Pope Boniface IX was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death, in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope of the Western Schism. During 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".
Contemporary bust located in Saint John Lateran, c. 1390-1410
Bulla of Boniface IX
Coin depicting Pope Boniface IX, Bode Museum, Berlin
The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Great Occidental Schism, or the Schism of 1378, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417 in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon both claimed to be the true pope, and were joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409. The schism was driven by personalities and political allegiances, with the Avignon Papacy being closely associated with the French monarchy.
A 14th-century miniature symbolizing the schism
Habemus Papam at the Council of Constance
Plaque commemorating the popes buried in St. Peter's. Alexanders VI, VII, and VIII are numbered as though the Pisan pope Alexander V were legitimate, but John XXIII (d. 1963) has reused the ordinal of the Pisan pope John XXIII.
