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Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Nicholas of Cusa, and the Crusade: Conciliar, Imperial, and Papal Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2017

Norman Housley
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Abstract

This essay surveys the ways the attitudes of Piccolomini and Cusa toward the initiation of a crusade were shaped by their shifting allegiances between 1432 and their deaths in 1464. Piccolomini's developing interest in crusade, which became his central concern during his reign as pope, is traced through his years at Basel and in the service of Frederick III. Cusa's attitude toward crusade is approached in terms of the apparent contradiction between the views set out in his De pace fidei and the role that he played at imperial diets in the 1440s and 1450s. In the case of both men, the impact of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is reassessed.

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Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 86 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 643 - 667
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2017 

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References

1 For an overview, see Meuthen, Erich, “Der Fall von Konstantinopel und der lateinische Westen,” Historische Zeitschrift 237, no. 1 (1983): 1–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 A comprehensive study of Piccolomini's intellectual formation is lacking, but for his letters, see Izbicki, Thomas M., Christianson, Gerald, and Krey, Philip, introduction to Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius: Selected Letters of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II) (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

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6 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 22; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 11.

7 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 23; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 12.

8 Christianson, Gerald, Cesarini: The Conciliar Cardinal; The Basle Years, 1431–1438 (St Ottilien: EOS, 1979), 166–169 Google Scholar.

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11 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 25; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 14.

12 Ibid.

13 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 47; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 23.

14 Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, Eneas Silvius Piccolomini Pentalogus (hereafter cited as Pentalogus), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters, 8, ed. Schingnitz, Christoph (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2009)Google Scholar.

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18 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 63, p. 165; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 27, p. 156.

19 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 59.

20 Piccolomini, Pentalogus, 116–117n241. Piccolomini probably drafted the invitation (ibid., 106n212, and cf. 124n271).

21 Ibid., 110, 110n225.

22 Ibid., 124, 126, 126n275.

23 Ibid., 128.

24 Ibid., 162.

25 Ibid., 222–224, 242.

26 Ibid., 264.

27 Ibid., 260–262.

28 Ibid., 286.

29 Ibid., 292–296.

30 Ibid., 304n770.

31 For example, ibid., 106 and see too 106n212.

32 Ibid., 304.

33 Ibid., 276–278.

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35 Ibid., 174–178, 180–181.

36 Ibid., 140.

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38 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. xc, p. 152.

39 Ibid., part 1, vol. 1, no. 59.

40 Ibid., nos. 80, 86; translated in Reject Aeneas, nos. 31, 35.

41 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 2, no. i.

42 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. iv, repeated in no. xc: “quid enim prodest eos, qui extra ecclesiam sunt, conprimere, si ab iiis, qui intus sunt, laceramur?”

43 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, nos xxi, xxiii, xxiv, cf. nos xxv–xxix.

44 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. xxxvii.

45 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. l, cf. no. xliii, p. 82: “placeat divine pietati magis clementiam suam quam Hungarorum prospicere merita.”

46 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, nos. lxxxi, lxxxii.

47 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. lxxix, cf. no. lxxxvi.

48 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. lxxxviii, cf. no. xc (Cesarini was needed at Nuremberg, for “non minus hic utilis sermo vester fuisset, quam manus contra Teucros.”)

49 Ibid., part 1, vol. 2, no. lxxxviii, pp. 145–146n.

50 Ibid., part 2, vol. 1, no. 23, pp. 73–77; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 70, pp. 288–292; and Antoche, Emanuel Constantin, “Hunyadi's Campaign of 1448 and the Second Battle of Kosovo Polje (17–20 October),” in Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade, ed. Housley, Norman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 245–284 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 92; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 36. This letter to Juan de Carvajal sums up Piccolomini's position in October 1443.

52 Der Briefwechsel, part 1, vol. 1, no. 19; translated in Reject Aeneas, no 69. This is a reasoned justification for the change of allegiance, dated August 13, 1447.

53 Der Briefwechsel, part 2, vol. 1, no. 3.

54 Pius II, Commentaries 1.24, ed. Meserve, Margaret and Simonetta, Marcello, vol. 1, Books I–II (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 118–121 Google Scholar.

