But the evils which date from the residence at Avignon were increased twofold during the schism. All Christendom was in doubt how this would end. For the civil war in the church had divided the countries under rival obediences. France, Scotland, and Spain adhered to the pope at Avignon; and England, Germany, and Italy obeyed the Italian pope. At first they tried to induce the rivals to resign; and Pedro de Luna, who was elected pope at Avignon as Benedict XIII, won the high office by declaring that he would resign as easily as take off his hat. But the wily prelate, after his election, declared that no earthly power could dethrone him, and for more than a decade defied the attempts of reformers to achieve union. It was then that in the University of Paris the theologians began agitation for a universal council, as supreme over the pope. It is said that a German doctor began the movement, but the credit has gone to France. First at Pisa and then at Constance, the great parliaments of the church took in hand the reformation. In the later council (1414-1418) union was achieved by the deposition of opposing popes and the election of Martin V (see volume on The Papacy), but the decree _Frequens_ which demanded regular meeting of councils in the future, was gradually lost sight of in the following pontificates, and the great experiment of a constitutional church was a failure. That such an attempt should be made while France was in the throes of this great Hundred Years’ War, and that mostly by Frenchmen, shows that alongside of the story of carnage, crime, and superstition, there were signs of intellectual life and earnest effort of reformers, which are suggestive in the age of Wycliffe and Huss. A strange page of history is opened here. Sigismund, emperor of Germany, who presided at the council of Constance, was anxious to play a great part in the world’s affairs. He took advantage of the great international assemblage in his dominions to attempt to put himself at the head of a European confederacy to fight the Turks, who were advancing along the Danube. To accomplish this he made a journey into France and England to try to prevent the war. His visit took place just before the fatal invasion of Henry V which brought the victory of Agincourt.[38] To raise the money for that journey Sigismund made over the mark of Brandenburg to Frederick of Hohenzollern, burggraf of Nuremberg, and thus founded the power of the Hohenzollern. Henry V, was willing to accede to Sigismund’s plans, but although he even offered the succession of Hungary as a bribe, the court of France refused to make the peace he desired, and Sigismund’s great effort at European concord resulted in only one thing--the foundation of the great dynasty which rules in Germany to-day. France and England went their own way, bringing mutual disaster for another generation.[a] [Illustration] FOOTNOTES [30] [This old French word denoted either a song or a particular kind of dance.]