Although Avignon belonged to the papacy it was purchased from papal vassals in , there was the perception that it belonged to France, and that the popes were, therefore, beholden to the French Crown for their livelihoods. In addition, the Papal States in Italy now had to answer to French authorities. Italian interests in the papacy had in past centuries resulted in just as much corruption as in Avignon, if not more so, but this did not stop Italians from attacking the Avignon popes with fervor.
One particularly vociferous critic was Petrarch , who had spent most of his childhood in Avignon and, after taking minor orders, was to spend more time there in clerical service. In a famous letter to a friend, he described Avignon as the "Babylon of the West," a sentiment that took hold in the imagination of future scholars. Both Catherine of Siena and St. But Gregory's stay in Rome was plagued with hostilities, and he seriously considered returning to Avignon.
Before he could make a move, however, he died in March The Avignon Papacy had officially ended. The man elected to succeed him, Urban VI, was so hostile to the cardinals that 13 of them met to choose another pope, who, far from replacing Urban, could only stand in opposition to him. Thus began the Western Schism a. The bad reputation of the Avignon administration, whether deserved or not, would damage the prestige of the papacy.
Many Christians were already facing crises of faith thanks to the problems encountered during and after the Black Death. Avignon counted an estimated 40, inhabitants.
This number, very elevated for the time, made Avignon one of the largest cities in Europe, and certainly the most cosmopolitan. Construction of the celebrated Popes' Palace, a fortified palace of a colossal spread, began in , under the pontificate of Benoit XII.
At the time of his successor's, Clement VI, death, the palace was practically completed. All over the city and its environs, the cardinals had built sumptuous residences, each rivaling the other in magnificence and ostentation.
The Petit Palais and the Livree Ceccano are beautiful examples; the latter now houses the municipal library. The city, transformed, adorns itself with gothic monuments : reconstruction, enlarging and embellishment of churches, monasteries and convents. The population overruns the now too tight city walls. In , the pope decided to construct new bulwarks to protect against pillaging bands.
The prestige and pomp of the Avignon papacy reaches its peak under the illustrious pontificate of Clement VI - who bought the city from Queen Jeanne for 80, gold florins.
The second half of the 13th century was a troubled period. Some came to Avignon, attracted by the concentration of wealth. In and , the County of Venaissin was devastated, and Avignon dangerously menaced. To avoid this danger, the pope paid a ransom. Mollat and Renouard , both translations of earlier works dating back, respectively, to and , have remained the standard studies for generations. They are still valuable for being the first scholarly analyses and evaluation of the Avignon papacy.
Zutshi offers in a few pages a general overview, focusing on relations with France, crusades and missions, papal court, and administration. The most recent monographs covering the papacy and its imprint on the city of Avignon are Favier and Rollo-Koster While earlier works usually ended their survey with the return to Rome, it is of note that both latter works continue well into the Schism, rendering it an organic part of the Avignon papacy. Since the interpretation in Kaminsky that the institutional culture that grew from the Avignon papacy was directly responsible for the break, it is now accepted to treat the Schism in continuity with the Avignon papacy.
The best overview of the Schism from the point of view of Avignon remains the four volumes of Valois — Even if its title refers to France, the span of the work is large enough to encompass the ramifications of the crisis all over Europe. The initiation of the crisis is covered in both Ullmann and Rollo-Koster with the former focusing on a political reading of the crisis and the latter on sociocultural issues.
Favier, Jean. Paris: Fayard, The first modern reading of the Avignon papacy, this major work offers a thick description of everything related to it: why the papacy moved; how Avignon became a capital; and the formidable political, administrative, and financial machine that grew from there, certainly influenced by the French but not under its control. Kaminsky, Howard. Edited by Michael Jones, — A short but thorough review of the Schism.
Kaminsky is the leading historian on the political motivations and expediency of the Schism. Mollat, Guillaume. The Popes at Avignon, — Translated by Janet Love.
London: T. He made arrangements to adapt the Episcopal Palace, next to the Cathedral, to the needs of the Pontifical court, and endeavoured to make it larger, more powerful and more beautiful. Nevertheless, this Palace did not seem worthy of interest to Benedict XII Jacques Fournier who bought it, pulled it down and had another built on the same site by his own master builder Pierre Poisson.
It was a large fortress, austere and overpowering, reflecting his taste for sobriety born of his time as a Cistercian monk. His successor Clement VI Pierre Roger de Beaufort , an aristocrat living a life of great luxury, found this Palace inadequate and unworthy of his Pontifical grandeur, so he had a second one erected nearby known as the "New Palace", built in a more flowery style by his architect Jean de Louvres.
He entrusted the whole building to a group of painters under the leadership of Matteo Giovannetti of Viterbo. In , he bought the city of Avignon from Queen Joan of Naples.
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