Western Schism
The Western Schism began on the 20th of September 1378, with a single, startling act: a group of French cardinals gathered at Fondi and elected a second pope. There was already a pope. He was sitting in Rome. For the next thirty-nine years, the Catholic Church would have not one claimant to the throne of Saint Peter, but two, and then three. How did this happen? What turned the cardinals of one church against each other so completely that they could not agree even on who had the right to call a council to fix it? And when it was finally resolved, did anyone actually win?
Under pressure from King Philip IV of France, the papacy had left Rome in 1309 and settled in Avignon, a papal enclave surrounded by French territory. The relocation was initiated by Pope Clement V, and what followed became known as the Avignon Papacy, a period that earned the institution a lasting reputation for corruption. Critics attributed this reputation to the visible weight of French influence over church affairs, to the papal curia's aggressive pursuit of patronage rights, and to repeated drives to raise revenues.
The last pope to reign from Avignon, Gregory XI, decided to end this arrangement. He was persuaded by relatives, friends, and his retinue, and he returned to Rome on the 17th of January 1377, ending nearly seven decades of absence. But the return was not comfortable. Gregory almost immediately began signaling that he intended to reverse his decision and go back to Avignon, announcing this just after the Easter celebrations of 1378. He never made the journey. Gregory XI died in the Apostolic Palace on the 27th of March 1378, leaving the question of where the papacy belonged entirely unresolved.
The Romans were not going to let the papacy slip away again. With the papal seat now vacant, they put into operation a plan to use intimidation and violence, described in the records as impressio et metus, to ensure the cardinals chose a Roman pope. On the 8th of April 1378, the cardinals elected Bartolomeo Prignano, the Archbishop of Bari, as Pope Urban VI.
The majority of those same cardinals quickly came to regret the vote. They retreated to Anagni and then convened at Fondi, where thirteen of them elected Count Robert of Geneva as Pope Clement VII on the 20th of September 1378. Their stated justification was that the election of Urban VI had been carried out under duress from the rioting Roman crowds, making it legally void.
Clement VII tried to hold his position in Anagni but could not. After his forces were defeated at the Battle of Marino, he fled south to Naples. Queen Joanna I of Naples was one of his supporters and received him warmly. The Neapolitan populace was not as welcoming. Crowds chanted in the streets: Viva Papa Urbano, long live Pope Urban, and Muoia l'Anticristo, death to the Antichrist. Clement took a ship to Avignon, reestablished the papal court there, and the schism became a geographic and political reality.
King Charles V of France, who appears to have been dissatisfied with the Roman choice before the schism broke, quickly became Clement VII's most powerful protector. France's backing gave the Avignon line a critical base of support, and Clement worked to build a coalition. He eventually secured the allegiances of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Scotland, and most of Italy except for Naples and Savoy. Years later, the rebel leader Owain Glyndwr's uprising in Wales also recognized the Avignonian line.
The Roman side drew its own powerful backers. King John I of Portugal, founder of the House of Aviz, came to the throne with English support and signed the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, firmly aligning Portugal with Urban VI. The Angevin kings of Hungary, Louis I and Mary, supported Rome even as their wider family backed Avignon. When Joanna I of Naples sided with Clement, she was deposed and replaced by Charles III in 1381; Urban VI excommunicated Charles III's subsequent move to seize the Hungarian throne from Mary and her husband Sigismund.
The historian Johan Huizinga recorded the depth of feeling the schism generated. When the city of Bruges shifted its allegiance to the Avignon obedience, many residents simply left to live under an Urbanist ruler rather than comply. In 1382, the oriflamme, a French royal battle standard reserved for holy causes, was unfurled against the Flemings because they were Urbanists. The chronicle described them, in that charged climate, as infidels.
Urban VI died in 1389 and Clement VII in 1394, but neither death settled anything. Boniface IX was crowned in Rome in 1389. Benedict XIII, elected against the wishes of King Charles VI of France, began reigning in Avignon that same year. When Boniface died in 1404, the eight cardinals of the Roman conclave made an unusual offer: they would not elect a replacement if Benedict would simply resign. Benedict's legates refused on his behalf. The Romans then elected Innocent VII, and negotiations with Benedict stalled completely by February 1405. Benedict excommunicated Innocent, raised an army, and in May 1405 began marching toward Rome. He occupied Genoa for a year, waiting for French military support that never arrived. Innocent died on the 6th of November 1406, and the Roman cardinals chose Angelo Correr, who took the name Gregory XII.
Benedict and Gregory agreed in December 1406 that both would abdicate. Gregory sent an ambassador to the St. Victor abbey in Marseille, where Benedict was staying, to arrange a meeting. Gregory proposed Savona as the venue; Benedict agreed. When the moment came, both men balked, and both sets of cardinals walked away from their respective popes. The idea of a church council to resolve the dispute had been raised as early as 1378, but canon law required a pope to convene it. Theologians including Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson developed arguments that could justify calling such a council anyway, while Francesco Zabarella argued it could only be convoked by an emperor.
