ABSTRACT

The legitimacy of the Fifth Lateran Council has been debated over the centuries. Its very convocation by Julius II in Rome on 18 July 1511 was contested by those who had called another council two months earlier on 16 May in Milan to meet in the city of Pisa. The adherents to the Pisan Council, using arguments provided for them by the eminent jurist Filippo Decio and by the canonist-theologian Zaccaria Ferreri, denounced the Lateran Council as a conciliabulum, for a legitimate council had already been called. Gallicanists of various stripes contested the legitimacy of the Fifth Lateran Council. The University of Paris in March of 1518 claimed that Lateran V was not gathered in Holy Spirit and that it had gone against the Catholic faith and authority of general councils in condemning parts of the Council of Basel. The presence of prelates from the Eastern churches would have given the Lateran Council a clearer claim to the status of ecumenical council.