille, near the lake of Geneva. The new pope bargained that he should not be required to part with the long white beard which he had worn as a hermit; but after a while, finding that it looked strange among the smooth chins of those around him, he, of his own accord, allowed it to be shaved off. But this attempt to set up an antipope came to very little. Felix V. (as the old duke called himself on being elected) was obliged to submit to Eugenius; and the council of Basel, after dwindling away by degrees, and being removed from one place to another, died out so obscurely that its end was unnoticed by any one.