ELECTION OF ANTIPOPE CLEMENT VII
BEGINNING OF THE GREAT SCHISM
A.D. 1378
HENRY HART MILMAN
In 1308 Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, under the influence of King Philip the Fair, of France, transferred the papal chair from Rome to Avignon, a possession of the holy see beyond the Alps, in Philip's dominions. The sojourn there of Clement and his successors, which continued until 1376, is known as the "Babylonish captivity" of the popes.
Rome, from the first, was angry at this loss of supremacy, and aimed at recovering her prestige; and throughout the Christian world—France alone excepted—it was regarded as a scandal that the chair of St. Peter should rest on any soil but that of the Eternal City; but the French kings, and the cardinals of France—outnumbering all others in the sacred college—were determined to retain the pontifical seat in their own territory.
During the pontificate of Gregory XI (1371-1378) Italy was torn by civil dissensions; the "free companies"—bands of organized marauders—ravaged the country with fire and sword, plundering Guelf and Ghibelline alike. Gregory's legates in the government of the ecclesiastical states rendered themselves so odious to the people by their immorality and rapacity that a league of the more powerful political factions was formed for throwing off the yoke of the "absentee" papal rulers. This was the beginning of the War of Liberation (1375) that was to shake the papal power in Italy to its very foundations.
Gregory saw that, in order to preserve even a vestige of temporal power in the Italian states, he must act with crushing vigor. He therefore sent the cardinal legate, Robert, of Geneva—afterward Antipope Clement VII—into Italy with a company of Breton adventurers dreaded for their ferocity, and trained to plunder in the terrible wars of France. In spite of the atrocities committed by Robert and his hirelings, the revolt continued with unabated fury, and at last Gregory was constrained to return in person to Italy with the purpose of pacifying the turbulent forces. He entered Rome, January 17, 1377; but after a year of futile effort he died, leaving the confusion worse than he found it.
Since, according to ecclesiastical law, the election of a new pope must be held at the place of the last pontiff's decease, great clamor arose among the Romans, whose demands were seconded throughout Europe, for the election of a Roman pope and the ending of the "Babylonish captivity." The history of the Great Schism and election of the rival pontiffs is nowhere to be found in better form of narrative than that of Milman, which here follows.
REGORY XI had hardly expired when Rome burst out into a furious tumult. A Roman pope, at least an Italian pope, was the universal outcry. The conclave must be overawed; the hateful domination of a foreign, a French pontiff, must be broken up, and forever. This was not unforeseen. Before his death Gregory XI had issued a bull conferring the amplest powers on the cardinals to choose, according to their wisdom, the time and the place for the election. It manifestly contemplated their retreat from the turbulent streets of Rome to some place where their deliberations would not be overborne, and the predominant French interest would maintain its superiority. On the other hand there were serious and not groundless apprehensions that the fierce Breton and Gascon bands, at the command of the French cardinals, might dictate to the conclave. The Romans not only armed their civic troops, but sent to Tivoli, Velletri, and the neighboring cities; a strong force was mustered to keep the foreigners in check.
Throughout the interval between the funeral of Gregory and the opening of the conclave, the cardinals were either too jealously watched, or thought it imprudent to attempt flight. Sixteen cardinals were present at Rome, one Spaniard, eleven French, four Italians. The ordinary measures were taken for opening the conclave in the palace near St. Peter's. Five Romans, two ecclesiastics and three laymen, and three Frenchmen were appointed to wait upon and to guard the conclave. The Bishop of Marseilles represented the great chamberlain, who holds the supreme authority during the vacancy of the popedom. The chamberlain, the Archbishop of Arles, brother of the Cardinal of Limoges, had withdrawn into the castle of St. Angelo, to secure his own person and to occupy that important fortress.
The nine solemn days fully elapsed, on the 7th of April they assembled for the conclave. At that instant (inauspicious omen!) a terrible flash of lightning, followed by a stunning peal of thunder, struck through the hall, burning and splitting some of the furniture. The hall of conclave was crowded by a fierce rabble, who refused to retire. After about an hour's strife, the Bishop of Marseilles, by threats, by persuasion, or by entreaty, had expelled all but about forty wild men, armed to the teeth. These ruffians rudely and insolently searched the whole building; they looked under the beds, they examined the places of retreat. They would satisfy themselves whether any armed men were concealed, whether there was any hole, or even drain through which the cardinals could escape. All the time they shouted: "A Roman pope! we will have a Roman pope!" Those without echoed back the savage yell. Before long appeared two ecclesiastics, announcing themselves as delegated by the commonalty of Rome; they demanded to speak with the cardinals. The cardinals dared not refuse. The Romans represented, in firm but not disrespectful language, that for seventy years the holy Roman people had been without their pastor, the supreme head of Christendom. In Rome were many noble and wise ecclesiastics equal to govern the Church: if not in Rome, there were such men in Italy.
