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The Great Schism (1378-1415)| Lectures in Medieval History | Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, KU
Lectures in Medieval History
The Great Schism, 1378-1415
1. There was a general failure of leadership in 14th-century Europe.
A. The Monarchy and Aristocracy
A. The aristocracy and the monarchies seemed unable to defend their lands in any
effective manner. The monarchs involved their subjects in conflicts such as the 100
Years' War. The military strategist von Clauswitz stated that war is politics carried out
by other means. There is a good deal of validity in this view. For the most part, warfare
can be viewed as a means of settling conflicts that could not be settled by more peaceful
means. But leaders must be able to extricate themselves from a war that is no longer
directed at accomplishing its original purpose. The warfare between France and
England, involving most of the rest of western Europe at one time or another, dragged
on and on with no clear resolution in sight. The people who paid heavy taxes to support
the monarchies and aristocracies could not have helped but wonder why these groups
could not meet their responsibilities and perform the functions for which they claimed
the right of taxing the people.
In addition to this difficulty, with the increasing use of "new" weapons, the ruling
classes - "those who fight" - were losing their traditional superiority on the field of
battle. Time after time, armored aristocrats were slaughtered by peasants and urban
militia using longbows, crossbows, pikes and gunpowder. The aristocracy of France and
England had very little effect on the progress of the conflict and were relegated to the
position of paying taxes to the monarchs to support the mercenary armies who now
seemed to dominate warfare.
Neither the monarchy nor the aristocracy seemed able to provide effective leadership in
this matter. The uprising of the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants' Revolt in England
were both radical rebellions. Although they failed in their purpose, their leaders
demanded nothing less than uprooting of the entire feudal system.
B. The Middle Classes
The gilds, the basic unit of organization of the middle class, were designed to operate
non-competitively within a general framework of economic expansion. They were
unable to adapt to the stagnant or shrinking markets of the fourteenth century. In an
effort to maintain their status and standard of living, gild masters across Europe began to
cut labor costs by exploiting their own workers, reduce production by limiting access to
gild membership, and to reduce incidental costs by reducing or eliminating their
traditional social contributions. were slowly replaced by capitalist organizations. The
"greater" gilds fought the "lesser" for political control of the cities, all the while that
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The Great Schism (1378-1415)| Lectures in Medieval History | Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, KU
both great and lesser gilds were being supplanted by new, capitalist forms of production.
In the process, workers and artisans found their compensation and political power
steadily shrinking.
These conflicts were already underway at the spread of the Black Death. Both capitalists
and gild masters, the leading members of the middle class, were confronted with a
situation in which laborers were in short supply and in which they nevertheless did not
wish to increase their labor costs by paying higher salaries. They solved this by allying
with the nobility in support of measures to freeze salaries at pre-Plague levels. This
alliance created a class that might be termed "the wealthy" that was isolated from the
mass of the population and that, far from leading the way to a restored general
prosperity, seemed intent on increasing their own wealth and power at the expense of
everyone else.
C. The Church
Far from providing leadership during the difficult times of the fourteenth century, the
Church steadily lost power and prestige. In effect, it tied itself into an ecclesiastical knot
that the popes were powerless to unravel. In their efforts to do so, the popes actually
contributed significantly to the ills of the age. The failure of the Church to provide
spiritual and moral leadership and example during this time affected all elements of
society.
The process can be viewed as having consisted of four stages.
1. The Avignon Papacy (1305-1378)
(Note that this is only a summary review of the lecture notes for the Avignon Papacy
a. The Church in Avignon was seen as a French puppet, was driven into corruption by
its need for money, diminished social services, did not condemn the excesses of the 100
Years' War, and failed to meet its responsibility of providing sacraments to all the dead
and dying during the Black Death.
b. It was attacked by various groups.
1. Some demanded that the Church give up its wealth and property because
Jesus and the Apostles were without property.
2. Others claimed that the state should police the Church.
3. Or that an organized Church was unnecessary because God dwells in
each person.
4. Or that sacraments were unnecessary because they were not supernatural
and the individual could reach God through meditation.
5. Or that the Church consists of the members and not the head.
C. The papacy responded by a stubborn defense of its righteousness and an energetic
attack upon its critics. It relied upon its monopoly of the sacramental system, used the
Inquisition to silence its critics, and accused many of its detractors of heresy.
