But the Gallic party, under the leadership of Robert of Geneva (who coveted the papal tiara for himself), was equally determined that the new pope should come from one of their number and rejected the Limousin candidates. “The French strongly declared that they would never consent to such an election: the Limousins must not think that they had rented the papacy because the last four popes had been of their nationality,” reported the official church record of these proceedings. The Italian cardinals, of course, wanted an Italian pope, but of the four, the two Romans, Cardinal Orsini and the cardinal of St. Peter, were judged too young and too old, respectively, for the job, and the other two cardinals were declared unsuitable as well because they represented Florence and Milan, cities that had opposed Gregory in the recent war.
Faced with this impasse, the cardinals sought a compromise candidate who was acceptable to a majority of the electors and whose qualifications also satisfied the chief restraint under which they labored: that is, unless the cardinals wanted to be torn to pieces by the crowd, the new pontiff had to be someone of Italian lineage. Even this was taking a risk as the angry citizenry had specifically requested a Roman pope, but the cardinals decided that it would not do to be seen as caving in too cravenly to the mob’s demands. As the cardinal of Limoges pointed out, “a Roman was asked for by the populace, therefore they could not have a Roman.”
Under this not inconsiderable constraint, the cardinals could find only one man to nominate who they believed was suited to the position and to the protection of their own interests: the archbishop of Bari. A Neapolitan by birth, the archbishop was a career administrator who had spent many years serving at the papal court in Avignon and was thus familiar with both the bureaucratic workings of the church and the habits and privileges of the Sacred College. Accustomed to dealing with the archbishop in a subservient position, the cardinals had found him to be competent but meek and rather toadying, which suited their purposes; best of all, “a long residence in Avignon had given him the opportunity of acquiring French manners, and ties of equal strength bound him to Italy and to France.”
The choice of a Neapolitan pope was no accident. The cardinals well understood the importance of Joanna’s support to the Holy See. An Italian papacy was simply not possible without the backing of the queen of Naples, which took the tangible form of Neapolitan money, troops, and diplomats. “He was by birth of the kingdom of Naples which was now ruled by Queen Joanna, a princess very devout and loyal to the Church,” read the official paper documenting these events. In choosing the archbishop of Bari, the Sacred College was making a bid to continue the partnership with Naples that had proven so advantageous to the church during the terms of the two previous popes. In this case, however, the desire for continuity with Naples was acute and transcended mere politics. Somebody was going to have to stand up to that unruly Roman mob when it discovered that the cardinals had not elected a Roman pope after all, and by choosing the archbishop of Bari, the electors more or less assured themselves that person would be the most powerful sovereign in the region.
So, although he was by no means anyone’s first choice, and would never have been even considered for the position if the election had taken place in Avignon, the archbishop of Bari was chosen as pope by a two-thirds majority on April 8, 1378. The speed with which his selection took place—the cardinals had only entered the conclave the day before—is an indication that this compromise had been haggled out in advance in the weeks before Gregory’s death. “It was common knowledge in Rome that, even before the cardinals had entered the conclave, they had in mind the Archbishop of Bari as future pope,” the official record noted.
Still, the cardinals, aware of the ugly mood of the crowd, were by no means anxious to inform the city of their decision and put off the announcement until after lunch, which had the added benefit of allowing them time to have the valuable tableware used at the meal transferred to a more protected location. However, when a door of the palace was unlocked to remove the plates, the crowd pushed its way in. Terrified, the other members of the Sacred College convinced the elderly cardinal of Saint Peter, a Roman, to pretend that he was the new pope in order to provide a diversion in the hopes that this would allow the remaining cardinals to make their escape. The masquerade worked: “He [the cardinal of Saint Peter] was placed on the papal throne and arrayed with the papal mitre and cope. The door of the conclave was opened and through this there entered a great crowd of people. Believing him to be the rightful pope, they paid homage to him. The cardinals… taking advantage of this, disappeared one by one from the palace under the cover of the general commotion.”
