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Antipapal Antiquities

AMONG THE CURIOSITIES held in the St Andrews University Museum is the death mask of Pedro de Luna (1328-1423), one of the Avignon antipopes, who styled himself Benedict XIII. De Luna issued bulls granting university status to the group of scholars at St Andrews, and thus the Universitas Doctorum Magistrorum et Scholarum Sancti Andreae apud Scotos was born. The bulls were later confirmed by Pope Martin V, whose election ended the Great Western Schism. De Luna’s name lives on at St Andrews in the University’s coat of arms: the chief of the shield features a crescent, punning on the Antipope’s last name, which of course is Spanish for ‘moon’.

Published at 5:06 pm on Sunday 18 November 2007. Categories: Church St Andrews.
Comments

the chief of the shield features a crescent

Any significance to the fact that it’s a crescent reversed?

— mike 22 Nov 2007 7:56 am
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