Constance
City on Lake Constance and the Rhine, in Swabia, where the general council of 1414 to 1418 ended the papal schism and where Jan Hus was burned in 1415.
The council that sat here from 1414 to 1418 declared that it had been rightly summoned to the city, that it could not be dissolved until the schism was healed and the church reformed, and that it could not be moved without good cause (Council of Constance, session 3). Peter of Mladoňovice, who was present, says that the session of 6 July 1415 was held in the city’s great church, that Jan Hus was burned in a meadow among the gardens outside the walls on the road to the castle of Gottlieben, and that his ashes were thrown into the Rhine nearby (Peter of Mladoňovice, Relatio pp. 316–323). See the Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus.
What happened here
- 1414 to 1418, firm dateThe Council of Constance and the Burning of Jan Hus
A general council ends the papal schism, declares that even a pope must obey it, and orders councils to meet at fixed intervals. It also tries the Czech preacher Jan Hus, who had come under the king’s safe-conduct, and hands him over to be burned on 6 July 1415.