D. Generally speaking, the Church lost much moral authority during the period.
3. The Great Schism (1378-1415)
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The Great Schism (1378-1415)| Lectures in Medieval History | Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, KU
a. At the death of Gregory XI in Rome, the cardinals were forced by a Roman mob to
elect an Italian pope. They chose Urban VI in hopes that he would be compliant to their
advice. They were mistaken in this hope. Urban decided that both pope and papal
administration should resume its residence in Rome, and threatened to reform the
college of cardinals to increase Italian representation up to a majority in the body.
Unable to control their new paper as they had hoped, the French cardinals fled Rome.
The Italian cardinals, naturally, remained with Rome's new champion. When the French
cardinals reached a point where they were safe from the pope's power and the pressure
of the Roman mobs, they assembled and declared that the election of Urban was invalid
and void because they had acted under duress. They held another, rump, election, chose
a Frenchman and returned to Avignon.
b. This created a knotty problem. The clergy had worked long and hard to establish the
principles that the Church was independent of the State and immune from secular
sanctions for its actions, and that the pope, once selected as bishop of Rome by the
College of Cardinals, held absolute and supreme power within the Church. Since there
was no secular power or person superior to the pope in churchly affairs, it followed that
there was no power or person competent to judge the pope's actions. This meant that
neither was there any power or person qualified to determine which of two claimants to
the bishopric of Rome, was the true Vicar of Christ.
c. The financial situation of the Church as a whole grew even worse than it had been
during the Avignon papacy. There were now two papal capitals for which it was
necessary to provide upkeep; there were two entire papal administrations to be
maintained in a style befitting their dignities. When the two papal claimants began
competing with each other in matters such as pomp, lavish gifts, patronage, and bribery,
the drain on ecclesiastical resources increased still further.
2. There were other forms of competition available and the rivals soon made use of
them. Not only did each papal administration declare the other and its clergy to be
heretical, but they reached the point of declaring that anyone accepting sacraments from
a heretical - for which you may read "rival" - cleric would be considered
excommunicate. It didn't take a genius to figure out that, since the rival popes each
enjoyed the support of about half of Europe, half the population might be receiving the
sacraments from a true priest, but the other half were being attended by a heretic, were
dying excommunicate. While all of the population were making perfect acts of
contrition, being absolved of their sins, receiving the sacrament of Extreme Unction and
dying in certain hope of a Glorious Resurrection and Life Everlasting, the souls half of
them were descending directly into the first of Hell to suffer the unspeakable torments of
the damned for all eternity.
This was obviously a difficult matter for the faithful to accept, and it was clear that the
true pope, whichever of the claimants he might have been, was powerless to save many
thousands of believing Christians from being cast into Hell. As a matter of fact, it was at
the command of the true pope that they were being so cast. There were two ways to
solve the dilemma. One was to have the real pope stand up and so be able to reunify the
Church. The other was to conclude that the Church was an ineffective institution as it
had been operating and to reorganize it, or, if that proved impossible, to toss the Church
hierarchy and established doctrine aside as being unnecessary for individual salvation.
Naturally enough, the established leaders of society chose to pursue the first option and
to find the real pope.
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Several secular rulers were asked to exert their power and influence in settling the
matter, but the secular rulers had already entered the game and chosen to support
whichever of the claimants it was more advantageous for them to support. They were in
no mood to support their opponents' man, and so did nothing to solve the problem.
Distinguished figures called upon both popes to abdicate for the good of Christendom,
but failed to persuade the rivals.
The theological faculty of the University of Paris was asked the decide the issue, but
could come to no clear decision. One must note, however, that the realization that, if
they opted for either one, the other would excommunicate them collectively and
individually may have affected their logical powers. The question they had to decide,
though, was not really which of the claimants to the Throne of Saint Peter was truly
God's choice as exercised through the College of Cardinals but whether they had any
right to pass upon the qualifications of the Vicar of Christ. One of the claimants, you
see, must have been the true pope, and for the theology faculty to have presumed to pass
judgment on his worthiness would have been a grievous sin.
Some people went so far as to poll those people - and it was not all that small a body who were generally considered to be saints in all things save the final requirement of
being dead. Unfortunately, of those who were willing to offer an opinion, there was not
clear majority for either claimant. The pope himself, the king and princes, the wealthy
and famous, the learned, and the holy - none of them provided the leadership needed in
what was far from a minor difficulty.
While members of the establishment were trying, and failing, to distinguish the true
pope from the false claimant, others were approaching the matter in more basic ways.
On the principle that the bishopric of Rome would not be such a bone of contention
were it not for the wealth and taxes that accrued to the position, some people revived the
call for the Church to accept "apostolic poverty," in emulation of Jesus and his disciples.
