In the book A History of God, Karen Armstrong showed how, in the history of the major monotheistic traditions, the idea of God evolved over time. Of course everything has a history.. but I had never thought of “God” having one. Inevitably other apparently unchanging concepts must be equally open to historical analysis eg the eternal home of the Catholic Church is Rome.
Yet.. yet …the Avignon Papacy clearly did refer to a period in Church history from 1309-78 when 7 French popes and the seat of the Pope was moved out of Italy. Why did the papacy leave Rome? Perhaps because the great C14th prosperity of the church was accompanied by a serious compromise of the Papacy's spiritual integrity. Each pope seemed to acknowledge the ambitions of the French emperors.
Pope Boniface VIII (reigned 1294-1303) was a talented, Italian pope. But Boniface endlessly meddled in foreign affairs, claiming temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His worst quarrels were with: Emperor Albert I of Habsburg, the powerful Colonnas family and King Philip the Fair of France, whom he excommunicated in 1303. The pope was seized by agents of the Colonnas, and held captive. The pope was released, but he soon died alone and afraid.
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1] Raymond Bertrand de Got had been the archbishop of Bordeaux, and a confidante of English and French kings. In 1305, he became Pope Clement V (reigned 1305-14). Because Italy was on the verge of anarchy, he kept away from Rome. He knew Boniface VIII had died in captivity, so the French King greatly encouraged Pope Clement to move the papal court to France. Clement was crowned at Lyon in the presence of his patron, King Philip IV the Fair of France.
The papacy had been located outside Rome before but now the papacy left Italy! And being French himself, Clement naturally chose France. Even though the papacy was finally independent, it WAS influenced by King Philip's French crown. Philip asked the Pope to proclaim the Knights Templars heretics and hand them over to the secular authority. The pope caved in immediately; in 1307, all 2000 knight monks were delivered to Philip for burning.
Petit Palace was built in 1317 as a cardinal’s home for Clement's Grand Penitentiary. Like the Papal Palace itself, Petit Palace’s architecture had military elements, though they softened later. In this time of great wealth, popes and cardinals vied to endow ever more generous holy foundations.
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Clement V created 9 new French cardinals!! In an age of papal nepotism, Clement out-nepotised them all. Dante put Clement V into hell in his Divine Comedy! Even if Clement had intended to return to Rome, by this time he was too old to go on the journey. In any case, Rome was still under the hostile control of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VII. Clement died in France and was buried there.
2] Jacques Duese was the next French bishop to become Pope John XXII (pope 1316-34). An elderly man (72), John XXII cut down court costs, and instituted a new fiscal system to bring money in. This was achieved by taking control of the appointments of bishops, and splitting up large dioceses. John tried to keep the office of Holy Roman Emperor within his control, but his view of papal monarchy was problematic.
See Pope John’s Grand Audience Hall which is on the ground floor of the New Palace. Half the hall was used by the ecclesiastical judges of the Court of the Holy Roman Rota; half was used by litigants and their lawyers. The Fresco of the Prophets was Giovanetti’s work. On the opposite bank of the Rhone, the nearby town of Villeneuve-les-Avignon area developed as an exclusive residential district for members of the papal court. He died in 1334 while the work on the papal palace continued.
3] Benedict XII (pope 1334-42) Jacques Fournier was a learned French theologian and inquisitor. He had new constitutions drawn up for the Cistercians, Benedictines and Franciscans, and insisted on regular visitations to the monasteries. Where Benedict XII failed was in foreign policy. He completely identified the French king's priorities as his own, causing great bitterness in England, Germany and Italy. Benedict was prepared to return the papacy to Italy, but feared Rome would be chaotic. In any case the French king and the French cardinals opposed any move, so Benedict made the papacy even more entrenched in Avignon via his building activities.
He supervised building the Old Papal Palace, seen as an impregnable fortress. The Hall of the Consistory became the supreme council of all Christendom. With great pomp the cardinals filed in when summoned by the pope; here the pope received kings and ambassadors, canonised saints and condemned heretics. The return to Italy became unlikely, this time by default. Benedict appointed only French cardinals to the curia, thus ensuring that the future of the papacy was even MORE likely to remain in France. His tomb is in Notre Dame Cathedral.
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In 1348, the Avignon territory was BOUGHT from the papacy. But this was a stormy period when Clement VI tried to prevent the invasion of France by Edward III against Philip VI of Valois. He was very involved in supporting the claims of Charles IV of Luxembourg to the Holy Roman Emperor’s imperial throne against Louis of Bavaria.