They intimated that so great were the fury and determination of the people that, if the conclave should resist, there might be a general massacre, in which probably they themselves, assuredly the cardinals, would perish. The cardinals might hear from every quarter around them the cry: "A Roman pope! if not a Roman, an Italian!" The cardinals replied, that such aged and reverend men must know the rules of the conclave; that no election could be by requisition, favor, fear, or tumult, but by the interposition of the Holy Ghost. To reiterated persuasions and menaces they only said: "We are in your power; you may kill us, but we must act according to God's ordinance. To-morrow we celebrate the mass for the descent of the Holy Ghost; as the Holy Ghost directs, so shall we do." Some of the French uttered words which sounded like defiance. The populace cried: "If ye persist to do despite to Christ, if we have not a Roman pope, we will hew these cardinals and Frenchmen in pieces."
At length the Bishop of Marseilles was able to entirely clear the hall. The cardinals sat down to a plentiful repast; the doors were finally closed. But all the night through they heard in the streets the unceasing clamor: "A Roman pope, a Roman pope!" Toward the morning the tumult became more fierce and dense. Strange men had burst into the belfry of St. Peter's; the clanging bells tolled as if all Rome was on fire.
Within the conclave, the tumult, if less loud and clamorous, was hardly less general. The confusion without and terror within did not allay the angry rivalry, or suspend that subtle play of policy peculiar to the form of election. The French interest was divided; within this circle there was another circle. The single diocese of Limoges, favored as it had been by more than one pope, had almost strength to dictate to the conclave. The Limousins put forward the Cardinal de St. Eustache. Against these the leader was the Cardinal Robert of Geneva, whose fierce and haughty demeanor and sanguinary acts as legate had brought so much of its unpopularity on the administration of Gregory XI. With Robert were the four Italians and three French cardinals. Rather than a Limousin, Robert would even consent to an Italian. They on the one side, the Limousins on the other, had met secretly before the conclave: the eight had sworn not on any account to submit to the election of a traitorous Limousin.
All the sleepless night the cardinals might hear the din at the gate, the yells of the people, the tolling of the bells. There was constant passing and repassing from each other's chamber, intrigues, altercations, manœuvres, proposals advanced and rejected, promises of support given and withdrawn. Many names were put up. Of the Romans within the conclave two only were named, the old Cardinal of St. Peter's, the Cardinal Jacobo Orsini. The Limousins advanced in turn almost every one of their faction; no one but himself thought of Robert of Geneva.
In the morning the disturbance without waxed more terrible. A vain attempt was made to address the populace by the three cardinal priors; they were driven from the windows with loud derisive shouts, "A Roman! A Roman!" For now the alternative of an Italian had been abandoned; a Roman, none but a Roman, would content the people. The madness of intoxication was added to the madness of popular fury. The rabble had broken open the Pope's cellar and drunk his rich wines. In the conclave the wildest projects were started. The Cardinal Orsini was to dress up a Minorite friar (probably a Spiritual) in the papal robes, to show him to the people, and so for themselves to effect their escape to some safe place and proceed to a legitimate election. The cardinals, from honor or from fear, shrunk from this trick.
At length both parties seemed to concur. Each claimed credit for first advancing the name—which most afterward repudiated—of the Archbishop of Bari, a man of repute for theologic and legal erudition, an Italian, but a subject of the Queen of Naples, who was also Countess of Provence. They came to the nomination. The Cardinal of Florence proposed the Cardinal of St. Peter's. The Cardinal of Limoges arose: "The Cardinal of St. Peter's is too old. The Cardinal of Florence is of a city at war with the holy see. I reject the Cardinal of Milan as the subject of the Visconti, the most deadly enemy of the Church. The Cardinal Orsini is too young, and we must not yield to the clamor of the Romans. I vote for Bartholomew Prignani, Archbishop of Bari." All was acclamation; Orsini alone stood out; he aspired to be the pope of the Romans.
