The original account · Page 2 of 2
Two, Three, And Four Popes Reigning At The Same Time; The Chair Of Rome Occasionally Without A Pope For A Long Time.
Front matter · OF THE UNGODLY AND FALSE CHURCH, WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE CHURCH OF GOD, AND THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS AND SUCCESSION OF THE SAME THROUGH ALL TIMES.
“Besides this,” he writes, “It is related that there were sometimes four, sometimes three, and sometimes two popes at the same time.”
Victor, Alexander III., Calixtus III., and Paschalis, possessed together the papal authority, at the time of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; and also Benedict VIII., Sylvester II., and Gregory V. were popes together, till finally, Henry III. deposed them.
Likewise Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., and Alexander V. arrogated, by excommunications, the papal authority.60
Further, how Stephen III. and Constantine, Sergius III. and Christophorus, Urbanus V. and Clemens VII., Eugene IV. and Clemens VIII., and many other popes, whom to mention it would take too long, strove and contended with each other for the triple crown, their own historians have sufficiently elucidated. See in the 9th Book of the Chronicle for the year 891. page 315. col 2. from the tract, Den Onpartijdigen Rechter.
