Pope Urban VI

Urban VI began the Great Schism by being elected and then behaving so badly that the men who elected him decided they had not. He was Bartolomeo Prignano, archbishop of Bari, a competent administrator of no great family, chosen in April 1378 by cardinals meeting in Rome under a mob demanding an Italian pope after seventy years of French ones at Avignon. He was not a cardinal himself, which was legal and unusual. The election was valid; what followed was not survivable. Where the cardinals expected a manageable figure they got a man who denounced them individually and in public for luxury and absenteeism, struck at their revenues, threatened to create enough Italian cardinals to swamp them, and by several accounts assaulted one physically. Within months thirteen of them withdrew to Anagni, declared the election void as made under duress by the Roman crowd, and elected Robert of Geneva as Clement VII. Europe then divided along existing political lines - France, Scotland, Castile and Naples for Avignon; England, the Empire, Hungary and Poland for Rome - and stayed divided for thirty-nine years. Urban deposed Joanna I of Naples for backing his rival and gave her kingdom to her cousin Charles of Durazzo, then quarrelled with Charles too. In 1385 he had six of his own cardinals arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, tortured them, and had five put to death, reportedly complaining that the torturers were not working hard enough. He died in 1389, possibly poisoned. The schism he opened was only closed at Constance in 1417.

• Lived: 1318 CE – 1389 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: religious