Popes, Antipopes and Avignon: Part Five

Clement VI

If you’ve come across any of the Avignon popes before it would probably have been Clement VI. He was the only one I’d heard of before I started this series. He was the pope who sat between two fires in the attempt to keep the Black Death at bay. He also put an end to the Flagellants when he saw that what they were doing was getting out of hand.

He was born Pierre Roger in 1291 in Corrèze and became pope in 1342. He finished building the Palais des Papes and the palace reflected his efforts more than those of any other pope. This can still be seen today. The extravagance of his papal court was said to rival that of any European monarch.

Pierre Roger studied theology and was made Archbishop of Sens at 28. At 29 he was Archbishop of Rouen. Not long after this he became Philip VI’s chancellor.

When the time came to elect a new pope after the death of Benedict XII, Philip wanted Roger to take the position. Since the cardinals also wanted this, he was elected. The new pope was known for his oratory and preaching. His intelligence also made him a good choice.

Most of the 25 cardinals he created during his papacy were French and, of these, twelve were related to him. It was said that Gregory XI, last of the Avignon popes and made a cardinal by Clement, was his son. Gregory is recorded as being Clement’s nephew, but his birth name was Pierre Roger de Beaufort, which might be considered a clue to his parentage.

In 1348 Clement bought Avignon and the surrounding area, clearly signaling that he had no intention of returning the papacy to Rome. This was also the year in which the Black Death reached the town. Avignon suffered dreadfully. Clement’s extravagance and outrageous nepotism could lead an observer to think that there wasn’t much to him, but his actions during the Black Death showed the kind of man he really was. Many senior clerics fled their posts to sit out the plague in the country, but Clement stayed in Avignon, leaving only for a short period in the summer when it was too hot to remain in the palace between his burning braziers. He returned to Avignon in the cooler weather. He was a charitable man, concerned for those in his care and he created new cemeteries for the dead and arranged for gravediggers to bury them.

Initially he supported the Flagellants, even joining their processions when they came to Avignon, but he soon realised that these processions were helping to spread the plague, not stopping it.  In 1349 he declared the Flagellants heretics, thus effectively making them unwelcome wherever they travelled. When the Jews were blamed for causing the plague and massacres began, he published bulls against the perpetrators and said he would excommunicate those who killed Jews. More than two hundred Jewish communities were wiped out at that time.

Clement was frequently in dispute with Edward III as the king tried to retrieve some of the rights in clerical appointments that previous popes had taken for themselves. The king also complained about the extravagance of the papal court. The biggest problem for Edward was that Clement was French and an open supporter of the French king with whom Edward was engaged in a war. When Edward tried to get back some of the rights over appointments, it was partly out of fears that the money going from those dioceses into the papal coffers was going straight out again to those of the King of France, thus enabling him to continue in the war. This was Edward’s constant fear during the period of the Avignon papacy and it was not without justification.

Clement VI died at the end of 1352.

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Pope, Antipopes and Avignon: Part Four

Benedict XII

This week’s Avignon pope was born Jacques Fournier in the 1280s. He was the son of a baker and he became pope in 1334.

Before becoming pope, he was a Cistercian monk and a member of the Inquisition. He was very active against heretics and, in 1321, during his tenure as Bishop of Pamiers, he captured Guillaume Bélibaste, the last Cathar Goodman. The Cathars were a heretical group based mainly in the south of France. Their beliefs included the existence of two deities, one good and one evil. The spiritual world was good and the physical world was carnal and corrupt. The Goodmen (or Parfaits) were the senior members of the sect and were considered pure, as far as it was possible to be whilst inhabiting flesh. The heresy had its last gasp in the village of Montaillou in the early years of the fourteenth century. Montaillou was in Fournier’s diocese and he devoted himself to destroying the Cathars, in which he succeeded. His inquisitional court interviewed many men and women (on the whole without torture) and the records of his activities there were carefully recorded and preserved. Eventually they formed the basis of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s book Montaillou which was very popular in the early 80s.

Compared to the time it had taken to elect his predecessor, Benedict’s election was unbelievably fast. It took just sixteen days. It seems his election was accidental, as the first vote in a conclave tended to be a way of sounding out opinion. The man everyone assumed would be elected wanted to return to Rome, which was unpopular with the mainly French cardinals. They were still trying to work out who they should support during the first vote and voted for the candidates least likely to be successful. So many voted for Fournier that he was elected.

Benedict also wanted to return the papacy to Rome and paid for the restoration of the Lateran and St Peter’s. He was, however, persuaded that it was too dangerous to live in Rome and he agreed to stay in Avignon, beginning work on the Palais des Papes, the papal residence, in 1339.

Unlike many of the fourteenth century popes, Benedict despised luxury and nepotism. He occupied himself with creating strict constitutions for the Cistercians, Franciscans and Benedictines and he continued to be obsessed with rooting out heretics. His strengths were his intelligence and his organisational skills. He tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Edward III to establish the Inquisition in England.

One of his ambitions was to bring the war between England and France that had recently started to a halt so that their respective kings could join in a crusade to the Holy Land, but he failed. The war was to continue on and off for another hundred years and more. He also tried to make peace with Louis IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, in which he was thwarted by Philip VI, King of France. His peace-making also extended to the Franciscans.

He was mostly occupied with theological questions and corresponded with William of Occam, whom we met last week, and Meister Eckhart, a Dominican theologian who was often accused of heresy.

Although French, Benedict was not an unthinking supporter of Philip VI and relations between them were cool. Despite his intelligence, however, Benedict was not good at politics and Philip frequently outmanoeuvred him.

He died in 1342.