Sub-Urban

The 14th century saw the Roman Catholics headquatered in France at Avignon. The papacy had gone back and forth between France and Italy and at this stage there was mounting pressure to get the Pope back to Rome pronto. Pope Gregory XI conceded but one of his underlings screwed up bad by ordering the killing of over 400o people in Cesena. The resultant outcry forced Gregory from Rome. He died soon therafter.

At the conclave it was obvious the Italians wanted an Italian Pope. The majority of Cardinals were French, so the locals, expressing their God given right to voice their opinion, did what any good Catholic should do in this situation, they formed a mob. When they broke down the doors, the cardinals, scared out their wits, grabbed the first Pope-looking Italian gentleman they could, fitted him out in Pope clothes, and paraded him out to the mob. The poor old guy freaked out and swore at everyone. This bought the cardinals time to come up with a second choice, Bartolemeo Prignano. Given the name Urban VI, he had earned a reputation as an effective, unobstrusive administrator.

Things unravelled very fast for Urban. No one knows why but he drank himself silly at his coronation and tried to attack his caridinals. From that moment on, he became violent, mean spirited and unpredictable. At almost every meeting he singled someone out and gave them shit, sometimes lasting for hours.

The cardinals had had their fill and retreated to France. They came up with the proclamation that Urban had been elected under threats from"external sources" and therefore his election was invalid. So the crafty cardinals went and elected another pope, but the whole mess just got worse. Their new choice for pope was some fellow named Roberto Visconti, Clement VII. He was our pal from the above mentioned killings and went by the charming name of the "Butcher of Cesena." You got to start wondering about the lead content in the wine goblets. How did they expect this to smooth anything over?

The resulting war between the 2 Popes went on for nearly 40 years and is called the Great Schism. Urban died in 1398.