The Schism from 1378 evoked an essential need for a redefinition of doctrinal authority within the church. One of the aims of this study is to show that the Council of Constance did not condemn Hus’ theses only from the doctrinal perspective but also endeavoured to consolidate a certain modus procedendi in relation to the scholar’s heresy. In the context of Hus’ cause, it is evident that the doctrinal questions had great gravity in the eyes of the council fathers. Most likely for the reason of this great attention being paid to the theological aspects, attention was not paid to the fact that in parallel with the condemnation of Hus’ theses some of the main representatives of the council endeavoured for the consolidation of a certain modus procedendi in the cases of the processes whose beginning can be found within the universities. Both in the case of Wycliffe and in the case of Hus, the council confirmed the previous condemnation of university instances in accord with ecclesiastical power. The promise of a public hearing of Hus aroused great disorder, because in that two entirely opposing evidential principles clashed, the theological and legal. The basic problem was in the question of how to define the relation between the two authorities: the Holy Scripture and the Church. The schism from 1378 and general inquiry about the principles in the instances of ecclesiastical power aroused a renewed interest in this problem. Nevertheless, in the thought of some significant council fathers, the principle appeared that auctoritas ecclesiae should serve as a guarantee of the proper interpretation of the Bible. Besides the ambiguity between the two evidential principles (legal and theological), the core of the dispute between Hus and the council fathers lay precisely in this ecclesiological problem. A significant role in the legal course of Hus’ process was analogically played also by the question of the infallibility of the council. and Sebastián Provvidente.
The article reexamines the origins of the legend of the donation which Emperor Constantine the Great was to make to Pope Sylvester I, offering him Rome and the secular power over the western part of the Roman Empire. Its main purpose is to analyze how the hagiographical text produced in the late fifth century to promote the cult of St. Sylvester was adopted and used by medieval popes to endorse their dominant position in Latin Christendom. The charter of Constantine’s Donation became one of the most famous medieval forgeries, which served to legitimize the existence of papal state in Italy and to promote the idea of popes’ superiority over emperors and other secular rulers. It was only in the middle of the fifteenth century that the authenticity of that document was successfully questioned by Nicholas of Cusa and in particular by Lorenzo Valla. The latter in his treatise De falso credita et ementita Constantini Donatione by means of a careful historical and philological analysis demonstrated that Constantine’s Donation was a pure forgery. and Paweł Kras.