Once the electors were out of danger and securely barricaded in their fortified castles, the cardinal of Saint Peter informed the mob that the archbishop of Bari, not he, was pope. Perhaps because the news was broken by one of their own, the crowd accepted this decision and quieted down (although, deprived of the dinnerware, they “inflicted much damage on the papal food stores,” according to the bishop of Marseille, particularly, it was further reported, the wine cellar). Eventually, the archbishop of Bari, who was hiding in a locked room for fear of his life, emerged, and the city officials were informed. Content that an Italian had been named, the government approved the choice. The next day, assured of protection by the senator of Rome, all the cardinals reappeared at the palace, sang a Te Deum, draped the archbishop in the papal robes, and officially enthroned the new pope, who took the name Urban VI.
The ordeal of the conclave safely over, the cardinals must have congratulated themselves on the wiliness of their choice. Under cover of electing an Italian, they had actually chosen someone as close to a Frenchman as it was possible to be without having in fact been born in France, someone who understood their backgrounds and lofty positions, and who for years had played by the same rules they did. Moreover, by raising the archbishop to an honor he could not have hoped to aspire to under any other scenario, they could be confident of his lifelong gratitude and corresponding solicitude. He was one of their own.
Except he wasn’t.
At first, there was no inkling of a problem. The citizenry of Naples, proud to have one of their countrymen raised to the highest office in Christendom, celebrated by illuminating the capital city far into the night in honor of the new pope. Joanna, no less pleased, at once dispatched Otto of Brunswick at the head of a high-ranking royal embassy to Rome to convey her private felicity and to offer official congratulations. That the queen of Naples knew the pope personally is confirmed by a letter written four days after the papal election by the ambassador of Mantua, an eyewitness to events in Rome, in which he stated that Urban VI “is on very friendly terms with the Queen of Naples.” This observation was additionally supported by the large number of Joanna’s courtiers who were subsequently appointed to the papal court—not only Spinelli, who served as a member of the pope’s private council, but also, according to a May 10 letter, some of her most important and intimate vassals, such as Niccolò Orsini—and Tommaso Sanseverino, who were appointed as grand marshal and the senator of Rome, respectively. Other Neapolitans among the queen’s close acquaintance were also recruited for positions of power in Urban’s private household and in the papal treasury.
But soon the volatile and highly unpleasant character of the new pope began to make itself known. In a position that called for nuance, sophistication and diplomacy, the cardinals began to realize that they had placed a crude, obsessive, domineering political neophyte prone to incoherent ravings and violent rages. Urban VI is “considered, both by the majority of contemporary chronicles and by most later historians, one of the most arbitrary and, indeed, insane of all the popes… usually described as capricious, arbitrary, deceitful, distrustful, nepotistic and vengeful, even by his defenders.” Apparently, during his years of humble servitude in Avignon, the new pope had quietly nursed a number of grievances against his employers, principally directed at the lordly pretensions and opulent manner of living adopted by members of the Curia. R
ighteous indignation and a burning desire to reform what he considered to be a corrupt style of living now burst out of him, much of it directed at the cardinals. So incensed did the pope become with the cardinal of Limoges during consistory, for example, that he launched himself bodily at his unsuspecting colleague and would have struck him to the ground had not Robert of Geneva intervened, stepping quickly between the two and confronting the pope with incredulity: “Holy Father, what are you doing?” Urban particularly singled out the cardinal of Amiens, who was not in Rome at the time of Gregory’s death, and so had not participated in the election, as an object of abuse, accusing him repeatedly of accepting bribes and engaging in treason. The cardinal of Amiens, whose lineage was far superior to that of the new pontiff, retorted: “I cannot answer you back now that you are pope; but if you were still the little Archbishop of Bari—Archiepiscopellus Barensis—as you were only a few days ago, I would say that this Archiepiscopellus lies in his throat.” When the cardinal of Milan, previously a very distinguished doctor of canon law at the University of Naples, and one of the mildest and most reasonable of the members of the Sacred College, objected to one of Urban’s pronouncements by explaining quietly, “Holy Father, there can be no lawful excommunication unless you have warned the guilty person three times beforehand,” Urban shouted back, “I can do everything—and so I will and decree it.”