But it was too late; the mob was thundering at the gates, menacing death to the cardinals, if they had not immediately a Roman pontiff. The feeble defences sounded as if they were shattering down; the tramp of the populace was almost heard within the hall. They forced or persuaded the aged Cardinal of St. Peter's to make a desperate effort to save their lives. He appeared at the window, hastily attired in what either was or seemed to be the papal stole and mitre. There was a jubilant and triumphant cry: "We have a Roman pope, the Cardinal of St. Peter's. Long live Rome! Long live St. Peter!" The populace became even more frantic with joy than before with wrath. One band hastened to the Cardinal's palace, and, according to the strange usage, broke in, threw the furniture into the streets, and sacked it from top to bottom. Those around the hall of conclave, aided by the connivance of some of the cardinals' servants within, or by more violent efforts of their own, burst in in all quarters. The supposed pope was surrounded by eager adorers; they were at his feet; they pressed his swollen, gouty hands till he shrieked from pain, and began to protest, in the strongest language, that he was not the pope.
The indignation of the populace at this disappointment was aggravated by an unlucky confusion of names. The Archbishop was mistaken for John of Bari, of the bedchamber of the late pope, a man of harsh manners and dissolute life, an object of general hatred. Five of the cardinals, Robert of Geneva, Acquasparta, Viviers, Poitou, and De Verny, were seized in their attempt to steal away, and driven back, amid contemptuous hootings, by personal violence. Night came on again; the populace, having pillaged all the provisions in the conclave, grew weary of their own excesses. The cardinals fled on all sides. Four left the city; Orsini and St. Eustache escaped to Vicovaro, Robert of Geneva to Zagarolo, St. Angelo to Guardia; six, Limoges, D'Aigrefeuille, Poitou, Viviers, Brittany, and Marmoutiers, to the castle of St. Angelo; Florence, Milan, Montmayeur, Glandève, and Luna, to their own strong fortresses.
The Pope lay concealed in the Vatican. In the morning the five cardinals in Rome were assembled round him. A message was sent to the bannerets of Rome, announcing his election. The six cardinals in St. Angelo were summoned; they were hardly persuaded to leave their place of security; but without their presence the Archbishop would not declare his assent to his elevation. The Cardinal of Florence, as dean, presented the Pope-elect to the sacred college, and discoursed on the text, "Such ought he to be, an undefiled high-priest." The Archbishop began a long harangue, "Fear and trembling have come upon me, the horror of great darkness." The Cardinal of Florence cut short the ill-timed sermon, demanding whether he accepted the pontificate. The Archbishop gave his assent; he took the name of Urban VI. Te Deum was intoned; he was lifted to the throne. The fugitives returned to Rome. Urban VI was crowned on Easter Day, in the Church of St. John Lateran. All the cardinals were present at the august ceremony. They announced the election of Urban VI to their brethren who had remained in Avignon. Urban himself addressed the usual encyclic letters, proclaiming his elevation, to all the prelates in Christendom.
None could determine how far the nomination of the Archbishop of Bari was free and uncontrolled by the terrors of the raging populace; but the acknowledgment of Urban VI by all the cardinals, at his inauguration in the holy office—their assistance at his coronation without protest, when some at least might have been safe beyond the walls of Rome—their acceptance of honors, as by the cardinals of Limoges, Poitou, and Aigrefeuille—the homage of all—might seem to annul all possible irregularity in the election, to confirm irrefragably the legitimacy of his title.
Not many days had passed, when the cardinals began to look with dismay and bitter repentance on their own work. "In Urban VI," said a writer of these times (on the side of Urban as rightful pontiff), "was verified the proverb—None is so insolent as a low man suddenly raised to power." The high-born, haughty, luxurious prelates, both French and Italian, found that they had set over themselves a master resolved not only to redress the flagrant and inveterate abuses of the college and of the hierarchy, but also to force on his reforms in the most hasty and insulting way. He did the harshest things in the harshest manner.
The Archbishop of Bari, of mean birth, had risen by the virtues of a monk. He was studious, austere, humble, a diligent reader of the Bible, master of the canon law, rigid in his fasts; he wore haircloth next his skin. His time was divided between study, prayer, and business, for which he had great aptitude. From the poor bishopric of Acherontia he had been promoted to the archbishopric of Bari, and had presided over the papal chancery in Avignon. The monk broke out at once on his elevation in the utmost rudeness and rigor, but the humility changed to the most offensive haughtiness. Almost his first act was a public rebuke in his chapel to all the bishops present for their desertion of their dioceses. He called them perjured traitors. The Bishop of Pampeluna boldly repelled the charge; he was at Rome, he said, on the affairs of his see. In the full consistory Urban preached on the text, "I am the Good Shepherd," and inveighed in a manner not to be mistaken against the wealth and luxury of the cardinals. Their voluptuous banquets were notorious—Petrarch had declaimed against them. The Pope threatened a sumptuary law that they should have but one dish at their table: it was the rule of his own order. He was determined to extirpate simony. A cardinal who should receive presents he menaced with excommunication. He affected to despise wealth. "Thy money perish with thee!" he said to a collector of the papal revenue. He disdained to conceal the most unpopular schemes; he declared his intention not to leave Rome. To the petition of the bannerets of Rome for a promotion of cardinals, he openly avowed his design to make so large a nomination that the Italians should resume their ascendency over the Ultramontanes. The Cardinal of Geneva turned pale and left the consistory. Urban declared himself determined to do equal justice between man and man, between the kings of France and England. The French cardinals, and those in the pay of France, heard this with great indignation.