In 1409, the cardinals convened the Council of Pisa on their own authority. At its fifteenth session, on the 5th of June 1409, the council declared both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII to be heretical, schismatical, perjured, and scandalous, then tried to end the impasse by electing a third pope: Peter Philargi, the cardinal Archbishop of Milan, who became Alexander V. He reigned briefly from the 26th of June 1409, until his death in 1410, when Baldassare Cossa succeeded him as John XXIII. The council had not solved the schism. It had made it three-sided.
In 1414, the Pisan pope John XXIII convened the Council of Constance to end the crisis. The Roman pope Gregory XII also endorsed it, lending the council a legitimacy the Council of Pisa had lacked. On the 6th of April 1415, the council issued the decree known as Haec sancta, which declared the council itself to be the church's highest governing body, with authority over any pope. The decree is today considered invalid by the Catholic Church, partly because Gregory XII, regarded in hindsight as the legitimate pope, had not yet formally confirmed the council when Haec sancta was passed.
Advised by the theologian Jean Gerson, the council secured Gregory XII's resignation and the detention and removal of John XXIII. Benedict XIII, who refused to resign despite losing all his supporters, was excommunicated on the 27th of July 1417. The council then elected Pope Martin V, effectively ending forty years of division. Benedict did not accept any of it. Recognized by King Martin of Aragon as late as 1397, he held on until his death on the 23rd of May 1423. Three cardinals then elected Gil Sanchez Munoz y Carbon as Clement VIII. That Clement finally resigned in 1429 and acknowledged Martin V.
The Constance settlement had a peculiar quality noted by the scholar John F. Broderick in 1987: the council had not resolved the schism by declaring which of the three claimants was the rightful pope. It had simply eliminated all of them and created a fresh arrangement for choosing a successor. Neither Martin V nor any pope since has made an official, authoritative pronouncement about the legitimacy of the rival lines for the entire period from 1378 to 1417.
The schism accelerated a reformist movement called Conciliarism, which held that a general council of the church is superior to the pope. Thinkers like Jean Gerson argued that the priests and the church itself are the true sources of papal authority, meaning the church has the right to correct or even remove a pope. On the 18th of January 1460, Pope Pius II responded directly to this current by issuing the bull Execrabilis, which forbade any attempt to appeal papal judgments to a general council.
Scholars have traced a line from the schism to a broader deterioration of discipline within the church and an erosion of its authority. That erosion, in the view of many historians, was a contributing factor in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
The schism's paper trail continued to produce complications even into the modern era. When Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope in 1958 and chose the name John XXIII, he cited what he described as twenty-two Johns of indisputable legitimacy, though the actual number of undisputed Johns was twenty due to antipopes and numbering errors. His use of the ordinal XXIII implicitly reclassified the Pisan John XXIII as an antipope. The passage explaining his reasoning was later removed from the official record in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. Meanwhile, Popes Alexander VI through VIII have never been renumbered to close the gap left by the reclassification of Alexander V, leaving a permanent irregularity in the sequence of papal names.
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Common questions
What was the Western Schism and when did it occur?
The Western Schism was a split within the Catholic Church that lasted from the 20th of September 1378 to the 11th of November 1417. During this period, competing claimants in Rome and Avignon simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and a third line of Pisan claimants joined the dispute in 1409.
Why did the Western Schism begin in 1378?
The schism began after the death of Gregory XI and the disputed election of Urban VI. A group of French cardinals declared Urban VI's election invalid on the grounds of intimidation and violence, then elected Clement VII at Fondi on the 20th of September 1378, creating two rival popes.
How was the Western Schism resolved?
The schism was resolved at the Council of Constance, convened in 1414. The council secured the resignation of Gregory XII, removed John XXIII, and excommunicated Benedict XIII on the 27th of July 1417. Pope Martin V was then elected, ending the forty-year division.
How many popes were there during the Western Schism?
At its peak there were three simultaneous claimants. Two lines, Roman and Avignon, existed from 1378, and a third Pisan line was added in 1409 when the Council of Pisa elected Alexander V in an attempt to resolve the dispute.
Which countries supported the Avignon pope during the Western Schism?
Clement VII, the Avignon claimant, secured the support of France, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Scotland, and most of Italy except Naples and Savoy. Owain Glyndwr's Welsh rebels also recognized the Avignonian line.
What long-term effects did the Western Schism have on the Catholic Church?
The schism accelerated Conciliarism, a movement holding that a general council ranks above the pope. Scholars also link it to a marked decline in church discipline and authority. Many historians view it as a contributing factor in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
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