From 1305 to 1378 the papacy was removed from Rome and for nearly all of this period resident at Avignon, a city situated on the river Rhone in Provence, then part of the empire. Petrarch (d. 1374) likened life at the papal court in Avignon to the legendary vice, corruption and greed of Babylon, a literary device used to criticize worldly tendencies in the Church by Joachim of Fiore in the twelfth century and more latterly by the Spiritual Franciscans. 'Babylonian Captivity' has since then gained currency as a term to describe this period of papal history, but the Avignon popes
Were rather more exiles than captives. The rivalries of great Roman families had played a significant part in the ignominious end of Boniface VIII, and dissensions between Guelphs and Ghibellines in northern Italy led to the endemic wars that kept the popes across the Alps, even though they themselves took an active part in these conflicts. The plans of Clement V (1305-14) and John XXII (1316-34) to return to Italy gave way to their successors' complacency over being absent from Rome. Nevertheless there was a general, although unjustifiable, opinion that the papacy was in the
French king's pocket and a feeling that the ills of the Church would be rectified by the pope's return to Rome. After Urban V (1362-70) made what amounted to a visit in 1369-70, Gregory XI's (1370-8) resettlement in Rome in 1377 proved permanent, but after his death the Church was beset by the Great Schism with the establishment of a rival line of popes at Avignon.
Beyond all else contemporaries condemned the grasping nature of the Avignon popes, who found themselves requiring additional funds to support a burgeoning bureaucracy and to finance the Italian wars. This need was exacerbated by falling revenues from the papacy's territorial possessions in Italy, due to the political upheaval there. Like any bishop, the pope derived his income from both temporal and spiritual sources, the latter of which were to become increasingly important. These originally consisted of nominal payments in recognition of papal authority, such as the census paid by a number of monasteries and Peter's pence paid by certain countries. In the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries popes levied occasional tenths of the assessed value of benefices to finance crusades, but most of the money collected went to lay rulers and was not used for its intended purpose. More lucrative were the exactions made in connection with the increasing practice of papal provision, or the pope's direct appointment to dignities and benefices: common services paid by archbishops, bishops and abbots and annates paid by other provisors. The former amounted notionally to one-third and the latter to the whole of the assessed annual income, which was lower than the true value. In theory, the pope's right to provide to any church was well worked out by now, but under John XXII the fiscal benefits of the practice were better realized. His constitution Execrabilis (1317) was enacted to end the abuse of pluralism, but he also reserved to himself the disposal of benefices thus left vacant, enabling him to collect annates, then still a novelty in most of Europe. During his pontificate the provision of bishops and abbots began to become commonplace. The map opposite, derived from records of payment to the apostolic camera, shows how common services came to be exploited as a source of income, by comparing the first and the last full years of John XXII's pontificate. In both years the total census collected was near 100 florins. In contrast, common services were becoming the Holy See's principal source of income. In 1316-17 twenty-one prelates paid 9,343 florins, but in 1332-3 nearly one hundred churchmen paid about 38,370 florins, or more than a four-fold increase.
R. K.Rose
The Great Schism and the Councils
Following the death in March 1378 of Gregory XI, who the previous year had returned the papacy to Rome, sixteen cardinals met in conclave. On 8 April they elected Bartolomeo Prignano, archbishop of Bari, as Urban VI, amidst raucous demands from the populace for a Roman pope. Although the regularity of his election might be doubted because of the disturbances, in its aftermath it is clear that the cardinals did in fact recognize and treat Urban as the legitimate pope. Only after four months did thirteen of the electors, weary of their master's violent outbursts, desert him and declare his election invalid. In a second conclave at Fondi, in the kingdom of Naples, they elected the French king's cousin Robert of Geneva as Clement VII. Unable to dislodge Urban from Rome, Clement quite naturally chose to establish his court at Avignon, where five of Gregory XI's cardinals had obstinately remained in residence.
