Clement VII. (counterpope)

--- CONTENT ---
Pope Clement VII. (* 1342 in Annecy as Robert Count of Geneva, son of Amadeus III, Count of Geneva; † 16 September 1394 in Avignon) was elected antipope at Fondi on 20 September 1378 by the French and several Italian cardinals and was the opponent of Pope Urban VI.

Clerical Career
First Canon in Paris Robert Count of Geneva 1359 Apostolic Protonotar, 1361 Bishop of Thérouanne, 1368 Bishop of Cambrai and on 30. May 1371 raised by Pope Gregory XI to cardinal with the title Church of Santi XII Apostoli. He also appointed him to the legate in Upper Italy in 1376–1378 in order to crush the anti-pope and anti-French uprisings there. Here he was characterized by extraordinary brutality, which finally - together with the carnage of Cesena ordered by Gregory - forced Gregory, who had only returned to Rome from Avignon in 1377, to flee to Anagni. After the massacre of some 4,000 citizens of the city of Cesena, Robert of Geneva was called only the “Executor of Cesena”.

Pontificate: Antipope and Schism
After the election of Urban VI under “controversial” circumstances – during the conclave, Romans invaded the Vatican and demanded a Roman as pope – the cardinals present first elected Bartolomeo Prignano as pope. Urban VI, as he called himself afterwards, disappointed the expectations of the cardinals. First, he categorically refused to return to Avignon and publicly rebuked the cardinals for this request. Second, he appointed twenty-nine new cardinals, only three of whom were French. Thus he broke the French dominance in the College of Cardinals. Thirteen cardinals—the French, several Italian, and Cardinal Robert of Geneva—left Rome angrily and traveled to Fondi. In the summer of 1378 the Aragonese Cardinal Pedro de Luna came to Fondi. De Luna was to become his successor after the death of Pope Clement as Benedict XIII. In Fondi, the now fourteen cardinals, supported by Charles V, by France and protected by French mercenaries, elected Robert of Geneva pope on September 20, 1378. He called himself Clement VII. In addition, the cardinals wrote a statement saying that they were forced to elect Pope Urban at the time. However, the exact details of the electoral process can no longer be reconstructed today despite various sources due to the subjectivity of the authors.

This led to the great Western schism, which lasted until the Council of Constance in 1417. After the Engelsburg had fallen to Urban on 28 April 1379, Clemens had to flee from Italy to safe Avignon. Clemens was initially mainly recognized by France, but this was not due to the fact that the Pope was in France. The city was then legally part of the Holy Roman Empire and was subject to the Counts of Provence, who