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Les papes en Avignon
Lorsqu'en 1305 le nouveau pape, Clément V, est élu, Rome et l'Italie sont en pleine insécurité. Clément V, archevêque de Bordeaux, est français, c'est pourquoi, quand Philippe le Bel le presse de rester en France pour régler l'affaire des Templiers, il finit par s'installer en Avignon. Installation provisoire qui durera près d'un siècle. Sept papes et deux antipapes y séjournèrent tour à tour. Si durant ce temps des événements dramatiques s'y déroulèrent, comme le procès des Templiers ou celui en sorcellerie d'Hugues Géraud, le passage des grandes compagnies et les tribulations du Grand Schisme, ce fut, en revanche, le moment le plus illustre pour la ville. Elle était devenue le centre du monde chrétien, le rendez-vous des savants, des intellectuels et des artistes, comme l'atteste encore aujourd'hui le magnifique palais des papes. " Reine dont le miroir est le Rhône ", elle le fut, même si le parti italien dépité a voulu voir en elle la nouvelle Babylone.
346 pages, Paperback
First published February 17, 1999
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May 13, 2024This is a pleasant and superficial account of the Avignon papacy which in book terms spans between Name of the Rose and gate of Angels. In more literary terms this is the end of the era of Dante and the whole of the period of Petrarch's life. While in military history it sees the early part of the One Hundred Years War.
Following a quarrel between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France, a Frenchman was elected pope Clement V, and he established a base for the papacy in Avignon; now in France, but then just beyond the border, technically in the Holy Roman Empire. Clement V lived in an abbey in the town, while subsequent popes converted the Bishop's palace into an impressive, looming structure fit for a Pope that still dominates the town of Avignon, while cardinals had smaller but fine palaces built for their needs in the vicinity - one is now the Avignon town museum (Musée du Petit Palais) which houses a good proportion of the papal palace's original frescoes, the style of the paintings Paladilhe writes was Siennese, while another has become the town library (Livrée Ceccano) with medieval painted ceilings and walls still visible in places, presumably there are other palaces that I know nothing about.
While the book is described as an account of the daily life of the Avignon popes, it is more of a genial, gentle, overview of the Avignon papacy, with skimpy biographies of the nine Avignon Popes (or seven plus two anti-popes) occasionally diving into detailed descriptions of feasts, one during the reign of Clement VI sounded particularly extravagant with the pope presented with gifts of horses during pauses in the eating. I had read that descriptions of feasts were a feature of this book on a certain book and other things selling website, but that was an attraction for me. And they are a high light of this book, the details were drawn from the Papal accounts and they give a vivid impression of the organisation and scale of the administration with the capacity to bring in enough eggs, wine, and bread to feed tens of thousands of people at Papal coronations.
Another attractive feature are the family trees of the Popes, which give an impression of how each Pope attempted to dig their family into the Church hierarchy of their native region; creating nephews and great nephews Bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. But of course I might be reading the information backwards, possible those men were elected pope because their families were already well established in regional church hierarchies.
The book is bulked out with general issues that involved the Papacy at the time, such as the spiritual Franciscians, heretical movements including the Waldesians; while avoiding challenges specific to the Avignon papacy - such as having to establish an operational centre for the papacy, or separating themselves from the spiritual authority associated with Rome, something they didn't succeed in, as eventually they were drawn into moving the Papacy back to Rome. The tensions between the Papacy as the centre of a hierarchical multi-national organisation, as a spiritual authority, as a political power, and so on, were not resolved by the Avignon papacy and arguably over the long term have been advantages in allowing the Papacy to reorientate itself when required, even if in the short term they cold give rise to crisises such as the one that gave rise to Avignon papacy. Anyway that kind of discussion is beyond the scope of this book.
When Gregory IX managed to move back to Rome, he died soon after. The Cardinals elected a new pope in Rome; Urban VI. but most of the cardinals had second thoughts, moved back to Avignon and elected another pope; Clement VII. Europe split into factions over which pope to support as the true universal head of the Church, while eventually a third pope, Alexander V was elected who was based in Pisa. The Church worked to resolve this triple papal crisis by electing Martin V pope at the Council of Constance. He managed to replace the Pisan and Roman popes, however the Avignon pope Benedict XII refused either to die or to resign, but was eventually forced out of Avignon after military intervention, he retreated into his native Aragon - he was one of two of the nine Avignon Popes who was not from the south or centre of France, where he lived out his days but has a role in setting the scene in Penelope Fitzgerald's novel The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald.