55 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Opera omnia (Basel, 1571), cols. 928–932.

56 For an analysis of the Turks in Piccolomini's written output, see Helmrath, Johannes, “Pius II. und die Türken,” in Europa und die Türken in der Renaissance, ed. Guthmüller, Bodo and Kühlmann, Wilhelm (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2000), 89–99 Google Scholar.

57 The oration attributed to Hunyadi before the battle of Kosovo is also airily dismissive of the Turks: Der Briefwechsel, part 2, vol. 1, no. 23, p. 75; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 70, p. 290.

58 Piccolomini saw Cesarini as a martyr: Der Briefwechsel, part 2, vol. 1, no. 31; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 72.

59 Der Briefwechsel, part 2, vol. 1, no. 44; translated in Reject Aeneas, no. 76. This history of the council written in 1450 constitutes Piccolomini's final judgement on Basel.

60 This was already clear in Moyses vir Dei, as Helmrath pointed out in “Pius II. und die Türken,” 90–91. Margaret Meserve gets the balance right on Piccolomini and the period 1444–1453 in Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 95–98 Google Scholar. See too Izbiki, Christianson, and Krey, Reject Aeneas, 36.

61 For Cusa at Constantinople, see Watanabe, Morimichi, Nicholas of Cusa – A Companion to His Life and Times, ed. Christianson, Gerald and Izbicki, Thomas M. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 284–293 Google Scholar.

62 Der Briefwechsel, part 3, vol. 1, no. 112.

63 Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance 1.11.51, ed. and trans. Sigmund, Paul E. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 34 Google Scholar.

64 Cusa, The Catholic Concordance 2.13.112–126, pp. 88–97.

65 Piccolomini, De gestis, 14–15.

66 The Catholic Concordance 1.14.58, p. 40. The many reasons for Cusa's move toward papalism are well set out in Stieber, Joachim W., “The ‘Hercules of the Eugenians’ at the Crossroads: Nicholas of Cusa's Decision for the Pope and against the Council in 1436/1437 – Theological, Political, and Social Aspects,” in Nicholas of Cusa in Search of God and Wisdom, ed. Christianson, Gerald and Izbicki, Thomas M. (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 221–255 Google Scholar.

67 Cusa, The Catholic Concordance 3.7.348–356, pp. 237–240.

68 Ibid., 3.41.567–598, pp. 313–322.

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70 Kaemmerer, Deutsche Reichstagsakten, 380.

71 See Norman Housley “Crusade and Reform, 1414–1449: Allies or Rivals?,” in Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade, 45−83.

72 See esp. the Reformatio generalis drafted for Pius II in Cusa, “A General Reform of the Church,” in Writings on Church and Reform, 550–591.

73 Studt, Birgit, Papst Martin V. und die Kirchenreform in Deutschland (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004)Google Scholar; and Kalous, Antonin, “Papal Legates and Crusading Activity in Central Europe: The Hussites and the Ottoman Turks,” in The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century: Converging and Competing Cultures, ed. Housley, Norman (London: Routledge, 2017), 75–89 Google Scholar.

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75 Meuthen, Erich, “Die deutsche Legationsreise des Nikolaus von Kues 1451/1452,” in Lebenslehren und Weltentwürfe im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit: Politik—Bildung—Naturkunde—Theologie, ed. Boockmann, Hartmut, Moeller, Bernd, and Stackmann, Karl (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 421–499 Google Scholar; Sullivan, Donald, “Nicholas of Cusa as Reformer: The Papal Legation to the Germanies, 1451–1452,” Medieval Studies 36 (1974): 382–428 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, , “Cusanus and Pastoral Renewal: The Reform of Popular Religion in the Germanies,” in Nicholas of Cusa on Christ and the Church, ed. Christianson, Gerald and Izbicki, Thomas (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 165–173 Google Scholar; Stieber, “The ‘Hercules of the Eugenians’ at the Crossroads,” 246–247; and Watanabe, Nicholas of Cusa – A Companion, 29–34.

76 Recent treatments by Bisaha, Nancy, “Pope Pius II's Letter to Sultan Mehmed II: A Reexamination,” Crusades 1 (2002): 183–200 Google Scholar; and Weber, Benjamin, “Conversion, croisade et œcumenisme à la fin du Moyen-âge: encore sur la lettre de Pie II à Mehmed II,” Crusades 7 (2007): 181–199 Google Scholar, with bibliography and editions cited.

