Concordat of Vienna

Timeline

1. 1447Aschaffenburg · AschaffenburgElectors and princes recognized the Roman pope at Aschaffenburg and elsewhere, abandoned support for the Council of Basel, and reached several princely concordats on the collation of benefices; the Vienna negotiations thereby gained their political premise, with diplomats such as Piccolomini shuttling between them to coordinate.
2. 1448Vienna · ViennaFrederick III signed the concordat in the name of the German nation with Cardinal legate Carvajal, providing that episcopal elections required papal confirmation and assigning part of the collation of lower benefices vacant in alternating months to the curia, thereby ending the concordatists' institutional advantage in the empire by treaty.
3. 1448–1449Rome · RomeNicholas V confirmed the concordat on March 19, making it a privileged arrangement of the curia toward the German church; within a year the remnant Council of Basel was dissolved, and the concordat quickly became the general rule for the collation of benefices in the empire.
4. 1450–1803Holy Roman Empire · Holy Roman EmpireFor the next three and a half centuries the concordat regulated imperial episcopal confirmations, papal grants in alternating months, and annuities; though unevenly enforced because of princely territorial church rights, it remained the basic treaty between Rome and the empire, until the Imperial Recess rewrote the landscape of church property and benefices.