600 INTELLECT AND FAITH. The University of Paris was the stronghold of the new doc- trine, and as its activity and influence were greatly curtailed by the disturbances which preceded the invasion of Henry V. and by the English domination, we hear little of the question until the restoration of the French monarchy. The belief, however, had continued to spread. In 1438 the clergy and magistrates of Mad- rid, on the occasion of a pestilence, made a vow thereafter to ob- serve the Feast of the Conception. The next year the Council of Basle, which had long been discussing the matter in a desultory fashion, came to a decision in favor of the Immaculate Concep- tion, forbade all assertions to the contrary, and ordered the feast to be everywhere celebrated on December 8, with due indulgences for attendance. As the council, however, had previously deposed Eugenius IV., its utterances were not received as the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and the doctrine, though strengthened, was not accepted by the Church. In fact, the rival Council of Flor- ence, in 1441, in its decree of union with the Jacobines, although it spoke of Christ assuming his humanity in the immaculate womb of the Virgin, showed that this was but a figure of speech, by de- claring as a point of faith that no one born of man and woman has ever escaped the domination of Satan except through the merits of Christ." A new article could not be introduced without creating a new heresy. Here was one on which the Church was divided, and the adherents on each side denounced the other as heretics and per- secuted them as far as they dared where they had the power. In this the Dominicans were decidedly at a disadvantage, as their antagonists had greatly the preponderance and were daily grow- ing in strength. In 1457 the Council of Avignon, presided over by a papal legate, the Cardinal de Foix, who was a Franciscan, confirmed the decree of Basle, and ordered under pain of excom- munication that no one should teach to the contrary. The same year the University of Paris was informed that a Dominican in Britanny was preaching the old doctrine. Immediately it held an assembly, wrote to the Duke of Britanny asking that the friar, if
- Wadding. Addit. ad T. V. No. 16 (T. VII. p. 491) ; ann. 1439. No. 47-8.—
Concil. Basil. Sess. xxxti. (Harduin. IX. 1160). — Concil. Florent. Deer, pro Jaco- binis (Harduin. IX. 1024-5).
