him pliant, he was considered arrogant and angry by many of his contemporaries. Dietrich of Nieheim reported the opinion of the cardinals that his elevation had turned his head, and Froissart, Leonardo Aretino, Tommaso de Acerno and St. Antoninus of Florence recorded similar conclusions. Crisis of control Immediately following his election, Urban began preaching intemperately to the cardinals (some of whom thought the delirium of power had made Urban mad and unfit for rule), insisting that the business of the Curia should be carried on without gratuities and gifts, forbidding the cardinals to accept annuities from rulers and other lay persons, condemning the luxury of their lives and retinues, and the multiplication of benefices and bishoprics in their hands. Nor would he remove again to Avignon, thus alienating King Charles V of France. The cardinals were mortally offended. Five months after his election, the French cardinals met at Anagni, inviting Urban, who realized he would be seized, and perhaps slain. In his absence, they issued a manifesto of grievances on 9 August which declared his election invalid since they had been cowed by the mob into electing an Italian. Letters to the missing Italian cardinals followed on 20 August declaring the papal throne vacant (sede vacante). Then at Fondi, secretly supported by the king of France, the French cardinals proceeded to elect Robert of Geneva as pope on 20 September. Robert, a militant cleric who had succeeded Albornoz as commander of the papal troops, took the name Clement VII, beginning the Western Schism, which divided Catholic Christendom until 1417. Urban was declared excommunicated by the French antipope and was called "the Antichrist", while Catherine of Siena, defending Pope Urban, called the cardinals "devils in human form." Coluccio Salutati identified the political nature of the withdrawal: "Who does not see," the Chancellor openly addressed the French cardinals, "that you seek not the true pope, but opt solely for a Gallic pontiff." Opening rounds of argument were embodied in John of Legnano's defense of the election, De fletu ecclesiæ, written and incrementally revised between 1378 and 1380, which Urban caused to be distributed in multiple copies, and in the numerous rebuttals that soon appeared. Events overtook the rhetoric, however; 26 new cardinals were created in a single day, and by an arbitrary alienation of the estates and property of the church, funds were raised for open war. At the end of May