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Pope Boniface IX
Pope Boniface IX
Pope Boniface IX
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Pope Boniface IX
Reference styleHis Holiness
Spoken styleYour Holiness
Religious styleHoly Father
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Pope Boniface IX (Latin: Bonifatius IX; Italian: Bonifacio IX; c. 1350 – 1 October 1404, born Pietro Tomacelli Cybo[1]) was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death, in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope during the Western Schism.[2] In this time, the Avignon claimants, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, maintained the Roman Curia in Avignon, under the protection of the French monarchy. He is the last pope to date to take on the pontifical name "Boniface".

Early life

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Born c. 1350 in Naples, Pietro (also Piero or Perino) Tomacelli Cybo was son of Baron Giacomo Tomacelli and Verdella Caracciolo, feudataries of Casarano and nearby Casaranello, from noble neapolitan families, and a descendant of Tamaso Cybo, who belonged to an influential noble family from Genoa and settled in Casarano in the Kingdom of Naples. He was baptized in the paleochristian church of Santa Maria della Croce (the church of Casaranello). An unsympathetic German contemporary source, Dietrich of Nieheim, asserted that he was illiterate (nesciens scribere etiam male cantabat). Neither a trained theologian nor skilled in the business of the Curia, he was tactful and prudent in a difficult era, but Ludwig Pastor, who passes swiftly over his pontificate, says, "The numerous endeavours for unity made during this period form one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Church. Neither pope had the magnanimity to put an end to the terrible state of affairs" by resigning.[3] After his election at the papal conclave of 1389, Germany, England, Hungary, Poland, and the greater part of Italy accepted him as pope. The remainder of Europe recognized the Avignon Pope Clement VII. He and Boniface mutually excommunicated each other.[4]

The day before Tomacelli's election by the fourteen cardinals who remained faithful to the papacy at Rome,[2] Clement VII at Avignon had just crowned a French prince, Louis II of Anjou, as king of Naples. The youthful Ladislaus was the son of King Charles III of Naples, assassinated in 1386, and Margaret of Durazzo, scion of a line that had traditionally supported the popes in their struggles in Rome with the anti-papal party in the city itself. Boniface IX saw to it that Ladislaus was crowned King of Naples at Gaeta on 29 May 1390 and worked with him for the next decade to expel the Angevin forces from southern Italy.[4]

Pontificate

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Map showing support for Avignon (red) and Rome (blue) during the Western Schism

During his reign, Boniface IX finally extinguished the troublesome independence of the commune of Rome and established temporal control, though it required fortifying not only the Castel Sant'Angelo, but the bridges also, and for long seasons he was forced to live in more peaceful surroundings at Assisi or Perugia. He also took over the port of Ostia from its Cardinal Bishop. In the Papal States, Boniface IX gradually regained control of the chief castles and cities, and he re-founded the States as they would appear during the fifteenth century.[5]

The antipope Clement VII died at Avignon on 16 September 1394, but the French cardinals quickly elected a successor on 28 September: Cardinal Pedro de Luna, who took the name Benedict XIII. Over the next few years, Boniface IX was entreated to abdicate, even by his strongest supporters: King Richard II of England (in 1396), the Diet of Frankfurt (in 1397), and King Wenceslaus of Germany (at Reims, 1398). He refused. Pressure for an ecumenical council also grew as the only way to breach the Western Schism, but the conciliar movement made no headway during Boniface's papacy.[4]

During the reign of Boniface IX two jubilees were celebrated at Rome. The first, in 1390, had been declared by his predecessor, Urban VI, and was largely frequented by people from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and England. Several cities of Germany obtained the "privileges of the jubilee", as indulgences were called, but the preaching of indulgences led to abuses and scandal. The jubilee of 1400 drew to Rome great crowds of pilgrims, particularly from France, in spite of a disastrous plague. Pope Boniface IX remained in the city nonetheless.[4]

