What kind of corruption existed in the Catholic Church during the Great Schism?

A:

The Western Schism (1378-1417) is also known among Catholics as the 'Great Schism' to distinguish it from the many lesser schisms that marred the Church's history from the time of the earlier 'Great Schism' that created a permanent division in Christianity. This was certainly a time of considerable corruption in the Church, but no more so than in much of the Church's previous history, nor in the centuries that followed.

Pope Urban VI brought about the Great Schism (Western Schism) because of his strong stance and intemperate preaching against simony, yet it was Urban himself who raised four of his own nephews to the cardinalate as soon as he became pope, even seeking to place one of them in control of Naples. We know some of the corrupt practices of the time because of what he attempted to restrict, including soliciting gifts and gratuities for conducting the business of the curia, receiving annuities from secular rulers, the multiplication of benefices and bishoprics in the hands of the cardinals, and their overly luxurious lifestyles. Apart from his own nepotism, Urban was also a cruel and violent man.

The Schism did not, and could not, eliminate corruption, which continued in Rome and Avignon, but especially Avignon. Pope Gregory XII was chosen at Rome in 1406 by a conclave consisting of only fifteen cardinals under the express condition that, should Antipope Benedict XIII, the rival papal claimant at Avignon, renounce all claim to the Papacy, he would also renounce his, so that a fresh election might be made and the Western Schism ended. Despite the Cardinal of Florence claiming that Gregory XII, at almost ninety years old when elected Pope, was too frail and old to be corrupt, the first act of his Pontificate was to pawn his Papal Tiara to pay for his gambling debts.