Antipope Benedict XIII
Council of Constance deposes Benedict XIII
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The 37th session
At its 37th session on 26 July 1417, the Council of Constance pronounced sentence against Pedro de Luna, the Avignon claimant Benedict XIII. The 27 July date that circulates in some secondary accounts belongs to his excommunication; the session and the deposition sentence are consistently dated 26 July in the conciliar acts and in modern scholarship.
The council declared him a perjurer, a schismatic and a heretic, and deprived, deposed and expelled him from his claimed papal office and from the Catholic Church.
What the sentence did
It released Christians from obedience to Benedict and prohibited anyone from renewing allegiance to him.
He had refused repeated requests to abdicate even after the Spanish kingdoms withdrew their obedience, and Sigismund of Luxembourg had personally tried to negotiate a resignation. The other two claimants were already out: Gregory XII resigned through his representatives in July 1415, and John XXIII fled Constance and was deposed in May 1415.
Benedict was condemned as a heretic and a schismatic, but even hostile accounts did not attack his personal morality or priestly character.
Peñíscola
The decision left no important political power recognising Benedict and cleared the way for an election at Constance. He stayed at the fortress of Peñíscola, where he had been based since 1415, and went on regarding himself as the legitimate pope.
He never resigned or accepted the sentence. He was the last of the three principal Constance-era claimants, though his remaining cardinals later elected minor successors to his line.
Whether the Western Schism ended here or with Martin V's election on 11 November depends on what is meant: this removed the last broadly relevant claimant, the election supplied the widely accepted replacement.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Date corrected
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →
Date corrected. The research places this at 1417-07-26.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The listed date, 27 July, appears in some secondary accounts for Benedict's excommunication. The council's 37th session and formal deposition sentence are consistently dated 26 July 1417 in the conciliar acts and modern scholarship.
- Whether the Western Schism 'ended' with this deposition or with Martin V's election on 11 November depends on the meaning intended. The deposition removed the last broadly relevant claimant; the election supplied the widely accepted replacement.
- Contemporaries did not share the modern Catholic Church's settled classification of Gregory XII as pope and Benedict XIII and John XXIII as antipopes.