Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon (then in the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Holy Roman Empire, now in France) rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the further death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and  in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity of the Papacy". A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon, all French, and all under the influence of the French Crown. In 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome (arriving on January 17, 1377). But after Gregory's death in 1378, deteriorating relations between his successor Urban VI and a faction of cardinals gave rise to the Western Schism. This started a second  line of Avignon popes, subsequently regarded as illegitimate. The last Avignon antipope, Benedict XIII, lost most of his support in 1398, including that of France; after five years besieged by the French, he fled to Perpignan in 1403. The schism ended in 1417 at the Council of Constance. Avignon popes. Among the popes who resided in Avignon, subsequent Catholic historiography grants legitimacy to these: The two Avignon-based antipopes were: Benedict XIII was succeeded by three antipopes, who had little or no public following, and were not resident at Avignon: The period from 1378 to 1417, when there were rival  claimants to the title of pope, is referred to as the "Western Schism" or "the great controversy of the antipopes" by some Catholic scholars and "the second great schism" by many secular and Protestant historians. Parties within the Catholic Church were divided in their allegiance among the various claimants to the office of pope. The Council of Constance finally resolved the controversy in 1417 when the election of Pope Martin V was accepted by all. Avignon and the small enclave to the east ("Comtat Venaissin") remained part of the Papal States until 1791 when, under pressure from French Revolutionaries, they  were absorbed by the short-lived revolutionary Kingdom of France (1791–92), which, in turn, was abolished in favor of the French First Republic the following year. Background. Temporal role of the Roman Church. The papacy in the Late Middle Ages played a major temporal role in addition to its spiritual role. The conflict between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor was fundamentally a dispute over which of them was the leader of Christendom in secular matters. In the early 14th century, the papacy was well past the prime of its secular rule – its importance had peaked in the 12th  and 13th centuries. The success of the early Crusades added greatly to the prestige of the Popes as secular leaders of Christendom, with monarchs like those of England, France, and even the Holy Roman Emperor merely acting as marshals for the popes and leading "their" armies. One exception was Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was twice excommunicated by the Pope during a Crusade. Frederick II ignored this and was moderately successful in the Holy Land. King Philip IV of France wanted to use the finances of the Church to pay for his war with the English. Pope Boniface VIII  protested, leading to a feud. This state of affairs culminated in the unbridled declaration of papal supremacy, "Unam sanctam", in November 1302. In that papal bull, Pope Boniface VIII decreed that "it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff." This was directed primarily to King Phillip IV of France who responded by saying, "Your venerable conceitedness may know that we are nobody's vassal in temporal matters." In 1303 AD, Pope Boniface VIII followed up with a bull that would excommunicate the king of France and put an interdict over all France. Before  this was finalized, Italian allies of the King of France broke into the papal residence and beat Pope Boniface VIII. He died shortly thereafter. Nicholas Boccasini was elected as his successor and took the name Pope Benedict XI. He absolved King Phillip IV and his subjects of their actions against Pope Boniface VIII; though the culprits who assaulted Boniface were excommunicated and ordered to appear before a pontifical tribunal. However, Benedict XI died within eight months of being elected to the papacy. After eleven months, Bertrand de Got, a Frenchman and a personal friend of King Phillip IV, was elected  as pope and took the name Pope Clement V. Beginning with Clement V, elected 1305, all popes during the Avignon papacy were French. However, this makes French influence seem greater than it was. Southern France (Occitania) at that time had a culture quite independent from Northern France, where most of the advisers to the King of France were based. The Kingdom of Arles was not yet part of France at that time, formally a part of the Holy Roman Empire. The literature produced by the troubadours in the Languedoc is unique and strongly distinct from that of Royal circles in  the north. Even in terms of religion, the South produced its own variety of Christianity, Catharism, which was ultimately declared heretical. The movement was fueled in no small part by the strong sense of independence in the South even though the region had been severely weakened during the Albigensian Crusade a hundred years before. By the time of the Avignon Papacy, the power of the French King in this region was uncontested, although still not legally binding. A stronger impact was made by the move of the Roman Curia from Rome to Poitiers in France in 1305, and then to  Avignon in 1309. Following the impasse during the previous conclave, and to escape from the infighting of the powerful Roman families that had produced earlier Popes, such as the Colonna and Orsini families, the Catholic Church looked for a safer place and found it in Avignon, which was surrounded by the lands of the papal fief of Comtat Venaissin. Formally it