Avignon Papacy

gigatos | May 31, 2022

Post Views: 28

Summary

The Papacy of Avignon refers to the residence of the pope in Avignon (France).

This residence, which deviates from the historical residence of Rome (Italy) since St. Peter, is divided into two major consecutive periods:

The political vision of the Holy Roman Emperors

Otto I of the Holy Roman Empire, victorious over the Magyars at the battle of Lechfeld, appointed bishops as vassals and, with his powerful clientele, was able to bring the other Germanic princes to heel. He thus reconstituted the empire; his power was without equivalent in the West and he was able to impose his pre-eminence on Pope John XII.

On February 2, 962, he was crowned Emperor of the Romans in Rome by Pope John XII. Otto I wished to control the papal election, so on February 13, 962, he promulgated the Privilegium Ottonianum, which, taking up a diploma from Lothair I, obliged any new pope to swear an oath with the emperor or his envoy before receiving the consecration. The close collaboration between the two powers was then to the advantage of the emperor: while giving privileges to the Holy See, the Privilegium Ottonianum placed the papacy under imperial tutelage. Otto I did not hesitate to depose Pope John XII, who had been intriguing against him since 963, by a council. He then demanded an oath from the Romans in which they committed themselves to : He then demanded that the Romans take an oath that they would “not elect or ordain any pope except with the consent of Lord Otto or his son”. The emperor had complete control over the election of the pope. The advantages were considerable: imperial authority over the local churches of the Holy Roman Empire was guaranteed by the collaboration of the pontiff. The emperor used the bishops to rule the empire.

Otto III also took care of the affairs of the papacy. At first, he had his cousin Bruno elected to the papal see under the name of Gregory V. He resolved the conflicts between the pope and the Roman nobles. In a text of January 1001, the relationship between Pope Sylvester II and the emperor is redefined. It is specified that the donation of Constantine is a forgery. Otto III refused to confirm the Privilegium Ottonianum. The emperor grants the pontiff eight counties of the Pentapolis, but this is a donation, not a restitution. The emperor sees himself as the “slave of the apostles”, the direct representative of Peter and responsible for his patrimony. He therefore put himself on the same level as the pope and wished to govern Christianity, presiding over synods with him.

The reformation and the rise of Christianity

The Church was not spared by the disorders of the 9th and 10th centuries. The offices of abbots, parish or ecclesiastical, were given to laymen in order to build up a clientele, and monastic discipline was relaxed, the cultural level of the priests falling. As a counterpoint, the rare monasteries that had kept an irreproachable conduct acquired a great moral authority.

As the year 1000 approached, a renewal of religious fervor appeared. Particular care was taken to wash away sins. In particular, the monasteries of integrity received numerous donations to obtain prayers of absolution post mortem. The choice of abbots was increasingly oriented towards men of great integrity and some, such as William of Aquitaine, went so far as to give autonomy and immunity to monasteries that elected their abbot. This was the case of Gorze, Brogne or Cluny. Other monasteries used false certificates of immunity to acquire autonomy.

Of all these, Cluny experienced the most remarkable development and influence. Under the leadership of dynamic abbots such as Odon, Maïeul or Odilon, the abbey attracted other monasteries which were attached to it and soon constituted a very powerful order (in 994, the Cluny order already had 34 convents). One of the great strengths of Cluny was that it recruited a good part of its members and particularly its abbots from the high aristocracy.

The order actively supported the Peace of God movement which, using popular mobilization and the support of the powerful, moralized the conduct of knights often responsible for exactions in their imposition of the right of ban. In doing so, the Church imposed the image of a society divided into three orders.

The authority of the emperor is weak on his vassals and during the reign of Henri III, count of Tusculum, a powerful Roman family is mistress of the city. Used to make elect the pope, it tries to take again its prerogatives. Criticizing the weak morality of the popes appointed by the emperor, it had a rival pope elected, forcing the emperor to intervene militarily and to convene a great council on December 20, 1046 to dismiss the competing popes. But this was not enough: one after another, two popes appointed by the emperor were assassinated (Clement II and Damasus II). The new candidate sent by the emperor had the finesse to ask the Romans to elect him, which suited them: he was crowned under the name of Leo IX in 1049. Brought up in the spirit of monastic reform, he concludes that it is the unworthiness of the previous popes which earned them their disavowal by the Romans and their decline. He appointed a Cluniac, Hildebrand (the future Gregory VII), sub-deacon and charged him with the administration of the revenues of the Holy See, which was close to bankruptcy. Hildebrand, acting as a true éminence grise, was responsible for the most important acts of his pontificate and those of his successors (Victor II (1055-1057), Stephen IV (1057-1058), Nicholas II (1058-1061), Alexander II (1061-1073)). In fact, Hildebrand launched the Gregorian reform twenty-five years before becoming pope himself. He gradually emancipated the Church from the tutelage of the emperor.

