Western Schism Research Paper

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2/6/13 Chapter 11 religion Essay Chapter 11 covers the problems between the church and the state in the low middle ages along with the western schism. Those two issues were huge challenges for the church and its ability to overcome them were very important. The issues between the church and state brought about a change in the way the Pope was able to use his power because people felt more loyalty to their country than to the church. The western schism nearly destroyed all of christendom and was a major detractor from church prestige. This essay will encompass a lot of the important figures and events that were either a part of the problem or solution of these problems between church and state or the schism. Innocent III was a very strong…show more content…
The Popes learned their lesson and realized that they needed to keep the King of Sicily and the Emperor separate so that Rome did not find itself surrounded by a common enemy. So they ended up offering Sicily to France but that backfired quickly when the Sicilians massacred the French who were living on the island. the massacre is referred to as the Sicilian Vespers and the whole situation was a total fiasco which led to more hits toward how people viewed the papal office. In 1292 another important event occurred. Pope Nicholas IV died and the church held a conclave to decide on the new pope. The problem was that his conclave took a full two years to decided on a Pope. The main problem was that the Cardinals were split into 2 factions, the Colonna and the Orsini. The Colonna favored Spain and Orsini favored the French. Eventually the Cardinals were pressured into picking a Pope and they chose Pope Celestine V. He was a holy man but he was not made to be Pope so he ended up resigning. Pope Boniface VIII was elected in his place. Boniface was very similar to Pope Innocent III in that he was incredibly strong willed and he felt that the Pope should be above…show more content…
When the cardinals went to select a successor to Gregory XI, the people demanded that they elect an Italian pope. Eventually they did and chose pope Urban VI in 1378. The election has always been considered legitimate. Urban was hard on the cardinals and they didn’t like it. Some of them came together and decided to say that they were pressured into picking Urban and that they need to elect a new pope because Urban is not legit. They elected Clement VII in 1378. This was bad because now the church was split between two popes. Clement VII has always been considered an anti-pope by the church. He stayed in Avigon and was strongly supported by the French. Some countries pledged allegiance to Clement and other to Urban. The elites of the church began to come up with an idea that a council must be called in times of trouble that has authority over the pope. They said that this council should take the form of an Ecumenical council. They called for the Council of Piza in 1409. By then Pope Clement VII had died and been replaced by Benedict XIII and Urban had died and been replaced by Boniface IX, then Innocent VII and finally Gregory XII. At the council they assumed that both popes would resign if they told them to. They declared that Gregory XII and Bennedict XIII had been deposed and that Alexander V is the new pope. Neither of the two
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