was part of Arles, but in reality it was under the influence of the French king. During its time in Avignon, the papacy adopted many features of the Royal court: the life-style of its cardinals was more reminiscent  of princes than clerics; more and more French cardinals, often relatives of the ruling pope, took key positions; and the proximity of French troops was a constant reminder of where secular power lay, with the memory of Pope Boniface VIII still fresh. Centralization of Church administration. The temporal role of the Catholic Church increased the pressure upon the papal court to emulate the governmental practices and procedures of secular courts. The Catholic Church successfully reorganised and centralized its administration under Clement V and John XXII. The papacy now directly controlled the appointments of benefices, abandoning the customary election process that  traditionally allotted this considerable income. Many other forms of payment brought riches to the Holy See and its cardinals: tithes, a ten-percent tax on church property; annates, the income of the first year after filling a position such as a bishopric; special taxes for crusades that never took place; and many forms of dispensation, from the entering of benefices without basic qualifications like literacy for newly appointed priests to the request of a converted Jew to visit his unconverted parents. Popes such as John XXII, Benedict XII, and Clement VI reportedly spent fortunes on expensive wardrobes, and silver and  gold plates were used at banquets. Overall the public life of leading church members began to resemble the lives of princes rather than members of the clergy. This splendor and corruption at the head of the Church found its way to the lower ranks: when a bishop had to pay up to a year's income for gaining a benefice, he sought ways of raising this money from his new office. This was taken to extremes by the pardoners who sold absolutions for all kinds of sins. While pardoners were hated but popularly regarded as helpful to redeem one's  soul, the friars who were commonly regarded as failing to follow the Church's moral commandments by ignoring their vows of chastity and poverty and were despised. This sentiment strengthened movements calling for a return to absolute poverty, relinquishment of all personal and ecclesiastical belongings, and preaching as the Lord and his disciples had. A political Church. For the Catholic Church, an institution embedded in the secular structure and its focus on property, this was a dangerous development, and beginning in the early 14th century most of these movements were declared heretical. These included the Fraticelli and Waldensian movements in  Italy and the Hussites in Bohemia (inspired by John Wycliffe in England). Furthermore, the display of wealth by the upper ranks of the church, which contrasted with the common expectation of poverty and strict adherence to principles, was used by enemies of the papacy to raise charges against the popes; King Philip of France employed this strategy, as did Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. In his conflict with the latter, Pope John XXII excommunicated two leading philosophers, Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham, who were outspoken critics of the papacy, and who had found refuge with Louis IV in  Munich. In response, William charged the pope with seventy errors and seven heresies. The proceedings against the Knights Templar in the Council of Vienne are representative of this time, reflecting the various powers and their relationships. In 1314 the collegium at Vienne convened to make a ruling concerning the Templars. The council, overall unconvinced about the guilt of the order as a whole, was unlikely to condemn the entire order based on the scarce evidence brought forward. Exerting massive pressure in order to gain part of the substantial funds of the Order, the King managed to get the ruling he  wanted, and Pope Clement V ordered by decree the suppression of the order. In the cathedral of Saint Maurice in Vienne, the King of France and his son, the King of Navarre, were sitting next to him when he issued the decree. Under pain of excommunication, no one was allowed to speak at that occasion except when asked by the Pope. The Templars who appeared in Vienne to defend their order were not allowed to present their case—the cardinals of the collegium originally ruled that they should be allowed to raise a defense, but the arrival of the King  of France in Vienne put pressure on the collegium, and that decision was revoked. Papacy in the 14th century. Curia. After the arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers by Philip IV of France in 1301, Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull "Salvator Mundi", retracting all privileges granted to the French king by previous popes, and a few weeks later "Ausculta fili" with charges against the king, summoning him before a council to Rome. In a bold assertion of papal sovereignty, Boniface declared that "God has placed us over the Kings and Kingdoms." In response, Philip wrote "Your venerable conceitedness may  know, that we are nobody's vassal in temporal matters," and called for a meeting of the Estates General, a council of the lords of France, who had supported his position. The King of France issued charges of sodomy, simony, sorcery, and heresy against the pope and summoned him before the council. The pope's response was the strongest affirmation to date of papal sovereignty. In "Unam sanctam" (November 18, 1302), he decreed that "it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff." He was preparing a bull that would excommunicate the King of  France and put the interdict over France, when in September 1303, William Nogaret, the strongest critic of the papacy in the French inner circle, led a delegation