oof; they seemed only to wait to be thrown off by
Urban, to join the adverse faction. Urban at first declared his
intention to create nine cardinals; he proceeded at once, and without
warning, to create twenty-six.[65] By this step the French and Italian
cardinals together were now but an insignificant minority. They were
instantly one. All must be risked or all lost.

On September 20th, at Fondi, Robert of Geneva was elected pope in the
presence of all the cardinals (except St. Peter's) who had chosen,
inaugurated, enthroned, and for a time obeyed Urban VI. The Italians
refused to give their suffrages, but entered no protest. They retired
into their castles and remained aloof from the schism. Orsini died
before long at Tagliacozzo. The qualifications which, according to his
partial biographer, recommended the Cardinal of Geneva, were rather
those of a successor to John Hawkwood or to a duke of Milan, than of the
apostles. Extraordinary activity of body and endurance of fatigue,
courage which would hazard his life to put down the intrusive pope,
sagacity and experience in the temporal affairs of the Church; high
birth, through which he was allied with most of the royal and princely
houses of Europe; of austerity, devotion, learning, holiness, charity,
not a word. He took the name of Clement VII; the Italians bitterly
taunted the mockery of this name, assumed by the captain of the Breton
Free Companies--by the author, it was believed, of the massacre at
Cesena.

So began the schism which divided Western Christendom for thirty-eight
years. Italy, excepting the kingdom of Joanna of Naples, adhered to her
native pontiff; Germany and Bohemia to the pontiff who had recognized
King Wenceslaus as emperor; England to the pontiff hostile to
France;[66] Hungary to the pontiff who might support her pretentions to
Naples; Poland and the Northern kingdoms, with Portugal, espoused the
same cause. France at first stood almost alone in support of her
subject, of a pope at Avignon instead of at Rome. Scotland only was with
Clement, because England was with Urban. So Flanders was with Urban
because France was with Clement. The uncommon abilities of Peter di
Luna, the Spanish cardinal (afterward better known under a higher
title), detached successively the Spanish kingdoms, Castile, Aragon, and
Navarre, from allegiance to Pope Urban.

GENOESE SURRENDER TO VENETIANS

A.D. 1380

HENRY HALLAM

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