In the latter part of 1399 there arose bands of flagellants, known as the Bianchi, or Albati ("White Penitents"), especially in Provence, where the Albigenses had been exterminated less than a century before. Their numbers spread to Spain and northern Italy. These evoked uneasy memories of the mass processions of wandering flagellants of the Black Death period, 1348–1349. They went in procession from city to city, clad in white garments, with faces hooded, and wearing on their backs a red cross, following a leader who carried a large cross. Rumors of imminent divine judgement and visions of the Virgin Mary abounded. They sang the newly popular hymn Stabat Mater during their processions. For a while, as the White Penitents approached Rome, gaining adherents along the way, Boniface IX and the Curia supported their penitential enthusiasm, but when they reached Rome, Boniface IX had their leader burnt at the stake, and they soon dispersed. "Boniface IX gradually discountenanced these wandering crowds, an easy prey of agitators and conspirators, and finally dissolved them", as the Catholic Encyclopedia reports.[4]

In England, the anti-papal preaching of John Wyclif supported the opposition of the king and the higher clergy to Boniface IX's habit of granting English benefices as they fell vacant to favorites in the Roman Curia. Boniface IX introduced a revenue known as annates perpetuæ, withholding half the first year's income of every benefice granted in the Roman Court. The pope's agents also now sold not simply a vacant benefice but the expectation of one; and when an expectation had been sold, if another offered a larger sum for it, the pope voided the first sale. The unsympathetic observer Dietrich von Nieheim reports that he saw the same benefice sold several times in one week, and that the Pope talked business with his secretaries during Mass. There was resistance in England, the staunchest supporter of the Roman papacy during the Schism: the English Parliament confirmed and extended the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire of Edward III, giving the king veto power over papal appointments in England. Boniface IX was defeated in the face of a unified front, and the long controversy was finally settled to the English king's satisfaction. Nevertheless, at the Synod of London (1396), the English bishops convened to condemn Wyclif.[4]

Bulla of Boniface IX

In Germany, the prince-electors met at Rhense on 20 August 1400 to depose Wenceslaus as King of Germany and chose in his place Rupert, Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine. In 1403 Boniface IX recognized Rupert as king.[5]

In 1398 and 1399, Boniface IX appealed to Christian Europe in favor of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, threatened at Constantinople by Sultan Bayezid I, but there was little enthusiasm for a new crusade at such a time. Saint Bridget of Sweden was canonized by Pope Boniface IX on 7 October 1391. The universities of Ferrara (1391)[5] and Fermo (1398) owe him their origin, and that of Erfurt (in Germany), its confirmation (1392).[4]

Coin depicting Pope Boniface IX, Bode Museum, Berlin

Boniface IX died on 1 October 1404 after a brief illness.[4]

Boniface IX was a frank politician, strapped for cash like the other princes of Europe, as the costs of modern warfare rose and supporters needed to be encouraged by gifts, for fourteenth-century government depended upon such personal support as a temporal ruler could gather and retain. All the princes of the late 14th century were accused of avaricious money-grubbing by contemporary critics, but among them contemporaries ranked Boniface IX as exceptional. Traffic in benefices, the sale of dispensations, and the like, did not cover the loss of local sources of revenue in the long absence of the papacy from Rome, foreign revenue diminished by the schism, expenses for the pacification and fortification of Rome, the constant wars made necessary by French ambition and the piecemeal reconquest of the Papal States. Boniface IX certainly provided generously for his mother, his brothers Andrea and Giovanni, and his nephews in the spirit of the day. The Curia was perhaps equally responsible for new financial methods that were destined in the next century to arouse bitter feelings against Rome, particularly in Germany.[4]

