Raiding Saint Peter : empty sees, violence, and the initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378) / / by Joëlle Rollo-Koster.

• Superior document: Brill's series in church history, v. 32
• Author: Rollo-Koster, Joëlle.
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's series in church history ; d. 32.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (278 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Throughout the European Middle Ages, the death of high-ranking prelates was usually interwoven with violent practices. During Empty Sees, mobs ransacked bishops’ and popes’ properties to loot their movable goods. Eventually, in the later Middle Ages, they also plundered the goods of newly-elected popes, and the cells of the Conclave. This book follows and analyzes the history of this violence, using a methodology akin to cultural anthropology, with concepts such as liminal periodization. It contends that pillaging was attached to ecclesiastical interregna, and the nature of ecclesiastical elections contributed to a pillaging ‘problem.’ This approach allows for a fresh reading and re-contextualization of one of the greatest political crises of the later Middle Ages, the Great Western Schism.

Table of Contents

The empty see -- Empty see governance and the papal electoral system -- The liturgy of the empty see -- Looting, charity, and liturgy -- The empty see as liminal phenomenon -- Looting the empty see : the early chronology -- Introducing spolia: the connection with the ancient -- Early spoils : historiography -- Evidence -- Right of spoil -- Looting the empty see : the Great Western Schism (1378) -- Rome 1378 : quick historiography -- Rome 1378 : background -- Rome 1378 : "Romanum volumus papam vel omnes moriemini!" -- Conclusion : more loot.