After receiving the papacy he took the name
Urban VI and made grants of indulgences as was customary. The intention of many cardinals was to renounce their choice collectively as soon as an occasion presented itself, because this pope was beneficial neither to them nor the church, being as he was too choleric and melancholic. When he saw himself endowed with prosperity and with the powers of the papacy, for which many Christian kings had written and declared their obedience to him, he became presumptuous and arrogant, wishing to use both force and caprice to curtail many of the rights and customary privileges of the cardinals. This displeased them intensely and they held talks together during which they said and speculated that he would never do them any good, and that he was neither deserving nor worthy of governing the world. Consequently, many proposed to elect another who would be wise and influential and by whom the church would be well administered. All of the cardinals went to great pains for this decision, particularly he who was subsequently elected pope. For the duration of an entire summer they hesitated, because those whose aim it was to appoint a new pope did not dare publicly to disclose or reveal their secret plans, such was their fear of the
Romans that at the time of the papal court vacations many cardinals left
Rome and went to entertain themselves at their leisure at various locations surrounding
Rome.
Urban went to another city called
Tivoli and remained there for a long time.
During the period of these vacations, which could not last for long since there were so many clergy from different parts of the world in
Rome awaiting indulgences which they had already been promised and which had already been collated, the cardinals, who were of one mind and one will, gathered to elect a pope and their choice fell on
Sir Robert of Geneva, son of the
count of Geneva, who had been promoted, first,
bishop of Thérouanne, then
archbishop of Cambrai, and who was presently called
cardinal of Geneva.
The majority of the cardinals were present at this election, and he took the name
Clement. At that time in the country around
Rome there was a highly courageous knight from
Brittany called
Sylvestre Budes. This man commanded more than two thousand
Bretons and in past years had enjoyed many a victory over the
Florentines, whom
pope Gregory had made war upon and excommunicated for their rebellion, and
Sylvester Budes had brought them into submission.
Pope Clement and the cardinals of his faction summoned him in secret along with his men-at-arms and he marched straight into the fortified precincts around
Saint Peter's and the
Castel Sant'Angelo outside
Rome, the better to constrain the
Romans.
Urban still did not dare to leave
Tivoli and neither did the cardinals attached to him, not that there were many of these, for fear of the
Bretons, for they were numerous and fearsome soldiers who destroyed everything they found in their way.
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