He was one of the seven cardinals who, in May 1408, deserted Pope Gregory XII, and, with those following Antipope Benedict XIII from Avignon, convened the Council of Pisa, of which Cossa became the leader.

John XXIII was acknowledged as pope by France, England, Bohemia, Prussia, Portugal, parts of the Holy Roman Empire, and numerous Northern Italian city states, including Florence and Venice ; however, the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII was regarded as pope by the Kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Scotland and Gregory XII was still favored by Ladislaus of Naples, Carlo I Malatesta, the princes of Bavaria, Louis III, Elector Palatine, and parts of Germany and Poland.

Pope Gregory XI's return to Rome in 1377, followed by his death and the controversial election of his successor, Pope Urban VI, resulted in the defection of a number of cardinals and the election of a rival pope based at Avignon in 1378.

In 1343 he had been sent to Pope Clement VI at Avignon to negotiate a grant of a tax on the revenues of the Church for the Crusade.

He returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. When the papacy returned to Rome from Avignon in 1367, Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations.

The papacy was moved to Avignon and all the contemporary popes were French, such as Philip IV's puppet Bertrand de Goth, Pope Clement V.

* 1409 – Western Schism: the Roman Catholic church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon.

* 1377 – Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon.

It was under these conditions that Pope Gregory XI, who in January, 1377, had gone from Avignon to Rome, sent on 22 May five copies of his bull against Wycliffe, dispatching one to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others to the Bishop of London, King Edward III, the Chancellor, and the university ; among the enclosures were 18 theses of his, which were denounced as erroneous and dangerous to Church and State.

Eventually, in 1309, Pope Clement V even left Rome and relocated to the French city of Avignon, beginning the era known as the Avignon Papacy ( or, more disparagingly, the " Babylonian captivity ").

During the period when the papacy resided in Avignon, France ( 1309 – 1377 ), the feudal lords ' power increased due to the absence of the Pope from Rome.

* 1328 – William of Ockham, Franciscan Minister-General Michael of Cesena and two other Franciscan leaders secretly leave Avignon, fearing a death sentence from Pope John XXII.

Owain's " Pennal Letter ", in which he promised Charles VI of France and Avignon Pope Benedict XIII to shift the allegiance of the Welsh Church from Rome to Avignon, produced no effect due to the commitment of his senior aides to the conflict.

Until the time of the Avignon Papacy, the residence of the Pope was the Lateran Palace, donated by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.

He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy.

Pope Benedict XII ( died 25 April 1342 ), born Jacques Fournier, the third of the Avignon Popes, was Pope from 1334 to 1342.

list of papal tombs | Pope Benedict XII's tomb, Avignon Cathedral | Cathédrale de Notre-Dame-des-Doms, Avignon

The validity of the dating methodology has subsequently been called into question, and the age of the shroud is still the subject of much debate despite the existence of a 1389 Memorandum by Bishop Pierre D ' Arcis to the Avignon Antipope Clement VII mentioning that the image had previously been denounced by his predecessor Henri de Poitiers ( Bishop of Troyes 1353-1370 ), stating " Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.

Benedict XI's successor, Clement V removed the papal seat from Rome to Avignon, inaugurating the period sometimes known as the Babylonian Captivity.

After the papacy had been removed to Avignon in 1309, Pope Clement V consented to a post-mortem trial by an ecclesiastical consistory at Groseau, near Avignon, which held preliminary examinations in August and September 1310.

During this time the Antipopes Clement VII and Benedict XIII continued to hold court as pope in Avignon under the protection of the French monarchy.

The remainder of Europe recognized the Avignon Pope Clement VII.

The day before Tomacelli's election by the fourteen cardinals who remained faithful to the papacy at Rome, Clement VII at Avignon had just crowned a French prince, Louis II of Anjou, as king of Naples.

The antipope Clement VII died at Avignon on 16 September 1394, but the French cardinals quickly elected a successor on 28 September: Cardinal Pedro de Luna, who took the name Benedict XIII.

Clement V had to yield to pressures for this extraordinary trial, begun on 2 February 1309 at Avignon, which dragged on for two years.

Among the other benefits, Clement took advantage of the situation to obtain by her the rights over the city of Avignon.

