_). Every decision made by three of these
"deputations"--and in each of them the lower clergy formed the
majority--was ratified for the sake of form in general congregation, and if
necessary led to decrees promulgated in session. It was on this account
that the council could sometimes be called, not without exaggeration, "an
assembly of copyists" or even "a set of grooms and scullions."

Eugenius IV., however much he may have wished to keep on good terms with
the fathers of Basel, was neither able nor willing to accept or observe all
their decrees. The question of the union with the Greek church, especially,
gave rise to a misunderstanding between them which soon led to a rupture.
The emperor John Palaeologus, pressed hard by the Turks, showed a great
desire to unite himself with the Catholics; he consented to come with the
principal representatives of the Greek church to some place in the west
where the union could be concluded in the presence of the pope and of the
Latin council. Hence arose a double negotiation between him and Eugenius
IV. on the one hand and the fathers of Basel on the other. The chief object
of the latter was to fix the meeting-place at a place remote from the
influence of the pope, and they persisted in suggesting Basel or Avignon or
Savoy, which neither Eugenius nor the Greeks would on any account accept.
The result was that Palaeologus accepted the offers of the pope, who, by a
bull dated the 18th of September 1437, again pronounced the dissolution of
the council of Basel, and summoned the fathers to Ferrara, where on the 8th
of January 1438 he opened a new synod which he later transferred to
Florence. In this latter town took place the momentary union, which was
more apparent than real, between the Latin and the Greek church (6th July
1439). During this time the council of Basel, though abandoned by Cesarini
and most of its members, persisted none the less, under the presidency of
Cardinal Aleman, in affirming its oecumenical character. On the 24th of
January 1438 it suspended Eugenius IV., and went on in spite of the
intervention of most of the powers to pronounce his deposition (25th June
1439), finally giving rise to a new schism by electing on the 4th of
November Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, as pope, who took the name of Felix
V.

This schism lasted fully ten years, although the antipope found hardly any
adherents outside of his own hereditary states, those of Alphonso of
Aragon, of the Sw