Universities, Academics and the Great Schism

The election of both Urban VI and Clement VII to the papacy in 1378 presented the church with an apparently insoluble constitutional difficulty. Dr Swanson examines how this was dealt with by the universities to whom Europe turned to formulate the theories which would solve the problem.

The election of both Urban VI and Clement VII to the papacy in 1378, by the same body of cardinals, presented the church with an apparently insoluble constitutional difficulty. Dr Swanson examines the reaction to this situation from a hitherto unconsidered perspective: that of the universities to whom Europe turned to formulate the theories which would solve the problem. He examines the attempts by the academics to gain support for their various schemes and shows how these produced conflict at various levels: locally, between factions within individual universities; nationally, between rival universities, and between universities and their ecclesiastical and secular superiors; and internationally, as the universities adopted mutually exclusive attitudes and sometimnes clashed with their own popes. The concluding chapters show how the academics finally devised the conciliarist formula which led to the convocation of the Council of Pisa in 1409.