Records: the Ruin and Rise of Rome

## **The French Effect in Italy**

The Italians had largely been chafing under French popes: the French didn't understand the Italians and the Benefices governing Italian provinces was counter to the ways that worked for the locals.
No place was this more apparent than in Rome itself, where the Vatican resided and had been the home of the Church until 70 years prior when it had been moved to Avignon. The argument had been advanced in Paris that "Rome is where the Pope is," in promoting a continued French papacy, but the rest of actual Rome disagreed.
By the late 14th century, the corruption in the Church was endemic across its reach as they attempted to codify and expand religious rule. Some might describe it as late medieval co-dependence, but there was a certain comfort to some in having the Church play the role of regal temporal leadership. It was even understandable when the temporal leadership was so dysfunctional itself.
The last several decades, however, had sent the Church's temporal leadership down the same path of preservation of power for power's sake, with the argument that the ends justified the means. No place was that more apparent than in the acceptance of the strategies of Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who as legate was struggling to maintain the Papal States of Northern Italy (led by Florence), and who showed his true, bloody colors during the War of the Eight Saints .

### **One Death Begets Many More**

The death of Pope Gregory XI , a French pope, happend shortly after moving the Curia from Avignon back to Rome. The French had zero love for the Italians and the feeling was mutual, but the Vatican was in Rome and that was the traditional seat of the Catholic Church.
If Gregory's death had happened just a little later, the mostly-French College of the Cardinals would've likely been forced by regional pressure to pick someone who was at least Italian (if not Roman). As it were, the College set out to show the local rabble that God's Will was not to be trifled with and they elected the person who could embody that stern posture: none other than Cardinal Robert of Geneva, the *butcher of Cesena.*
Rome itself was already a powderkeg with long-standing discontent, but there was a new set of unfortunately-timed local factors. English money had fed Florence's resurgence against Robert, vernacular bibles were now circulating in Roman Italian rather than Vulgate Latin (and England was behind that), and English Lollardy was spreading protestant calls for reform across all Europe.
These factors weighed heavily on Pope Gregory, with the stress perhaps leading to stroke. Those factors continued to weigh on the newly-elected Pope Clement VII, who was no more Christian after his coronation than he was before.
With what was effectively another Avignon Pope, the populace rioted. The now-Pope responded the same way he had against Cesena: *let God sort them out*. By the time the extermination reached 6,000 civilians, the now-civil war broke through Vatican defenses to inflict like-wounds against the French Pope and the mostly-French College of the Cardinals.

### **Timing is Everything**

One person single-handedly stopped the mob from burning down the Vatican: **Bartolomeo Prignano**, a devout monk and former Archbishop of Acerenza who'd recently been made Archbishop of Bari in the deep south of the Kingdom of Naples.
Prignano was without *famiglia* in an age of nepotism, nor was he Roman, but his performance in shaming both the mob and the Cardinals into peaceful submission earned him early consideration of sainthood – and that was all the combined sides needed for a consensus on a new Pope.
Prignano, like Gregory, intially declined the nomination. He'd come to Rome to make his own case for significant Church reform – and cited the English *Jesuit* movement as "inspired." An *epiphany*, one might say. Instead of distancing him from the role, that endeared him to the Romans. Further, he was born in Itri, a *comune* in the province of Latina, Lazio, just a little south of Rome (especially when measured against the distance and direction to Avignon).
That Prignano had stopped the mob before they could kill *all* the Frenchmen, not to mention that he was a learned casuist, *trained at Avignon*, and from friendly Naples, the surviving few of the College of Cardinals saw divine providence in the arrival of the reformer.
Prignano was elected Pope Urban VI and went through his coronation with a joyful Rome behind him. The Western Schism that had been threatening to open up a new front of warfare across Europe – *never came to pass*. At least not in its original form.

## **First Reforms**

Most pressing, as the dead were buried and mourned, was the matter of what to do with the embarassment of the brief, bloody rule of Pope Clement VII. Catherine of Siena, in a moment of brutal honestly, called the recently-lynched cardinals "devils in human form." Their election of Clement was with full knowledge of what he was going to do in Rome. The massacre itself seemed biblical, further earning Clement the new designation of "the Antichrist."
With dignity, grace and charm, Pope Urban ordered that the business of the Curia should be carried on without gratuities and gifts, forbidding the cardinals to accept annuities from rulers and other lay persons, condemning the luxury of their lives and retinues, and the multiplication of benefices and bishoprics in their hands.
Nor would he remove again to Avignon, thus alienating King Charles V of France.
Most importantly, though, Pope Urban cited the election of Clement not as a divine lesson plan, but rather a divine reveal that the Infallibility of the Church *was not valid*. The Church was Christ's messenger, not Christ's embodiment. This was a seachange for religious tolerence and a step back toward's Christ's most important commandment: *love thy neighbor as thyself*.

### **The Jesuit Pope**

English Crown liaison John Wycliffe was summoned to Rome. He accepted the invitation and traveled.
The Jesuit concept was *radical* versus what the Catholic guidance was for daily life. There were points they needed to impart upon greater Christendom, but they had to start by reforming themselves first – and doing so in a way that didn't remove what benefits the Church was able to provide where it did have temporal power.
This was going to be a long and arduous transition, but they were at least on the right path. In order to smooth it out and speed it up, they were going to have to rely on a little flash: *miracles*. Pope Urban wasn't talking about the inclusion of magic, but he did want it close by to confirm its nature – and give it what blessing it deserved.
Rather, Urban was looking for the *Magic of the Holy Spirit*, the same force cited by Richard of Bordeaux as the healing force that facilitated the lives of the English Edwards.
That was not only possible, *it would happen*...

### **Behind the Scenes**

Prignano wound up in the same position, but took a very different route to get there and was a very different man when he arrived. The English contingent knew the original timeline and had moved to grant the future Pope a more comprehensive diplomatic toolset. In other words, there was indoctrination, education and training along the same lines as Richard, Edward and the rest of their now-expanded crew.

The idea had been to give Prignano a command of ettiquette and protocol, of deep psychological analysis, and a grasp of history and precedent that would work well with his learned casuist method. They instilled a masterful sense of diplomacy, reconciliatory forgiveness , divine grace and agape love – things that eluded him in the original timeline – *all to have their candidate not even considered when the events of the day unfolded differently*.

The plan, if it worked right, was to have Prignano-Urban gently disarm the French College of Cardinals, prevent the eventual election of Clement, and avoid the bloody schism that followed.

Instead, timing being what it was, caused a literal explosion of human behavior in Rome. From the massacre to Prignano's ability to salvage the situation spoke about the plasticity and variability of a now-loose timeline.