See also

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References

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Bibliography

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Pope Boniface IX

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Pope Boniface IX, born Pietro Tomacelli (c. 1350 – 1 October 1404), was the 203rd pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from his election on 2 November 1389 until his death. A Neapolitan of modest baronial origins, he had been appointed cardinal-deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro by Urban VI in 1381 and later cardinal-priest of Sant'Anastasia before succeeding as the second pope of the Roman obedience amid the Western Schism. His papacy occurred entirely within the Great Western Schism (1378–1417), during which he defended the legitimacy of the Roman line against rival claimants in Avignon, excommunicating Clement VII and rejecting proposals for simultaneous abdications by both popes as a means to unity. Boniface prioritized reclaiming and fortifying the Papal States, gradually restoring control over major cities and strongholds while extinguishing Rome's municipal independence by 1398, thereby establishing the territorial foundations that persisted into the Renaissance era. To fund these military and restorative efforts—necessitated by the schism's drain on resources and allegiance—he introduced fiscal mechanisms like perpetual annates, expanded the sale of indulgences and dispensations, and trafficked in benefices, actions that sustained papal operations but provoked widespread accusations of simony, nepotism, and avarice from contemporaries. Politically astute, he allied with Ladislaus of Naples, crowning him king at Gaeta in 1390 to counter French influence and secure southern Italian support, though these maneuvers failed to resolve the schism or fully stabilize the church's fractured authority. Boniface died suddenly in Rome after a brief illness from kidney stones, leaving a legacy of pragmatic state-building overshadowed by the era's divisions and ethical critiques of his revenue strategies.

Early Life and Ecclesiastical Career

Origins and Family Background

Pietro Tomacelli, who would later become Pope Boniface IX, was born circa 1350 in Casaranello, within the Archdiocese of in the Kingdom of . This region, under Angevin rule during his early life, was marked by feudal structures and noble lineages tied to local landholdings. Tomacelli originated from an ancient baronial family of , renowned for its nobility but economically diminished by the , lacking the wealth of more prominent contemporaneous houses. The family's status afforded entry into ecclesiastical circles, yet its impoverishment underscored the challenges faced by lesser nobility in amid political instability and economic pressures following the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. No definitive contemporary accounts detail his parents or siblings, though genealogical traditions later associate the Tomacelli with feudal ties to areas like Casarano, reflecting broader patterns of Neapolitan aristocratic fragmentation.

Path to Prominence in the Church

Pietro Tomacelli was born around 1350 in Casaranello, a locality in the Archdiocese of Naples, into an ancient but impoverished Neapolitan baronial family. Little documentation exists regarding his early education or initial ecclesiastical roles, with contemporary accounts noting his deficiency in formal theological training and experience in curial administration. Despite these limitations, his advancement appears to have stemmed from personal qualities such as modesty and prudence, which impressed Pope Urban VI. On December 21, 1381, Urban VI elevated Tomacelli to the cardinalate, appointing him cardinal-deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro, possibly following a prior role as . This rapid promotion at approximately age 31 highlighted his alignment with Urban's Roman obedience during the early , leveraging Neapolitan ties in a period when papal loyalty was paramount. In May 1385, he was further advanced to cardinal-priest of Sant'Anastasia, solidifying his position among the curia's senior members. Tomacelli's rise reflected the exigencies of the , where Urban VI prioritized reliable supporters over extensive scholarly credentials, enabling his selection as pope on November 2, 1389, upon Urban's death. His pre-papal career, spanning less than eight years in the cardinalate, underscored a trajectory dependent on direct papal favor rather than broad institutional experience.

Papal Amid the Western Schism

Succession After Urban VI

Upon the death of Pope Urban VI on October 15, 1389, reportedly from injuries sustained in a fall though rumors of poisoning circulated, the fourteen cardinals adhering to the Roman obedience promptly organized a conclave to select his successor, aiming to maintain continuity in the face of the Western Schism. These cardinals, having endured Urban's contentious pontificate marked by internal divisions and conflicts with secular powers, prioritized a candidate capable of bolstering the Roman claim against the Avignon antipope Clement VII, who had been elected in 1378 and whose supporters hoped French diplomatic pressure under King Charles VI might sway the Roman electors toward submission or unification. The conclave, held in , resulted in the election of Cardinal Pietro Tomacelli on , 1389; he immediately took the papal name Boniface IX. Tomacelli, originating from a modest Neapolitan family and born around 1355, had risen through ecclesiastical ranks, receiving his cardinal's hat as priest of San Ciriaco in Thermis from Urban VI himself in December 1385, positioning him as a relatively junior but trusted figure within the . This swift succession—spanning less than three weeks—reflected the urgency to stabilize papal authority in , where the Roman line's legitimacy rested on the 1378 election of Urban VI, contested by adherents but defended by the Roman cardinals as valid despite the schism's dual papal claims. Boniface IX's elevation perpetuated the schism, as Clement VII in refused recognition, leading to divided allegiances among European monarchs and states; for instance, , the , and much of backed the Roman pontiff, while , , and aligned with Avignon. The new pope's Neapolitan origins, tied to the Kingdom of under Angevin rule sympathetic to Rome, further entrenched regional support but also invited scrutiny over potential favoritism in curial appointments. No immediate efforts at reconciliation emerged from the succession, setting the stage for Boniface's pontificate focused on consolidating power rather than bridging the divide.