Urban’s provocative behavior extended well beyond his relations with the papal court. In a bit of discourtesy that underscored the depth of the pope’s ignorance, or perhaps simply his willful rejection of political realities, Urban made a point of insulting Otto of Brunswick, and indeed the entire Neapolitan delegation sent by Joanna to congratulate him on his elevation to the papal throne. The duke of Brunswick, as befit his status as the consort of the queen of Naples, was given the high chivalric honor of cupbearer at his first meeting with the new pope, a position requiring him to remain on his knees while offering wine to the pontiff. Urban deliberately ignored him, forcing Otto to remain in this humiliating posture, futilely trying to serve the wine in front of the entire assembly, until finally one of the cardinals intervened, saying, “Your Holiness, it is time to drink.” When Otto, seconded by Spinelli, later relayed a petition from the queen in which she asked to be given extra time in which to gather the proceeds of the annual tribute (since she had donated so much to Gregory’s war effort the previous year), Urban directed his explosive wrath at Joanna. As recorded by a chronicler, the pope not only denied her request but also “threatened to use his power over her and to place her in a nunnery and confiscate all of her goods.” This refrain was repeated at a subsequent audience with Otto and the other Neapolitan representatives, at which Urban informed the duke of Brunswick that the kingdom of Naples ought not to be ruled by a woman and that he intended to depose Joanna and give her realm to a son of the king of France, or perhaps to his own nephew, who was later described by Robert of Geneva as “a thoroughly worthless and immoral man.” (Urban might rail incessantly against the sin of simony, but nepotism was another matter entirely.) “To lessen the effect of this startling news upon the legation which had come to congratulate him, the pope suggested that the queen should voluntarily enter a nunnery.”
The coup de grâce, however, occurred on May 23, 1378, at a dinner given at the papal palace, when Urban tried to publicly demean Niccolò Spinelli by requiring him to give up the seat assigned to him at the table and move to an inferior place. “In a dignified manner the seneschal left his seat, approached the pope and said that he had been sitting there by the arrangement of the master of ceremonies, and added that he had always occupied the same seat in the reign of Urban V and Gregory XI, who had known how to treat the seneschal and chancellor of the queen. Thereupon the Neapolitan embassy left the hall and returned to Naples.”
Despite the new pope’s overt hostility, neither Joanna nor her infuriated ambassadors, newly returned from Rome, would likely have taken seriously Urban’s threat to depose the queen and force her, voluntarily or otherwise, into a nunnery. At fifty-two, with more than a quarter century of experience behind her, Joanna was at the peak of her powers. The reach and breadth of her rule was astonishing. The queen was involved, often in the most meticulous fashion, in every aspect of the administration of her realm. The inhabitants of the smallest village in Naples could not secure the services of a local doctor without first applying to the queen and receiving her approval of their choice. No new product could be brought to market or the time or place of a market day changed without her sanction; no policy or edict implemented unless it bore her seal. Where other rulers, like her cousin Louis the Great, found government tedious, Joanna reveled in it and did her best to adjudicate disputes knowledgeably and with a fairness that accounts in large part for her long success. The queen would rise in the morning, hear Mass in her private chapel, and then throw herself fully into her work, mastering details like those included in this letter pertaining to the importation of wine in Provence:
We, Joanna, by the grace of God queen of Jerusalem and Sicily, of the duchy of Apulia and of the principality of Capua, countess of Provence, Forcalquier, and Piedmont, to the seneschals of our counties of Provence and Forcalquier or to their lieutenants and to the viguiers of the castle or locality of Tarascon in the aforesaid counties [and to all] our faithful present and future, grace and good will.
