ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the borrowing and modification of voting practices at Constance. It explains why the Council of Constance came into existence and why it was in the unusual position of not being superintended by a pope. The chapter describes how procedure was formulated at the councils, going on to argue that the councils borrowed their voting practices from corporate settings. The councils were a product of the Great Schism of the Latin Church. This broke out when a number of cardinals renounced their obedience to Pope Urban VI in 1378 and fled to Avignon. The German nation's proposal provides a peculiarly evocative account of the difficulties encountered by collective decision-making in an assembly as large as the Council of Constance. The proposal offered plausible reasons for transferring the primary location of decision-making in the council from plenary sessions to smaller committees and is testament to the desire of the council Fathers to promote collective consultation at Constance.