to Rome, with intentionally loose orders by the king to bring the pope, if necessary by force, before a council to rule on the charges brought against him. Nogaret coordinated with the cardinals of the Colonna family, long-standing rivals against whom the pope had even preached a crusade earlier in his papacy. In 1303 French and Italian troops attacked the pope in Anagni, his home town, and arrested him. He was freed  three days later by the population of Anagni. However, Boniface VIII, then 68 years of age, was deeply shattered by this attack on his own person and died a few weeks later. Cooperation. In reaction to the intransigence of Popes like Boniface VIII, the French tightened their influence under the papacy, eventually reducing the Popes to puppets and stacking the Papal court with French clerics. The death of Pope Boniface VIII deprived the papacy of its most able politician who could stand against the secular power of the king of France. After the conciliatory papacy of Benedict XI (1303–04), Pope  Clement V (1305–1314) became the next pontiff. He was born in Gascony, in southern France, but was not directly connected to the French court. He owed his election to the French clerics. He decided against moving to Rome and established his court in Avignon. In this situation of dependency on powerful neighbours in France, three principles characterized the politics of Clement V: the suppression of heretic movements (such as the Cathars in southern France); the reorganization of the internal administration of the church; and the preservation of an untainted image of the church as the sole instrument of God's  will on earth. The latter was directly challenged by Philippe IV when he demanded a posthumous trial of his former adversary, the late Boniface VIII, for alleged heresy. Phillipe exerted strong influence on the cardinals of the collegium, and compliance with his demand could mean a severe blow to the church's authority. Much of Clement's politics was designed to avoid such a blow, which he finally did (persuading Phillipe to leave the trial to the Council of Vienne, where it lapsed). However, the price was concessions on various fronts; despite strong personal doubts, Clement supported Phillipe's proceedings  against the Templars, and he personally ruled to suppress the order. One important issue during the papacy of Pope John XXII (born Jacques Duèze in Cahors, and previously archbishop in Avignon) was his conflict with Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who denied the sole authority of the Pope to crown the Emperor. Louis followed the example of Philippe IV, and summoned the nobles of Germany to back his position. Marsilius of Padua justified secular supremacy in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. This conflict with the Emperor, often fought out in expensive wars, drove the papacy even more into  the arms of the French king. Pope Benedict XII (1334–1342), born Jaques Fournier in Pamiers, was previously active in the inquisition against the Cathar movement. In contrast to the rather bloody picture of the Inquisition in general, he was reported to be very careful about the souls of the examined, taking a lot of time in the proceedings. His interest in pacifying southern France was also motivation for mediating between the King of France and the King of England, before the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War. Submission. Under Pope Clement VI (1342–1352) the French interests started dominating the papacy . Clement VI had been Archbishop of Rouen and adviser to Philippe IV before, so his links to the French court were much stronger than those of his predecessors. At some point he even financed French war efforts out of his own pockets. He reportedly loved luxurious wardrobe and under his rule the extravagant life style in Avignon reached new heights. Clement VI was also pope during the Black Death, the epidemic that swept through Europe between 1347 and 1350 and is believed to have killed about one-third of Europe's population. Also during his reign, in 1348, the Avignon  papacy bought the city of Avignon from the Angevins. Pope Innocent VI (1352–1362), born Etienne Aubert, was less partisan than Clement VI. He was keen on establishing peace between France and England, having worked to this end in papal delegations in 1345 and 1348. His gaunt appearance and austere manners commanded higher respect in the eyes of nobles at both sides of the conflict. However, he was also indecisive and impressionable, already an old man when being elected Pope. In this situation, the King of France managed to influence the papacy, although papal legates played key roles in various attempts  to stop the conflict. Most notably in 1353 the Bishop of Porto, Guy de Boulogne, tried to set up a conference. After initial successful talks the effort failed, largely due to the mistrust from the English side over Guy's strong ties with the French court. In a letter Innocent VI himself wrote to the Duke of Lancaster: "Although we were born in France and although for that and other reasons we hold the realm of France in special affection, yet in working for peace we have put aside our private prejudices and tried to serve the interests of everyone ." With Pope Urban V (1362–1370), the control by Charles V of France of the papacy became more direct. Urban V himself is described as the most austere of the Avignon popes after Benedict XII and probably the most spiritual of all. However, he was not a strategist and made substantial concessions to the French crown especially in finances, a crucial issue during the war with England. In 1369 Pope Urban V supported the marriage of Philip the Bold of the Duchy of Burgundy and Margaret III, Countess of Flanders, rather than giving dispensation to one of Edward III of England 's sons to marry Margaret. This clearly