By the Late Middle Ages (circa 1300 onward), Latium, the former heartland of the Roman Empire, and southern Italy were generally poorer than the North. Rome became known as the city of the Vatican and the catholic church was part of the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference, particularly by France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France. In the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily was occupied during that time by the Emirate of Sicily and later, for two centuries, the Norman Kingdom and the Hohenstaufen Kingdom, but had declined by the late Middle Ages.