Leaving temporal and military power to the nobility, the Church became the moral guarantor of social balance. Concentrating all the knowledge since the end of antiquity and being the main promoter of teaching and scientific and technical progress (mainly within the abbeys), the clergy positioned itself as the central and indispensable element of medieval society. The clerics, who knew how to read and count, managed the institutions; the religious ran the charities. Through religious holidays, the number of days off reached 140 per year. Mastering cultural exchanges and benefiting from the best technical knowledge, the abbeys quickly took the lion”s share of the economic fabric, which was still mainly agricultural. The Church reached the height of its economic, cultural, political and even military power (thanks to the military orders which were permanent reserves of self-financed armed forces for the popes) during the Crusades.

Also read, biographies – Willem de Kooning

Spiritual and temporal power, the distribution of roles

The evolution of society: the breakthrough of the Merchant Order

From the end of the 13th century, the balance between the three orders breaks down. On the one hand, the bourgeoisie had an economic power that gradually made it politically indispensable (princes and ecclesiastics borrowed money from it).

On the other hand, for the needs of commerce and then to ensure its own social ascension, it took charge of part of the culture, creating secular schools as well as many social works. Most of the technical innovations were then the work of lay people, engineers, architects (such as Villard de Honnecourt), craftsmen (such as Jacopo Dondi and his son Giovanni, designers of the escapement clock)… The place of choice given to the Church in society for its cultural and social role, was less and less justified.

While the clergy was at the forefront of scientific and philosophical progress with scholars such as Roger Bacon, Robert Grossetête, Pierre de Maricourt, Pierre Abélard and Thomas Aquinas, some of its members feared that they were being overtaken by developments that challenged their position. A turning point was reached on March 7, 1277, when the bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, condemned the Averroists (Siger of Brabant) and certain theses of Thomas Aquinas. The Church became a conservative force while allowing mystical positions to develop, allowing the bourgeoisie to take an increasing role in scientific and philosophical progress.

Faced with a loss of spiritual influence, it tried to seize temporal power. Philip the Fair reacted very violently, relying in particular on the academics and the bourgeoisie, to whom he gave a more important political place through the creation of the States General. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were marked by the struggle between two conceptions of society, a struggle that underpinned the Hundred Years” War when the feudal order was threatened by the demand for political recognition of the cities (Étienne Marcel, Cabochian ordinance…).

Philip the Fair needed resources to maintain an army and a navy capable of controlling the desire for autonomy of the rich Flemish cities. In 1295, he decided to levy an exceptional tax on the clergy, the “decime. Pope Boniface VIII, who drew abundant income from France, responded with a bull in 1296, Clericis laicos. Aimed at the sovereigns, he stated that the clergy could not be subjected to any tax without the agreement of the Holy See. The bishops were obliged to follow the recommendations of the Holy See on pain of excommunication.

In retaliation, Philip the Fair forbade any export of valuables from the kingdom of France, which deprived the pope of a significant part of his resources. Relations with Rome became tense; in 1302, with the bull Unam Sanctam, Boniface VIII affirmed the superiority of spiritual power over temporal power and, as a result, the superiority of the Pope over kings, the latter being responsible to the head of the Church. This was too much for Philip the Fair, who convened a council of French bishops to condemn the Pope. He also convened assemblies of nobles and burghers in Paris, seeking the support of all his subjects to legitimize his struggle against the Pope. The latter threatens to excommunicate Philip IV and to throw the interdict on the kingdom of France.

With the support of the population and the ecclesiastics, the king sends his keeper of the seals, the knight Guillaume de Nogaret with a small armed escort towards Italy in order to arrest the pope and to make him judge by a council. Nogaret was soon joined by a personal enemy of Boniface VIII, Sciarra Colonna, who informed him that the pope had taken refuge in Anagni. On September 8, 1303, during a tumultuous meeting, the pope Boniface VIII is threatened by Guillaume de Nogaret. He died a few weeks later.

His successor Benedict XI was elected on October 22, 1303 in a very tense atmosphere. He cancelled most of the measures that were likely to offend the powerful king of France before dying himself on July 7, 1304.

During eleven months of painful negotiations take place between the French party led by the Roman family of Colonna, and the party of the deceased Boniface VIII led by Caetani. One finally decides to choose the pope outside the Sacred College of the cardinals and the unanimity or almost is made on the name of Bertrand de Got, prelate diplomat and eminent jurist, remained neutral in the quarrel between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. On June 5, 1305 the cardinals, gathered in conclave in Perugia, bring to the head of the Church Bertrand de Got who chooses the name of Clement V. It is the tenth French pope. He ascended the throne of St. Peter at the age of forty, while the Church was going through a serious political crisis.

The new pope renounced to go to Rome for fear of local intrigues and risks linked to the conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines: He finally chose to be crowned in Lyon, in the land of the Empire, on November 1st.

Origin of the establishment in Avignon

After his election in Perugia on July 24, 1305 and his coronation in Lyon on November 15, Pope Clement V undertook a long wandering through the kingdom of France and English Guyenne. The former archbishop of Bordeaux had been elected thanks to the support of the king of France, whose subject but not vassal he was, in exchange for which support he became indebted to him.

Clement V did his best to get into the good graces of the powerful Philip the Fair, but rejected his request to open a posthumous trial against Boniface VIII, which could have justified the attack on Anagni after the fact. In 1307, he had a meeting with the Capetian king where the fate of the Templars was discussed. Philip the Fair wanted to abolish this influential and wealthy order of monk-knights who answered to the Pope”s authority and not to Philip”s own – and who, by the way, was his creditor for 500,000 pounds. This was done on Friday, October 13, 1307, without opposition from the Pope.

