By Margaret Burstow
To put the Avignon Papacy into its historical context, it is
necessary to look at what was happening throughout Europe as the 14th century
began. During the 13th century, European society had become more institutionalised
and regulated, and the kings, nobles, wealthy, and Church had exercised an
increasing control over the population at large. In addition, there were
continual power struggles between the Papacy and the heads of several European
countries, as the Church sought to exert its influence throughout the Christian
western world. In the early and mid-14th century there were two particular natural
disasters that threatened to upset the delicate balance. The first, the Great Famine
(1315-17), was caused by a mini ice-age which resulted in very poor harvests.
The growing population of Europe outstripped the capacity of the land to
support it, leading to widespread famine. The second was the Black Death
(1346-53) which was caused by increased contact with the great civilisations of
the East. Such events did not come about because of any conscious human policy,
but their effects were magnified and prolonged, by a general failure of European
leadership to take any constructive action to cushion the effects of these calamities.
When those holding power did not provide leadership during these disasters,
there was a vacuum that no one was in a position to even attempt to fill. The
first of the governing elites to lose its power to lead effectively was the
Church.
During the 13th century the attention of the Papacy had been focused on
the Holy Roman emperors and upon the goal of keeping the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies in southern Italy and the city states of Lombardy in the north
independent of imperial authority and not powerful enough themselves to threaten
the independence of the Papal States. This was of great importance to the
clergy since it was clear that the pope would never be able to be an
independent moral force, if the lands upon which he and his administration were
located were under the control of some secular power. During this struggle, the
popes perhaps failed to pay close enough attention to the growing centralised
power of the “national” monarchies in England, France, Castile and Aragon. Perhaps
too, Boniface VIII lacked sufficient perception and had been lulled into a false
sense of security by the triumphant tone of the celebration of the first
Jubilee year of 1300. Jubilee years were introduced into the Church by Boniface
and are generally celebrated every 25 years, when there was a year long period
of special events to celebrate Christianity. Whatever the reason, Boniface
seemed unaware that the French monarchy was quite different, and much more dangerous,
than the Holy Roman Emperors had ever been. Pope Boniface VIII and Philip IV of
France soon clashed over two basic issues, both crucial to the ability of the
Church to have an independent voice in France. The first point of disagreement
was that of the status of “criminuos” clergy, clerics who were accused of committing
a criminal act. This was a serious matter since the Church had traditionally claimed
the right to discipline its own members and to try any cleric accused of a
crime in a Church court under the procedures of canon law. Canon law was much
milder and more rational than the prevailing secular law. It did not allow
torturing of defendants and witnesses and did not use the death penalty, for
instance. This made people who saw clerics charged with crimes being tried
under such apparently mild laws believe that the Church was coddling its own.
Philip claimed that anyone breaking secular law should be tried in a secular
court, but Boniface disagreed, feeling that the Church could not be independent
if its personnel could be arrested at any time by secular officials. The second
issue was whether clergymen and church property should be taxed like everyone and
everything else. King Philip pointed out that the Church and its property
enjoyed the protection of the secular government, used the roads and harbours
that the government provided, and ought to pay for these things like everyone
else. Pope Boniface disagreed. He quickly issued the papal bulls “clericos laicos”,
which forbade members of the Church to pay secular taxes unless ordered to do
so by the pope, and “unam sanctam”, in which he declared that the Church was
superior to secular governments in all things. Philip defied the pope, organised
the French bishops and archbishops against Boniface and called a representative
assembly, the Estates General. Boniface tended to bluster, and declared that he
would depose Philip. Philip decided to adopt extreme measures, and called upon
his chief prosecutor, the villainous William de Nogaret, to handle the matter.
