Council and Hierarchy: The Political Thought of William Durant the Younger

In 1311, at the council of Vienne, William Durant the Younger (c. 1266–1330), the French bishop and count, demanded that general councils ought to meet every ten years in order to place effective limits on the papal plenitude of power because 'what touches all must be approved by all'. This is the first systematic interpretation of William Durant's remarkable project to transfer supreme legislative authority from the papacy to general councils. It suggests that the conciliar theory has a mo...