Pierre d'Ailly

Catholic Church 1351–1420 ○ Natural causes

French cardinal who led the effort to end the Great Schism at the Council of Constance

Born about 1351 at Compiègne, he studied in Paris and took his doctorate in theology in 1381. He was chancellor of the University of Paris from 1389 to 1395; Jean Gerson was his pupil. When the Great Schism set two popes against each other, he argued for ending it through a general council. Confessor to the king, then bishop of Le Puy and of Cambrai, he was made cardinal in 1411. At the Council of Constance (1414–1418) he was, with Gerson, one of the leading theologians, opposing John XXIII and pressing for union and reform, and he took part in the trial of Jan Hus. His Imago Mundi influenced Columbus's estimates of the size of the world. He died at Avignon in 1420. The saying Marx attributes to him in The Eighteenth Brumaire is said to be a false attribution.

Also known as: Petrus de Alliaco