Pope Urban VI and the Birth of the Western Schism

A 14th-century miniature symbolizing the schism

Two Popes and the Western Schism

By summer 1378, Europe was effectively split between two claimants to the throne of St. Peter. In Rome, Urban VI held court; meanwhile, the French cardinals – with King Charles V’s blessing – gathered secretly at Fondi. There on September 20, 1378, they elected their own pope: Robert of Geneva (a French noble and former papal legate known for his toughness) took the name Clement VII, setting up his court back in Avignon. Urban was furious and denounced this new pope as illegitimate; Clement, in turn, anathematised Urban, even chanting “Antichrist” in Rome. Thus, the Western Schism began in earnest—a catastrophic split that would last 40 years.

Hopes that the dual papacy might heal quickly proved vain. The continent divided itself along national lines: France, Aragon, Castile, and their allies recognised Avignon’s Clement VII, while England, Germany, Scandinavia, and others stuck with Urban in Rome. Italy itself fractured: Northern cities largely backed Urban, while Provence and much of France backed Clement. The Pope of Rome was not universally called Antichrist – far from it – but the drama made him appear larger than life. John of Legnano penned a defence of Urban’s election, and Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati called out the French faction bluntly: “Who does not see that you seek not the true pope, but solely a Gallic pontiff?”

Public faith wavered. Yet Urban kept governing – even creating 26 new cardinals in one day to shore up his position. Kings also manoeuvred. Louis I of Anjou (brother of Charles V) was promised a phantom kingdom if he could oust Urban. The news of these intrigues filtered through Italy. For his part, Urban excommunicated and interdicted any ruler who dared side with the Avignon antipope, branding them enemies of the Church.

Florence Fights the Pope: The War of the Eight Saints

Meanwhile, Urban confronted old enemies at home. Tuscany had its own crisis: since 1375, Florence had been at war with the papacy in what came to be called the War of the Eight Saints. Popes Gregory XI and then Urban VI had tried to reassert direct control over central Italian cities like Florence. In 1378, Urban issued yet another interdict on Florence to bring the city to heel. But the Florentines defiantly continued life under the ban. They even sold off church art and property to finance their armies, raising an astonishing 100,000 florins to pay mercenaries.

Urban, in turn, levied crushing taxes and forced the city into an uneasy truce. At Tivoli in July 1378, Florence agreed to pay a hefty indemnity of 200,000 florins just to lift the papal ban on their churches. In effect, Florence gambled on a future peace by emptying their treasuries. The scene is remembered: Florentine merchants loading shiploads of gold coins as their city’s clergymen knelt in suspended papal churches, awaiting the prince of the Church to allow Mass again. This war drained papal resources too – the pope’s own lands were ravaged, and Europe was distracted by the Schism.

Naples in Turmoil: Queen Joanna’s Tragic Fate

In the south, dynastic drama played out with dire consequences. Urban’s former patron, Queen Joanna I of Naples, had invited him back to Italy and crowned Charles of Durazzo as her heir. But the ambitious Pope soon saw Joanna’s independence as an affront. In 1378, he audaciously declared himself her feudal suzerain. A furious conflict erupted. Urban excommunicated Queen Joanna as a secret supporter of the Avignon antipope, and he authorised crusades against her realm. By 1381, Charles III of Durazzo – Juan’s cousin – invaded Naples, seized the throne with Urban’s backing, and crowned Charles king in Urban’s own presence. In return, Charles was to cede key cities (Capua, Caserta, etc.) to Urban’s nephew Francesco. But wartime promises were not kept.

Charles’s triumph was brutal. In 1382, he had Queen Joanna strangled in prison to secure his rule. Urban celebrated these turnabouts, but each victory deepened the chaos. Charles found his kingdom immediately invaded by Louis of Anjou (champion of the murdered Joanna) and his Savoyard allies. The Pope and the king of Naples soon turned on each other. In a bitter betrayal, Charles refused to hand over the promised cities and even disowned Urban’s nephews, who had rights to those fiefs. Then turmoil again struck Rome itself: as Charles and Louis battled in the south, rebellious Romans seized the Castel Sant’Angelo (the papal fortress) in 1384, forcing Urban to flee the city’s chaos and return to Apulia.