Election Process and Initial Legitimacy Claims

Following the death of Pope Urban VI on October 15, 1389, the College of Cardinals loyal to the Roman obedience convened a conclave in Rome to elect his successor amid the ongoing Western Schism. The conclave commenced on October 25, 1389, involving the 14 cardinals who had remained faithful to Urban VI's line, a group diminished by deaths, defections, and the schism's divisions. This assembly proceeded without the procedural delays or external pressures that had marred prior elections, reflecting the urgency to maintain continuity in the Roman claim to the papacy. On November 2, 1389, the cardinals unanimously selected Pietro Tomacelli, the Archbishop of (born c. 1350 from a noble Neapolitan family), as ; he adopted the name Boniface IX. Tomacelli, elevated to the cardinalate by Urban VI in 1383, lacked extensive prior prominence but was viewed as a conciliatory figure compared to his predecessor's temperament. The election adhered to canonical norms of the era, requiring a two-thirds among the electors, though the small number of participants ensured swift consensus. Boniface IX immediately asserted the legitimacy of his election by framing it as the rightful continuation of the apostolic succession originating from the 1378 conclave that chose Urban VI in Rome, dismissing the Avignon line under Clement VII as schismatic and invalid. He promptly issued excommunications against Clement VII and his adherents, reinforcing the Roman pontiff's exclusive authority and portraying the schism as a political rebellion rather than a doctrinal dispute. This stance gained traction in regions prioritizing traditional Roman allegiance, with prompt recognition from England, the Holy Roman Empire (including Germany), Hungary, Poland, and much of Italy, bolstering his initial claims against Avignon's competing assertions. France and its allies, however, upheld the Avignon obedience, perpetuating the dual-papacy division.

Pontificate (1389–1404)

Consolidation of Power in

Upon his on 2 November 1389, Boniface IX inherited a volatile situation in , marked by persistent unrest and assertions of municipal independence following the turbulent pontificate of Urban VI. To stabilize control, he often resided in and to evade local threats while systematically reasserting papal authority over the city and surrounding territories. A pivotal step involved and fortifications, including the renovation of the Castle of Sant'Angelo—a former imperial repurposed as a papal fortress—the city's bridges, and other strategic vantage points. These measures, completed by 1398, effectively secured the final adhesion of the Roman populace and , extinguishing their bids for and restoring direct papal governance. Boniface IX further strengthened Rome's position by seizing the port of Ostia from its cardinal-bishop, thereby ensuring papal dominance over maritime access and supply lines critical to the city's defense and economy. These actions laid the groundwork for the reconfiguration of the , with Boniface credited as their effective founder in the form that persisted into the 15th century through the recapture of key castles and urban centers.