Allegiance to the rival popes largely reflected the national political alignments of Europe. Charles V of France had from the start encouraged the cardinals in their rebellion and prompted Joanna of Naples to follow his lead. It was natural therefore that England should remain loyal to Urban, while Scotland,
Areas in Pisan Obedience
Areas that remained m the Roman Obedience
Areas that remained in the Avignon Obedience
Areas that char>ged from the Roman to the Pisan Obedience
France's ally, accepted the French pope. Within France itself, the clergy of Flanders and the English enclaves of Calais and Gascony rejected Clement. The emperor, Charles IV, along with other rulers of central Europe and Scandinavia, recognized Urban VI, but parts of the German kingdom, especially those bordering France, followed the opposite course. Urban engineered the downfall of Joanna of Naples, but his own creature also turned against him. Naples did not become officially Urbanist until 1400, though the Roman pope had until then enjoyed support in the kingdom. Portugal wavered between Rome and Avignon until 1385, when it finally embraced the former. The kings of Castile, Aragon and Navarre deferred their decisions until 1381, 1386 and 1390, respectively, when each in turn recognized Clement.
While military action proved to be futile, the delicate question of how to heal the schism was debated in the universities. Jurists and theologians were in universal agreement that a pope could only be deposed for heresy, but neither pontiff was alleged to be a heretic. As early as 1379, Henry of Langenstein and Conrad of Gelnhausen, both of the University of Paris, advocated the calling of a general council, as superior to the pope, to examine the criminal misconduct of Urban VI and the illegal election of Clement VII. But it was generally accepted that only a pope could summon a general council.
The scandal of the schism deepened when the Roman cardinals elected Boniface IX after Urban's death in 1389. Despite exhortations from the French crown not to proceed with an election after Clement died in 1394, his cardinals proclaimed Benedict XIII pope. Afterwards, the resignation of both popes, greatly promoted by Parisian scholars Pierre d'Ailly and Jean Gerson, was the most widely favoured means of ending the schism. In 1407 a meeting at Savona was arranged between Benedict and Gregory XII, Roman pontiff since the previous year, but Gregory could not bring himself to make the final leg of the journey. Frustrated by inaction, cardinals from both camps joined together and summoned a general council to meet at Pisa in March 1409. Without universal support and of doubtful legitimacy, it was a sham, and the end result was not one pope but three. It was still generally acknowledged that only a council could solve the problem. The deadlock was broken by the emperor-elect, Sigismund, who summoned the council of Constance, which met between 1414 and 1417. The Pisan pope, John XXIII, and Gregory XII resigned, but Benedict XIII kept up the pretence until his death in 1423. The council was careful not to elect the one, new pope, Martin V, until all 'nations' were represented, in November 1417.
R. K.Rose
The Papal States
The papal states were the basis for the papacy's temporal power. Founded in 754 (when Pepin, king of the Franks, granted Pope Stephen II the exarchate of Ravenna and the Pentapolis) they were directly governed by the pope as secular ruler and acquired political autonomy from neighbouring powers in the thirteenth century. Despite an extensive network of roads, largely based on ancient Roman routes, the diverse terrain of the states presented formidable administrative problems. The key cities of Rome, surrounded by an infertile coastal plain, and
Bologna, in the productive region of Romagna, were separated by the Apennine passes and the wealthy march of Ancona, a hilly region of varied economic activity and numerous small signori. The whole area was ruled by papal governors or rectors based in Perugia, Orvieto, the Patrimony of St Peter in Tuscia, Romagna and elsewhere. During the papal absence in Avignon (1309-77) de facto authority was usurped by numerous communes and latterly by signorial dynasties such as the Malatesta of Rimini and the Montefeltro of Urbino. The Roman hinterland was likewise
Dominated by families such as the Orsini, Caetani, Colonna, da Vico and Anguillara, while Rome itself remained faction-ridden despite Cola di Rienzo's attempt to reorganize city government in 1347. Bologna, meanwhile, had rebelled in 1334. For decades the region was beset by warfare. In 1353-67 Cardinal Egidio (Gil) de Albornoz was charged by Innocent VI to restore papal fortunes. Through military and diplomatic means some recognition of papal authority was achieved and the legitimacy of some signori was recognized by
Their appointment as papal vicars. After the return of the popes to Rome the papal states shared in the crisis of papal power provoked by the Great Schism and the Conciliar Movement: Ladislao of Naples, for example, seized Rome in 1408 and 1413. Papal authority was precariously reestablished by Eugenius IV (1431-47). Thereafter, income from the papal states did much to bolster financially a now spiritually weakened papacy.
F. Andrews
World History
