Also 6–7 antipape. [orig. a. Fr. antipape, ad. med.L. antipāpa, formed on the analogy of antichrīstus. In 17th c. assimilated to pope.] A pope elected in opposition to one held to be canonically chosen; spec. applied to those who resided at Avignon during ‘the great schism of the West.’ (So called by adversaries; to those who upheld his claims he was the real pope.)
[c. 1236. Roger of Wendover, Chron. (1841), II. 194. Scisma orta est Romæ propter Gelasium antipapam.]
1579. Fulke, Conf. Sanders, 570. Interruption … by meanes of … Schismes and Antipapes.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. vi. 31. He would forsake Pope Alexander, and ioyne with the Emperour, and Antipape.
1670. G. H., Hist. Cardinals, I. II. 52. Novatianus the Roman was by faction created Antipope.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., lvi. III. 378. The antipope, Clement the third, was consecrated in the Lateran.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr., VI. iii. (1864), III. 454. Pope and Antipope waited their doom from the princes of the world.