The Council of Vienna, convened by Clement V to judge the Order of the Temple, required him to move closer to that city. He therefore went to the Comtat Venaissin, a papal land. If he chose the city of Avignon, possession of the Count of Provence (king of Naples and as such vassal of the Holy See), it was because its location on the left bank of the river put it in contact with the north of Europe, through the Rhone axis

Moreover, the importance of the fairs of Champagne until the end of the 13th century and the durability of the fair of Beaucaire had made Avignon and its rock an obligatory commercial stage. The pontifical presence was going to give it back a luster that it was about to lose and the conflict between England and France a political importance that Rome could not have had too far away from these two kingdoms.

If Rome, since antiquity, had owed its power and greatness to its central position in the Mediterranean basin, it had lost importance and, in the late Middle Ages, the center of gravity of the Christian world had shifted. Avignon”s situation was much more favorable geographically and politically.

The seven popes who sat in Avignon from 1305 to 1377 were all French according to the current territory. In reality, they were Popes of the Oc language whose region of origin depended either directly on the king of France, or on the king of England (for its lands under the king of France), or on the county of Provence (which was under the Holy Roman Empire).

Also read, biographies – Jean-Baptiste Lully

Clement V

In 1305 Bertrand de Got became at the age of forty the second pope of French origin and the first pope of Avignon. He did not arrive in Avignon until March 9, 1309 and stayed at the Dominican convent of the Preaching Brothers. In 1314, probably suffering from intestinal cancer, his “physicists” (doctors) tried to soothe his pain by making him ingest crushed emeralds. Wracked by illness, he left his retreat in Monteux with the hope of reaching Villandraut, his family”s stronghold near Langon. The pope died on April 20, 1314, in Roquemaure. Under his pontificate, Avignon became, under the high surveillance of the French king Philippe le Bel, the official residence of part of the Sacred College of Cardinals, while the pope preferred to reside in Carpentras, Malaucène or Monteux, cities of the Comtadines. Nobody thought that Avignon would become the papal residence for nine of them.

Also read, biographies – Jean Dubuffet

John XXII

After the death of Clement V, and following a difficult election, James Duèze was elected at the conclave in Lyon on August 7, 1316 as John XXII. At 72 years of age, his advanced age made him considered by the cardinals as a transitional pope, yet he presided over the Catholic Church for eighteen years. Being neither Italian nor Gascony, he had only had a minor political role until then. On August 9, he announced his intention to reopen the Audience of the Contredite in Avignon on October 1. Logic would have dictated that Carpentras should be the papacy”s transalpine residence. But the largest city of the Comtat Venaissin was still tainted by the power grab of the Gascons during the conclave that had followed the death of Clement V. Moreover, the former bishop of Avignon obviously preferred his episcopal city which was familiar to him and which had the advantage of being located at the crossroads of the great roads of the Western world thanks to its river and its bridge.

Crowned on September 5, he chose the name John XXII and went down to Avignon by river. Once there, he reserved for himself the use of the convent of the preaching brothers before moving back into the episcopal palace he had occupied.

All of Christendom was shaken by a profound debate on the poverty of the Church, initiated by the Franciscans. John XXII faced this debate with concessions or condemnations, composing with the Franciscans, or excommunicating them as for his general Michael of Caesarea; it is true that the latter had allied himself with the emperor Louis IV of Bavaria to name a new pope. He managed to rebalance the balance of power, by raising the Guelph cities of Italy and the King of Naples against Emperor Louis of Bavaria. Moreover, he had to manage the crusade of the Shepherds, a vast popular movement initiated by the fiery preaching of an apostate Benedictine and a forbidden priest, who had convinced the people of the urgency of the “Holy Journey” to go and fight the infidels; in whole bands, these Shepherds (a term designating at the time young shepherds, and in this case, more generally, insurgent peasants) looted and massacred everything in their path. John XXII issued an excommunication against all those who crossed without papal authorization.

From an artistic point of view, the pope, who at first disagreed with Philippe de Vitry”s musical innovations, having published his famous treatise Ars Nova in Paris around 1320, which modified musical notation, finally showed his esteem by showering him with benefits and by inviting him to Avignon.

In economic matters, he followed the example of Charles IV of France, expelling and despoiling the Jews of the Comtat Venaissin and Avignon in order to restore the pontifical finances. To complete the expulsion, the pope deemed it useful and necessary to throw down the synagogues of Bédarrides, Bollène, Carpentras, Le Thor, Malaucène, Monteux and Pernes. But beyond these spoliations, John XXII was above all the great organizer of the pontifical administration and of the structuring of the ordinary functioning of the Church. He extended the reserve of collations, established a tax on profits, and created the machinery of a central government. He was an excellent administrator and left a large treasury to his successor.

