This is an academic study of the legal history of the great schism. It discusses the way in which jurists responded to the challenge of a church divided between three contenders for the papacy each with their respective communities of supporters or ÔobediencesÕ. It considers such questions as how those rival contestants for the papacy and their respective obedience communities were to be recognised by the law, and how the different actions of the popes during the schism, their competing appointments to benefices for example, were to be legally understood. In this regard the book examines the concepts of real and personal obedience formulated at the council of Constance and studies their application to benefice disputes arising from the schism.