showed the partisanship of the papacy; correspondingly, the respect for the church dropped. Schism. The most influential decision in the reign of Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) was the return to Rome, beginning on 13 September 1376 and ending with his arrival on 17 January 1377. Although the Pope was French born and still under strong influence by the French King, the increasing conflict between factions friendly and hostile to the Pope posed a threat to the papal lands and to the allegiance of Rome itself. When the papacy established an embargo against grain  exports during a food scarcity 1374 and 1375, Florence organized several cities into a league against the papacy: Milan, Bologna, Perugia, Pisa, Lucca and Genoa. The papal legate, Robert of Geneva, a relative of the House of Savoy, pursued a particularly ruthless policy against the league to re-establish control over these cities. He convinced Pope Gregory to hire Breton mercenaries. To quell an uprising of the inhabitants of Cesena he hired John Hawkwood and had the majority of the people massacred (between 2,500 and 3,500 people were reported dead). Following such events opposition against the papacy strengthened. Florence came  in open conflict with the Pope, a conflict called "the war of the eight saints" in reference to the eight Florentine councilors who were chosen to orchestrate the conflict. The entire city of Florence was excommunicated and as reply the forwarding of clerical taxes was stopped. Trade was seriously hampered and both sides had to find a solution. In his decision about returning to Rome, the Pope was also under the influence of Catherine of Siena, later canonized, who preached for a return to Rome. This resolution was short-lived, however, when, having returned the papal court to Rome, Pope  Gregory XI died. A conclave met and elected an Italian pope, Urban VI. Pope Urban alienated the French cardinals, who held a second conclave electing one of their own, Robert of Geneva, who took the name Clement VII, to succeed Gregory XI, thus beginning a second line of Avignon popes. Clement VII and his successors are not regarded as legitimate, and are referred to as antipopes by the Catholic Church. This situation, known as the Western Schism, persisted from 1378 until the ecumenical Council of Constance (1414–1418) resolved the question of papal succession and declared the French conclave of 1378  to be invalid. A new Pope, Pope Martin V, was elected in 1417; other claimants to succeed to the line of the Avignon Popes (though not resident at Avignon) continued until c. 1437. Opposing viewpoint. There are other historians who do not accept the view that the Avignon popes were puppets of the French king as they have sometimes been characterized. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it was not unusual for the pope to reside outside of Rome. Neither of Clement V's two predecessors resided in Rome when they died. Since the eleventh century “their [the pope ’s] struggles with the Emperor or the Roman commune had driven the popes from Rome or left them insecure there.” They moved about the Papal States, and even beyond the Alps. Indeed, between 1100 and 1304 the popes “spent one-hundred and twenty-two years out of Rome as against eighty-two actually in residence.” The pope was very often outside of Rome. Bertrand de Got was elected pope in 1305; he took the name Clement V. He was a compromise candidate due to a split between French and Italian cardinals in the college. It was decided to choose a  candidate outside of the college; hence, the archbishop of Bordeaux was selected. Clement had every intention of returning to Rome when he was elected pope. He announced his intention of going “to Italy as soon as peace was made between the kings of England and France.” The reason Clement chose to have his coronation at Vienne in France rather than on Italian soil was to “attract the kings of France and England to the ceremony and to take advantage of their presence to work for the conclusion of a lasting peace between them.” At the behest of Philip IV, however , Clement later changed the location of the coronation to Lyon. The ceremony took place on November 14, 1305. It was followed by important negotiations. King Philip IV was insistent that the trial of Pope Boniface VIII be renewed. The two agreed to discuss it further at a future meeting; this meant Clement V was obliged to put off his departure for Italy until a more favorable time. Clement was further impeded by illness which kept him in the Bordeaux area for nearly a year (May 1306 – March 1307). Clement met with Philip again in April 1307, but still did not  reach a decision on the lawsuit against Boniface VIII. On October 13, 1307, Philip IV ordered the mass arrest of the Knights Templar. Clement met again with the king in 1308 to discuss this. At this meeting, Clement V decided: "Not to proceed with his enterprise. He could not contemplate going to Rome. It would have been madness to leave Philip the Fair master of the situation on the eve of the opening of the Council of Vienne, where decisions would be taken gravely affecting the interests of the Church, and where in particular the scandalous trial of the Templars  would be debated. In complete agreement with the cardinals, Clement V decided to transfer the court to Avignon." The choice to stay in Avignon by Clement and the cardinals was conscious and clearly thought out. Rather than being held “captive,” the papacy specifically chose Avignon as its residence with good reason. The city had several valuable assets including frequent communication with Italy that was ensured both by water and land; close proximity to France but not dependent upon her; also, Avignon formed an “enclave in the Comtat-Venaissin, a possession of the Holy See. No town could provide the papacy  with a more