A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [217]
Repudiation of a Pope was so fateful an act that it is impossible to suppose the cardinals envisaged a schism. Rather, they acted in the belief that by withdrawing in a body from the Curia, they could compel Urban to resign, or at worst depose him by force of arms. In a test of strength Budes’s company, acting as their military arm, had already defeated a company of the Pope’s Roman supporters in a skirmish in July.
The cardinals moved first to secure the support of Charles V. All the information received by the King of France was heavily weighted against Urban, and his political interest at any rate leaned in the same direction. He summoned a council of prelates and doctors of law and theology on September 11 to listen to the cardinals’ envoys make their case. After two days of deliberation, the council soberly advised the King to abstain from a precipitous decision one way or another on “so high, perilous and doubtful” an issue. If this was hedging, it was also a well-advised caution which Charles did not follow. Though he did nothing overt, later developments indicate that he must have conveyed assurance of support to the cardinals—the major error of policy-making in his record.
After further legal preparation and efforts to obtain approval from the University of Paris, which was not forthcoming, the cardinals moved to Fondi, inside the territory of Naples, and in a conclave of September 20 elected a new Pope from among their number. Seeking, in the circumstances, a forceful and decisive man they made an incredible choice. The person elected, enthroned, and crowned as Clement VII all on the same day was Robert of Geneva, the “Butcher of Cesena.”
The election of an Anti-Pope was bound to be divisive, and the interests of the papacy might have been supposed to dictate a choice as acceptable as possible to Italians. To elect the man feared and loathed throughout Italy suggests an arrogance of power almost as mad as the behavior of Urban. Perhaps by this time the 14th century was not quite sane. If enlightened self-interest is the criterion of sanity, in the verdict of Michelet, “no epoch was more naturally mad.” Dominated by the French, the College of Cardinals was unconcerned about Italian feelings and so threatened by curtailment of its revenues in the name of reform that even the three* Italian cardinals gave tacit consent to the vote. This was the end product of the exile in Avignon. Only a profound materialism and cynicism could have permitted the placing of Robert of Geneva in the chair of St. Peter. The complaints of the reformers could have had no more telling proof.
“Oh, unhappy men!” cried Catherine, voicing the Italian reaction, “you who were to nourish yourselves at the breast of the Church, to be as flowers in her garden, to shed forth sweet perfume, to be as pillars to support the Vicar of Christ and his bark, as lamps for the enlightenment of the world and diffusion of the faith … you who were angels upon earth, have turned to the way of devils.… What is the cause? The poison of selfishness destroys the world.” If her rich imagery was mixed, it was also a measure of the reverence felt for the great ones of the Church and the corresponding sense of betrayal. With the native common sense that often broke through her verbal rhapsodies, Catherine gave no credit to the cardinals’ claim of having elected Urban under duress.
Far from resigning, Urban created an entirely new College of Cardinals within a week and hired a company of mercenaries under one of the first Italian condottieri, Alberigo da Barbiano, to maintain his See by force of arms. War on schismatics gave Catherine a new holy cause. “Now is the time for new martyrs,” she encouraged Urban. “You are the first who have given your blood; how great is the fruit you will receive!” And so it proved, initially. In a battle against