Late Middle Ages

The Western Schism of 1378 explained

The Western Schism (1378–1417) is the name given to the crisis in which two, and at one point three, rival popes claimed the throne of St. Peter and divided the loyalty of the Western church. The schism had its immediate origin in the disputed election of the archbishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignano, who took the name Urban VI, on 8 April 1378, in the aftermath of the return of Pope Gregory XI to Rome in January 1377. The schism lasted for nearly forty years, and it was not finally resolved until the Council of Constance (1414–1418), which deposed the three rival popes and elected a new pope, Martin V (Oddone Colonna), who was recognised by the whole of the Western church. The schism was a crisis of authority of the most profound kind: with two or three rival popes claiming to be the true vicar of Christ, it was impossible for Catholics to know which pope to obey, and the choice often followed political rather than religious lines. The schism was also a crisis of the institutional church: it revealed the depth of the religious and political tensions of the late medieval period, and it raised fundamental questions about the nature of authority in the church that the conciliar movement of the fifteenth century was an attempt to answer.

The historiography is, as for the Avignon Papacy, a contested field. The older view — that of Mandell Creighton, A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome (6 vols, 1897–1903), and of the older Catholic historians Louis Salembier and Godefroid Kurth — treated the schism as a political crisis, the result of the French domination of the church. The revisionist view, of which the principal works are Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism (Oxford, 1948), and Antone G. Pazzelli, Lo Scisma d’Occidente (Florence, 1944), and the more recent Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309–1417 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), and Robert Brown, The Western Schism (Cambridge, 2014), treated the schism as a constitutional crisis, the result of a long-running dispute about the location of the pope and the relationship between the pope and the College of Cardinals. The current synthesis is R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Blackwell, 1989), and the older but still useful Joseph H. Lynch, The Medieval Church: A Brief History (Longman, 1992).

The contested election of Urban VI

The schism had its immediate origin in the disputed election of the archbishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignano, who took the name Urban VI, on 8 April 1378. The election was held in the Vatican palace, in the presence of 16 cardinals, in the conclave of 7–8 April, in a city that was on the verge of insurrection. The Romans, fearing that the French cardinals would elect another French pope and move the papacy back to Avignon, had surrounded the conclave, and the cardinals were under intense physical pressure to elect an Italian. The cardinals elected Prignano, a Neapolitan who had been archbishop of Bari since 1363 and who had served in the Roman curia under Gregory XI; the choice was a compromise candidate, neither a Frenchman (which would have infuriated the Romans) nor a Roman (which would have been seen as a victory for the barberi of the city), and the election was unanimous. Prignano was crowned on 18 April 1378, taking the name Urban VI, and he at first received the support of the cardinals who had elected him.

The crisis broke within weeks. Urban was, in the eyes of the cardinals, an unsuitable pope: he was austere, ascetic, and prone to outbursts of temper; he was the author of the De simonia and the De haeresi, the principal treatises on the reform of the curia of Gregory XI; and he was determined to reform the church in head and members. Within a few months, he had alienated the cardinals by his plans to reform the College (the reformatio of the cardinals of the provincia of the curia), by his insistence on the reformatio of the camerarii and the thesaurarii of the curia, and by his personal conduct. In August 1378, the French cardinals withdrew from Rome and declared that Urban’s election had been invalid, on the grounds that it had been made under duress. In September 1378, the French cardinals elected a rival pope, Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement VII and established his court at Avignon. The schism had begun.

The two obediences

The schism divided the Western church into two obediences. The Roman obedience (the cursus of the curia of the provincia of the capitulum) was supported by England, the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian states (with the exception of Naples), Portugal, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and a majority of the German-speaking territories. The Avignon obedience was supported by France, Castile, Aragon, Naples, Scotland, and a number of other territories. The result was a profound and painful division of Western Christendom, and it seemed, for a time, as if the church would be permanently divided.

The schism lasted for nearly forty years, and it produced a long series of negotiations, treaties, and councils aimed at ending the division. Urban VI died on 15 October 1389, and was succeeded by Boniface IX (1389–1404), a Neapolitan, who was recognised by the Roman line. Clement VII died on 16 September 1394, and was succeeded by Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna, 1394–1423), a Spaniard, who was recognised by the Avignon line. Benedict was a man of considerable ability, and he made several attempts to end the schism — the via cessionis, the via conventionis, the via compromissi — but he refused to resign his office, and the schism continued. The death of Boniface IX in 1404 was followed by a brief interregnum, during which the Roman cardinals elected Innocent VII (1404–1406), who was succeeded by Gregory XII (1406–1415), an elderly Venetian, Angelo Correr, who was also recognised by the Roman line. The Avignon line, meanwhile, was continued by Benedict XIII, who refused to resign. The schism was now in its third decade, and the pressure for a resolution was growing.

