Conciliarism and Church Law in the Fifteenth Century - 9781472423870

Taylor & Francis

This volume looks at the writings and actions of Franciscus Zabarella (1360-1417), the professor of canon law at the University of Padua (later cardinal), as he sought to find and explicate a viable and legal solution to the crisis of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417). Thomas Morrissey places Zabarella\u2019s thought and influence in the context of the late medieval and early modern era and shows how his work leads down the road to our modern constitutional democratic societies. > Crises are never the best of times and the era of the Great Western Schism (1378-1417) easily qualifies as one of the worst of times. As a professor of canon law at the University of Padua and later cardinal, and as a major theorist in the conciliarist movement, Franciscus Zabarella (1360-1417) tried to do what a good legal mind does: find and explicate a viable and legal solution to the crises of his time, a solution that would stand up in his own era and for the generations that followed. In this vow