By the decree _Frequens_ it provided for the regular summoning of councils at short intervals.

Beyond this, other efforts to reform the morals of the clergy proved abortive, for after long discussion nothing of importance was done.
For the next century the policy of the popes was determined by the wish to assert their superiority over the councils.

The Synod of Basle [Sidenote: Basle 1431-43] reiterated all the claims of Constance, and passed a number of laws intended to diminish the papal authority and to deprive the pontiff of much of his ill-gotten revenues--annates, fees for investiture, and some other taxes.

It was successful for a time because protected by the governments of France and Germany, for, though dissolved by Pope Eugene IV in 1433, it refused to listen to his command and finally extorted from him a bull ratifying the conciliar claims to supremacy.
In the end, however, the popes triumphed.

The bull _Execrabilis_ [Sidenote: 1458] denounced as a damnable abuse the appeal to a future council, and the _Pastor Aeternus_ [Sidenote: 1516] reasserted in sweeping terms the supremacy of the pope, repealing all decrees of Constance and Basle to the contrary, as well as other papal bulls.
[Sidenote: The secularization of the papacy] At Rome the popes came to occupy the position of princes of one of the Italian states, and were elected, like the doges of Venice, by a small oligarchy.