from Part III - The Church and Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
rome or avignon?
seven popes in succession resided at Avignon in the years 1309–76. That the pope, the bishop of Rome, did not live in the Eternal City was neither new nor remarkable by the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth century (and earlier) Rome was a dangerous place because of the riots and tumults there, in which the Roman aristocracy took a leading part. Moreover, the city was unhealthy in summer. The popes habitually spent periods away from Rome in one of the towns of the Papal State, notably Viterbo, Anagni, Orvieto, Perugia and Rieti. It has been calculated that in the years 1198–1304 the popes spent about 60 per cent of their time away from Rome. The one pope in this period who spent his entire pontificate in Rome was Celestine IV, and he was pope for only seventeen days. After 1226 no pope spent the whole summer in Rome. Yet it was quite unprecedented for the popes in the fourteenth century to spend seventy years away from Italy.
Benedict XI (1303–4) established himself at Perugia. In 1305, the cardinals elected Bertrand de Got, archbishop of Bordeaux, as his successor (Clement V, 1305–14). Although Clement on various occasions declared that he intended to journey to Rome, he never managed to leave southern France during his pontificate of almost nine years. There were several reasons for this: Clement’s love of his native land, Gascony, and of his fellow-countrymen, on whom his patronage was lavished; his close relations with Philip the Fair of France; his desire to negotiate a peace between the kings of England and France; his plan to hold a general council at Vienne, which took place in 1311; his poor health; and the chaotic state of northern and central Italy.
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