Yesterday was a busy one.
It meant I missed out on acknowledging a story from ecclesiastical history, a story more complex than most fictive plots.
16 September was when we might wish to celebrate the curious life of Louis Aleman (c. 1390 - 1450, and rather imaginative image as right).
All went well for Louis at the start of his career in the church. It always helps to have a benevolent and archiepiscopal relative in the trade.
By his late twenties he was a Bishop of Maguelone — which is far more important than seems from beach that still carries the name — very popular with nude bathers and gay men — down the one-way track from Palavas-les-Flots.
Maguelone — that big blister in the middle of the map — was one lf the 'seven cities' (Septimania) of what once had been the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, and was absorbed as a buffer zone for Theodoric II's Visigothic kingdom.
The diocese is now based in Montpellier.
Anyhoo, Louis Aleman quickly received preferment, and within five years in 1423 was Archbishop of Arles, and soon after Pope Martin V Colonna dispatched his cardinal's hat.
Martin V Colonna was re-constructing western Christianity after the tumultuous and schismatic fourteenth century. After 1410 one had a choice of three popes: Gregory XII Correr, Benedict XIII in Avignon, and John XXIII Cossa. The 'middle management' of the Church had, it seems, had enough of this popology, held Councils at Pisa and Constance (where Jan His was immolated). Finally John XXIII and Benedict XIII were dethroned, Gregory XII was bought off and abdicated — and Cardinal Oddone Colonna was installed as Martin V, the first Renaissance pope, to rebuild Roma and the Vatican.
Louis Aleman had been in the midst of all this kerfuffle (fifteenth century Italian politics and church politics perfectly fitted that Russian's description of 'absolutism moderated by assassination'. In 1424 he had been Papal Legate and governor in Bologna (turbulent stuff!) in succession to Gabriele Condulmer (watch this space). The novelist manqué in me would make that the source of a continued feud.
The Bologna billet didn't last long: anyone claiming to have a full grasp of Italian politics in that era is too far ahead of me (though see here). In 1428 Louis Aleman was evicted from Bologna by the Condulmer faction. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold — and Martin V pegged out in 1430: Condulmer got the nod and the white smoke as Eugenius IV.
The comparative stability of Martin V's pontificate was already failing. Eugenius IV was under real pressure, and Martin V had convened the Council of Basle. There were two basic questions: relations with the near-terminal Eastern Church in Constantinople, and the far more acute matter of governance of western Christianity (that latter came down to a monarchical papacy versus something more collegiate and oligarchic). The presiding authority at Basle, as nominated by Martin V, was meant to be Louis Aleman. Eugenius V squelched that with a Bull of 1437, transferring the sittings from Basle to Ferrara (i.e. somewhere nearer his control).
That was not entirely a wise move. The Council in Basle went schismatic, and deposed Eugenius, nominating instead Count Amadeus VIII of Savoy as Felix V (his anti-papacy and the Council would limp on in shadow form over a decade, but would fail because the Germans wouldn't give him support).
Eugenius was having none of that: he stripped Louis Aleman of his titles, cardinalate, and excommunicated him. Eugenius was on something of a high: he had cobbled a form of conciliation with the Byzantines; he had seen off the Council in Basel; and now seemingly disgraced his main opponent. Then Eugenius inconveniently died.
The next pope was Nicholas V Parentucelli, who may have risen rapidly as a protegé of Eugenics, but shows as someone far more subtle, more diplomatic, and more cultured. In short order he bri=ought about the resignation of anti-pope Felix V, lanced the boil of Bologna by conceding a form of near-independence from the papal states, and re-instating Louis Aleman.
Louis himself survived barely another year; but would be beatified by Clement VII de' Medici.
All this is more than a bit of a niche interest. Even so, were I looking for an outline plot for a historical fiction, Louis Aleman might be its centre.
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