Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/622

 566 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE a quarrel between the cardinals and the pope. The French cardinals declared that the election of Urban had been forced upon them by the Roman mob. It was hard to learn the true facts of the case and many pious people were in honest doubt who was the rightful pope. The cardinals, however, had not raised objections to Urban's election im- mediately, but only when they saw how he acted as pope. The Roman Catholic Church since has regarded Urban as the rightful pope. Meanwhile Urban had more than doubled the number of cardinals by appointing twenty-nine Italians in order to Continua- command a majority of the college. It must be tion of the admitted that Urban was a very hard person to get on with. He moved his court from Rome to Naples, from Naples to Nocera, from Nocera to Genoa, from Genoa to Lucca, from Lucca to Perugia, from Perugia back to Rome, where he died in 1389 — poisoned, it was whis- pered, by the Romans. No matter who might be monarch at Naples, Urban quarreled with him ; and the pope's own Italian cardinals were soon conspiring against him. But when he died, they elected another pope who continued the strug- gle against Clement VII ; and when Clement died, his cardi- nals also chose a successor. Thus the schism bade fair to become interminable, since there were two rival colleges of cardinals ever ready to continue it. Another circumstance that perpetuated the schism was that the different rulers and nations of Europe had taken different sides. The sup- port of the French king seemed to insure the pope at Avig- non from overthrow; he was also recognized by Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Scotland, Flanders, and a few Italian and German principalities. But most of Italy and Germany, also Poland, Hungary, the Scandinavian kingdoms, England, and Portugal, sided with the line of popes which began with Urban VI. In order to retain the support of these states, the rival popes had to make many concessions and abandon to a large extent the previous papal custom of interference in national politics. On the other hand, there were now two papal