Pope Boniface IX (; ; c. 1350 – 1 October 1404, born Pietro Tomacelli Cybo) was head of the Catholic Church from 2 November 1389 to his death, in October 1404. He was the second Roman pope during the Western Schism. In this time, the Avignon claimants, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, maintained the Roman Curia in Avignon, under the protection of the French monarchy. He is the last pope to date to take on the pontifical name "Boniface".
Early life
Born c. 1350 in Naples, Pietro (also Piero or Perino) Tomacelli Cybo was son of Baron Giacomo Tomacelli and Verdella Caracciolo, feudataries of Casarano and nearby Casaranello, from noble neapolitan families, and a descendant of Tamaso Cybo, who belonged to an influential noble family from Genoa and settled in Casarano in the Kingdom of Naples. He was baptized in the paleochristian church of Santa Maria della Croce (the church of Casaranello). An unsympathetic German contemporary source, Dietrich of Nieheim, asserted that he was illiterate (nesciens scribere etiam male cantabat). Neither a trained theologian nor skilled in the business of the Curia, he was tactful and prudent in a difficult era, but Ludwig Pastor, who passes swiftly over his pontificate, says, "The numerous endeavours for unity made during this period form one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Church. Neither pope had the magnanimity to put an end to the terrible state of affairs" by resigning. After his election at the papal conclave of 1389, Germany, England, Hungary, Poland, and the greater part of Italy accepted him as pope. The remainder of Europe recognized the Avignon Pope Clement VII. He and Boniface mutually excommunicated each other.
The day before Tomacelli's election by the fourteen cardinals who remained faithful to the papacy at Rome,
In 1398 and 1399, Boniface IX appealed to Christian Europe in favor of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, threatened at Constantinople by Sultan Bayezid I, but there was little enthusiasm for a new crusade at such a time. Saint Bridget of Sweden was canonized by Pope Boniface IX on 7 October 1391. The universities of Ferrara (1391)