Avignon Pope Clement VII
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- For the other Clement VII who was Pope from 1523 to 1534, see Pope Clement VII.
Robert of Geneva (1342 – 16 September 1394) was elected to the papacy as Pope Clement VII by the French cardinals who opposed Urban VI, and was the first Avignon antipope of the Western Schism.
He was the son of Amadeus III, Count of Geneva, of the House of Savoy, and was born in Geneva. He became the Bishop of Thérouanne in 1361, Archbishop of Cambrai in 1368, and a cardinal in 1371.
In 1377, while serving as a papal legate, he personally commanded troops lent to the papacy by the condottiere John Hawkwood to reduce the small city of Cesena in the territory of Forlì, which resisted being added to the Patrimony of Peter for the second time in a generation; there he oversaw the massacre of 4000 civilians, an atrocity even by the rules of war at the time, which earned him the nickname butcher of Cesena.
Robert of Geneva thus initiated the Western Schism, the second of the two periods sometimes referred to as the Great Schism, which lasted until 1417. Eventually it was determined that he would be recorded as an antipope rather than enumerated as a pope.
Uncertainty over who the legitimate pope might be during the time of the Western Schism gave rise to the legal theory called Conciliarism, which claimed that a general council of the Church was superior to the Pope and could therefore judge between rival claimants.
See also: other popes named Clement.de:Clemens VII. (Gegenpapst) es:Clemente VII (antipapa) fr:Clément VII (antipape) it:Antipapa Clemente VII nl:Tegenpaus Clemens VII pt:Antipapa Clemente VII sv:Clemens VII (motpåve)