De Nogaret drew up a bill of charges against Boniface, charging him with all
sorts of ethical, moral and legal misdeeds. He then gathered a band of armed
men, enemies of the pope, and arrested Boniface and threw him in prison. People
were outraged by the use of naked power against what was still a revered office,
and Boniface was soon released. He was a broken man, however, and died shortly afterward
in 1303. His successor, Benedict XI, tried to patch up the clash, and even went
so far as to increase French representation in the college of cardinals. The
pope may have been successful in staving off a foreign takeover of his lands,
but he was less able to maintain law and order there himself. During the
preceding century, many of the city-states of Italy had grown rich and powerful
through trade and manufacturing, but Rome had fallen far behind. The papal administration
paid little attention to the well-being of the residents of the Papal Estates,
the lands in Italy under the direct rule of the pope. The popes were constantly
taking the revenues that they gathered from their lands and investing them in
unproductive political struggles. It must also be admitted that the papal administration
had grown notoriously corrupt. In any event the people of the Papal States were
thoroughly disenchanted with the rule of the Church. The nobles defied the
popes and refused revenues and military service, and recurring mass riots
troubled the city of Rome itself. At the papal election of 1305, Philip forced a
deadlocked conclave to elect a Frenchman who took the name Clement V. He refused
to move to Rome and in 1309, he moved his papal court to the safety of Avignon,
papal property on the Rhône river. It became the undisputed capital of western
Christendom until 1378. However, things did not run smoothly for the Avignon Papacy.
Firstly, there was a general recession throughout Western Europe, and some
countries would not send church dues to the pope whom they considered, puppet
of the king of France. The papacy needed even more money than before, because attempts
to restore order to the Papal States were expensive, and it was costly to build
an impressive new papal capital at Avignon. As the need for money increased,
Clement V responded by making simony, (the selling of ecclesiastical privileges
for example pardons or beneficiaries), an institution, cut the finances of parish
priests, taxed bishops heavily, and cut costs wherever possible. The papal
court charged heavily for its services, and one could usually buy justice. The sales
of indulgences (the forgiving of a certain amount of sin) became a common practice
to raise money. The second main problem was that the papacy’s reputation
suffered because of its inability to reform itself, to bring an end to the
Hundred Years War (1336-1458), or to provide sacraments during the Black Death.
The last was particularly damaging, since the papacy in Avignon had declared that
the sacraments were necessary for salvation. When the Black Death struck, the
clergy were not able to minister to the vast numbers dying or to bury them in consecrated
ground, which meant that those dead whom it had failed to help were destined to
spend eternity in Hell. Those who could, afford to pay for the sacraments fared
better, but there was great resentment, amongst the general population. The
church was generally seen as greedy, and insensitive. Many people thought the Black
Death was sent as a punishment from God, so people turned to mysticism, and to talismans,
and, astrological forces for, answers rather than the church. The spread of the
flagellants (religious zealots who demonstrated their fervour, and sought,
atonement for their sins by whipping themselves vigorously in public),
reflected the feeling among the population that God was punishing them by
sending natural disasters. On the plus side, the Avignon papacy did much to improve
the organisation, and functioning of the machinery of the Church, establishing
the major offices that still operate today. They supported missionary activity
in China, and encouraged scholarship and art. Finally, the papacy was generally
identified with Rome, and was never trusted while it was in Avignon. The papacy,
always hoped to return to Rome, and spent a great deal of money, and energy
trying to bring enough stability, and security to the Papal States to allow
this to happen. The majority of the men (and there were hundreds) that Clement V,
appointed as cardinals were French; and since the cardinals elected the pope,
this meant that future popes were likely to be French as well. A total of seven
popes reigned at Avignon, all French, and all under the influence of the French
Crown. The last was Gregory XI who, in 1378, travelled with his cardinals to
Rome to inspect the situation there in pursuance of their goal to stabilise the
Papal States. He died there shortly, afterwards, and, under duress, the cardinals
elected an Italian as pope. His successor Urban VI declared the papacy would
return to Rome. A deterioration of relations between Urban, and a faction of cardinals
gave rise to the Western Schism. This started a second line of Avignon popes,
subsequently regarded as illegitimate. The last Avignon, Antipope, Benedict
XIII, lost most of his support in 1398, including that of France; after five years
besieged by the French, he fled to Perpignan in 1403. The schism ended in 1417 at
the Council of Constance, after two popes had reigned in opposition to the papacy
in Rome. Avignon, and the small enclave to the east (Comtat Venaissin) remained
part of the Papal States until 1791, when under pressure from French revolutionaries,
they were absorbed by the short-lived revolutionary Kingdom of France
(1791-1792), which in turn, was abolished in favour of the French First
Republic the following year. Taken from Wikipedia, and Virtual Library
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