77 See now Bacsóka, Marika, Blank, Anna-Maria, and Woelki, Thomas, eds., Europa, das Reich und die Osmanen: Die Türkenreichstage von 1454/55 nach dem Fall von Konstantinopel, special issue, Zeitsprunge: Forschungen zur Fruhen Neuzeit 18, no. 1 (2014)Google Scholar.

78 Housley, Norman, “Pope Pius II and Crusading,” Crusades 11 (2012): 209–247 Google Scholar; and Housley, , Crusading and the Ottoman Threat, 1453–1505 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Nicholas of Cusa on Interreligious Harmony: Text, Concordance and Translation of De pace fidei, ed. Biechler, James E. and Bond, H. Lawrence (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1990), xxv Google Scholar.

80 Ibid., 7.

81 Ibid., 39.

82 Rodríguez, Darío Cabanelas, Juan de Segovia y el problema islámico (Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1952), 311–318 Google Scholar.

83 Wolf, Anne Marie, “Converting Fellow Christians,” in Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace: Christians and Muslims in the Fifteenth Century (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 129–174 Google Scholar, esp. 129.

84 Wolf, Juan de Segovia, 94, 109–111, 156–157.

85 Ibid., 208, with Latin at 341n159. Recent research has confirmed this in the case of the Hussites, who vigorously objected to the use of the crusade against them, but I have encountered no similar objections from Muslims.

86 Housley, Norman, “Ending and Starting Crusades at the Council of Basel,” Crusades 16 (2017): 115–145 Google Scholar.

87 Wolf, Juan de Segovia, 170–174.

88 Cabanelas, Juan de Segovia, 319–323, 343–349.

89 Helmrath, Johannes, ed., Europa, das Reich und die Osmanen: Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Friedrich III., fünfte Abteilung, zweiter Teil, Reichsversammlung zu Frankfurt 1454 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013)Google Scholar.

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91 Meuthen, Erich, “Nikolaus von Kues auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1454,” in Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel, ed. Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), 2:482–499 Google Scholar, esp. 493: “Cusanus hatte also doch einen konkreten politischen Auftrag in Regensburg zu erfüllen.”

92 Ibid., 491, 491n59; text in Weigel, Helmut and Grüneisen, Henny, eds., Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Friedrich III., fünfte Abteilung, erste Hälfte 1453–1454 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 230Google Scholar.

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94 Cabanelas, Juan de Segovia, 313.

95 The difference between Segovia and Cusa may be compared with that between Erasmus and More, with De pace fidei as Cusa's Utopia.

96 Stieber, “The ‘Hercules of the Eugenians’ at the Crossroads,” 255.

97 Cabanelas, Juan de Segovia, 318; and Wolf, Juan de Segovia, 221–222.

98 Segovia acknowledged the importance of the Roman curia in bringing discussions into being by analogy with its role in promoting past crusades: Wolf, Juan de Segovia, 254–255.

99 Meuthen, “Nikolaus von Kues,” 494, 494n73.

100 Ibid., 494n76.

101 Housley, Crusading and the Ottoman Threat, 27–28.

102 The obvious example is his reaction to the rebellion of the Prussian estates against the Teutonic Order, which he feared would stall a German response to the Turkish threat: Meuthen, “Nikolaus von Kues,” 494, 494n77.

103 Watanabe, Nicholas of Cusa – A Companion, pp. xvi−xvii; Meuthen, “Nikolaus von Kues,” 493–494.

104 Izbicki, Christianson, and Krey, Reject Aeneas, 53.

105 Housley, Norman, “ Robur imperii: Mobilizing Imperial Resources for the Crusade against the Turks, 1453–1505,” in Partir en croisade à la fin du Moyen Âge: financement et logistique, ed. Baloup, Daniel and Martínez, Manuel Sánchez (Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Midi, 2015), 290–297 Google Scholar.

106 Landi, Aldo, Concilio e papato nel Rinascimento (1449–1516): un problema irrisolto, (Turin: Claudiana, 1997)Google Scholar.