458

THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM 459
Volga River in Russia, the Syrian shore of the Mediterranean, and finally to Asia
Minor, where his sledgehammer blow fell upon Bayazid and his hitherto invincible
army at the Battle of Ankara July 28, 1402 and destroyed them. Bayazid was
captured and died in captivity; his empire was split up among his rival sons.l°7
Christendom had no military force capable of stopping Timur, but most
fortunately he now turned in the other direction, indeed to the other end of the
world, to undertake the conquest of China. But he was already 66 years old when
he won the Battle of Ankara, and he set out across the steppes of central Asia
toward China in the middle of the winter of 1405. Even the hardy Mongol nomads
under Timur's command had never known such cold. Men's breath froze on their
beards; ears and noses were lost to frostbite; snow clouds surged endlessly across
leaden skies. At Otrar on the Syr Darya River Timur stopped to rest, seeking to
warm himself with enormous fires and gallons of heated wine. His digestive tract
became inflamed; he could not eat; fever racked him until, in the words of a Muslim
chronicler who hated him, "the hand of death gave him the cup to drink ... and
drew forth his soul like a spit from a soaked fleece."1°e
Unwittingly Timur had spared the Byzantine empire for half a century; the sons
of Bayazid proved able to hold their father's conquests, but not to gain much more,
during that time. But it was only a reprieve; before the power of the Ottoman
infidel the city of Constantine was ultimately doomed.
When the anti-college of cardinals met at Avignon soon after Antipope Robert's
death, every member present swore to "pursue to the extent of his ability all useful
and apt ways for the utility and union of the Church, without tricks or excuses or
delays ... even if elected Pope; these ways extend even to his having to abdicate if
that should seem advisable to a majority of the present or future cardinals."" De
Luna had perforce taken this oath himself, with what mental reservation no man
knows. The next month he sent two envoys to Paris to explain that he had accepted
election to avoid breaking the Petrine succession, since allowing a new Pope to be
elected by "pseudo-cardinals" would mean that "the world would be set in
permanent error," and offering to accept any way of union proposed by Paris "as far
as he can do so with God and a clear conscience.""' To King Charles VI he wrote
directly, personally and with less equivocation:

Nicol, Last Centuries of Byzantium, pp. 319-320, 328; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, pp. 139-145, 216-217;
Fine, Late Medieval Balkans, pp. 499-500; Hilda Hookham, Tamburlaine the Conqueror (London, 1962), pp.
248-252 and passim. loeHookham, Tamburlaine, pp. 298-303 (quotation on p. 303).
lo9
Kaminsky, Cramaud and the Great Schism, p. 113. 1101bid., p. 115.
I give you notice of my promotion and at the same time I assure you
of my fixed and sincere desire of bringing the schism to an end. I have
made use of your good counsels, and of those of the princes your uncles,
that to you may belong all the glory of having rendered this great service
to the Church. To arrive at my object, I shall employ all reasonable and
possible means; but I beg you to despatch an important embassy to
Avignon at once. I will accept without any tergiversation everything
proposed by it. I would rather end my days in the desert or the cloister
than contribute in any way to prolong a state of disorder so prejudicial to
everyone.ll l
In St. Catherine of Siena's evocative words, he "lied up to his eyes." Within a
year Antipope de Luna had broken every promise so solemnly made in this letter.
In February 1395 a special assembly of prelates and jurists of the French
Church, later known as the First Council of Paris, meeting at St. Louis IX's glorious
Sainte-Chapelle, voted 87-22 to call for resignations by both papal claimants, with
de Luna required to give unconditional assent to this program and leave to the
French court and bishops the negotiations to obtain the concurrent resignation of
Pope Bonifazze IX. The only significant opposition was offered by Cardinal Pierre
d'Ailly, who preferred binding arbitration of the schism, with both Popes agreeing
in advance to accept the verdict of the arbiters. 112
To give the strongest possible endorsement to this program for ending the
schism drawn up by the Church assembly in Paris, the three actual leaders of the
French government (in view of the King's mental illness), his uncles the Dukes of
Berry and Burgundy and his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, went to Avignon in
June 1395 to convey it in person to de Luna. Their first demand was that he read
aloud before them the oath he had taken before his election at Avignon that, if
elected Pope, he would resign the office for the sake of Church union if the majority
of cardinals agreed. Here was the "important embassy to Avignon" de Luna had
asked for in his letter of the previous October to King Charles VI, in which he
pledged to "accept without any tergiversation everything proposed by it. -113
Tergiversation began immediately. Exasperated by de Luna's delaying tactics,
the Dukes called a meeting of his college of cardinals without his presence. Under
their pressure the college decided to work for the resignation of both Popes, with
only Martin de Salva, Cardinal of Navarra and a close friend of de Luna, dissenting.
Now the explicit condition of his conclave oath
"1Salembier, Great Schism, pp. 143-144.
11
zKaminsky, Cramatul and the Great Schism, pp. 120-138; Smith, Great Schism, pp. 158-159; Glasfurd,
Antipope, pp. 138-139.
113
Glasfurd, Antipope, pp. 139-142; Kaminsky, Cramaud and the Great Schism, pp. 140-141; see Note
111, above.