Carl Theodor Mirbt

“ His projected Crusade was interwoven with his endeavours to end the schism; and the political straits of the emperor Michael Palaeologus in Constantinople came to the aid of these aspirations. To ensure his safety against the attacks of King Charles of Sicily, who had pledged himself to assist the ex-emperor Baldwin in his reconquest of the Latin empire, Michael was required to own the supremacy of the pope in the spiritual domain; while Gregory, in return, would restrain the Sicilian monarch from his bellicose policy with regard to the Eastern empire. ”

“ The second Council of Lyons (the fourteenth general council) met from the 7th of May to the 17th of July 1274, under the presidency of Pope Gregory X., and was designed to resolve three problems: to terminate the Greek schism, to decree a new Crusade, and to counteract the moral corruption among clerics and laity. The council entered on its third task at a very late period, with the result that the requisite time for an adequate deliberation was not available. ”

“ Since its numbers were not far in excess of 150 bishops and archbishops, and the great majority of these came from France, Italy and Spain; while the schismatic Greeks and the other countries—especially Germany, whose interests were so deeply involved—were but weakly represented ”