The Western Schism (1378-1417)

Under pressure from King Philip IV of France, Pope Clement V took up residence in Avignon in 1309, beginning a seventy-year period in which the popes ruled from a papal enclave surrounded by French territory. The Avignon Papacy developed a reputation for corruption and for serving French interests, extending its patronage and raising revenues in ways that estranged much of Western Christendom. Critics described the curia as captured by the French monarchy, and calls for the papacy's return to Rome grew steadily. The last Avignon pope, Gregory XI, ultimately yielded to the entreaties of Catherine of Siena and others. The relocation had made the papacy a European political instrument in the eyes of much of the continent. The grievances accumulated at Avignon shaped how the coming schism was judged.

Location: Avignon, France

On 17 January 1377, Pope Gregory XI re-entered Rome, ending the Avignon Papacy after seventy years. His return followed intense pressure from Catherine of Siena and from Roman opinion, which threatened that an absent pope would be answered with an anti-pope. Gregory, however, announced his intention to reverse course and return to Avignon just after the Easter celebrations of 1378. Rome's population was determined to keep the curia in the city, and tensions ran high around the papal court. The pope never carried out the reversal: he died in the Apostolic Palace on 27 March 1378. His ambiguous final months left both Romans and French cardinals convinced that the next conclave would decide far more than a name.

Location: Rome, Italy

Following Gregory XI's death, Roman crowds besieged the conclave, demanding the election of an Italian pope and threatening the cardinals with violence, a pressure contemporaries called "impressio et metus." On 8 April 1378 the cardinals elected Bartolomeo Prignano, the archbishop of Bari, who took the name Urban VI. Initially the French cardinals acknowledged him, and the election was procedurally regular. Urban, however, proved so harsh in his treatment of the cardinals that most of them quickly regretted their choice and withdrew to Anagni. What had been an accepted election thus became contested within months. The dispute over whether fear had invalidated the conclave became the legal heart of the coming schism.

Location: Rome, Italy

On 20 September 1378, thirteen dissident cardinals meeting at Fondi declared the election of Urban VI invalid because it had been made under fear of the rioting Roman crowds. They elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva as Pope Clement VII, who initially resided in Naples under the protection of Queen Joanna I before establishing himself at Avignon. Both lines claimed to be the true papacy and both appointed cardinals, administered the church's patronage, and collected its revenues. Christendom now faced the unprecedented position of two legitimately elected claimants, each supported by learned canon lawyers. Urban excommunicated Clement and his followers, and Clement reciprocated. The schism had begun, and it would outlive every man who created it.

Location: Fondi, Italy

By 1379 the kingdoms and courts of Europe had divided between the two papal lines largely along political rather than theological lines. France, Scotland, Castile, and Aragon recognized Clement VII at Avignon, while England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and most of Italy and northern Europe supported Urban VI in Rome. Allegiance followed international rivalry, above all the Anglo-French conflict, since each king saw the rival pope as an enemy asset. The division split monastic orders, universities, and even families of canonists who supplied arguments to both sides. Papal revenues were halved as each court supported its own curia. Scholars of the period describe the schism as an international rivalry dressed in ecclesiastical form, and the deadlock made resolution by arms or persuasion impossible.

Location: Europe

After repeated failed attempts at reconciliation, cardinals of both obediences convened the Council of Pisa in 1409. The council declared both Gregory XII of Rome and Benedict XIII of Avignon heretical and schismatic, and on 26 June 1409 elected Alexander V as pope, intending to reunite the Church. Instead, neither Gregory nor Benedict accepted the verdict, and the Church now had three simultaneous popes. Alexander V died within a year and was succeeded by the Pisan claimant John XXIII. The council's solution had multiplied the problem, and the credibility of the papal office sank lower still. Universities, led by Paris, increasingly argued that only a general council representing the whole Church could end the schism.

Location: Pisa, Italy

In November 1414 the Pisan pope John XXIII opened the Council of Constance, the largest church assembly of the century, under the protection of Emperor Sigismund. Its early decree Haec Sancta asserted that the council held its authority directly from Christ and that even a pope must obey it in matters of faith and unity, a constitutional claim of enormous consequence. The council faced three tasks: end the schism, condemn heresy, and reform the Church. Delegates voted by nations rather than by individuals, an innovation that limited the Italian cardinals' dominance. Over the following years it secured the renunciation of Gregory XII in July 1415, the deposition and submission of John XXIII in May 1415, and the deposition and excommunication of Benedict XIII in 1417, who refused all compromise and died unrecognized in 1423. For the first time, a general council had removed multiple papal claimants by its own authority.

Location: Constance, Germany

On 11 November 1417 the Council of Constance elected Cardinal Oddone Colonna as Pope Martin V, reuniting the Catholic Church under a single pope reigning from Rome. The election came after all rival claimants had been deposed, resigned, or excommunicated, ending the Western Schism that had lasted thirty-nine years. Martin V was accepted across both former obediences, and the Avignon line expired with Benedict XIII's rump successors, who were never recognized. The Council then attempted sweeping reforms of papal finance and appointments, though Martin V dissolved the assembly in 1418 and reasserted papal control. The schism had cost the papacy revenues, prestige, and moral authority across Europe. Christendom was reunited, but the institution emerged diminished and contested.

Location: Constance, Germany

The schism and its resolution left a lasting constitutional question: whether a general council could sit in judgment over a pope. The conciliarist theory elaborated at Constance, building on thinkers like Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson, remained a live position among canon lawyers and was formally reaffirmed at the Council of Basel in the 1430s. In 1460 Pope Pius II issued the bull Execrabilis condemning appeals from a pope to a future council, but conciliarist ideas persisted in universities into the Reformation era. Historians trace a line from the schism's erosion of papal prestige to the reformist critiques of the fifteenth century and, ultimately, to the Protestant Reformation. The crisis also strengthened national churches, as monarchies grew accustomed to managing church affairs when Rome was divided. The Western Schism thus reshaped the balance between papal, conciliar, and royal authority in Europe for centuries.

Location: Europe