Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky,

listener discretion advised. On April 20th, 20th, 2003, Elon Musk unverified the Pope. I bet that was a sentence you never thought you'd hear on this

podcast. Musk, the eccentric billionaire who bought the website formerly known as

Twitter, seemingly for the left, had changed his policy on verification.

Previously, verification had been subject to a rigorous evaluation to, you know, verify the accounts of public figures

and organizations. But now the coveted blue check was available to anyone with $8 a month to spare.

The end result was that at least temporarily,

a Blue Checkmark for public figures and organizations

no longer conferred any meaningful marker of identity.

Those unwilling to pay for it, like Pope Francis, were simply unceremoniously stripped of their blue check.

If you were, like me, someone who often found yourself on the history nerd side of Twitter, you might have noticed a couple of odd terms

trending as the verification mayhem unfolded, namely Avignon and Western Chishism.

In the early 14th century, Pope Clement the 5th had moved his court from Rome to Avignon in what is now France. The papacy would remain

there unchallenged for over 70 years and through six more popes until Gregory

the 11th moved his court back to Rome in 1376.

What does this have to do with Elon Musk you ask? The answer lies in a third trending term, anti- Pope.

When Gregory 11th died in 1378,

the College of Cardinals in Rome set about their usual business of electing a new Pope, which they did,

Urban the sixth. But some Cardinals opposed the move from Avignon back to Rome. So they elected a Pope of their own in Avignon, who would become

known as the anti-Hope Clement the 7th, though they just called him Pope Clement the seventh.

A total of three anti-Popes would be elected and

rain from Avignon and two more from Pisa.

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