The Council of Pisa (1409)

The pressure for a resolution came to a head in 1409, when a group of cardinals from both obediences, supported by the city of Pisa, called a council to resolve the crisis. The Council of Pisa met on 1 March 1409 and continued until 7 August 1409. The council was attended by 22 cardinals (12 Roman and 10 Avignon), 100 bishops, 300 doctors of theology, and representatives of most of the religious orders. The council adopted the principle that a general council held its authority directly from Christ, and that it had the power to depose a pope who was guilty of heresy or schism. In June 1409, the council deposed both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII and elected a new pope, Alexander V (Peter Philarghi, c. 1339–1410), a Greek-born Franciscan, the archbishop of Milan, who was crowned on 26 June 1409. The council claimed that it had the authority to depose a pope who was guilty of heresy or schism, and it asserted that the supreme authority in the church rested with a general council, not with the pope.

Yet the Council of Pisa failed to resolve the schism. Both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII refused to accept the council’s decision, and they continued to claim the papacy. The result was three rival popes instead of two, and the schism continued. Alexander V died on 3 May 1410, and was succeeded by John XXIII (Baldassare Cossa, 1410–1415), a Neapolitan, who was recognised by the Pisan line but not by the Roman or Avignon lines. The schism was now in its third decade, and the pressure for a resolution was growing. The principal sources for the Council of Pisa are the Acta of the council, edited by L. H. Finke, Acta Concilii Pisani (1902), and the Cronica of Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, the principal humanist of the Florentine Republic.

The road to Constance

The schism was finally resolved at the Council of Constance (1414–1418), which was convened by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. The council was attended by a remarkable gathering of bishops, theologians, and representatives of the universities and the religious orders. At its peak, the council had perhaps 600 members, including the three rival popes (or their representatives), 29 cardinals, 100 bishops, 300 doctors of theology, and representatives of most of the religious orders. The council was also attended by representatives of the kings of Europe, including the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who presided over the council.

The first task of the council was to resolve the schism by dealing with the three rival popes. The council adopted the principle that a general council held its authority directly from Christ, and that it had the power to depose a pope who was guilty of heresy or schism. The principle was embodied in the decree Haec sancta, issued in April 1415, which asserted that “this council … has its authority directly from Christ, and that all persons, whatever their estate or rank, including the pope, are bound to obey it in those matters which pertain to the faith, the eradication of the said schism, and the general reform of the church in its head and members.” The decree was a direct challenge to the claim of the pope to be the supreme authority in the church, and it was the basis of the council’s authority. John XXIII was persuaded to resign in 1415 and was later arrested and imprisoned for his crimes. Gregory XII, the Roman pope, resigned voluntarily in 1415, in exchange for a promise that he would be allowed to retain his titles and to receive a pension. Benedict XIII, the Avignon pope, refused to resign, and he was deposed by the council in 1417. The council then turned to the election of a new pope, Martin V (Oddone Colonna, 1417–1431), who was elected unanimously on 11 November 1417 and crowned on 21 November 1417. The election of Martin V marked the formal end of the Western Schism. The detailed history of the council is examined in The Council of Constance and the resolution of the schism.

The legacy of the schism

The Western Schism was a deep wound in the life of the Western church, and its effects can be traced for centuries. The schism revealed the depth of the religious and political tensions of the late medieval period, and it raised fundamental questions about the nature of authority in the church. The resolution of the schism at the Council of Constance helped to restore the unity of the church, but it also opened the way for the conciliar movement, which would have profound effects on the development of Western Christianity. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, in particular, drew on the ideas and the rhetoric of the conciliarists, and the long crisis of the late medieval church was one of the most important causes of the religious upheavals of the early modern period.

The principal sources for the schism are the Registra Vaticana and the Registra Lateranensia of the Vatican Archives, the Registra Avenionensia of the Archives départementales of Vaucluse, the Calendars of Patent Rolls and the Close Rolls of the Public Record Office, and the chronicles of the period: the Cronica of Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, the Cronica of Giovanni Villani of Florence, the Chronicon of Adam of Usk of c. 1400–1421, the Chronicon of Thomas Walsingham of c. 1400, and the Gesta Henrici Quinti of Thomas Elmham of c. 1418. The standard modern treatment is R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (1989), and the older but still essential Joseph H. Lynch, The Medieval Church: A Brief History (1992), and Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism (1948), and the more recent Robert Brown, The Western Schism (2014).

References and further reading

  • Walter Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism: A Study in fourteenth-century ecclesiastical history (Oxford University Press, 1948).
  • Antone G. Pazzelli, Lo Scisma d’Occidente (Pia Società San Paolo, 1944).
  • R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Blackwell, 1989).
  • Joseph H. Lynch, The Medieval Church: A Brief History (Longman, 1992).
  • Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309–1417 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
  • Howard Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution (University of California Press, 1967).