The manners of Urban were even more offensive than his acts. "Hold your tongue!" "You have talked long enough!" were his common phrases to his mitred counsellors. He called the Cardinal Orsini a fool. He charged the Cardinal of St. Marcellus of Amiens, on his return from his legation in Tuscany, with having robbed the treasures of the Church. The charge was not less insulting for its justice. The Cardinal of Amiens, instead of allaying the feuds of France and England, which it was his holy mission to allay, had inflamed them in order to glut his own insatiable avarice by draining the wealth of both countries in the Pope's name. "As Archbishop of Bari, you lie," was the reply of the high-born Frenchman. On one occasion such high words passed with the Cardinal of Limoges that but for the interposition of another cardinal the Pope would have rushed on him, and there had been a personal conflict.
Such were among the stories of the time. Friends and foes agree in attributing the schism, at least the immediate schism, to the imprudent zeal, the imperiousness, the ungovernable temper of Pope Urban. The cardinals among themselves talked of him as mad; they began to murmur that it was a compulsory, therefore invalid, election.
The French cardinals were now at Anagni: they were joined by the Cardinal of Amiens, who had taken no part in the election, but who was burning under the insulting words of the Pope, perhaps not too eager to render an account of his legation. The Pope retired to Tivoli; he summoned the cardinals to that city. They answered that they had gone to large expenses in laying in provisions and making preparations for their residence in Anagni; they had no means to supply a second sojourn in Tivoli. The Pope, with his four Italian cardinals, passed two important acts as sovereign pontiff. He confirmed the election of Wenceslaus, son of Charles IV, to the empire; he completed the treaty with Florence by which the republic paid a large sum to the see of Rome. The amount was seventy thousand florins in the course of the year, one hundred and eighty thousand in four years, for the expenses of the war. They were relieved from ecclesiastical censures, under which this enlightened republic, though Italian, trembled, even from a pope of doubtful title. Their awe showed perhaps the weakness and dissensions in Florence rather than the papal power.
The cardinals at Anagni sent a summons to their brethren inviting them to share in their counsels concerning the compulsory election of the successor to Gregory XI. Already the opinions of great legists had been taken; some of them, that of the famous Baldus, may still be read. He was in favor of the validity of the election.
But grave legal arguments and ecclesiastical logic were not to decide a contest which had stirred so deeply the passions and interests of two great factions. France and Italy were at strife for the popedom. The Ultramontane cardinals would not tamely abandon a power which had given them rank, wealth, luxury, virtually the spiritual supremacy of the world, for seventy years. Italy, Rome, would not forego the golden opportunity of resuming the long-lost authority. On the 9th of August the cardinals at Anagni publicly declared, they announced in encyclic letters addressed to the faithful in all Christendom, that the election of Urban VI was carried by force and the fear of death; that through the same force and fear he had been inaugurated, enthroned, and crowned; that he was an apostate, an accursed antichrist. They pronounced him a tyrannical usurper of the popedom, a wolf that had stolen into the fold. They called upon him to descend at once from the throne which he occupied without canonical title; if repentant, he might find mercy; if he persisted he would provoke the indignation of God, of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and all of the saints, for his violation of the Spouse of Christ, the common Mother of the Faithful. It was signed by thirteen cardinals. The more pious and devout were shocked at this avowal of cowardice; cardinals who would not be martyrs in the cause of truth and of spiritual freedom condemned themselves.
But letters and appeals to the judgment of the world, and awful maledictions, were not their only resources. The fierce Breton bands were used to march and to be indulged in their worst excesses under the banner of the Cardinal of Geneva. As Ultramontanists it was their interest, their inclination, to espouse the Ultramontane cause. They arrayed themselves to advance and join the cardinals at Anagni. The Romans rose to oppose them; a fight took place near the Ponte Salario, three hundred Romans lay dead on the field.
