CLEMENT VII. (Robert of Geneva) (d. , antipope, after occupying the episcopal sees of Therouanne and Cambrai, became a cardinal. In 1378 he took part in the election of Pope Urban VI. at Rome, and was perhaps the first to express doubts as to the validity of that tumultuous election. When the cardinals resolved to regard Urban VI. as an intruder and the Holy See as still vacant, Robert of Geneva was elected pope on Sept. 20, 1378, and took the name of Clement VII. Thus originated the Great Schism of the West.
Clement was supported by Queen Joanna of Naples, several Italian barons and Charles V. of France, and he eventually suc ceeded in winning to his cause Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, a great part of the Latin East, and Flanders. To wrest Rome from his rival, Clement incited Louis, duke of Anjou, the eldest of the brothers of Charles V., to take arms in his favour, by the bait of a kingdom to be carved expressly out of the States of the Church and to be called the kingdom of Adria, coupled with the expectation of succeeding to Queen Joanna. These tempting offers gave rise to a series of expeditions into Italy of which the most decisive result was the assuring of Provence to the dukes of Anjou and afterwards to the kings of France.
Before his death (Sept. 16, 1394), Clement realized the impos sibility of overcoming by brute force an opposition which was founded on the convictions of the greater part of Catholic Europe.
See N. Valois, La France et le grand schisme d'occident (1896) .