Antipope Clement VII

(antipope 20 Sept. 1378 — 16 Sept. 1394)
Born at the castle of Annecy in 1342 as Robert, son of Amadeus III, count of Geneva, and Marie de Boulogne (a cousin of the French king), he was chancellor of Amiens and canon of Paris, where he studied, as a young man, became bishop of Thérouanne in 1361 and of Cambrai in 1368, and was created cardinal priest of the SS. XII Apostoli by Gregory XI in May 1371. Known as the cardinal of Geneva, he owed his swift advancement to the patronage of his uncle Guy de Boulogne, cardinal bishop of Porto, also known as the cardinal of Geneva, whose household he entered at the age of 7. As Gregory's legate in Italy in command of an army of Breton mercenaries, he was responsible for frightful massacres in the war against Florence, especially at Cesena in Feb. 1377, where he had been imprisoned in the citadel and had to call upon Sir John Hawkwood for assistance. In the tumultuous election following Gregory's death he gave his vote for Urban VI, was the first to do homage to and seek favours from him, and on 14 Apr. 1378 wrote to Emperor Charles IV (1355 — 78) notifying him of the election. Nevertheless, towards the end of May, disgusted by the pope's insulting behaviour, he began organizing a revolt against him. When the French cardinals withdrew to Anagni and, convinced that Urban was deranged and incapable, declared his election void as having been carried through under threats of violence and then purported to depose him (2 and 9 Aug.), Robert was one of the leading spirits among them. On 20 Sept., meeting in the cathedral at Fondi (in the kingdom of Naples), they elected him pope at the first ballot; the fact that he was neither French nor Italian may have counted in his favour. The three Italian cardinals did not vote but concurred by their presence. His election, followed by his proclamation on 21 Sept. and his coronation on 31 Oct., inaugurated the Great Schism of the west (1378 — 1417), of which he was the first antipope.

At first fortune smiled on Clement, an accomplished politician. Virtually the entire curia went over to him, and he had powerful military support as well as the friendship of Queen Joanna of Naples (1343 — 82). But his troops were crushed by Urban's mercenaries at Marino in Apr. 1379. Since the Clementine garrison in Castel Sant'Angelo had surrendered to Urban earlier in the month, he then retired to Naples but found that, while Queen Joanna supported him, the population was hostile, and on 22 May he left Italy for Avignon for good, arriving there on 30 June. Meanwhile the rival popes, as well as excommunicating each other, were endeavouring, by letters and embassies, to persuade the Christian world of their legitimacy. After a brief neutrality Charles V of France (1364 — 80) sided with Clement (Nov. 1379), as did Burgundy, Savoy, Naples, and France's ally Scotland—and so did the bishops of Ireland. Clement also made strenuous efforts to secure recognition in the empire, but his success there was only sporadic. In general the empire and the German king Wenceslas (1378 — 1400) adhered to Urban, as did the eastern and nordic countries, Hungary, and England. But Castile and Aragón, after considerable delay, were induced to come out for Clement, as did Latin enclaves in the east like Cyprus and Morea.

At Avignon Clement quickly organized an administrative machine complete in every department, and established a court rivalling those of kings in brilliance and luxury. But the great object of his policy was to wrest Rome from his rival. As early as Apr. 1379 he had encouraged Louis I of Anjou (1360 — 84), son of the French king, with the offer of a kingdom of Adria to be carved out of the papal state, to take up arms on his behalf. An expedition to recover Naples from Charles of Durazzo (1381 — 6), to whom Urban had assigned it after deposing Joanna, was brilliantly started—Joanna was captured and later strangled (12 May 1382)—but ground to a halt with Louis's death in Sept. 1384. After Charles's murder in Feb. 1386 it was victoriously resumed by Louis II of Anjou (1384 — 1417), who was acclaimed king by the people of Naples in July 1386. Strengthened by these and other successes in southern Italy, and by the influence he had acquired in Lombardy through the marriage of Louis of Touraine, future duke of Orléans, with a Visconti, Clement had just begun negotiations with Florence and Bologna when the death of Urban (15 Oct. 1389), now profoundly unpopular, robbed him of his trump card. He had already welcomed to his sacred college two Roman cardinals whom Urban's truculence and cruelty had disillusioned, and had undertaken to recognize all Urban's cardinatial appointments. A grave situation seemed to threaten Urban's successor, Boniface IX, when the new French king, Charles VI (1380 — 1422), flattered Clement with the prospect of personally conducting him to Rome (Mar. 1391), and France revived (1392 — 3) the project of a kingdom of Adria in fief to the pope. But nothing came of the former suggestion, and by this time Clement was too wary to encourage the latter, although he did offer to invest the duke of Orléans with extensive territories belonging to the holy see. In 1400 he sustained a serious blow when the young king Ladislas of Sicily (1386 — 1414) ousted Louis II of Anjou from Naples and restored the kingdom to the obedience of Boniface IX.

Throughout his reign Clement was plagued with crippling financial difficulties. Having succeeded as count of Geneva in 1392 he had to exploit his patrimony to support his papacy. Patronage, the extravagance of his court, the diplomatic missions he dispatched in every direction, and his campaigns in south Italy all cost money and drained his treasury. He was obliged to resort to constant borrowing and to impose heavy taxes, but was fortunate that one of the countries he could tax was France, the most prosperous and populous in the west. He was driven to demand subsidies even from religious institutions which had hitherto been exempted, and did not allow himself to be over-worried by the complaints of a desperately overtaxed clergy. Not the least expensive of his vexations were the marauding incursions of Raymond of Turenne, a nephew of Gregory IX who owned important properties in Provence, notably Les Baux, and whose mercenaries from 1386 to 1392 were in the habit of seizing castles and villages and harrying travellers, and had to be bought off with huge indemnities.

Politically adroit, Clement showed discernment in selecting his cardinals. One of his first was the 16-year-old Peter of Luxembourg (beatified in 1527), whom he named bishop of Metz and cardinal in 1384 and whose extraordinary asceticism and charity he astutely hoped would add lustre to his pontificate. He never doubted the validity either of his own election or of the deposition of his rival; indeed, at Urban's death he cherished the vain hope that the Roman conclave would solve its problem by recognizing him. Both then and in the years preceding his own death there was strong pressure on him to abdicate; public opinion in France, led by the university of Paris, was converging on the view that the only way to end the schism was 'the way of cession', i.e. the voluntary resignation of both popes. Clement, however, just like his rival, remained deaf to such suggestions; the most he was willing to do, to appease the widespread unease, was to order the celebration of a mass 'for the removal of the schism' (29 Oct. 1393), the recital of prayers, and the holding of processions. He died of apoplexy on the morning of 16 Sept. 1394.

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