Germany

Religious Settlement

Frederick can take credit for bringing the conciliarist controversy to a close in Germany. Most of the Electors favored the anti-pope Felix V, who was elected by the Council of Basil. Before he became pope he was Count Amadeus of Savoy—one of their own, as it were. With persistent persuasion, Frederick brought the Electors around and got them to sign the Concordat of Vienna in 1448, recognizing Pope Nicholas V. By this arrangement, in effect throughout the early modern period, first the Emperor and a little later the princes gained the right to nominate bishops, an important point of control. The German clergy, though, still had to pay annates to Rome, and the pope could claim provisioning. This can be contrasted with the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges in 1438 for France, which gave rather more extensive rights to the French crown. One result of Frederick's negotiations was that it cleared the way for his coronation as Emperor in 1452. His advisor during the process was the humanist audio gifAeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II.