The second Avignon Pope, John XXII, was buried in the town's cathedral - it is first cathedral that I have so far been in that you have to exit through a gift shop. The sharp witted among you might observe that this aptly sums up the legacy of the Avignon papacy. It was while exiting through the gift shop of the Papal Palace that I spotted this book, after the bottles of wine, but before the toy wooden swords, I didn't buy it at the time, but I thought about it on and off until on holiday in Bordeaux I found a copy, with the help of several booksellers, in a huge bookshop that almost runs the length of a street there. Aquitaine was one of the regions that the Avignon Popes came from - they were almost all from the south of France - so it seemed fitting.
Following a quarrel between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France, a Frenchman was elected pope Clement V, and he established a base for the papacy in Avignon; now in France, but then just beyond the border, technically in the Holy Roman Empire. Clement V lived in an abbey in the town, while subsequent popes converted the Bishop's palace into an impressive, looming structure fit for a Pope that still dominates the town of Avignon, while cardinals had smaller but fine palaces built for their needs in the vicinity - one is now the Avignon town museum (Musée du Petit Palais) which houses a good proportion of the papal palace's original frescoes, the style of the paintings Paladilhe writes was Siennese, while another has become the town library (Livrée Ceccano) with medieval painted ceilings and walls still visible in places, presumably there are other palaces that I know nothing about.
While the book is described as an account of the daily life of the Avignon popes, it is more of a genial, gentle, overview of the Avignon papacy, with skimpy biographies of the nine Avignon Popes (or seven plus two anti-popes) occasionally diving into detailed descriptions of feasts, one during the reign of Clement VI sounded particularly extravagant with the pope presented with gifts of horses during pauses in the eating. I had read that descriptions of feasts were a feature of this book on a certain book and other things selling website, but that was an attraction for me. And they are a high light of this book, the details were drawn from the Papal accounts and they give a vivid impression of the organisation and scale of the administration with the capacity to bring in enough eggs, wine, and bread to feed tens of thousands of people at Papal coronations.
Another attractive feature are the family trees of the Popes, which give an impression of how each Pope attempted to dig their family into the Church hierarchy of their native region; creating nephews and great nephews Bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. But of course I might be reading the information backwards, possible those men were elected pope because their families were already well established in regional church hierarchies.
The book is bulked out with general issues that involved the Papacy at the time, such as the spiritual Franciscians, heretical movements including the Waldesians; while avoiding challenges specific to the Avignon papacy - such as having to establish an operational centre for the papacy, or separating themselves from the spiritual authority associated with Rome, something they didn't succeed in, as eventually they were drawn into moving the Papacy back to Rome. The tensions between the Papacy as the centre of a hierarchical multi-national organisation, as a spiritual authority, as a political power, and so on, were not resolved by the Avignon papacy and arguably over the long term have been advantages in allowing the Papacy to reorientate itself when required, even if in the short term they cold give rise to crisises such as the one that gave rise to Avignon papacy. Anyway that kind of discussion is beyond the scope of this book.
When Gregory IX managed to move back to Rome, he died soon after. The Cardinals elected a new pope in Rome; Urban VI. but most of the cardinals had second thoughts, moved back to Avignon and elected another pope; Clement VII. Europe split into factions over which pope to support as the true universal head of the Church, while eventually a third pope, Alexander V was elected who was based in Pisa. The Church worked to resolve this triple papal crisis by electing Martin V pope at the Council of Constance. He managed to replace the Pisan and Roman popes, however the Avignon pope Benedict XII refused either to die or to resign, but was eventually forced out of Avignon after military intervention, he retreated into his native Aragon - he was one of two of the nine Avignon Popes who was not from the south or centre of France, where he lived out his days but has a role in setting the scene in Penelope Fitzgerald's novel The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald.
The second Avignon Pope, John XXII, was buried in the town's cathedral - it is first cathedral that I have so far been in that you have to exit through a gift shop. The sharp witted among you might observe that this aptly sums up the legacy of the Avignon papacy. It was while exiting through the gift shop of the Papal Palace that I spotted this book, after the bottles of wine, but before the toy wooden swords, I didn't buy it at the time, but I thought about it on and off until on holiday in Bordeaux I found a copy, with the help of several booksellers, in a huge bookshop that almost runs the length of a street there. Aquitaine was one of the regions that the Avignon Popes came from - they were almost all from the south of France - so it seemed fitting.
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