" Choiseul's suggestion, advanced to the other ambassadors, was that they should press, in addition to the Jesuit issue, territorial claims upon the Patrimony of Peter: the cession of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin to France ; to Spain the duchies of Benevento and Pontecorvo ; for Naples an extension of territory adjoining the Papal States ; and for Austria an immediate and final settlement of the vexed question of Parma and Piacenza that had occasioned a diplomatic rift with Pope Clement XIII.

By yielding the Papal claims to Parma, Clement obtained the restitution of Avignon and Benevento, and in general he succeeded in placing the relations of the spiritual and the temporal authorities on a friendlier footing.

With the encouragement of the French king, the cardinals returned to Avignon and in 1378 elected a French pope, the antipope Clement VII.

At the end of May 1379 Clement went to Avignon, where he was more than ever at the mercy of the king of France.

A Pope at Avignon, the successor of Clement VI, he was a native of the hamlet of Les Monts, Diocese of Limoges ( today part of the commune of Beyssac, département of Corrèze ), and, after having taught civil law at Toulouse, he became successively Bishop of Noyon and Bishop of Clermont.

* 1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the Butcher of Cesena, is elected as Avignon Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism.

* September 16 – Avignon Pope Clement VII ( b. 1342 )

Like his predecessor, Clement V, he centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon.

Regardless, on the strength of the donation of Avignon, Queen Joanna I of Sicily, as countess of Provence, sold the city to Clement VI for 80, 000 florins on 9 June 1348 and, though it was later the seat of more than one antipope, Avignon belonged to the Papacy until 1791, when, during the disorder of the French Revolution, it was reincorporated with France.

Humanism and its spirit of empirical enquiry, however, were making progress – but the papacy ( especially after Avignon ) and the empire ( Henry VII, the last hope of the white Guelphs, died near Siena in 1313 ) had lost much of their original prestige.

Pope Innocent VII ( probably1339 – 6 November 1406 ), born Cosimo de ' Migliorati, was briefly Pope at Rome between 1404 and 1406 during the period of the Western Schism ( 1378 – 1417 ) while there was a rival Pope, Antipope Benedict XIII, at Avignon.

For his services the king extorted various concessions from Innocent VII, among them the promise that he would not reach any accommodation with the rival Pope in Avignon that would compromise Ladislas ' claims to Naples, which had been challenged until very recently by Louis II of Anjou.

That suited Innocent VII, who had no intention of reaching an agreement with Avignon that would compromise his claims to the Papal States.

During the Great Schism ( 1378 – 1415 ) the antipopes Clement VII and Benedict XIII returned to reside at Avignon.

Clement VII lived in Avignon during his entire anti-pontificate, while Benedict XIII only lived there until 1403 when he was forced to flee to Aragon.

** Avignon Pope Clement VII ( d. 1394 )

* September 20 – Unhappy with Pope Urban's critical attitude towards them, the majority of the cardinals meet at Fondi and elect Clement VII as antipope and establish a rival papal court at Avignon.

He continued Aragon's support for the Pope of the Avignon line, Clement VII, in the Western Schism.

In 1378 Robert of Geneva was elected anti-Pope taking the style Clement VII, and he removed the tiara from Avignon.

When the Spaniard, Pedro de Luna, was elected anti-Pope in 1394 styling himself Benedict XIII, he took the tiara from Avignon to Spain, where it remained until Aphonso V of Aragon failed in his attempt to renew the schism, and on his withdrawal of support from the anti-Pope Clement VII in 1419, the tiara was returned to Rome ....

In July 1405 Chicheley began a diplomatic career by a mission to the new Roman Pope Innocent VII, who was professing his desire to end the schism in the papacy by resignation, if his French rival at Avignon would do likewise.

* Burns, C: ed., Calendar of papal letters to Scotland of Clement VII of Avignon, Scottish History Society, 4th ser., 12 ( 1976 )

Robert took the name Pope Clement VII and reestablished a papal court in Avignon.

The Western Schism ( 1378 – 1417 ), was a dispute between the legal elections of Pope Urban VI in Rome and Pope Clement VII in Avignon.

Blanchard was accused by d ' Ailly before the Avignon antipope Clement VII of abuse of office.

In 1308, with a more tractable new pope ( Clement VII ) in residence at Avignon, the king pardoned Saisset, and restored him to his see.