1330-1335: THE CHURCH'S STATE
"...By 1330, Pope John XXII had headed off the threat of Pietro Rainalducci's antipapacy, with the so-called Nicholas V arriving in Avignon to make his submission. He would spend the remaining years of his life a pensioner of the pontiff he'd tried to overthrow[1]. Having thus headed off one attempt to depose him on charges of heresy, John would then blithely march into another one within a year, giving several sermons in which he denied the Beatific Vision[2]. This began a lengthy controversey that would dog the last years of his papacy, especially as John refused to recant these statements, and indeed, privately even went further, suggesting for example, that Hell might not exist... His death in December of 1334 came as something to a relief to his fellows, especially as it was accompanied by a qualified recantation of his earlier statements...[3]
"The Papal Conclave of 1334 met with a goal of installing a pope more agreeable than the late one. Reportedly, the first choice of most of the conclave was the Cardinal Jean-Raymond de Comminges, provided he would swear not leave Avignon, which he refused[4]. An effort was then made to select the austere reformer and inquisitor Jacques Fornier, but ultimately failed to reach the necessary two-thirds majority[5]. In the end, the conclave selected the Cardinal Pierre de Mortmarte, whose enthusiastic sponsoring of abbeys and convents convinced the conclave of his suitability. The Cardinal, after some misgivings, accepted and became Pope Stephan XI[6], after his rank as cardinal priest of Saint Stefano al Monte Celio.
"Stephan's reign would begin with promise, but be cut short. Ending the increasingly pointless excommunication of Emperor Louis[7], threw himself into preparations for the coming crusade--only to die suddenly "of a fever" in late March of 1335[8]. And so the cardinals found themselves in a second conclave after only a few months.
"This time the conclave moved quickly, settling on their original first choice Cardinal de Comminges. There was no effort to extract pledges on their part, and on his part, Comminges could not help but perceive both the hand of God and perhaps a lost opportunity regained. And so Jean-Raymond would become Pope John XXIII[9], a choice that seems to reveal the new pontiff's deep lack of imagination more than anything else. That was, more than anything else, what the cardinals had sought in their choice--a man who would listen to them, and would not cause endless theological rifts as he sought to demonstrate his genius on the world's stage.
"As the cardinals would learn, this lack of imagination would not make John XXIII an easy pontiff. He was by most accounts a stocial man, a man not given to passions--Cardinal de Talleyrand famously declared 'a man without any blood at all.' The error the Cardinals made was to mistake this for docility. As John had already demonstrated, the new pope had a rather stiff sense of propriety--as he would later show, it was joined by a rather stiff sense of his own dignity. In the years ahead this would affect his dealings with a group of men just as proud--King John I of France, Edward Prince of Wales (later Edward III), the Emperor Louis IV and his son, Louis of Brandenburg; and of course, the most arrogant of them all, Philip the Proud, Duke of Berry and Count-Palatine of Burgundy..."
--The Babylonian Captivity; The Papacy in Avignon, Isabelle Dunois (1970)
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[1] This was Rainalducci's fate IOTL as well.
[2] Yes, John did this IOTL as well. His boundless intellectual arrogance was arguably his most likeable trait.
[3] John reportedly declared on his deathbed that souls in Heaven did perceive God 'in so far as they were able to'. Just let it wash over you.
[4] This allegedly happened IOTL as well.
[5] IOTL Benedict XII.
[6] Technically, this should probably be Pope Stephen X, but Stephen is one of the papal names with a confusing numbering scheme, caused by whether one counts a Pope-Elect.
[7] IOTL, Louis IV seems to have continued to labor under his excommunication.
[8] Cardinal de Montmartre died around this time IOTL.
[9] IOTL, the first John XXIII would be the famed 15th century antipope who was the first pope of the Great Schism unseated by the Council of Constance. That really put a keybosh on the name.
I did have a question, though - will Prince Edward face trouble from his own family on top of the Scotland Problem, the France Rivalry, and everything else on his plate? I know Edward II seems to be enjoying his retirement, taking up gardening and playing with his younger children, but what about Queen Maude? I know she was said to have been gentle and docile, but that was when she first came to England as a little girl. Now that she's older and a mother to a brood of fine children, might she be a bit resentful that she's been shunted off to be little more than a housewife? She is the anointed Queen of England, the daughter of the HRE, and yet she wields no influence, and seems to have been tossed aside. I'm guessing that since Prince Edward has taken his father's place, Princess Philippa has taken Maude's place as the highest lady in England in practice?
