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The central figure of Italian Religion was, of course, the pope. Unfortunately, politics kept him from ruling as he was expected to, and turmoil was often so great that two popes sat at the same time. Along with the pope, an entire papal government, called the curia, was responsible for running everything within the church. The curia was divided into four main branches. The first branch was the chancery, which dealt with all correspondence flowing in and out of the papal household. The members of the chancery "drafted letters, proclamations, legal documents, judgments and bulls; also all routine administrative correspondence. The chancery received petitions, examined the qualifications of candidates for benefices, and had official custody of the records of the curia." (Knox) The camera apostolica , often called the Chamber, was the branch in charge of the papal finances, which were extensive because of all the papal strategies of creating revenue, such as collecting annates from high up members of the church, such as bishops and abbots, and collecting "expectancies" from prospective officials. The third branch was the Datary, which dealt with less conventional problems that did not have a stated solution in law. The fourth and final branch of the papal government was the judiciary branch. This entire system had quite a lot of interdepartmental overlapping.
The main concern of the papacy during the fourteenth century was the Great Schism. The split was the result of a major disagreement in the College of Cardinals. This was similarly the reason for having two popes. A French faction worked against an Italian faction, and no matter which pope died or ascended, the division in the church still remained. The main impact of the religious events during the Black Plague was to make common people following the Catholic faith question who was an effective spiritual ruler.
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