peaceful refuge and more powerful guarantees of independence and security.” Clement V’s successor, Jacques Duese, was elected in 1316; he took the name John XXII. John had in fact been bishop of Avignon from 1310 until he became a cardinal in 1312. John also had the ultimate goal of returning the papacy to Rome, however, “Avignon was pleasant to the pope, there was the precedent of Clement V, there were great affairs still unsettled in the West, and Italy and Rome were disturbed and insecure.” In 1319, John XXII equipped a papal army to re-conquer  the Italian territories. He charged Bernard Du Poujet to lead the expedition. Poujet cooperated with troops of Robert of Naples and Florence “against the Ghibelline forces, and himself commanded sizeable and costly armies of mercenaries.” Du Poujet operated mostly in Lombardy, but crusaders also fought in Tuscany, and in the eastern provinces of the Papal States. Although, his expedition was not particularly successful, the “legation of Bertrand Du Poujet represented the first major exertion of the papacy’s military and financial power in the Avignon period.” The military expedition demonstrated the commitment of the Avignon popes to secure the Papal  States and eventually return to Rome. It further showed the vast amount of wealth and military might at the disposal of John XXII. In 1328, Louis of Bavaria went to Rome and had himself “crowned emperor at the hands of representatives of the ‘Roman people’. He declared John deposed as a heretic.” This was done largely out of vengeance, as John previously refused to ratify his election and even excommunicated Louis in 1324. Louis also installed an anti-pope in Rome called Nicholas V in 1328, although Nicholas was never a real threat to John XXII’s legitimacy. However, this  episode clearly showed the unrest and lack of stability that was present in Rome and the Papal States and hindered any attempted return of the papacy to Italy during John’s reign. Despite John’s efforts to take the papacy back to Rome, it remained at Avignon for his eighteen years as pope. These years further showed what an “excellent center Avignon was and the advantages it held as a center of Church government.” Firstly, it was calm and peaceful compared to Rome. The last thing the Avignonese wanted was to offend the pope. “Above everything they wanted him to  stay. The bishop’s palace was strongly fortified, and…was in a strong position of natural defense. The king of ‘Sicily’ was owner of the town as count of Provence, and the pope and cardinals had already appreciated the protection which he…always would give them.” This helps to explain why John felt secure enough at Avignon to openly oppose Louis without fear of direct repercussions. A second advantage Avignon had over Rome was its centralized location in the Christian world. In the Middle Ages the shape of Christendom was different from in earlier times. Islam “had taken the Middle  East, Africa, and much of Spain; the Greek schism had removed the Balkans and Russia…Fourteenth-century Christendom was no longer the Roman world, and its center of gravity was northwards.” These historians argue that the actions of the popes at Avignon were not those of puppets of the king of France. The decisions they and their cardinals made had the best interest of the Church in mind. Their main goal was to establish security and independence for the papacy and to increase their control over the Church administration. In fact, during its stay at Avignon, the papacy became more  centralized and brought in more revenues than ever before. A major reason they remained in Avingnon for so long is a result of the unrest in Rome and the Papal States. Legacy. The period has been called the "Babylonian captivity" of the popes. When and where this term originated is uncertain although it may have sprung from Petrarch, who in a letter to a friend (1340–1353) written during his stay at Avignon, described Avignon of that time as the "Babylon of the west", referring to the worldly practices of the church hierarchy. The nickname is polemical, in referring to the  claim by critics that the prosperity of the church at that time was accompanied by a profound compromise of the papacy's spiritual integrity, especially in the alleged subordination of the powers of the Church to the ambitions of the French kings. As noted, the "captivity" of the popes at Avignon lasted about the same amount of time as the exile of the Jews in Babylon, making the analogy convenient and rhetorically potent. The Avignon papacy has been and is often today depicted as being totally dependent on the French kings, and sometimes as even being treacherous to its spiritual  role and its heritage in Rome. Almost a century and a half later, Protestant reformer Martin Luther wrote his treatise "On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church" (1520), but he claimed it had nothing to do with the Western Schism or papacy in Avignon. Effects on the papacy. The relationship between the papacy and France changed drastically over the course of the 14th century. Starting with open conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France, it turned to cooperation from 1305 to 1342, and finally to a papacy under strong influence by the French throne up to  1378. Such partisanship of the papacy was one of the reasons for the dropping esteem for the institution, which in turn was one of the reasons for the schism from 1378 to 1417. In the period of the Schism, the power struggle in the papacy became a battlefield of the major powers, with France supporting the antipopes in Avignon and England supporting the popes in Rome. At the end of the century, still in the state of schism, the papacy had lost most of its direct political power, and the nation states of France and England were established as two  of the main powers in Europe.