Diplomatic Efforts to End the Schism

Upon his election on November 2, 1389, Boniface IX promptly excommunicated the Avignon pope Clement VII, affirming his exclusive claim to the papal throne and rejecting any shared legitimacy during the Western Schism. This act underscored his initial diplomatic stance of confrontation rather than compromise, as he viewed the Avignon line as schismatic and invalid from its inception in 1378. Despite this, Boniface engaged in preliminary negotiations with Clement VII, exchanging envoys multiple times in an effort to explore reconciliation, though these attempts yielded no progress and ultimately failed due to mutual intransigence. Clement VII's death on September 16, 1394, briefly raised hopes for resolution, as Boniface sought to persuade the Avignon cardinals to transfer their allegiance to Rome; however, they instead elected Pedro de Luna as Benedict XIII on October 28, 1394, perpetuating the dual papacies. Benedict, more open to dialogue than his predecessor, renewed negotiations by dispatching envoys to Boniface in 1404, proposing that both claimants meet at a neutral location—such as a castle between the two sees—to discuss abdication or election by a joint conclave, while temporarily refraining from using papal titles. Boniface received these ambassadors in July 1404 but responded cautiously, insisting on recognition of Roman primacy; the talks dragged into protracted and fruitless exchanges, hampered by distrust and logistical challenges, with no agreement reached before Boniface's death on October 1, 1404. Parallel to direct papal talks, Boniface pursued broader diplomacy to isolate the Avignon claimants by securing endorsements from European monarchs, leveraging political alliances to pressure for unity under Rome. He maintained support from England and the Holy Roman Empire, which recognized the Roman line, while attempting to sway France—traditionally Avignon-aligned—through appeals to King Charles VI, though these bore little fruit amid French internal divisions. In Italy, Boniface's 1390 coronation of Ladislaus of Naples as king solidified a key alliance against Avignon-backed forces in the region, framing schism resolution as contingent on territorial control in the Papal States. He also rejected emergent proposals for a general council to adjudicate the schism, declaring in 1391 that such mechanisms undermined papal authority and were sinful, prioritizing hierarchical legitimacy over conciliar intervention. These efforts, while demonstrating pragmatic outreach, ultimately reinforced the schism's entrenchment, as Boniface's commitment to Roman supremacy precluded concessions that might have facilitated abdication or compromise; the deadlock persisted until the Council of Constance in 1414–1417, postdating his pontificate.

Financial Administration and Revenue Strategies

During the Western Schism, Pope Boniface IX faced severe financial constraints as the Roman papacy lost traditional revenues from regions adhering to the Avignon line, necessitating innovative strategies to fund the curia, military defenses in Rome, and diplomatic efforts. To address this, Boniface expanded the system of papal provisions, reserving the right to appoint clerics to benefices across Europe and extracting fees for confirmations and dispensations. This approach, while providing essential income, drew accusations of simony from contemporaries, as the curia under his administration reportedly sold the same benefice multiple times within a single week, according to the critical observer Dietrich of Nieheim. A key innovation was the perpetuation of annates, or , transforming a temporary levy into a permanent tax reserving half of the first year's income from every granted by the Roman court, formalized around 1399. This measure significantly bolstered papal coffers but exacerbated tensions with local churches and secular rulers who viewed it as exploitative, particularly amid the schism's competing claims. Boniface also relied on indulgences, proclaiming a Jubilee Year in 1400 that attracted pilgrims to and generated revenue through offerings, while extending similar privileges to cities in to broaden income sources despite logistical challenges. Critics like Dietrich of Nieheim portrayed Boniface as driven by insatiable avarice, likening him to an "insatiable gulf" unmatched in greed, reflecting broader discontent with the curia's commercialization of spiritual offices to sustain the Roman obedience. Nonetheless, these strategies enabled Boniface to consolidate control over Rome by 1398, fortifying the city and paying mercenaries, pragmatic necessities in a divided Christendom where financial weakness could mean collapse. While Boniface issued condemnations against certain indulgence abuses in 1392, the systemic reliance on such revenues persisted, foreshadowing later reformist critiques.

