Middle Ages seem to be put
upon their trial. If that trial had ended in condemnation, there could
be no fitter point to mark the division between mediaeval and modern
history. But the verdict was acquittal, or at least a partial aquittal;
and the old system was allowed, under modified conditions, a lease of
life for another century. It must not be forgotten that there were
great secular as well as ecclestiasical interests involved in the
council. Princes and nobles were present as well as cardinals and
prelates. The council may be regarded not only as a great assembly of
the Church, but also as a great diet of the mediaeval empire.

The man who had done more than anyone to procure the summons of the
council, and whose interests were most closely bound up in its success,
was Sigismund, King of the Romans and potential Emperor. He was eager to
terminate the schism, and to bring about such a reform in the Church as
would prevent the recurrence of similar scandals. But his motive in this
was not merely disinterested devotion to the interests of the Church. He
wished to revive the prestige of the Holy Roman Empire, and to gratify
his own personal vanity by posing as the secular head of Christendom and
the arbiter of its disputes. More especially he wished to restore the
authority of the monarchy in Germany, and to put an end to that anarchic
independence of the princes of which the recent schism was both the
illustration and the result.

In pursuing this aim he was confronted by the champions of "liberty" and
princely interests, who were represented at Constance by the Archbishop
of Mainz and Frederick of Hapsburg, Count of Tyrol. The Archbishop, John
of Nassau, had been prominent in effecting and prolonging the schism in
the Empire. He was a firm supporter of John XXIII, and had no interest
in attending the council except to thwart the designs of the King, whom
he had been the last to accept. Frederick of Tyrol was the youngest son
of that duke Leopold who had fallen at Sempach in the war with the
Swiss. Of his father's possessions Frederick had inherited Tyrol and the
Swabian lands, and the propinquity of his territories made him a
powerful personage at Constance. His family was the chief rival of the
house of Luxemburg for ascendency in Eastern Germany, and he himself
seems to have cherished a personal grudge against Sigismund. To these
enemies Sigismund could oppose two loyal allies, the elector palatine
Lewis, who had