Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/77

] Clementines. Urban and Clement both died, but each received successors. It looked as if Christendom might witness a double headship becoming part of the permanent constitution of the Church. It was the glory of France, and, in particular, of the famous University of Paris, then at the height of its power, to intervene and take steps in behalf of unity. It was now 1400. The Avignon line was now represented by Peter de Luna, entitled Benedict XIII.; the Italian line by Angelo Corario, entitled Gregory XII. Christendom was scandalised by their mutual excommunications.

The state of the Church was deplorable. Gregory asserted that as Pope he was above law; Benedict that no appeal from a Pope was permissible. This, says Bossuet, was the first time in Christendom that a Pope ventured expressly to condemn all appeals from his authority. A recent historian of the Papacy says:—

Through all this crisis, the Sorbonne, the theological