Riccardo Caracciolo

Riccardo Caracciolo

Grand Master's coat of arms

Fra ' Riccardo Caracciolo († 1395 ), from the Caracciolo family, was from 1383 until his death that of the then Pope Urban VI. Counter- Grand Master of the Order of St. John, then based in Rhodes, appointed in Rome . He never set foot in Rhodes.

This time was marked by the occidental schism , in which there were two elected popes ( Urban VI. And Clement VII. ) At the same time . Urban VI. is considered the legitimate Pope and stayed in Rome while the first antipope Clement VII resided in Avignon .

France, Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Denmark, Navarre, Norway, Portugal, Savoy, and a small number of German states recognized Clement VII; most of England and Germany, Ireland, Flanders, and Italy (except Naples) recognized Urban VI. on.

The Grand Master Jean Fernandez de Heredia decided in favor of Clemens VII and thus against Urban VI.

Urban VI. 1383 deposed Heredia as Grand Master and Riccardo Caracciolo from the Neapolitan noble family as Grand Master.

This action by the Pope was neither accepted nor recognized by the Knights of the Order of St. John in Rhodes, who apparently were determined, unaffected by the schism, to enforce their sovereignty by maintaining their allegiance to Heredia.

The schism also found its way into the order and divided it. The knights of the order in England recognized Urban VI. as Pope and ignored Heredia. This limited both Heredias and Caracciolos' power and influence.

literature

• Avity, Pierre d ' / Gottfried, Johann Ludwig : Archontologiae Cosmicae Buch III, Frankfurt am Main, 1628, page 38 f.

Web links

• http://www.cilialacorte.com/grandmasters/Caracciolo.html
• http://www.smom-za.org/grandmasters/33.htm
• The 79 Grand Masters ( Memento from December 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Jean Fernandez de Heredia	Grand Master of the Order of St. John 1383–1395	Philibert de Naillac