Juan Fernández de Heredia

Fra ' Juan Fernández de Heredia (* around 1310 in Munébrega, Spain, † 1396 ) was a writer, humanist, diplomat and from 1376 until his death ( 1396 ) the 32nd Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes.

Before he was elected Grand Master, he was castellan of Limestone, 1349-1376 Grand Prior of St. Gilles and Prior of Castile and León.

He was several times as a diplomat for King Peter IV of Aragon and Pope Innocent VI. in use. 1373 he had presided over the negotiations with the Grand Master Raymond Berenger and Pope Gregory XI.

In 1380 he gave for his Crónica de Espanya Grant and Grant crónica de los conquiridores a translation of the Lives of Plutarch in order. On the Rhodes Plutarchviten been translated into modern Greek, which then in Aragon.

This period was characterized by the Western Schism, in the same time two elected popes (Urban VI. , And Clement VII ) announced. Urban VI. is regarded as the legitimate Pope and remained in Rome during the first anti-pope Clement VII in Avignon resided.

France, Scotland, Castile, Aragon, Denmark, Navarra, Norway, Portugal, Savoy, and a small number of German States recognized Clement VII; the greater part of England and Germany, Ireland, Flanders and Italy (except Naples) recognized Urban VI. of.

The Grand Master Juan Fernández de Heredia chose Clement VII and thus against Urban VI.

Urban VI. sat as Grand Master from 1383 Heredia and Riccardo Caracciolo as a Grand Master.

This action of the Pope was neither accepted nor recognized by the Knights of St John in Rhodes, who had apparently decided unaffected by the schism, to enforce their sovereignty by maintaining their allegiance to Heredia.

The schism did this also in the Order collection and disunited them. The Knights of the Order in England recognized Urban VI. as Pope and ignored Heredia. Thus both Heredia and Caracciolo's power and influence was limited.