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The trouble started when Pope Gregory XI died in 1378. One year earlier, he had returned the papacy to Rome after 68 years of "Babylonian captivity" in Avignon, France. The shift made Italians happy but enraged the French, putting the cardinals charged with choosing Gregory's successor in a very tight spot.

Or maybe the trouble started even earlier. The opulence of the papal court at Avignon had alienated many Catholics. As the abbots of the church in Cologne stated publicly in 1372, "The Apostolic See has fallen into such contempt that the Catholic faith in these parts seems to be seriously imperiled."

King Edward III of England was even more caustic: "The successor of the Apostles was commissioned to lead the Lord's sheep to pasture, not to fleece them."

So the church's problems were obvious. The solution proved elusive.

Because the papacy had been based in France for so long, by 1378 a disproportionate number of French cardinals had been created. Their inclination toward another French pope was stifled, however, by the rioting crowd outside the conclave in Rome. The cardinals took a quick vote and elected an Italian who took the name Urban VI. Then they ran for their lives.

Urban VI turned out to be impetuous and despotic, and the cardinals who had elected him promptly repented of their choice—especially after Urban turned on them. He told one cardinal to "shut up his ceaseless chatter." He called another a "blockhead" and humiliated him in front of his colleagues.

Angry and bitter, the French cardinals called another conclave and elected a second pope (or, according to Roman Catholics, an anti-pope), Clement VII, saying that Urban's election had been forced by the Roman mob. Clement, Swiss by birth, moved his court back to Avignon.

Catholic nations split over which pope to obey. Half the church now accused the other half of being heretical, blasphemous, and excommunicate. Catherine of Siena, who had been influential in bringing the papacy back to Rome, denounced Clement as "Judas Iscariot." Vincent Ferrer, a prominent Dominican preacher in France, applied the same slur to Urban.

Both sides claimed that the sacraments ministered by the priests of the opposite party were invalid—the children who had been baptized were not really baptized, those who had been forgiven their sins were not forgiven, the dying who had received final rites had died unpardoned. And matrimony pronounced by the wrong priest meant that those who thought they were married were actually living in sin.

Hatred and suspicion rose to such a pitch that when seven of Urban's newly appointed cardinals came to him in 1385 asking him to step down, he had them arrested, tortured, and killed.

When Urban finally died in 1389, Clement anticipated a triumphal return to Rome. Instead, the 14 cardinals who had survived in Urban's camp elected one of their number to be the new Roman pope, Boniface IX, and the division continued.

Clement VII died suddenly in 1394, and instead of accepting Boniface, the predominately French cardinals elected a Spaniard, Benedict XIII, to be the new pope in Avignon. King Charles V of France proposed that both popes should resign and a new one be elected, but Benedict would not resign unless Boniface promised to do so as well.

After Boniface died in 1404, the Roman cardinals elected Innocent VII. A revolt broke out, led by prominent Italian families, and Innocent fled to another town. The Roman mob, looking for the pope, sacked the Vatican in 1405, threw the papal registers and historic papers into the streets, stole all the money and gold they could find, and rioted for days.

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