The Popes Of Avignon And Their Mark On History

In "The Popes of Avignon and Their Mark on History: Cultural Renaissance, Political Intrigues, and the Return to Rome," Ernestine M. Maillard takes us on an enthralling journey through one of the most tumultuous chapters in church history. This meticulously researched work shines a light on the dramatic era when the papacy resided not in Rome, but in Avignon, delving into the tumults, artistic flourishing, and political machinations that characterized this period. Maillard meticulously outlines the complex relationships between the popes and the powers of their time, from the small towns of Italy to the courts of France, unraveling the intrigues that eventually led to the papacy's return to Rome. With a keen eye for detail and vivid storytelling, she illuminates the cultural renaissance that bloomed under the Avignon papacy-a time when art, architecture, and literature reached new heights and laid the groundwork for the Renaissance. From the winding corridors of the Papal Palace in Avignon to the dusty roads leading back to Rome, Maillard reveals the human stories behind the historical facts. She portrays the popes not just as power brokers but as men of faith and art, caught in the tumult of their times. "The Popes of Avignon and Their Mark on History" is more than a historical account; it is an invitation to explore the past and understand how it has shaped the foundations of our modern world.

With the arrival of Clement V in 1309, seven popes ruled the Western Church from Avignon until 1378. Joëlle Rollo-Koster traces the compelling story of the transplanted papacy in Avignon, the city the popes transformed into their capital. Through an engaging blend of political and social history, she argues that we should think more positively about the Avignon papacy, with its effective governance, intellectual creativity, and dynamism. It is a remarkable tale of an institution growing and defending its prerogatives, of people both high and low who produced and served its needs, and of the city they built together. As the author reconsiders the Avignon papacy (1309–1378) and the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) within the social setting of late medieval Avignon, she also recovers the city’s urban texture, the stamp of its streets, the noise of its crowds and celebrations, and its people’s joys and pains. Each chapter focuses on the popes, their rules, the crises they faced, and their administration but also on the history of the city, considering the recent historiography to link the life of the administration with that of the city and its people. The story of Avignon and its inhabitants is crucial for our understanding of the institutional history of the papacy in the later Middle Ages. The author argues that the Avignon papacy and the Schism encouraged fundamental institutional changes in the governance of early modern Europe—effective centralization linked to fiscal policy, efficient bureaucratic governance, court society (société de cour), and conciliarism. This fascinating history of a misunderstood era will bring to life what it was like to live in the fourteenth-century capital of Christianity.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century anarchy in Italy led to the capital of the Christian world being moved from Rome for the first and only time in history. It was a critical moment, and it resulted in seven successive popes remaining in exile for the next seventy years. The city chosen to replace Rome was Avignon. And depending on where you stood at the time they were seventy years of heaven, or of hellopinions invariably ran to extremes, as did the behaviour of the popes themselves. It was during this period of exile that the city witnessed some of the most turbulent events in the history of Christendom, among them the suppression of the Knights Templar and the last of the heretical Cathars, the first onslaught of the Black Death, the final collapse of the crusading dream, and the first decades of the Hundred Years War between England and France, in which successive Avignon popes attempted to mediate.

Which of the two sides of Clement prevailed the 'official' or the personal? The book attempts to answer this question by examining his ideas and actions in connection with some of the major issues of the reign: for example, his attempts to solve the problem of the 'usurping' emperor, Louis of Bavaria, through the appointment of Charles of Bohemia (Charles IV); to deal with a crisis in the Hundred Years War between France and England; to check Islamic expansion and to heal the Greek Schism; to curb the oligarchic challenge of those who thought that the papacy should be at Rome rather than at Avignon. Clement was a great orator and the book is based partly on his sermons, many of which are unpublished. It is the only study of an Avignon pope in English.

Like the finest medieval tapestry, this narrative history masterfully weaves together the sweeping events surrounding what has become known as the "Babylonian captivity" of the popes into the broader story of 14th-century Europe-one of the most turbulent times in the continent's history. It was a time of fear, ferocity, and religious agony, which saw the suppression of the Knights Templar and the Cathars, the first onslaught of the plague, and the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. The century also produced some of the greatest writers and artists in the western tradition, including Giotto, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer. Central to this period was the movement of the papal seat from Rome to Avignon in the south of France, where seven successive popes held power from 1309-1377. The drama, intrigue, and tumult associated with the papacy in exile forms the perfect lens through which to clearly see a Europe making the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

This five-volume work by Mandell Creighton (1843-1901) was first published between 1882 and 1894. Volume 1 (1882) describes the developments within the Catholic church that led to the exile of the popes in Avignon and the Council of Constance (1378-1418).