Gui de Maillesec, also known as Guy de Malsec, Malésec, or Malesset (; died 8 March 1412), was a French Catholic bishop and cardinal. He may have been a nephew of Pope Gregory XI or perhaps a more distant relative. He was also a nephew of Pope Innocent VI. He played a part in the election of antipope Benedict XIII of the Avignon Obedience in 1394, where he was the second most senior cardinal. He played an even more prominent role in Benedict's repudiation and deposition. Gui was sometimes referred to as the "Cardinal of Poitiers" () or the "Cardinal of Palestrina" ().
Biography
Early life and career He was born at the family's fief at Malsec (Maillesec), in the diocese of Tulle. He had two sisters, Berauda and Agnes, who both became nuns at the Monastery of Pruliano (Pruilly) in the diocese of Carcassonne, and two nieces Heliota and Florence, who became nuns at the Monastery of S. Prassede in Avignon.Du Chesne, Histoire, p. 643; Preuves, pp. 461–462.
Gui was Doctor of Canon Law (Toulouse) and Archdeacon of Corbaria in the Church of Narbonne, as well as Chaplain of Pope Urban V.Gallia christiana II, p. 1192. Eubel, p. 310, n. 6. Gui was baptized in the church of S. Privatus, about southeast of Tulle.Gallia christiana II, p. 1193. He left the church a legacy in his Will of the chalice from his principal chapel and a set of sacerdotal vestments.Du Chesne, Preuves, p. 460.
On 27 May 1370, Gui was appointed Bishop of Lodève by Pope Gregory XI.Eubel, p. 310. He was then promoted Bishop of Poitiers, approved by Pope Gregory XI on 9 April 1371.Eubel, p. 399.
Cardinal In the Consistory of 20 December 1375, he was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Gregory XI and appointed Cardinal Priest of the titular church of Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome.Eubel, p. 22. He accompanied Gregory XI on his return to Rome in 1376 and was present at the Pope's death in the Vatican on 27 March 1378.Baluze (1693) I, p. 1142 [ed. Mollat, II (1927), p. 663].
Cardinal Gui was appointed Canon and Prebend of StillingtonBritish History Online, Prebend of Stillington. Retrieved: 2016-07-13. in the Church of York on 24 May 1376;John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae III, 213. he then became Archdeacon of the West Riding in the Church of York in the same year;British History Online, Archdeacon of the West Riding, York. Retrieved: 2016-07-13. he was "deprived" by Urban VI of the Roman Obedience, probably in 1379 or 1380.W. Bliss and J. Twemlow, Calendar of Papal Registers relating to England and Ireland Volume V, p. 208 (6 October 1399). On 15 June 1376, Pope Gregory appointed Gui to be a Canon in the Cathedral of Krakow. On 8 January 1377, he was granted the Priory of Verasenus in the diocese of Vienne, a dependency of the monastery of La Chaise-Dieu.Baluze (1693), I, p. 1144 [ed. Mollat I (1927), p. 666]. He was Archdeacon of Condroz in the Church of Liège (from 1377).Ursmer Berlière, OSB, Bulletin de la Commission Royale d' histoire 75 (Bruxelles 1906), 168-171.
Schism He participated in the riotous election of April 1378, from which came Urban VI, who was, however, repudiated by all the cardinals who had elected him under conditions of force and fear (). According to the narration of events sanctioned by Prignano himself, the "Casus Urbani VI", the Limousin cardinalsJean de Cros, Guillaume de Agrifolio, Guy de Malsec, Gérard du Puy, OSBClun., and Petrus de Vernio. met immediately after the death of Pope Gregory XI, and decided that their candidate would be Gui de Maillesec. When opposition to any Limousin papal relative developed, however, they switched their support to Pierre de la Vergne.Baronio (ed. Theiner), Vol. 26, p. 333, under the year 1378, § 79. Cardinal de Luna testified that a few days before the April Conclave began, Pierre de la Vergne had a majority of the electors on his side. But the riotous Roman crowds, led by their Bandarenses, changed the whole situation. At a new Conclave, held in safety in Fondi on 20 September 1378, the same cardinals (minus one, who had died, and with the addition of Cardinal Jean de la Grange, who had arrived in Rome in the meantime) elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who took the name Pope Clement VII. On 18 December 1378, Clement assigned Cardinal Guy as Apostolic Nuncio to travel to Flanders, Brabant, Scotland, England and the dioceses of Liège, Utrecht, Cambrai and Tournai, to secure adherence to his papacy; Cardinal Guy departed on 31 December, and is known to have been in Paris at Easter.Baluze (1693), I, p. 1149 [ed. Mollat I (1927), p. 669]. On 10 February 1380, the Cardinal received additional powers with respect to England, Scotland, and elsewhere; and on 6 March 1381, these were extended to the diocese of Reims.Bliss and Twemlow IV, pp. 240-242. He never received his safe-conduct for the realms of King Richard II, however, and thus did not travel to the British Isles. England, however, which was at war with France, had chosen not to support a French pope, and Flanders, which was allied with England, did likewise. Scotland, which were rivaled to the English and had been a traditional ally of the French, supported the Avignon Obedience.