Influential thinkers and writers began to claim that the authority of the monarchs was
superior to that of the pope and, in its role as protector of the people, the state had the
responsibility of overseeing the Church's discharge of its functions. Generally speaking,
the radical reformers of the Avignon period regained strength, but at too slow a pace to
suggest to anyone that their resolution of the problem could be expected in the near
future.
Popular responses to the situation arose -- critics of the Church and its practices that
neither papal administration found easy to silence. Some of these critics addressed some
of the basic beliefs that underlay the power and prestige of the Church. Wyclif and Hus,
after all, claimed that the sacraments - which the ecclesiastical administrations
recognized as essential to the Church's continued existence - were simply memorial
rituals -"For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the
Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He
had given thanks, He broke it, and said, This is My body, which is for you;
do this in remembrance of Me" (1Cor.11:23-24).
without supernatural power.
The response of many members of a population that found itself without leaders and, to
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The Great Schism (1378-1415)| Lectures in Medieval History | Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, KU
a certain degree without restrictions, was to embrace mystic movements such as the
Rhineland Mystics of Meister Eckhardt. The "Pietist" movements that spread among the
peasantry stimulated a new sense of personal religiosity. All of these movements were
similar in their tendency to circumvent - even without intending to do so - the entire
Church hierarchy by placing priestly powers in the hands of the individual. In many
ways, this was the foundation of the concept of "the universal priesthood of all true
believers" that would form an important element in the Protestant Reformation of the
next century.
Over time, the situation only grew worse. There were still two papal claimants, and their
rivalry led to increased corruption within their administrations and a decrease of interest
in anything other than gaining advantage over their opponent. As time passed, the
various reformers managed to settle on common principles and upon the way in which
those principles might be put into action. They agreed upon the principle that the
sovereignty of the Church rested in a body representative of its members. On this basis,
they claimed that a general council would have the power to depose popes and address
the other problems facing the church. Because of their insistence on the power of a
council, they were known as the Conciliarists, and the group soon included virtually
everyone committed to ecclesiastical reform.
They supported their position that general councils held supreme power within the
church by numerous arguments:
1. Scriptural: In order to gain approval of his conversion of non-Jews to the Christian
faith, Paul felt it necessary to gain approval of the Council of Jerusalem.
2. Historical: When the Emperor Constantine wanted Christians to formulate their
common set of beliefs, he called the Council of Nicaea into session.
3. Parallels: Other monarchs, even though claiming supreme authority "By the Grace of
God, shared their power with representative assemblies on matters of general import.
4. Philosophical: Nominalism, acceptance of which was growing, held that truth is what
has been established and accepted by common will -- that justice is superior to law and
that justice is a social construct.
4. The Council of Pisa
One should not assume that all leaders were oblivious to their responsibilities or that all
clergy were interested only in papal politics. Many were in fact acutely aware of the
situation and passionate in the search for a solution. Indeed, several cardinals, members
of each of the rival papal administrations had embraced the principle of Conciliarism.
They joined together to act as a council to deal with the problem posed by rival popes. I
suppose that the logic of this solution was that, if a College of Cardinals could act as a
vehicle for the voice of God in choosing the Vicar of Christ from among many likely
candidates, it could also act as a vehicle for the voice of God in separating the wheat
from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, and Vicars of Christ from mere pretenders. The
logic is appealing and if the men who met at the Council of Pisa in 1408 had followed
through on that principle, everything might have turned out well. They made the serious
error, however, of trying to please all sides and deposed both claimants and selecting a
new, compromise, candidate as pope.
It was pointed out, and not too gently, that, by deposing both claimants, they had
assuredly assumed the right to dethrone a true pope. This logical failing made little
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difference, however, since neither papal claimant would obey the decision of the
council, but excommunicated the participants and their electee along with anyone who
would support or work with him. There were now three papal claimants, and the
situation had grown even worse.
It was clear to the Conciliarists that they would need organized secular force and the
threat of withholding papal taxes and renders if they were to accomplish their aims. By
1415, the problems raised by the triple popes, Czech (Hussite) heresy and revolt, Church
corruption, and popular concern had become so pressing that the Holy Roman Emperor
threw his support behind the Conciliarists and arranged for a new council to meet at the
imperial city of Constance.
RETURN TO THE
MEDIEVAL HISTORY LECTURE INDEX
Lynn Harry Nelson
Emeritus Professor of
Medieval History
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
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