Fondi, and repenting of what they
had thus done, they proclaimed his election void, and substituted
Clement VII. for him. They were actually at one time on the point of
choosing the King of France as pope. Thus began the great schism. It
was, in reality, a struggle between France and Italy for the control of
the papacy. The former had enjoyed it for seventy years; the latter was
determined to recover it. The schism thus rested originally on political
considerations, but these were doubtless exasperated by the conduct of
Urban, whose course was overbearing and even intolerable to his
supporters. Nor did he amend as his position became more consolidated.
In A.D. 1385, suspecting his cardinals of an intention to seize him,
declare him a heretic, and burn him, he submitted several of them to
torture in his own presence, while he recited his breviary. Escaping
from Nocera, where he had been besieged, he caused the Bishop of Aquila
to be killed on the road-side. Others he tied in sacks, and threw into
the sea at Genoa. It was supposed, not without reason, that he was
insane.

[Sidenote: Pecuniary necessities of the rival popes.] If there had
formerly been pecuniary difficulty in supporting one papal court, it, of
course, became greater now that there were two. Such troubles, every day
increasing, led at length to unhappy political movements. There was an
absolute necessity for drawing money to Rome and also to Avignon. The
device of a jubilee was too transitory and inadequate, even though, by
an improvement in the theory of that festival, it was expedited by
thirty-three years, answering to our Saviour's life. At Avignon, the
difficulty of Clement, who was of amiable and polished manners, turned
on the French Church being obliged to support him; and it is not to be
wondered at that the French clergy looked with dislike on the pontifical
establishment among them, since it was driven by its necessities to prey
on all their best benefices. [Sidenote: Organization of simony.] Under
such circumstances, no other course was possible to the rival popes and
their successors than a thorough reorganization of the papal financial
system--the more complete development of simony, indulgences, and other
improper sources of emolument. In this manner Boniface IX. tripled the
value of the annates upon the papal books. Usurers or brokers,
intervening between the purchasers of benefices and the papal exchequer,
were established, and it is said