Also read, biographies – Georgius Agricola

Benedict XII

On December 4, 1334, at dawn, John XXII died at the age of 90. He was succeeded by Jacques Fournier, known as the White Cardinal. He is well known from his episcopate in Pamiers for the extreme zeal with which he pursued the Cathars, who had taken refuge in the secluded places of the high country of the Ariège. After choosing the name Benedict XII in honor of the patron saint of the Cistercian Order from which he came, the new pope was crowned in the Dominican church in Avignon on January 8, 1335 by Cardinal Napoleon Orsini, who had already crowned the two previous popes.

The primary idea of this pontiff was to restore order in the Church and to bring the Holy See back to Rome. As soon as he was elected, he had cancelled the orders of his predecessor and sent back to their dioceses or abbeys all the prelates and abbots of the court.

On July 6, 1335, when envoys from Rome arrived in Avignon, he promised to return to the banks of the Tiber, but without specifying a date. The revolt of the city of Bologna and the protests of the cardinals put an end to his desires and convinced him to remain on the banks of the Rhone. In the meantime, he spent the four summer months in the Pont-de-Sorgues palace built by his predecessor.

However, installed in the episcopal palace that had been totally transformed by his predecessor, the new pope decided very quickly to modify and enlarge it. On February 9, 1335, the pontiff sent a letter to the Dauphin of Viennese recommending a lay brother from the abbey of Fontfroide to buy wood in Dauphiné for a new palace.

He had everything his predecessor had built demolished and had the northern part of the apostolic palace built according to the plans of the architect Pierre Obreri, which he completed with the foundations of the tower of Trouillas. The Reverend Apostolic Chamber – the pontifical “Ministry of Finances” – bought the palace that Armand de Via had built to serve as a residence for the bishops of Avignon.

To direct the work on his palace, he brought in the spring of 1335 Pierre Peysson, an architect he had employed at Mirepoix, and charged him with the task of redesigning the Angel Tower and the northern papal chapel. Despite his austerity, Benedict XII even considered, on the advice of Robert d”Anjou, hiring Giotto to decorate the pontifical chapel. Only his death in 1336 prevented this project. These new buildings were consecrated on June 23, 1336, by the cameraman Gaspard (or Gasbert) of Laval. On the 5th of the same month, the pope justified his decision to Cardinal Pierre des Prés:

“We have thought and carefully considered that it is very important for the Roman Church to have in the city of Avignon, where the Roman Court has been residing for a long time and where we reside with it, a special palace where the Roman Pontiff can live when and for as long as it seems necessary.”

On November 10, 1337, the Hundred Years War began. In Flanders, the English gained a foothold on the island of Cadsan, while the French fleet offered battle to that of the king of England at Southampton. Benedict XII, through his legates, requested a truce which was accepted by both parties. It was not however this French-English conflict which encouraged the pope to be built a fortified palace but, as of his election, the fear of the emperor Louis of Bavaria. Relations between the papacy and the Empire had been extremely tense since October 8, 1323, when John XXII declared in consistory that the Bavarian was a usurper and an enemy of the Church. Summoned to Avignon to justify his support for the Viscontis, he did not appear and was excommunicated on March 23, 1324. In retaliation, Louis IV of Bavaria had gone down to Italy with his army to be crowned in Rome and had even elected an antipope in the person of Nicholas V who had deposed John XXII renamed John of Cahors. Even if Benedict XII showed himself to be more conciliatory, Avignon, which was in the land of the Empire, remained under threat while being infinitely safer than any other city in Italy.

Also read, biographies – Hermann Göring

Clement VI

In 1342 Peter Roger, cardinal with the title Santi Nereo e Achilleo near Philip VI becomes pope under the name of Clement VI. He considers that the palace of Benedict XII is not in connection with the greatness of a sovereign pontiff. He asks Jean du Louvres, to build a new palace worthy of him. At the beginning of the summer 1342, a new building site was opened and the pope settled in the old Audience Hall of John XXII, in the middle of what was to become the Court of Honor, until its demolition in 1347.

The work begun on July 17, 1342, as well as the creation of the new facade, transformed the palace into something close to what we know today. And Clement VI, known as the Magnificent, did not forget to place the Roger coat of arms on the main entrance, above the new Champeaux portal. The heraldry describes this coat of arms as follows: “silver with a band of azure accompanied by six roses of gules, three in chief in orle, three in point of band”.

But above all the pope had the walls covered with frescoes. Matteo Giovanetti, a priest from Viterbo, a pupil of the great Simone Martini who was dying in Avignon, directed large teams of painters from all over Europe. On October 13, 1344, Matteo Giovanetti began decorating the Chapel of Saint Martial, which opens into the Grand Tinel. It was completed on September 1, 1345. From January 9 to September 24, 1345, he decorated the oratory of Saint Michael. In November 1345, he began the frescoes of the Grand Tinel. Then in 1347, from July 12 to October 26, he worked in the Consistory room, then in the chapel of Saint John.

During the Great Black Death (1347-1352), in order to protect the Jews from popular anger, which blamed them for the plague, he issued two papal bulls in 1348 taking the Jews under his protection and threatening excommunication for those who mistreated them.

