Two, Three, and Four Popes Reigning at the Same Time

In earlier times, when the papal rule was coveted, the aim was set on the Roman chair alone; but now it was quite different. Instead of granting Rome the honor of electing the pope, as had always been done until then, the men of Avignon in France began, without any regard for the Romans or the Italians, to make themselves the electors of the pope; and for this purpose they elected a certain man whom they call Benedict the Thirteenth, even though the Roman chair was held by a pope called Gregory the Twelfth. In this way they set not only pope against pope, but France against Italy, and Avignon against Rome.*

Of this, P. J. Twisk gives the following account: "At this time two popes reigned, who were for a long time at great odds with each other; the one at Rome in Italy, the other at Avignon.

"When Pope Innocentius at Rome had died, Benedict the Thirteenth still occupied the papal chair in France. Then Gregory the Twelfth was elected pope." Chronicle of P. J. Twisk, book 15, for the year 1406, page 758, column 2; from Platina's Chronicle, folio 396; Fasciculus Temporum, folio 187. [n77-3]

The same writer, after relating in order several other things that happened in the five following years, mentions again, for the year 1411, this Pope Benedict who was elected at Avignon, and also two others who arose during his reign, namely, Gregory and John; and also of their quarrels with one another. These are his words: [n77-1]

"At that time there were three popes at once, who never stopped excommunicating one another, and of whom the one gained one ruler for his supporter, the other another. Their names were Benedict, Gregory, and John.

"These fought and contended with each other, not for the honor of the Son of God, nor for the reform and correction of the corrupted doctrines or the many abuses of the (Roman) church, but only for the supremacy; and to obtain it no one hesitated to commit the most shameful deeds.

"In short, the emperor exerted himself with great diligence, and traveled three years through Europe, to root out this shameful and destructive strife and discord which prevailed in Christendom. Therefore, having rejected these three schismatic popes, he brought it about that Otto Columnius was made pope by common consent; for within the last twenty-nine years there had always been at least two popes, one at Rome and the other at Avignon. When the one blessed, the other cursed.* See the Chronicle mentioned above, book 15, for the year 1411, page 765, columns 1 and 2.

Concerning the overthrow of these three popes the same author gives this statement: "In this year Pope John the Twenty-fourth, having been convicted on fifty-four articles of heresies, crimes, and base villainies, was deposed from the papal dignity by the council of Constance, and given in custody to the palsgrave. [n77-4] When these articles were read to him one after another, he sighed deeply and replied that he had done something still worse, namely, that he had come down from the mountain of Italy, and put himself under the jurisdiction of a council, in a country where he had neither authority nor power.

After he had been in confinement at Munich three years, to the astonishment of everyone he was released, and made cardinal and bishop of Tusculum by Pope Martin the Fifth, whose feet he came submissively to kiss at Florence. Shortly afterward, in the year 1419, he died there, and was buried with great pomp and ceremony in the church of Saint John the Baptist.

After he had thus received his sentence, the other two popes were summoned. Of these, Gregory the Twelfth, who lived at Rimini, sent Charles Maletesta there with instructions to lay down the papal dignity voluntarily in his name; and as a reward for this he was made a legate in Marca d'Ancona, where he afterward died of a broken heart, at Racanay, a seaport on the Adriatic Sea.

Benedict the Thirteenth, the pope at Avignon, remained stubborn in his purpose, so that neither pleading nor threats nor the authority of the council could move him to submit, or to lay down his office, for the peace of all Christendom. See the aforementioned Chronicle, book 15, for the year 1415, page 773, column 2, and 774, column 2. [n77-2]

NOTE. Pope Benedict the Thirteenth, at the urging of the King of France and the University of Paris, sent his legates to Pope Boniface the Ninth; but they received this answer, that their master could not properly be called a pope, but an antipope; at which they refuted him. See De Ondergang, book 15, in the year 1404, page 757, column 2.

Here it is proper to note what this last mentioned author tells about the several popes who existed at one and the same time.

"Besides this," he writes, "it is related that there were sometimes four, sometimes three, and sometimes two popes at the same time."

Victor, Alexander the Third, Calixtus the Third, and Paschalis held the papal authority together, in the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; and Benedict the Eighth, Sylvester the Second, and Gregory the Fifth were also popes together, until at last Henry the Third deposed them.

Likewise Gregory the Twelfth, Benedict the Thirteenth, and Alexander the Fifth claimed the papal authority for themselves by excommunications.*

Further, how Stephen the Third and Constantine, Sergius the Third and Christophorus, Urbanus the Fifth and Clemens the Seventh, Eugene the Fourth and Clemens the Eighth, and many other popes whom it would take too long to name, fought and contended with each other for the triple crown, their own historians have made plain enough. See in book 9 of the Chronicle, for the year 891, page 315, column 2, from the tract Den Onpartiidigen Rechter.