Great Western Schism

A breach in the Western Church during which there were two, sometimes three, rival popes. Pope Gregory XI died shortly after returning the papacy to Rome from Avignon. At the subsequent conclave, Gregory's cardinals presented the church with two popes, each of whom it asserted was true, and a constitutional crisis that brought forth profound discussion of the meaning of unity, the place of the papacy in the church, and proposals for the reform and reordering of the church with significant implications for ecclesiology and political theory.