Like all great men in this feudal world, Clement VI the Magnificent placed elements of his family in brilliant responsibilities. Thus, on May 27, 1348, despite some reluctance on the part of the College of Cardinals, he did not hesitate to appoint a new prince of the Church. It must be said that the impetus was only eighteen years old, that he was the only one in his class and that the pope was his uncle and godfather. Pierre Roger de Beaufort thus received the title of cardinal of Sainte-Marie-la-Neuve. Until then, the only titles of glory of the future Gregory XI had been to be a canon at the age of eleven and then prior of Mesvres, near Autun. To avoid any problems, the cardinal-nephew was sent to Perugia to learn his law.

On June 9, 1348, Clement VI bought Avignon from Queen Jeanne for 80,000 florins, the city then became independent of Provence and a papal property like the Comtat Venaissin. In addition, in 1349, he charged Juan Fernandez de Heredia, the king”s savior at Crecy, to direct the construction of new ramparts around Avignon. To finance them, the people of Avignon were taxed and members of the Curia were sent to the four corners of Europe to find subsidies.

Clement VI the Magnificent felt his death coming in the midst of excruciating suffering. On December 6, 1352, around noon, following a last acute attack of gravel, he expired. Before his death, the pontiff had renewed his desire to be buried in the abbey church of Saint-Robert de la Chaise-Dieu. In the choir, he had a sumptuous tomb built where his white marble recumbent, covered with a layer of fine gold, presented a calm face that was not lacking in height or a certain nobility.

Innocent VI

When Clement VI died in 1352, the financial reserves of the Apostolic See were at their lowest. Innocent VI pursued a policy of economy after the splendor of his predecessor and the papal court. Among other reforms, he ordered all prelates and other benefactors to retire to their respective benefices and to reside there on pain of excommunication. He tried to levy decimals in France and Germany without real success.

During this period of uncertainty and the Hundred Years” War, and in order to avoid the exactions of the great companies in the South of the kingdom, and more particularly in Languedoc, we owe him the continuation of the fortifications of Avignon in 1355. As in 1359, the work was not finished, the pope had the old ramparts repaired to form a second defensive line. Thus the bands of looters spared the city after receiving very dissuasive financial compensation. Then the holy fathers went back to Rome, the centuries passed… And Avignon kept its wall. A wall that was not very high, after all, that one could almost climb over and that a certain missionary, Father Labat, mocked in 1731: “If cannonballs were only filled with wind, they could resist for some time. There was even a question for a moment of demolishing them. They had already been pierced: they originally had 7 doors, closed at night and reduced to 4 around the 16th century. Today, there are 29 doors, including narrow poternes and breaches. The current walls (4,330 meters long) date from 1355. In the 19th century, the architect Viollet-le-Duc redesigned the whole. Perfectly preserved, this low wall with machicolations encloses the administrative and cultural heart of the city.

Like many Avignon popes, Innocent VI tried to bring the papacy back to Rome, and to this end he sent Cardinal Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz, Archbishop of Toledo, to Italy to pacify the Papal States. He tried to recover the patrimony of the Church in Italy, but despite the efforts of his legate Cardinal Albornoz, he failed in part.

Innocent VI died on September 12, 1362, in Avignon, and was buried in the chartreuse Notre-Dame-du-Val-de-Bénédiction in Villeneuve-les-Avignon.

Also read, biographies – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

After several attempts by the Roger de Beaufort clan (Clement VI”s clan) to have one of their own elected at the conclave of Avignon on September 22, 1362, the choice of a prelate from outside the Sacred College was imposed, and on September 28 Guillaume de Grimoard was elected. This abbot of Saint-Victor (Marseille) returned from his mission in Naples and went alone to Avignon, where he arrived while the Durance and the Rhône were in flood. He was first consecrated bishop because he was only a priest, then crowned pope on November 6 under the name of Urban V in the chapel of the Old Palace.

On his arrival at the palace he said: “But I don”t even have a piece of garden to see some fruit trees grow, to eat my salad and to pick a grape”. This was why he undertook expensive work to extend the gardens during his pontificate. The one that adjoins the Palace of the Popes on its eastern facade is still called the “Orchard of Urban V”.

During this same year of 1362, King John II the Good of France arrived at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon at the head of a strong armed detachment under the command of Marshal Boucicaut. King John had come first to solicit the Sovereign Pontiff for financial aid (to pay his ransom) and then to discuss his desire to unite his son Philip the Bold with Queen Joan. The pope informed him that the sovereign of Naples was already promised but that he would plead in favor of the young duke of Burgundy. The king of France then decided to stay until spring on the banks of the Rhone. He spent his time between Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, where he started the construction of the fort Saint-André, his castle of Roquemaure and the city of the popes.

The pope had to settle a conflict between Gaston Fébus, count of Foix, and Jean I, count of Armagnac, who were fighting for feudal supremacy in southern France. After the victory of Gaston de Foix, the pope charged his legate Pierre de Clermont to ask Gaston Fébus not to abuse his victory. And the count of Foix, with the ransoms obtained, became from then on the richest feudatory of the south of France and was going to be able to continue to hold the equal balance between the kings of England and France for his viscounty of Béarn.