It is our aim and intention unremittingly to protect in a maternal manner the interests of our subjects and as best we can to reduce their expenses through our sovereign love. Now a respectful petition on behalf of the community of the citizens of the said locality of Tarascon, our faithful, recently made to Our Sublimity by their special ambassadors and messengers sent to our court, stated that although the said locality of Tarascon is so well supplied with vineyards that the wine coming from them is quite sufficient for the use of the petitioners, yet it often happens that some inhabitants of the said locality and others, outsiders, carry and have carried wine to that locality from outside; and they consume it not only for their own use but also by offering it for sale. As a consequence of this, citizens there who have surplus wine cannot sell it, and the foreign wine is sold, from which the mentioned petitioners draw no profit. And because of this Our Majesty was humbly entreated on behalf of the petitioners that we should be good enough… to take action with them on this matter, and to order that the import and sale in the aforesaid locality of wine coming from outside the territory and district of the said locality of Tarascon be forbidden.
We, then, being eager through our sovereign love [to promote] the profit and advantage of our faithful… consented to these supplications presented to us, as follows: We thought it fit… out of our certain knowledge and special grace, to grant… to the same community and citizens that so long as it pleases us no wine may be or is permitted to be imported or sent into the said locality of Tarascon by any outsider, of whatever status and condition he be, for sale or merely for his own consumption, exception being made only for citizens and inhabitants of the said locality who own vineyards outside the territory of the aforesaid locality. And this wine coming from vineyards which the latter have and own outside the territory of the said castle they may send into the said castle, and sell, or convert to their use at their will, provided that whenever it will seem expedient, fit, or opportune, a certain suitable tax on the sale of wine—especially retail [sale]—may be imposed and ought to be imposed by the aforesaid council…
Issued in Aversa by the magnificent man Ligurio Zurullo of Naples, knight, logothete, and protonotary of the kingdom of Sicily, our relative councilor, and beloved faithful of ours, in the year of the Lord 1377, December 14, first indiction, thirty-fifth year of our reign.
This was not the letter of a woman who was ready to give up her rule.
The queen had had rocky beginnings with pontiffs in the past and had still managed to forge enduring relationships over time. She understood, if Urban did not, that he would need her help if he hoped to remain in Rome
. This fact was brought home to the pope when later that summer he was forced to appeal to the queen of Naples for troops to guard him against Breton and Gascon mercenaries hired by his enemies. Luckily for him, she had not taken his advice and retreated to a monastery and so was able to send him two hundred lances and one hundred Neapolitan foot soldiers in July to protect his person.
The cardinals, who bore the full force of Urban’s behavior, were not as tolerant, however, particularly as the pope did not limit his ravings to insults but began very soon to issue decrees aimed at reforming their opulent lifestyles. One of his first acts was to forbid the members of the Sacred College from taking money or goods offered as presents by those seeking to influence the workings of the church, a measure that severely threatened the cardinals’ interests, as it struck at the source of much of their wealth. But when Urban ordered that his colleagues’ meals be limited to a single course, a majority of the cardinals agreed that he had gone too far and began to look for a way out of their predicament.
Their first thought was to amend the situation by a change of locale. Dietrich of Nieheim, a firsthand observer to these events, reported that “the Cardinals came to the conclusion that the sudden elevation to the supreme dignity had completely turned his [Urban’s] head,” and that this troublesome condition might be remedied by a return to the intimidating, luxurious surroundings at Avignon (where they much preferred to live in any event). But Urban had no intention of leaving Rome and rejected their petition. Frustrated, many of the cardinals, using the heat as a pretext, slipped away from Rome and reassembled at Agnani to plot. By June 21, 1378, all the cardinals, with the exception of the four Italians, had deserted Urban and joined their co-conspirators at Agnani.
The Lady Queen Page 35