Siege of Nocera: Prisoner, Anathemas, and Escape

In autumn 1383, Urban VI took a fateful step: he journeyed to Naples to personally confront King Charles. But Charles tricked him. Under pretences of hospitality, Charles had Urban and a few cardinals seized on October 30 and locked in Aversa, near Naples. A reluctant truce was arranged: Urban and Charles’s wife, Margaret of Durazzo, agreed to peace, so Urban was escorted to Nocera as a hostage of sorts.

At Nocera, the ageing pontiff stewed in dungeons, his entourage shut out. Each morning, the still-thundering bells of the fortress heralded Urban’s excommunications against the king and his supporters – he raged at the enemy lines from castle walls with his “bell, book, and candle,” as the chroniclers put it. He even offered rewards to anyone who would assassinate the king or break Margaret’s hold on him. The Pope sent curses and mitred epitaphs across the misty gulf to the besiegers below.

For months, Pope Urban held out. In a dramatic turn in early 1385, rescuers arrived: two Neapolitan barons loyal to Louis of Anjou—Raimondello Orsini and Tommaso di Sanseverino—broke through the siege. On a dawn in winter, they spirited Urban onto waiting galleys sent by the Doge of Genoa. Thus Urban escaped to Genoa. But the triumph was tarnished by revenge. Those same rescuers captured several of the cardinals who had been imprisoned with Urban, men who had defected to the French side. Once safe on board the ship, Urban had these traitorous cardinals tortured and executed. Eyewitnesses and later writers recoiled at this brutality. One Renaissance chronicler, Egidio da Viterbo, condemned it as “a crime unheard of through the centuries.”

“…a crime unheard of through the centuries.”
– Egidio da Viterbo, writing of Urban VI’s execution of rebellious cardinals

With only a few loyalists left, Urban found himself finally alone at sea. Genoa offered him asylum, but his supporters had shrunk to little beyond Northern Italy, England, and a few German princes. (Most of Catholic Europe now obeyed Clement VII.) Still, Urban asserted papal authority where he could. He announced a holy Jubilee for 1390 to rally the faithful, even though barely ten years had passed since the last one in 1380. And he used Charles of Naples’s death in 1386 as an opportunity: he tried to extend his rule over central Italy, even seizing the Tuscan city of Lucca. Urban also claimed Naples on behalf of his nephew Francesco, exploiting the chaotic struggle between Ladislaus and Louis of Anjou for the throne there.

Death and Divided Legacy

Tomb of Urban VI

In August 1388, Urban VI marched north from Perugia with an army. The next month at Narni, he had a serious accident: he fell from his mule and hurt himself. By October, his strength flagged. He returned to Rome weak and ill. Despite infirmity, he managed to quash a municipal uprising of freebooters in Rome, finally reasserting direct papal rule in the city. But on October 15, 1389, barely a month after returning, Pope Urban VI died in his bed. Doctors said he succumbed to his injuries; rumour whispered poison, but no evidence proved foul play.

Urban’s death did not immediately end the tumult he had sown. His body was laid in an unmarked grave in old St. Peter’s; centuries later, during Renaissance rebuilding, it was nearly discarded to feed horses. Only the quick eyes of a church antiquarian prevented the destruction of his sarcophagus. Meanwhile, the Western Schism limped on until 1417, with Urban’s successor, Boniface IX, contesting authority from Rome.

Looking back, historians remark on Urban’s bitter contradictions. A man of deep faith and austere habits in early life, “his great faults undid his virtues,” as one scholar noted. Instead of gentle guidance, he often wielded a whip. His fiery temperament and impatience for reform fractured the unity of the Church. In the end, the ambitious effort to reform the Curia morphed into a long chapter of division. Urban VI died with the prestige of the papacy in tatters, the Church divided between two popes and many secular rulers. Yet through it all, he remained convinced of his mission — believing he had fought for Christ’s true vicar on earth, even unto death.