Urban VI
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Pope Urban VI |
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| Papacy began | 8 April 1378 |
| Papacy ended | 15 October 1389 |
| Predecessor | Gregory XI |
| Successor | Boniface IX |
| Opposed to | Clement VII (Avignon claimant) |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | 21 March 1364 |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Bartolomeo Prignano |
| Born | c. 1318 Itri, Kingdom of Naples |
| Died | 15 October 1389 Rome, Papal States |
| Coat of arms |  |
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Papal styles of Pope Urban VI |
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| Reference style | His Holiness |
| Spoken style | Your Holiness |
| Religious style | Holy Father |
| Posthumous style | His Holiness |
Urban VI (Latin: Urbanus VI; c. 1318 – 15 October 1389), born Bartolomeo Prignano (Italian pronunciation: [bartoloˈmɛːo priɲˈɲaːno]), was pope from 8 April 1378 to his death in 1389. He is so far the last pope to be elected from outside the College of Cardinals. His reign, which began shortly after the end of the Avignon Papacy, was marked by immense conflict between rival factions as part of the Western Schism.
Born in Itri, Prignano was a devout monk and learned casuist, trained at Avignon. On 21 March 1364 he was consecrated Archbishop of Acerenza in the Kingdom of Naples. He became Archbishop of Bari in 1377.
Prignano had developed a reputation for simplicity and frugality and a head for business when acting Vice-Chancellor. He also demonstrated a penchant for learning, and, according to Cristoforo di Piacenza, he was without famiglia in an age of nepotism, although once in the papal chair he elevated four cardinal-nephews and sought to place one of them in control of Naples. His great faults undid his virtues: Ludwig Pastor summed up his character: "He lacked Christian gentleness and charity. He was naturally arbitrary and extremely violent and imprudent, and when he came to deal with the burning ecclesiastical question of the day, that of reform, the consequences were disastrous."
On the death of Pope Gregory XI (27 March 1378), a Roman mob surrounded the papal conclave to demand a Roman pope. The cardinals being under some haste and great pressure to avoid the return of the Papal seat to Avignon, Prignano was unanimously chosen Pope on 8 April 1378 as acceptable to the disunited majority of French cardinals, taking the name Urban VI. Not being a Cardinal, he was not well known. Immediately following the conclave, most of the cardinals fled Rome before the mob could learn that not a Roman (though not a Frenchman either), but a subject of Queen Joan I of Naples, had been chosen.
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