Frederick III, in reaching the Concordat of Vienna, or Aschaffenburg, with the newly installed Pope Nicholas V on February 17, 1448, regulates control of church offices and helps force the dissolution of the Council of Basel, which is asserting conciliar supremacy over the popes.

The decrees of the Council of Basel against papal annates and reservations are abrogated so far as Germany is concerned.

He hires as a secretary the distinguished diplomat and humanist scholar Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who first brings Renaissance influences to Germany.