On Good Friday 1363, Urban V launched a solemn appeal for the Alexandria Crusade to all Christian kings and princes, an expedition that was more economic than religious. Peter I of Lusignan carried out this crusade two years later, in 1365, during which he pillaged Alexandria for three days. In that same year, 1365, the lands of Avignon were threatened by the disorders of the Routiers, and Urban V was obliged to treat and pay ransom to Bertrand Du Guesclin to get rid of the massacres on their way to Spain.

In addition to the gardens, Urban V had the architect Bertrand Nogayrol build the Roma, a long one-story gallery, perpendicular to the Angel Tower. It was completed in 1363, and this date marks the end of the architectural work of the new palace. The pope had the Roma decorated by Matteo Giovanetti. His paintings on canvas of the life of St. Benedict began on December 31, 1365 and were completed in April 1367. This gallery no longer exists today because it was razed by the military engineers in 1837.

Urban V had, long before his election, considered that the pope should sit in Rome and not elsewhere. In the spring of 1367, the mercenary John Hawkwood and his company of St. George, who had gone over to the papal side, defeated the troops in Perugia. This allowed Cardinal Gil Albornoz to take the cities of Assisi, Nocera and Galdo from that city. A relative calm having appeared in Italy following its military successes, the pope considered being able to settle in Rome. This imposed a complete displacement of the court with its services, its files and its supply. The pope therefore embarked for Rome in 1367 and entered the Eternal City triumphantly on October 16. At first this return seemed definitive, but the threats to Provence and therefore to the papal lands (Comtat Venaissain and Avignon) by the great companies led by Du Guesclin and Louis d”Anjou, and moreover the warlike disagreements with the Visconti house, made the pope take the public decision to return to Avignon. Urban V, exhausted by the life that the Italians had made to him since his arrival, rembarrait towards Provence. On September 16, 1370, the pontiff arrived at the Old Port of Marseille and reached Avignon, in small steps, eleven days later.

To stop the exactions of the Rovers, he negotiated a truce. It was signed on December 19, 1370, but the same day the truce was signed, the pope, tormented by stone disease, died in Avignon. He was first buried in Notre-Dame des Doms in Avignon. On May 31, 1372, his remains were exhumed from the tomb of the cathedral in Avignon and transferred to Saint Victor”s, having wished that his body be buried in the manner of the poor in the earth, then reduced to ashes and his bones taken to the abbey church in Marseille.

Also read, biographies – Francis Xavier

Gregory XI

As we have seen, Peter Roger de Beaufort received the cardinal”s hat at the age of eighteen from his uncle and godfather Clement VI. And on the death of Urban V, the cardinals met in conclave in Avignon on December 29, 1370, and the very next morning elected him pope by unanimous vote. He was ordained a priest on January 4, 1371, to be ordained a bishop and crowned pope the following day. He chose the name Gregory XI. He pursued the reforms of the Church and brought all his care to bring the Hospitallers back to discipline and the observance of their rules, to undertake the reform of the Dominican order. Faced with the resurgence of heresies, he revived the Inquisition and prosecuted the poor of Lyon (Vaudois), the beguines and the flagellants in Germany.

He tried unsuccessfully to reconcile the kings of France and England, but the Hundred Years War was not yet over. However, he managed to pacify Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Sicily and Naples. He also made great efforts to reunite the Greek and Roman churches, to undertake a new crusade, and to reform the clergy.

Following the Italian turbulences encountered by his predecessor, Gregory XI is very attentive to the actions of Bernabo Viscontisusceptible to enlarge his domain to the detriment of the papal lands. With a policy of alliance with the Emperor, the queen of Naples and the king of Hungary, the armies of the League helped by the English condottiere John Hawkwood force Bernabo to lean towards peace. By suborning some of the papal advisors, the latter even obtained a favorable truce on June 6, 1374. And its victories in Piedmont incited the pope to announce in February 1374 its next departure for Rome.

Things could have stopped there, but, like his predecessors in Avignon, Gregory XI made the fatal mistake of appointing Frenchmen as legates and governors of the ecclesiastical provinces of Italy. Now the French were not familiar with Italian affairs and the Italians hated them. A new truce signed with Bernabo Visconti pushed Florence into action, because it feared the return of the Holy See to Rome and the rise of this city to its detriment. The Florentines thus saw the escape of ecclesiastical offices which were traditionally theirs (and moreover very lucrative). Fearing that a reinforcement of the papal power in the peninsula would alter their own influence in central Italy, they allied themselves with Bernabo, in July 1375. Bernabo and the Florentines attempted to stir up insurrections in papal territory, especially among those (and there were many) who were exasperated by the attitude of the papal legates in Italy. They succeeded so well that in a short time the Pope was dispossessed of his entire patrimony. This general discontent is accentuated, as regards the Papal States, by the stop of the preparations of the return of the pope to Rome. Florence enters thus in open rebellion from where the war known as of the Eight Saints so called by allusion to the eight leaders that Florence had given itself on this occasion. The pope reacted with extreme vigor by banning the city of Florence from Christianity (March 31, 1376), and placed Florence under a ban, excommunicating all its inhabitants. This implacable condemnation is explained by the risk of seeing the return of the pope impossible. In addition to the ban on the city, Gregory XI invited the European monarchs to expel the Florentine merchants from their lands and to confiscate their property.