5] Innocent VI (pope 1352-62) In the conclave after Clement V's death, the cardinals tried desperately to limit the incoming pope's ability to create heaps of new cardinals. The non French cardinals were most anxious to prevent the papacy from continuing under the control of the French king. Etienne Aubert was a French lawyer and judge, before taking holy orders. He had been a bishop, cardinal and administrator of the Avignon see, then became Pope Innocent VI.
He founded the Charterhouse of Val-de-Benediction near his residence in Villeneuve-les-Avignon in 1356, the exclusive residential district for members of the papal court. The Avignon papacy was booming.
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6] Urban V (pope 1362-70) Guillaume de Grimoard came from a noble French family. This austere, deeply religious Benedictine pope shunned a luxurious coronation and focused on reforming the worst of the church's corruption. Urban continued the reforms started but not completed by his predecessor, Innocent. As a scholar, he was most interested in reforming old universities and founding new ones.
By 1363 Urban tried to transfer his court back to Rome. Eventually in 1367, under the protection of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, Urban and a very reluctant Curia made the move to Rome, but the Lateran was in ruins. So he lived for 3 years in the Vatican itself while St John Lateran was rebuilt. Meanwhile the French cardinals constantly pressured Urban to return to Avignon, and he did so because he needed to negotiate with both the French & English before any crusade to Turkey could go ahead. And Urban created 7 new cardinals in Rome, 6 of them French.
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Yet.. yet …the Avignon Papacy clearly did refer to a period in Church history from 1309-78 when 7 French popes and the seat of the Pope was moved out of Italy. Why did the papacy leave Rome? Perhaps because the great C14th prosperity of the church was accompanied by a serious compromise of the Papacy's spiritual integrity. Each pope seemed to acknowledge the ambitions of the French emperors.
Pope Boniface VIII (reigned 1294-1303) was a talented, Italian pope. But Boniface endlessly meddled in foreign affairs, claiming temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His worst quarrels were with: Emperor Albert I of Habsburg, the powerful Colonnas family and King Philip the Fair of France, whom he excommunicated in 1303. The pope was seized by agents of the Colonnas, and held captive. The pope was released, but he soon died alone and afraid.
Papal Palace, Avignon
The papacy had been located outside Rome before but now the papacy left Italy! And being French himself, Clement naturally chose France. Even though the papacy was finally independent, it WAS influenced by King Philip's French crown. Philip asked the Pope to proclaim the Knights Templars heretics and hand them over to the secular authority. The pope caved in immediately; in 1307, all 2000 knight monks were delivered to Philip for burning.
Clement made Notre-Dame-des-Doms his cathedral in Avignon, complete with a magnificent tower. Pope Clement invited the great Sienese artists, Giotto, Simone Martini and Matteo Giovannetti to come from Italy, to create International Gothic masterpieces for this church.
Petit Palace was built in 1317 as a cardinal’s home for Clement's Grand Penitentiary. Like the Papal Palace itself, Petit Palace’s architecture had military elements, though they softened later. In this time of great wealth, popes and cardinals vied to endow ever more generous holy foundations.
Petit Palace, Avignon
2] Jacques Duese was the next French bishop to become Pope John XXII (pope 1316-34). An elderly man (72), John XXII cut down court costs, and instituted a new fiscal system to bring money in. This was achieved by taking control of the appointments of bishops, and splitting up large dioceses. John tried to keep the office of Holy Roman Emperor within his control, but his view of papal monarchy was problematic.
See Pope John’s Grand Audience Hall which is on the ground floor of the New Palace. Half the hall was used by the ecclesiastical judges of the Court of the Holy Roman Rota; half was used by litigants and their lawyers. The Fresco of the Prophets was Giovanetti’s work. On the opposite bank of the Rhone, the nearby town of Villeneuve-les-Avignon area developed as an exclusive residential district for members of the papal court. He died in 1334 while the work on the papal palace continued.
3] Benedict XII (pope 1334-42) Jacques Fournier was a learned French theologian and inquisitor. He had new constitutions drawn up for the Cistercians, Benedictines and Franciscans, and insisted on regular visitations to the monasteries. Where Benedict XII failed was in foreign policy. He completely identified the French king's priorities as his own, causing great bitterness in England, Germany and Italy. Benedict was prepared to return the papacy to Italy, but feared Rome would be chaotic. In any case the French king and the French cardinals opposed any move, so Benedict made the papacy even more entrenched in Avignon via his building activities.