Relations with European Monarchs and States

Boniface IX's pontificate occurred amid the Western Schism (1378–1417), which divided European monarchs' loyalties between the Roman and Avignon papal lines, complicating diplomatic relations and papal revenue collection. Countries adhering to the Roman obedience, including England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Poland, and the Kingdom of Naples, generally recognized Boniface's authority, though pragmatic alliances often prioritized local interests over schism resolution. France, Scotland, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal instead backed the Avignon claimants (Clement VII until 1394, then Benedict XIII), leading to withheld obedience and tithes from Boniface. His firm diplomacy aimed to consolidate support through concessions, coronations, and appeals, restoring some papal prestige in northern and central Europe despite financial expedients like provisioning benefices that strained ties. In England, Boniface enjoyed formal recognition, with the kingdom maintaining obedience to the Roman see, but his frequent grants of provisions—papal appointments to English benefices bypassing local elections—fueled resentment among King Richard II and the higher clergy. This practice, intended to bolster papal finances, aligned with broader anti-papal agitation led by theologian John Wyclif, whose critiques of clerical corruption amplified opposition without severing allegiance. Boniface's mild governance style mitigated outright rupture, preserving England's alignment against Avignon claims. Relations with the Kingdom of Naples were pivotal, as Boniface allied closely with Ladislaus, the young heir of Charles III of Durazzo and Margaret of Durazzo, to counter Angevin pretenders backed by Avignon. On 29 May 1390, he crowned Ladislaus king at Gaeta, legitimizing his rule and collaborating over the subsequent decade to expel Louis II of Anjou's forces from southern Italy, thereby securing papal influence in the region. This partnership extended papal temporal control, with Naples providing military aid against Roman unrest, though it entangled Boniface in dynastic conflicts that diverted resources from schism-ending efforts. In the , Boniface navigated volatile imperial politics under King Wenceslaus IV, offering—belatedly—to crown him in a bid for alliance, but Wenceslaus's deposition in shifted dynamics. By 1403, Boniface recognized Rupert of the Palatinate as king, endorsing the electoral outcome to maintain German obedience amid princely divisions. and similarly upheld Roman loyalty, where Boniface's preaching of a crusade against the Ottomans gained traction, particularly in under emerging royal figures like , fostering temporary unity against eastern threats. France's steadfast support for Avignon precluded direct engagement, with King Charles VI's realm enforcing neutrality policies by 1398 that indirectly pressured Roman adherents but yielded no submission to Boniface. In broader appeals, Boniface urged monarchs across Europe in 1398 and 1399 to aid Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus against Ottoman advances, invoking shared Christian defense yet securing limited concrete aid due to schism-induced fragmentation. These efforts underscored Boniface's pragmatic realism, prioritizing selective alliances over ideological purity to sustain the Roman papacy's viability.

Ecclesiastical Reforms and Patronage


Boniface IX utilized extensive to consolidate support for the Roman line during the , granting numerous , provisions, and indults to and religious institutions. The Calendar of Papal Letters records forty-nine such benefice indults issued to English religious under his , with sixteen specifically to members of orders. This practice extended to reserving portions of benefice revenues for the papal treasury, ensuring both loyalty and amid competing obediences.
His administration actively engaged with religious orders, responding to petitions for confirmations, unions, exemptions, and alterations to monastic status or , thereby centralizing curial over structures. Boniface IX was particularly prolific in dispensing special indulgences, including at least twenty-two to institutions in the Transylvanian between 1389 and 1404, which served to foster allegiance while generating revenue through associated offerings.
reforms under Boniface IX were constrained by the schism's demands, with efforts focused more on administrative than comprehensive disciplinary overhaul. He proclaimed a Jubilee Year in 1390, drawing pilgrims to Rome for plenary indulgences and promoting spiritual devotion, though the event also reinforced papal prestige and fiscal resources. Interactions with orders emphasized privilege grants over systemic abuse correction, reflecting a strategy of to maintain institutional cohesion rather than initiating broad reforms akin to later conciliar movements.

Controversies and Criticisms

Accusations of Simony and Financial Exploitation

Boniface IX's pontificate was marked by aggressive fiscal policies aimed at replenishing the papal treasury, which had been severely depleted by Urban VI's mismanagement, the costs of reclaiming Rome, and ongoing conflicts during the Western Schism. To generate revenue, he expanded the Roman Curia by creating numerous new administrative offices, which were openly sold to qualified buyers as a deliberate financial expedient, thereby institutionalizing the venality of curial positions. This practice, while providing short-term funds, fueled contemporary charges of simony, as the sale of ecclesiastical offices—spiritual goods—violated longstanding canon law prohibitions against trafficking in sacred appointments. He further intensified exploitation of benefices by reserving a perpetual annata (half the first year's income) on all grants made by the Roman court and demanding portions from newly bestowed positions, often through provisions and expectancies that prioritized papal appointees over local elections. Dispensations, exemptions from ecclesiastical rules, and preferments were routinely sold by his agents, with Boniface personally insisting on shares from these transactions. Critics, including the curial insider Dietrich of Niem in his De schismate libri tres (c. 1410), decried this as dishonest trafficking in benefices, accusing the pope of an inordinate love of money that turned the Curia into a "gulf which swallowed everything" through oppressive exactions. Indulgence sales compounded these allegations, particularly during Jubilee extensions. In the 1390s, Boniface granted German cities privileges mimicking the Roman Jubilee indulgences of 1390 and 1400, allowing pilgrims to gain plenary remissions remotely upon contributions, but unauthorized preaching by friars and clerics led to widespread scandals, including false promises and overcharges. Although Boniface condemned such abuses in 1392 and 1396, issuing bulls against unaccredited agents and impositions, contemporaries viewed the pope's reliance on these mechanisms—tied to basilica reconstructions and war funding—as exploitative, exacerbating perceptions of simony by commodifying spiritual graces. Nepotism amplified the criticisms, as Boniface lavishly endowed relatives with benefices and offices, further eroding claims of disinterested administration. Among late-14th-century rulers, Boniface ranked highest in avariciousness according to period observers, though the schism's dual papacies contextualized such pragmatism as survival tactics rather than mere greed.

