The Great Schism discussed quite well above by mwestwood is the most famous schism, although well before the Reformation, but there have actually been other points in time at which there have been rival popes. When Urban II gave his speech at Clermont, France in 1095 calling for a Crusade to free the Holy Land from the Turks, he had three motives. One was the persecutions the Turks were visiting upon Christians (and Jews and Arabs), another was the underlying inflationary economy of Europe caused by trade with the Middle East. But possibly the most important was that he had a rival pope, Clement III, who had great support in the Holy Roman Empire. In the enthusiasm for the Crusade, Clement III's support dwindled to zero.
Curiously enough, there is still a rival pope. In 1978, on the death of Pope Paul VI, a blind Spaniard named Clemente Dominguez y Gomez claimed he had a personal revelation from the Virgin Mary and proclaimed himself Pope Gregory XXVII, and true head of the Catholic Church. Dominguez claimed the Roman Catholic Church was in the clutches of Satan, and he was chosen to free it. He eventually amassed about 150 clerics, including priests, nuns, bishops and cardinals, and over 1,500 lay members around the world as the Holy Dogmatic Palmyrian Synod. On his death in 2005 he was succeeded by Peter II.
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