He supervised building the Old Papal Palace, seen as an impregnable fortress. The Hall of the Consistory became the supreme council of all Christendom. With great pomp the cardinals filed in when summoned by the pope; here the pope received kings and ambassadors, canonised saints and condemned heretics. The return to Italy became unlikely, this time by default. Benedict appointed only French cardinals to the curia, thus ensuring that the future of the papacy was even MORE likely to remain in France. His tomb is in Notre Dame Cathedral.
Charterhouse of Val-de-Benediction
Villeneuve-les-Avignon
4] Clement VI (pope from 1342-52) Frenchman Pierre Roger had a doctorate in theology, became a diplomat and then chancellor of France. He was archbishop of Sens and Rouen, then had been cardinal at Avignon. This very cultivated cardinal, who was King Philip VI's favourite, lived like a secular prince. His palace in Avignon looked like any military fortress with narrow openings, impenetrable defences and moats. But INSIDE it was full of decoration, frescoes and tapestries, art and the courtly life.
In 1348, the Avignon territory was BOUGHT from the papacy. But this was a stormy period when Clement VI tried to prevent the invasion of France by Edward III against Philip VI of Valois. He was very involved in supporting the claims of Charles IV of Luxembourg to the Holy Roman Emperor’s imperial throne against Louis of Bavaria.
He founded the Charterhouse of Val-de-Benediction near his residence in Villeneuve-les-Avignon in 1356, the exclusive residential district for members of the papal court. The Avignon papacy was booming.
Papal throne
in the sanctuary of the Avignon Cathedral
6] Urban V (pope 1362-70) Guillaume de Grimoard came from a noble French family. This austere, deeply religious Benedictine pope shunned a luxurious coronation and focused on reforming the worst of the church's corruption. Urban continued the reforms started but not completed by his predecessor, Innocent. As a scholar, he was most interested in reforming old universities and founding new ones.
By 1363 Urban tried to transfer his court back to Rome. Eventually in 1367, under the protection of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, Urban and a very reluctant Curia made the move to Rome, but the Lateran was in ruins. So he lived for 3 years in the Vatican itself while St John Lateran was rebuilt. Meanwhile the French cardinals constantly pressured Urban to return to Avignon, and he did so because he needed to negotiate with both the French & English before any crusade to Turkey could go ahead. And Urban created 7 new cardinals in Rome, 6 of them French.
7] Gregory XI (pope 1370-8) Pierre Roger de Beaufort was from a noble Limoges family. He made a cardinal by uncle Pope Clement VI, when he was still a teen and made pope at 42. Gregory was ruthless in repressing heresy in France, Germany and Spain via the Inquisition. Every aspect of Christian life and church organisation needed definition: marriage, sacraments, ordination, canonisation, electoral procedures etc. Recourse to the papal courts grew at a phenomenal speed. By the C13th, universities in Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge etc made theology, philosophy and especially law important.
By the 1370s, the Babylonian Captivity seemed unending. Many of Europe's troubles were felt to be due to the long residence of the popes at Avignon, where the Curia was now largely French. Pope Gregory wanted to send a crusade to the east that would reunite the eastern and western church under the leadership of Rome. Also he believed Rome was the only true home for the papacy, and, due to the recent successes of the papal armies, he felt safer about going home. But there was still vigorous opposition of the French cardinals.
By the 1370s, the Babylonian Captivity seemed unending. Many of Europe's troubles were felt to be due to the long residence of the popes at Avignon, where the Curia was now largely French. Pope Gregory wanted to send a crusade to the east that would reunite the eastern and western church under the leadership of Rome. Also he believed Rome was the only true home for the papacy, and, due to the recent successes of the papal armies, he felt safer about going home. But there was still vigorous opposition of the French cardinals.
The frescoes on the ceilings in the St-Jean chapel, as well as the walls of the Grand Audience Room, were painted by the Italian artist Matteo Giovannetti.
Catherine of Siena arrived in Avignon on June 1376 to bring the Pope back to Italy and was graciously received. But died in 1380 at 33, and was buried in Rome’s Dominican Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Anyhow Pope Gregory XI acted on Catherine’s pleas and in 1376, he risked a trip to Rome. Gregory and 2000 mercenaries arrived in Rome in Jan 1377 to take up residence in the Vatican. But Gregory was mobbed by jeering Florentines and thousands died, so he fled to a safer city. Gregory eventually limped back into Rome, and the Babylonian Captivity was over. He died exhausted the next year and was buried in the Roman Forum.
Street mobs during the funeral threatened to burn any cardinal who voted for a non Italian pope. No Frenchman was ever elected pope again! France would never steal the papacy away from Rome again!