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Concept
Avignon Papacy
Summary
The Avignon Papacy (French: Papauté d'Avignon) was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon (at the time within the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Holy Roman Empire; now part of France) rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity of the Papacy".
A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon, all French, and all under the influence of the French Crown. In 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome, arriving in January 1377. After Gregory's death in 1378, deteriorating relations between his successor Urban VI 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.
Among the popes who resided in Avignon, subsequent Catholic historiography grants legitimacy to these:
Pope Clement V: 1305–1314 (curia moved to Avignon, 9 March 1309)
Pope John XXII: 1316–1334
Pope Benedict XII: 1334–1342
Pope Clement VI: 1342–1352
Pope Innocent VI: 1352–1362
Pope Urban V: 1362–1370 (in Rome 1367–1370; returned to Avignon 1370)
Pope Gregory XI: 1370–1378 (left Avignon to return to Rome on 13 September 1376)
The two Avignon-based antipopes were:
Clement VII: 1378–1394
Benedict XIII: 1394–1423 (expelled from Avignon in 1403)
Benedict XIII was succeeded by three antipopes, who had little or no public following, and were not resident at Avignon:
Clement VIII: 1423–1429 (recognized in the Crown of Aragon; abdicated)
Benedict XIV (Bernard Garnier): 1424–1429 or 1430
Benedict XIV (Jean Carrier): 1430?–1437
The period from 1378 to 1417, when there were rival claimants to the title of pope, is referred to as the "Western Schism" or "the great controversy of the antipopes" by some Catholic scholars and "the second great schism" by many secular and Protestant historians.
Official source
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