Why was it so hard to resolve the Great Schism?

According to Swanson, of these three, the via facti garnered the least support in the universities, with academics preferring diplomatic solutions to military ones. It was, however, held by a minority of university masters, including the Orléanists at Paris, to be the preferable solution, with a clear resolution to the schism being given. It was presumed that the question of which Pope was legitimate would be settled, as God would grant victory to the forces of his true representative. 

However, even if the via facti had come to be accepted as the preferable means of ending the schism, it would have been far from simple to work out in practice. Neither the Urbanist or Clementine Popes commanded wide and comprehensive enough support to be assured of victory, should he choose to try and conquer his rival, and certainly neither could afford to raise their own armies for such a purpose. With the crusades continuing in the East, and the Hundred Years’ War occupying the attention of the French and English (at least until the truce of 1396), rulers were unlikely to wish to intervene with military force in the dispute. In fact, with the French, Spanish Kingdoms and some Italian states supporting the Clementine Papacy, and much of the rest of Europe backing the Urbanist claims, the “only result of princely action was likely to be a stalemate”. 

Political loyalties had also come into play in defining attitudes to the Schism. The issue was no longer merely academic, but political too: although from 1378-83 the University of Paris consistently tried to persuade Charles V to withdraw his support from Clement, political and temporal concerns (namely, a desire to retain a French Pope within the French sphere of influence) caused Charles to force Avignonese obedience upon the University in 1383. Conversely, the English had strong anti-French motives for supporting Urban – one contemporary source claiming that “if the French had supported Urban, they would have supported Clement out of hatred.” Hence, the schism could not be simply and swiftly resolved by princely power as the fifth-century schism between Popes Symmachus and Laurentius had been.

With the via facti unworkable, the remaining routes of ending the schism were the via concessionis and the via concilii. As far as the via concessionis is concerned, both Urbanist and Clementine Popes recognised the schism as undesirable, as for one thing it caused them severe financial strain, leading to the “outright sale” of indulgences; however neither was willing to resign in favour of the other. The strongest supporters of each Pope were also unwilling to countenance such an act, particularly the Urbanists. Baldus’ tract ‘Allegationes’ is a good example of a strongly pro-Urbanist stance, and defends the legitimacy of Urban’s election as the ‘true Vicar of Christ’ for whom resignation would be heresy. The “prevailing doctrine of papal sovereignty”, of which this was a part, was a significant hindrance to healing the schism. However, the via concessionis had the strong support of the University of Paris, at least initially, so why did it not succeed in practice?

The longest-reigning Clementine Pope, Benedict XIII, was clearly unwilling to resign in favour of the Urbanist line. As one of the cardinals who had declared Urban VI’s election invalid, he could not recognise his successors as true Popes, and therefore did not resign, “perpetuat[ing] the Schism to its ultimate conclusion.” His Urbanist counterparts were also unwilling to resign for the similar reason that the held the Clementine primates to be anti-Popes, but also due to the secular influences on them not to resign. For example, Gregory XII could not concede the Papacy to Benedict, even should he choose so, since he was “easily dominated” by his nephews and King Ladislao of Naples, who depended on the Urbanist Papacy for their positions. Ladislao also made it impossible for Innocent VII to resign, by making it a precondition of his political support for Rome that he would be awarded the rights to the Sicilian and Neapolitan crowns in the event of the via concessionis bringing unity to the Church, which Innocent could not grant. It is clear, therefore, that the actions of the Popes themselves precluded a resolution of the schism by the via concessionis.

The via concilii was hence the only one of d’Ailly’s three via which remained open. The failure of the other two possibilities “eventually obliged moderates… to adopt the position that a general council … should impose its authority on an heretical pope”, persisting in schism being accounted heresy. However, this presented particular problems of its own, both practically and theoretically. Both Popes were reluctant to meet for a council to arbitrate between them – Gregory “invented excuses” not to meet Benedict at Savona and both Popes refused to meet at Pisa in 1409, citing fears for their safety. Thus, it fell to the cardinals to arrange the council (Pisa being convened on the initiative of the Roman cardinals) – an act which was unprecedented and which seemed to some of doubtful canonicity. An example of this can be seen in a legal concern expressed at Pisa, that unless a clear legal justification for a council being convened without Papal authority could be provided, “no one will think … that there is a council, but rather that it is a cabal and so without authority.”

In fact, the convocation of the council was justified only by the ‘crisis’ produced by the schism, and the suspicion that one or more Popes was acting heretically, and so could be canonically deposed by a general council. This is not to deny that Conciliarism (the view that a general council of the Church had authority over the Pope) had been an idea held by a significant party of canonists before the schism, but that it was only accepted by non-Conciliarists in the exigencies of the schism. Still, the Council of Pisa was not able to resolve the schism, instead complicating it with a third pope. It took another, more protracted council at Constance from 1415-17 to resolve it, showing just how many legal and practical difficulties had been created by the cardinals’ actions in 1378.

Precisely such a combination of canonical and temporal difficulties were responsible for the length of the Papal Schism. The roots of the theoretical problems are found in the unprecedented legal circumstances of the schism itself, while the political dimensions, while in some ways incidental, serve to illustrate both how ecclesiastical concerns could be manipulated by secular rulers to serve their own ends in the face of a divided Church, as Charles V did, and how closely linked Church and State remained in the Late Middle Ages.

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Bibliography

Chamberlin, E.R., ‘The Origins of the Papal Schism’, History Today 17 (1967), 410-417.

Crowder, C.M.D, Unity, Heresy and Reform 1378-1460, London, 1977.

Harvey, Margaret, Solutions to the Schism: A study of some English attitudes 1378 to 1409, St. Ottilien, 1983.

Housley, Norman, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, Oxford, 1986.

Lewin, Alison Williams, ‘“Cum Status Ecclesie Noster Sit”: Florence and the Council of Pisa (1409)’, Church History 62 (1993), 178-189.

O’Brien, Patrick (ed.), Philip’s Atlas of World History, 2nd edition, London, 2005.

Tierney, Brian, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory, Cambridge, 1955.

Swanson, Robert N., ‘A Survey of Views on the Great Schism’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 21 (1983), 79-103.

Swanson, Robert N., Universities, Academics and the Great Schism, Cambridge, 1979.

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