Political Pragmatism Versus Moral Critiques

Boniface IX approached the Western Schism primarily as a political challenge, employing pragmatic strategies to consolidate papal authority in Rome and the Papal States amid rival claims from Avignon. He forged a key alliance with Ladislas of Naples, recognizing him as king in May 1390 and providing military support, including 600 horse in October 1390, to counter Louis II of Anjou, thereby securing a loyal vassal for defending Rome. By 1398, these efforts extinguished Rome's municipal independence, establishing direct papal supremacy through fortification of the Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo, suppression of rebellions in 1396 and 1400 with Ladislas's aid, and appointment of a vice-senator, which instilled fear across Italy and unified the States of the Church as a territorial entity by his death in 1404. Further pragmatism was evident in recovering Bologna and Perugia via a 1403 treaty with Gian Galeazzo Visconti and strategic sales of vicarial titles to nobles like Antonio da Montefeltro, blending financial gain with political control. These maneuvers, while effective in maintaining Roman obedience and enhancing papal temporal power—such as proclaiming Jubilees in 1390 and 1400 to draw pilgrims and revenue—drew moral critiques for their ethical compromises, particularly in financial administration. Boniface systematically sold benefices, often multiply reserving them through "preference" and "pre-preference" grants, and exacted annates (half of a cleric's first-year income) via a 1392 bull, alongside dispensations and seizures of dying clerics' assets, prioritizing revenue over ecclesiastical discipline. Contemporaries like Dietrich of Nieheim condemned this as unmatched avarice, dubbing him an "insatiable vorago" (gulf) gorged with simony yet never filled, while Adam of Usk accused him of falsity to promises and perjuries; such practices enriched relatives through nepotism, undermining spiritual authority in favor of worldly gain. Though free of personal vices like unchastity, his deathbed remark—"If I had more money, I should be well enough"—epitomized critics' view of a pontificate where political survival trumped moral rectitude, eroding papal prestige despite territorial successes.

Perspectives on Papal Legitimacy During the Schism

The Western Schism (1378–1417) divided Catholic Christendom into two primary obediences, each claiming exclusive papal legitimacy, with Boniface IX (r. 1389–1404) heading the Roman line as successor to Urban VI. Adherents of the Roman obedience—primarily England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and much of Italy—regarded Boniface as the lawful pontiff, emphasizing the validity of Urban's 1378 election in Rome under canonical procedures and the cardinals' subsequent defection as schismatic rebellion rather than grounds for nullity. This view prioritized the Roman See's historical continuity and apostolic succession, rejecting Avignon claims as politically motivated by French influence following the papacy's Avignon residency (1309–1377). In contrast, the Avignon obedience—encompassing , , , and —denounced Boniface as an , arguing that Urban's election occurred under duress from Roman crowds demanding an Italian pope, rendering it invalid and justifying the cardinals' creation of Clement VII's line in 1378. Boniface countered these challenges by consolidating territorial control in and through alliances and fortifications, while employing diplomatic overtures and indulgences to secure fiscal and political loyalty from monarchs, thereby performing legitimacy amid contested sovereignty. Proposals for resolution, such as mutual (via cessionis) discussed in 1390s negotiations between Roman and Avignon envoys, faltered as Boniface, convinced of his divine mandate, refused , mirroring Benedict XIII's intransigence on the Avignon side. Emerging conciliarist perspectives, particularly among university theologians and reformist clergy, critiqued both obediences for undermining ecclesiastical unity, positing that a general council's superior authority could supersede papal claims to resolve the impasse—views that gained traction by the early 1400s but did not immediately delegitimize Boniface in Roman eyes. Post-schism adjudication at the Council of Constance (1414–1418) retroactively affirmed the Roman line's legitimacy, deposing the Avignon claimant and Pisan interloper while accepting Gregory XII's resignation from Boniface's succession, a verdict rooted in procedural continuity and the Roman See's enduring prestige despite contemporary divisions. Modern Catholic historiography upholds this validation, citing the council's deliberate omission of Avignon popes from official lists as presumptive evidence against their claims, though secular historians note the schism's exacerbation of nationalistic fissures and erosion of universal papal authority.