However, Gregory XI, as early as May 9, 1372, had already announced his intention to join Rome, a desire which he confirmed again during the consistory of February 1374.

The return journey is well known, thanks to a faithful account by Pierre Amiel de Brénac, bishop of Sinigaglia, who accompanied Gregory XI during the entire trip. The departure from Avignon, via the palace of the popes in Sorgues, took place on September 13, 1376, bound for Marseille, where they embarked on October 2. The papal fleet made numerous stops (Port-Miou, Sanary, Saint-Tropez, Antibes, Nice, Villefranche) to arrive in Genoa on October 18. After stops in Porto Fino, Livorno, Piombino, the arrival in Corneto took place on December 6, 1376. On January 13, 1377, he left Corneto, disembarked at Ostia the next day, and sailed up the Tiber to the monastery of San Paolo. On January 17, 1377, Gregory XI disembarked from his galley moored on the banks of the Tiber and entered Rome surrounded by the soldiers of his nephew Raymond de Turenne and the great lords of Provence and Naples.

A true European congress met in Sarzana in the presence of the representatives of Rome and Florence, the representatives of the emperor, the kings of France, Hungary, Spain and Naples. During this congress one learns that the pope has just died in the night of the 26 to March 27, 1378.

Like his uncle Clement VI, Gregory XI had wished to be buried in the church of the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu, but the Romans would not allow the body to be taken away, and he was buried in Rome. The keystones of the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu bear the arms of Clement VI in the first bays and of Gregory XI in the last.

Gregory XI was the last French pope.

At the death of Gregory XI, the election of the new pope Urban VI on April 8, 1378 by a restricted Sacred College and a boiling Roman crowd has a questionable legitimacy. Moreover, the new pope fell out with some of the cardinals who had remained in Avignon: he wanted to return to a life in line with the evangelical ideal, asking the cardinals to give up their pensions and invest in the restoration of the Church. The dissenting cardinals, recalling the non-canonical nature of the election, asked him to abdicate on August 2. On September 18, 1378 in Rome, Urban VI appointed 29 new cardinals including twenty Italians. The French cardinals obtain the support of Jeanne queen of Naples, opposed to the Visconti, then make use of their network of influence (the Holy See is the diplomatic epicenter of the Occident) and convince the advisers of Charles V, then the king himself, of the non validity of the election of Urban VI. And on September 20, 1378, during a conclave in Fondi in the region of Rome, the Sacred College elected one of its own, Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who took the title of Clement VII.

The Great Western Schism has begun.

The Christian West was then divided. As Hélène Millet notes, “because of the Hundred Years” War, the division into two camps was already effective, so to speak, and the recognition of this or that pontiff by the princes became an element like any other in the political game”.1 In the clementistic camp, the Kingdom of Naples and France were joined by Charles V”s allies: Castile, Scotland and the duchies of Lorraine, Austria and Luxembourg. The enemies of the kingdom of Naples (Northern Italy, the Angevin kingdoms of Hungary and Poland) and those of the kingdom of France (England, Flanders) thus joined the Roman obedience.

We have then two popes: one in Rome Urban VI; that the Church will recognize as legitimate and the other in Avignon Clement VII who will be considered as an antipope.

Also read, biographies – Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan

Clement VII

It is not necessary to confuse this Clement VII pope of Avignon, considered by the Church as an antipope and the Clement VII of the Family of Medici (Julius de Medici), pope from 1523 to 1534.

Robert of Geneva, bishop at 19 and cardinal at 29, was a man of action. He put down the rebellion against Gregory XI by the terrible massacre of Caesarea. His peers, mainly French, elected him as pope on October 31, 1378 under the name of Clement VII. He settled in Avignon with his court, while Urban VI remained in Rome.

In Avignon, Clement VII undertook to fight against Urban VI. The latter gradually lost his allies, becoming a paranoid tyrant, going so far as to torture and put to death the cardinals who had elected him but were thinking of replacing him.

But Clement VII suffered a setback in the kingdom of Naples where Queen Joan was assassinated by Charles de Duras, a supporter of Urban VI. The lack of initiative and opportunism of his allies did not allow him to overthrow Urban VI. When the latter died on October 15, 1389, his cardinals elected a successor, Boniface IX, thus perpetuating the schism.

Clement VII is the pope who stayed the most in Châteauneuf. He used to come there on a mule and this is probably the origin of the famous legend of the pope”s mule told by Alphonse Daudet.

Benedict XIII

Clement VII was succeeded, still in Avignon, by the Aragonese Benedict XIII. As with Clement VII, this antipope should not be confused with the Pope recognized by the Church, Benedict XIII. Elected on September 28, 1394, he promised to step down, if necessary, to end the Great Schism. His determination not to keep his word earned him a first withdrawal of obedience from France and its allies on July 28, 1398. The Avignon pontiff then locked himself up in his palace where he was besieged in September.

The Council of Pisa failed in 1409 to resolve the schism. It elected a third pope (known as the “Pope of Pisa” even though he did not reside in Pisa) in the person of Alexander V, who was soon replaced by John XXIII. However, the Pope of Pisa received a lot of support from states that had been faithful to one or the other pope.