He was then named Bishop of Palestrina in 1384 by Pope Clement VII, a position he held until his death in 1412.Eubel, p. 37. Given the schism of the time (1378–1416), Gui's appointment in the Avignon Obedience was contested by Francesco Moricotti Prignani, Archbishop of Pisa, a cardinal of Urban VI (Bartolommeo Prignano) in the Roman Obedience, from 1380 to 1394.
On 18 January 1394, Gui and Cardinal Guillaume d'Aigrefeuille were empowered by a bull issued by Pope Clement VII to proceed to the reform of the College of Sainte-Catherine (Pampilonense) at the University of Toulouse, to the exclusion of Hugues, Bishop of Agde, the Provisor of the College. The two cardinals issued a revised set of statutes on 23 July.
After the election of Cardinal Pedro de Luna as Pope Benedict XIII on 28 September 1394, Gui – as Bishop of Palestrina – ordained the new pope a priest. This took place on Saturday 3 October. On 11 October, he was consecrated a bishop by Cardinal Jean de Neufchatel, Bishop of Ostia, and then crowned pope by Cardinal Deacon Hugues de Saint-Martial.Baluze (1693) I, pp. 567-568. The new pope granted each of the cardinals a coronation-and-election gift of 4,000 gold florins. When Gui wrote his will in 1407, the money had not yet been paid.Du Chesne, Preuves p. 460. He left the money which had not been paid by Benedict XIII to Benedict XIII, thereby cancelling the debt while making the Pope aware of his lapse. Benedict also granted Gui certain benefices, the Archdiaconate of Lantario in the Church of Toulouse, the Priorate of Montalto in the diocese of Auch, and the Provostship of Lesinhanno (Lesignan) in the diocese of Narbonne.Du Chesne, Preuves p. 460.
Repudiation, reconciliation, and further repudiation In 1398, at a meeting of the Church of Gaul, Gui renounced his obedience to Benedict XIII, whose stubbornness was obstructing plans for an end of the Schism and a reunion of the Church. Gui was sent to Paris in January 1399, along with Cardinals Pierre de Thury and Amedeo di Saluzzo, to explain the decisions of the Church Council and to seek the assent of King Charles VI of France to the withdrawal of obedience.Franz Ehrle published their Instructions in: The Cardinals were in Paris until the end of June, when the appearance of the plague caused the entire Royal Court to take to the highway.Baluze (1693), I, p. 1150 [ed. Mollat I (1927), p. 670]. Other meetings, Councils, and negotiations continued for several years,In his Last Will and Testament, Cardinal de Malsac states that he was engaged in this journey for two years, one month and five days: Du Chesne, Preuves, p. 460. until finally, on 28 May 1403, a reconciliation and return of France to the Obedience of Benedict XIII was announced. A major part had been played by Gui, who, along with Amedeo di Soluzzo, had persuaded an assembly of the French clergy on 15 May and had spoken personally in the presence of the King and the Duke of Orleans on 25 May in favor of the reconciliation.Franz Ehrle, "Neue Materialen zur Geschichte Peters von Luna," in:
Gui was Dean of the College of Cardinals, a matter of seniority, in the Obedience of Avignon from August 1405 until his death.
Benedict XIII, however, continued to be under intense pressure to end the schism. He repeatedly promised to do everything he could to achieve that goal, and then found obstacle after obstacle to its realization. In May 1408, he sent an embassy to Italy to negotiate with Pope Gregory XII. The embassy was led by four cardinals, Gui, Pierre de Thury, Pierre Blau (who died on 12 December 1409), and Antoine de Chalant Ehrle, Archiv 7, pp. 635 and 644. In accordance with the written instructions given them, the cardinals were to get in touch with the cardinals of Gregory XII and sound them out as to the prospects for a General Council of the Church.Franz Ehrle, "Aus den Acten des Afterconcils von Perpignan 1408," Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte 7 (1900) pp. 644–646
At Livorno, the embassy happened to meet some of the cardinals of Gregory XII who had fled from his court, which was living in exile in Lucca at the time. Those cardinals had fled on 11 and 12 May, fearing arrest and worse at the hands of that Pope's nephew, Paolo Corraro. Paolo had already tried unsuccessfully to seize Jean Gilles, Cardinal of Liège (who died on 1 July 1408). The Gregorian cardinals were Francesco Uguccione (the Cardinal of Bordeaux), Giordano Orsini, Niccolò Brancaccio and Angelo de Sommariva.F. Gregorovius, History of Rome in the Middle Ages Volume VI. 2 second edition, revised (London: George Bell, 1906) [Book XII, chapter 5], pp. 600-601. On 29 June 1408, the cardinals of both Observances published a document on which they had reached agreement, pledging themselves to summon a General Council of the entire Church, and that if both papal claimants did not give peace to the Church by mutual cessation (resignation), the General Council would take action. They agreed that they would not maintain their adherence to either claimant. They agreed that they would pay no attention to the diminution in the status of any or all of them made by either claimant after 1 May 1408. They also agreed that if one of the claimants died, his cardinals would not proceed to an election, until consultation with the Church had been undertaken concerning the surviving claimant, or the claimant had resigned. The manifesto was signed by the thirteen cardinals who were present, led by Gui, and later subscribed to by six other cardinals. Cardinal Jean Gilles was dying and did not sign.J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante 1409: Agreement of Cardinals at Livorno.. Retrieved: 2016-07-15. There were twenty-four living cardinals, counting both Obediences, on the day the document was signed.