Death, Succession, and Legacy

Final Years and Demise

In the early 1400s, Boniface IX oversaw the Jubilee Year of 1400, which drew large pilgrim crowds to Rome despite a concurrent plague outbreak that hampered attendance. He continued diplomatic maneuvers amid the Western Schism, including approving the deposition of Emperor Wenceslaus in 1403 and recognizing Rupert of the Palatinate as King of the Romans, actions aimed at bolstering Roman papal influence in the Holy Roman Empire. These efforts reflected his persistent focus on consolidating ecclesiastical and temporal authority, though the schism remained unresolved, with ongoing tensions between the Roman and Avignon obediences. On September 29, 1404, Boniface received an embassy from the Avignon antipope Benedict XIII seeking negotiations to end the schism, but the meeting concluded acrimoniously, leaving the pope in a state of high irritation. Shortly thereafter, he suffered an acute attack of gravel—historical terminology for renal calculi or kidney stones—which confined him to bed; this condition, which he had endured recurrently, escalated rapidly with fever. Boniface died in Rome on October 1, 1404, after a two-day illness, at approximately age 49 to 54.

Immediate Aftermath and Historical Evaluation

Boniface IX died on 1 October 1404 in Rome, likely from natural causes related to age and health decline after a 15-year pontificate marked by ongoing schismatic pressures. A conclave assembled promptly on 10 October, electing Cardinal Cosimo de' Migliorati as Pope Innocent VII on 17 October amid factional tensions in the city, where supporters of the Colonna family contested the outcome, sparking brief unrest. Innocent VII's immediate accession perpetuated the Roman obedience's claim to legitimacy, but the Western Schism endured unabated, with Avignon antipope Benedict XIII maintaining his rival court and gaining intermittent support from France and Spain; no swift reconciliation occurred, as diplomatic overtures from Boniface's era yielded to continued deadlock. Historians assess Boniface IX's pontificate as pragmatically effective in consolidating papal temporal power in Rome, where he dismantled lingering communal autonomies and reasserted ecclesiastical dominance over urban factions, thereby stabilizing the curia against local revolts and Neapolitan incursions. His financial innovations—such as issuing redeemable offices, annates, and indulgences—replenished treasuries exhausted by schism-induced excommunications and lost revenues from obedient territories, enabling military defenses and administrative continuity; these measures, while verifiably increasing papal income from near-insolvency to sustainable levels, invited contemporary charges of simony from critics like the Avignon faction and later reformers. In contrast to Urban VI's abrasive style, Boniface is credited with a more diplomatic temperament that reconciled select cardinals and secured allegiances, such as Sicily's full adherence by 1403, though his failure to decisively end the schism—despite excommunicating Benedict XIII and courting monarchs—left the Church divided until the Council of Constance in 1417. Evaluations underscore causal trade-offs: Boniface's revenue , rooted in the schism's existential fiscal , preserved the Roman line's viability but entrenched perceptions of expediency, influencing subsequent conciliarist critiques of papal absolutism; Catholic sources portray him as amiable and restorative post-Urban, yet his legacy remains overshadowed by the schism's prolongation, with minimal doctrinal innovations but tangible gains in curial infrastructure, including restorations funded by his policies.

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