throne and the county of Provence should Joanna die childless. His father Louis had been poisoned by Queen Joanna. Now ensued the great schism.
For seventy years the papal court had been at Avignon, and the Romans were sore that the money accruing from the influx of pilgrims, litigants, and suitors to the Pope should flow into the pockets of the Avignonese instead of their own. Gregory IX. had come to Rome, urged thereto by S. Catherine of Siena; and there he died in 1378. Thereupon the Romans, armed and furious, surrounded the conclave of the Cardinals, shouting for a Roman Pope. At the time there were in Rome sixteen Cardinals; eleven were French, four Italian, and one Spanish. Intimidated by the menaces of the populace, quaking for their lives, the Cardinals elected the Archbishop of Bari, a narrow-minded man, of low birth, coarse manners, no tact, and, as proved eventually, of remorseless cruelty. He showed at once of what stuff he was made by insulting the Cardinals, and by threats of swamping the college with Italian creations. The Cardinals fled to Anagni, where they issued a declaration that the election was void, as it had been made under compulsion, and that their lives had been threatened. However, the newly-elected Pope assumed the name of Urban VI. As Archbishop of Bari he had been the subject of Joanna, and she hailed his elevation, and sent him shiploads of fruit and wines, and the more solid gift of 20,000 florins. Her husband, Otho of Brunswick, went to Rome to pay his personal homage. But his reception was cold and repellent, and he retired in disgust.
Only four Cardinals adhered to Pope Urban. The Cardinals at Anagni proceeded to elect Robert, Bishop