Pope Benedict XIII, besieged in Avignon, had to go into exile in Aragon, the last country to support him. He remained there until his death, and even had successors who gradually fell into oblivion. But the departure of Benedict XIII marked the definitive end of the Avignon papacy.

When Benedict XIII locked himself in his palace, Geoffroy le Meingre, known as Boucicaut, came to lay siege to it in September 1398. The kitchen of the Grand Tinel was, during this first siege, the scene of an intrusion by Boucicaut”s men and Raymond de Turenne, the nephew of Gregory XI. Martin Alpartils, a contemporary Catalan chronicler, narrates their coup de force. Having succeeded in penetrating under the palace enclosure by going up the Durançole and the sewers of the kitchens, they took a spiral staircase which led them in the high kitchen. Alerted, the troops loyal to Benedict XIII pushed them back by throwing stones from the hood and flaming fascines at them.

This account is corroborated by the Avignon factor of Francesco di Marco Datini, the great merchant of Prato to whom he wrote:

“Yesterday, October 25, we were that evening at table, when there came a Spanish knight who armed himself in the store: we got well from him 200 florins.”

When questioned, the purchaser indicated that he and his family would enter the palace through the sewers.

“In short, at midnight, 50 to 60 of the best people who were there, entered this palace. But when all these people were inside, a ladder, it is said, fell over and the thing was discovered without them being able to go back. The result was that all of our people were taken prisoners, most of them wounded, and one of them was killed.”

The letter carrier attributes the failure of this coup de main to the feverishness and haste of its authors:

“They were so eager to get into that palace, and God knows it was a beautiful prey! Think that there is more than a million gold inside! For four years this pope has always collected gold. They would have been all rich, and now they are prisoners, which greatly distresses the city of Avignon.”

After three months of intense fighting, the siege dragged on and the blockade of the palace was decided. Then in April 1399, only the exits were guarded to prevent Benedict XIII from escaping. The correspondence sent to Prato continues to bring to life the daily life of the siege as seen by the people of Avignon. A letter dated May 31, 1401 warns the former merchant from Avignon of the fire in his former room:

“On the last day of last month, at night, before prime, four houses burned in front of your house, exactly in front of the upstairs room in which you used to sleep; and then the fire was driven by the contrary wind into your room and burned it with bed, curtains, some merchandise, writings and other things, because the fire was strong and took at an hour when everyone was asleep, so much so that we couldn”t take out what was in your room being occupied with saving things of greater value”

The one of November 13 informs the merchant of the bombing of his house:

Finally, despite the surveillance he was under, the pontiff managed to leave the palace and his city of residence on March 11, 1403, after a trying five-year siege.

Although Benedict XIII never returned to Avignon, he had left behind his nephews, Antonio de Luna with the office of rector of the Comtat Venaissin, and Rodrigo. The latter and his Catalans moved into the papal palace. On Tuesday, January 27, 1405, at the hour of vespers, the pyramidal bell tower of Our Lady of the Doms collapsed and crushed the ancient baptistery dedicated to St. John in its fall. The Catalans were blamed for this action and took advantage of the opportunity to build a platform on the ruins to install their artillery.

Faced with the deposition of his uncle by the Council of Pisa in 1409, and the defection of the Avignon and Comtadines the following year, Rodrigo de Luna, who had become rector in place of his brother, gathered all his forces in the papal palace. For his own safety, he continued to fortify the Rock of the Doms; in order to see possible attackers coming, he finished demolishing all the houses in front of the palace and thus formed the large esplanade that we know today. The second siege was placed in front of the palace and was called in the contemporary chronicles “war of the Catalans”. It lasted seventeen months. Finally, on November 2, 1411, the Catalans of Rodrigo de Luna, starving and desperate for help, agreed to surrender to the cameraman Francisco de Conzié.

The Arlesian Bertrand Boysset notes in his diary that in 1403, as early as December, all the houses located between the large and small palaces were demolished to facilitate the defense:

“In the year MCCCCIII, from the month of December, January and until May, the houses that were between the large and the small palace, up to the bridge of the Rhone, were demolished; and then they began to build large walls on the Roque de Notre-Dame des Doms by means of which the large palace was connected to the small palace and to the tower of the bridge, in such a way that Pope Benezey and the others after him could enter and leave the palace.”

Meanwhile, in Pisa, the council had elected a new pope, Alexander V. While his goal was to end the schism, Christendom found itself with not two but three popes. This pontiff, recognized by the French court, sent Cardinal Pierre de Thury to govern Avignon and the Comtat. He had the title of legate and vicar general from 1409 to 1410.

But on December 5 and 6, 1409, by order of Rodrigo de Luna, whom the legate had not dismissed as rector of the Comtat, the States met at Pont-de-Sorgues. The Catalans needed troops and money to resist the enemies of Benedict XIII. The delegates of the three orders authorized these two levies. And to simplify matters, while Benedict XIII was a refugee in Peñíscola and Gregory XII reigned in Rome, Cardinal Baldassarre Cossa was elected by the Council of Pisa. He took the name of John XXIII. There were again three popes and it was he who Avignon chose as its supreme pontiff.

Also read, biographies – Louis Auguste Blanqui

Bibliography

: document used as a source for the writing of this article.

External links

Sources