church.The council of Pisa, in order to end the embarrassment of having two contending popes claiming to be sole head of the Catholic Church, deposed the two contenders, Gregory XIII, and Benedict XIII. The cardinals of both popes who elected a new pope, Alexander V, undertook this reform. When the two popes refused to step down, there were then three popes contending. Wycliff’s teachings reached Bohemia after his death and were picked up by John Huss, at the university of Prague, in early 1400s. Huss translated Wycliffs work in to Czech and gave life to the reform ideals to the people. This stirred fear in the hearts of church officialdom. IN 1414 Huss was called to the Council of Constance to explain himself. Instead he was arrested by the Council and burned at the stake in 1415 sparking revolt in Bohemia. Attempts to put down what had become a popular national revolt failed; finally a compromise was reached with the Hussites. The council initially made progress toward reconciliation with the Hussites; it defied a papal order to move Bologna, claiming superior authority to that of the pope. Subsequently efforts to reform of the ecclesiastical hierarchy caused it to overstep its true power and Eugenius used this to his own advantage. Also, the pressing problems of the Turks, and the need for closer relations with the Eastern church, provided the occasion for the pope to split the council’s power bringing a portion to the council Ferrara while the remainder carried on in Basel. In it's decision in 1439 to elect a pope in opposition to Eugenius, undermined most of the council’s residual authority. In the meanwhile, the papacy in Rome emerged as an ever-stricter defender of its ecclesiastical authority. Savonarola was an apocalyptic Dominican monk-preacher who was both a very popular figure among the poorer classes of Florence and a thorn in the side of the Florentine aristocracy. He led a grand e...