Urban VI was as blind to cautious temporal as to cautious ecclesiastical policy. Every act of the Pope raised him up new enemies. Joanna, Queen of Naples, had hailed the elevation of her subject the Archbishop of Bari. Naples had been brilliantly illuminated. Shiploads of fruit and wines, and the more solid gift of twenty thousand florins, had been her oblations to the Pope. Her husband, Otho of Brunswick, had gone to Rome to pay his personal homage. His object was to determine in his own favor the succession to the realm. The reception of Otho was cold and repulsive; he returned in disgust. The Queen eagerly listened to suspicions, skilfully awakened, that Urban meditated the resumption of the fief of Naples, and its grant to the rival house of Hungary. She became the sworn ally of the cardinals at Anagni. Honorato Gaetani, Count of Fondi, one of the most turbulent barons of the land, demanded of the Pontiff twenty thousand florins advanced on loan to Gregory XI. Urban not only rejected the claim, declaring it a personal debt of the late Pope, not of the holy see, he also deprived Gaetani of his fief, and granted it to his mortal enemy, the Count San Severino. Gaetani began immediately so seize the adjacent castles in Campania, and invited the cardinals to his stronghold at Fondi. The Archbishop of Arles, chamberlain of the late Pope, leaving the castle of St. Angelo under the guard of a commander who long refused all orders from Pope Urban, brought to Anagni the jewels and ornaments of the papacy, which had been carried for security to St. Angelo. The prefect of the city, De Vico, Lord of Viterbo, had been won over by the Cardinal of Amiens.
The four Italian cardinals still adhered to Pope Urban. They labored hard to mediate between the conflicting parties. Conferences were held at Zagarolo and other places; when the French cardinals had retired to Fondi, the Italians took up their quarters at Subiaco. The Cardinal of St. Peter's, worn out with age and trouble, withdrew to Rome, and soon after died. He left a testamentary document declaring the validity of the election of Urban. The French cardinals had declared the election void; they were debating the next step. Some suggested the appointment of a coadjutor. They were now sure of the support of the King of France, who would not easily surrender his influence over a pope at Avignon, and of the Queen of Naples, estranged by the pride of Urban, and secretly stimulated by the Cardinal Orsini, who had not forgiven his own loss of the tiara. Yet even now they seemed to shrink from the creation of an antipope. Urban precipitated and made inevitable this disastrous event. He was now alone; the Cardinal of St. Peter's was dead; Florence, Milan, and the Orsini stood aloof; they seemed only to wait to be thrown off by Urban, to join the adverse faction. Urban at first declared his intention to create nine cardinals; he proceeded at once, and without warning, to create twenty-six.[65] By this step the French and Italian cardinals together were now but an insignificant minority. They were instantly one. All must be risked or all lost.
On September 20th, at Fondi, Robert of Geneva was elected pope in the presence of all the cardinals (except St. Peter's) who had chosen, inaugurated, enthroned, and for a time obeyed Urban VI. The Italians refused to give their suffrages, but entered no protest. They retired into their castles and remained aloof from the schism. Orsini died before long at Tagliacozzo. The qualifications which, according to his partial biographer, recommended the Cardinal of Geneva, were rather those of a successor to John Hawkwood or to a duke of Milan, than of the apostles. Extraordinary activity of body and endurance of fatigue, courage which would hazard his life to put down the intrusive pope, sagacity and experience in the temporal affairs of the Church; high birth, through which he was allied with most of the royal and princely houses of Europe; of austerity, devotion, learning, holiness, charity, not a word. He took the name of Clement VII; the Italians bitterly taunted the mockery of this name, assumed by the captain of the Breton Free Companies—by the author, it was believed, of the massacre at Cesena.
So began the schism which divided Western Christendom for thirty-eight years. Italy, excepting the kingdom of Joanna of Naples, adhered to her native pontiff; Germany and Bohemia to the pontiff who had recognized King Wenceslaus as emperor; England to the pontiff hostile to France;[66] Hungary to the pontiff who might support her pretentions to Naples; Poland and the Northern kingdoms, with Portugal, espoused the same cause. France at first stood almost alone in support of her subject, of a pope at Avignon instead of at Rome. Scotland only was with Clement, because England was with Urban. So Flanders was with Urban because France was with Clement. The uncommon abilities of Peter di Luna, the Spanish cardinal (afterward better known under a higher title), detached successively the Spanish kingdoms, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, from allegiance to Pope Urban.