According to The Short Guide to Catholic Church History, only one schism is really important and thus discussed, the Grand Central Schism [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 58-9].
Key dates
August, 1252: Dispute breaks out in Rome between German and French cardinals. Taunting their adversaries, the Germans sing Frere Jacques, prompting the French to leave Rome "amid cries of 'Pah!' and 'Droit sans honneur!' and flee to the French cathedral town of Oeufs to elect the antipope Carius.
October, 1252: Four French Cardinals on their way from Oeufs to Rome stop at Pisa and meet four Italian Cardinals; "three days later, they all elect Pope Phobus IV."
November, 1252: Ragbush, the Turkish pirate seizes the Dalmatian port of Spug and "threatens to impale the populace if they do no make him Pope. He is elected by acclamation."
January 1253: Jan ter Koot, a Dutch mystic who knows the identify of the real Pope, offers to reveal the true pontiff but no one is interested.
May 1253: "All claimants to the Papal thrown meet in the old Roman amphitheater" in Verona to elect Zosimus II – all except Ragbash, who retires to an island in the Adriatic, "where he re-elects himself from time to time over the years."
January 1254: Four men claiming to be antipopes appear in a boat on the Tiber. They disappear completely.
A schism is an interruption or disagreement or the condition of being divided, as in opinion; hence the Grand Central Schism documents the split between the Pope at Rome and whoever else laid claim to the throne of Peter - albeit in the Bellairsian universe. In reality, the Grand Central Schism satirizes the details of the better-known Great Schism (1378-1417), where a pope who had been elected by the cardinals proved so unpopular that the College of Cardinals reconvened, declared his election invalid, and elected someone else. Antipopes were nothing new to the church at this point, but none before had been elected by the cardinals. Both men claimed to be Pope, with Urban VI ruling in Rome and Clement VII ruling from Avignon, France. Each had several successors during the 40 or so years the schism lasted, and somewhere in there a counsel deposed both and elected a third pope (Alexander V, from Pisa, Italy). Eventually the Counsel of Constance deposed all claimants and elected a new pope, Martin V.
Incidentally enough, one of the projected titles of St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, Bellairs' first book, was The Grand Central Schism and Other Parodies for Catholics.
Names
- Carius • possibly based on caries (rottenness, decay), cariosus (rotten, decayed), or the comparitive carius (more expensive).
- Jan ter Koot • Nothing more than a parody of a Dutch name.
- Phobus IV • Phoebus is the Latin form of a name used for the god Apollo.
- Ragbush • Turkish pirates were common in the Adriatic; while fictional they are close enough names and very funny.
- Zosimus II • Saint Zosimus was a real pope (417-8).
The Latin phrase Droit sans honneur translates to a right without honor. Bowen says law without honor is the best translation, "but without context that doesn't help much. Droit as right can also refer to the royal right, as in the divine right of kings. The motto of the English royal family is Dieu et mon droit [God and my right]."
Myers adds that it might be a play on droit de seigneur, the right of a nobleman to sleep with any of his (presumably female) vassals on her wedding night (also see ius primae usufructus). "This interpretation makes the remark even more meaningless than before." No comments on pah.
Ragbush's repeated self-election reminds Bowen of something he was told about the Great Schism: "that there were some Spanish prelates who refused to accept the decision of the Counsel of Constance and went on supporting the Avignon claimant and electing, until there were only two of them left, one of whom elected the other. John and I may have been in the same freshman history class, where I think I heard this story."
Finally, the notion of four men vanishing in a boat struck us as odd. Bowen asks what's our point? "We're reading Bellairs here."
