14th-Century Crises in the Church: Part II

Gregory XI is anointed as pope while the Hundred Years' War rages outside

When we left off, the papacy had been moved to the town of Avignon, near French territory, resulting in the perception that the popes were under the control of the French crown and a disastrous loss of prestige for the Church. The corruption caused by the need to raise funds for the establishment of the papal curia in Avignon and to offset the loss of income from the Papal States only lowered the opinions Europeans held of the organization responsible for the salvation of their souls. The cries for the papacy to return to Rome only grew louder as the 14th century ground on. The most direct call came from a young nun from Tuscany, Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380). Instead of locking herself away in the convent, Catherine very adeptly involved herself in the political world of 14th century Italy, claiming to have been inspired to do this by a vision of Christ. In 1346 the city of Florence decided to utilize her talents to persuade Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378) to move the papacy back to Rome. In 1377, Pope Gregory, in order to avoid a further decline in prestige, returned to Rome. Unfortunately, the city had experienced further decline during the decades that the popes had been absent. The loss of commerce associated with pilgrimages and the business generated by the presence of the great households of the cardinals had a disastrous effect upon the economy of the city. Now that the papacy was back in Rome, the citizens of Rome were determined to keep it there.

Catherine of Siena persuades Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome

Gregory XI died in 1378, less than a year after returning to Rome. The cardinals met, as usual, in conclave to elect a new pope. However, this was the first time they had met in Rome since 1305. This time they were at the mercy of the citizens of Rome. The Romans were afraid that the cardinals, most of whom were French, would elect another Frenchman, as they had done in 1305, and the papacy would move back to Avignon. They made it very clear to the cardinals that they would not leave the city alive if the next pope was not either a Roman or an Italian (no pressure). The cardinals took the threat very seriously (a very wise decision), and elected the archbishop of Bari, who took the name Urban VI (1378-1389). In order to secure a future Italian succession to the papacy, Urban VI immediately began the process of packing the college of cardinals with enough new Italian cardinals to negate the French majority. The French cardinals, fearing the Roman population, left Rome as soon as they possibly could. Once they were clear of Rome, they declared that the election of Urban VI was illegitimate because they had been forced to elect an Italian under a threat of death. They wasted no time in holding a second conclave, where they elected one of their own as pope. This Frenchman took the name Clement VII (1378-1394) and returned to Avignon. There were now two popes; Urban VI in Rome and Clement VII in Avignon. This situation is called the Great Schism of the Western Church, and would last until 1417 (almost 40 years!).

This split in the Church only served to accelerate the decline of papal prestige. Both popes found that they were in desperate need of money and had only half of the revenues of the church available. Each pope increased the practice of simony, the selling of benefices and offices to the highest bidder. The popes added to the already heavy tax burden of many European commoners by increasing taxation. The ongoing war between the French and English at this time ensured that this religious rift would also become part of a growing political rift as well. France and its allies, Spain, Scotland, and the Kingdom of Naples (southern Italy), naturally supported Clement VII and the Avignon popes. England and its allies, Germany, Scandinavia, and most of the northern Italian states, supported Urban VI and the Roman popes. Each pope condemned the other as Antichrist. The king of France, whose protection of the Avignon popes guaranteed the continuation of the schism, even sent the duke of Anjou and his army to Italy in an attempt to drive the Roman pope out. Christianity, which had served as a unifying force in European civilization, had now become a source of further discord.

The Council of Constance (1414-1418) works to repair the Great Schism

The Great Schism was not easily created and it was not easily repaired. The question of authority within the Church, which had caused the problems at the beginning of the 14th century, now became more important than ever. The question now revolved around the question of who had the authority to depose both popes and fix the Church. The answer came from the theologians at the University of Paris. Earlier in the century, Marsiglio da Padova, rector of the university, wrote Defensor Pacis (Defender of the Peace), a neat little treatise that was intended as a logical argument that would deny the authority of the popes over temporal rulers. Not only did Marsiglio claim that temporal authority was independent of spiritual authority, he argued that the church should only be concerned with spiritual matters. This was a major theological victory for the secular authorities in Europe that would speed the separation of church and state in the modern era. Marsiglio's argument turned the clergy (priests) into the administrators of the Church, and, indeed, he argued that final authority rested on their shoulders, not on the popes. Based upon this interpretation of spiritual authority, large numbers of the clergy began to call for the formation of general church council to repair the schism.

This conciliar movement hoped that either the church hierarchy (cardinals, archbishops, bishops...) or the Holy Roman Emperor would call for a council. When the Emperor failed to do this, cardinals from both sides decided to meet in council at Pisa in 1409. The Council of Pisa, unfortunately, made the schism much worse. They elected a new pope, Alexander V (1409-1410), and deposed the other two popes. While they officially deposed the popes in Avignon and Rome, they failed to back this decision up with force. Both popes remained. Now there were three popes! Alexander V died shortly thereafter and was succeeded by Cardinal Baldassare Cossa, a former pirate and soldier of questionable morals who used money from the Medici Bank in Florence to win election as Pope John XXIII. The prestige of the Church had hit rock bottom. The Holy Roman Emperor called for another council at Constance to do what the Council of Pisa had failed to do. The Council of Constance (1414-1418), backed by the authority and the army of the Holy Roman Emperor, finally succeeded in deposing all three popes and securing the election of a Roman pope, Martin V. The Great Schism and the Avignon papacy had finally come to an end. All of the popes who ruled from Avignon between 1378 and 1417 are now known as Antipopes in the Catholic Church.

Jan Hus burns at the stake in Constance

The damage done to the Church was much more than political and financial. The prestige of the Church and the confidence of the faithful had been severely damaged by the century of crises and controversy. Europe experience a crisis of faith that would continue into the early modern period European history. In an attempt to take their salvation into their own hands and to have a personal experience of God, many European turned to mysticism. Groups like the Brothers and Sisters of the Common life attempted to live simple lives in imitation of Christ in their own semi-monastic communities. The important thing to remember is that they did this outside of the structure of institutional church. Other theologians directly attacked the authority and necessity of the Church and its clergy. John Wyclif (c. 1328-1384), an English theologian, argued that Bible should be the sole authority in the spiritual life of Christians. He encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin into vernacular languages so that it could be read by all Christians, not just the clergy. He also argued that there was absolutely no basis in Scripture for the papal claim of temporal authority, that the popes should be stripped of all authority and have all of their property confiscated. This made him very popular with the English kings, who kept him from being burned at the stake. Jan Hus (1374-1415), a Bohemian (Czech) who had been influenced by the doctrine of Wyclif, was not so lucky. The movement he inspired, known as Hussites, combined dissatisfaction with the Church with a resentment of German domination into a strong political and religious movement. Hus did not have the advantage of royal protection or distance from Rome like Wyclif. He was summoned to the Council of Constance in 1415 by Emperor Sigismund in order do "defend" his ideas. When he reached Constance, Hus was arrested, condemned as a heretic, and burned at the stake. Wyclif and Hus planted the ideological seeds that would bloom in the Protestant Reformation a century later.

Sources

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2nd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2004

Palmer, R. R., Colton, Joel, A History of the Modern World, 8th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995

Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization, 6th ed., Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006