Avignon and its Popes

In 1309 the city was chosen by Pope Clement V as his residence when the city and the surrounding Comtat Venaissin were ruled by the kings of Sicily from the house of Anjou, and from 9 March 1309 till 13 January 1377 was the seat of the Papacy instead of Eternal Rome. French King Philip the Fair, who had inherited from his father all the rights of Alphonse de Poitiers, the last Count of Toulouse, made them over to Charles II, King of Naples and Count of Provence (1290). On the strength of this donation Queen Joanna I of Sicily, as countess of Provence, sold the city to Clement VI for 80,000 florins (9 June, 1348) and, though it was later the seat of more than one antipope, Avignon belonged to the Papacy until 1791, when, during the disorder of the French Revolution, it was reincorporated with France.

Seven popes resided there:

Pope Clement V
Pope John XXII
Pope Benedict XII
Pope Clement VI
Pope Innocent VI
Pope Urban V
Pope Gregory XI

This period from 1309-1377 - the Avignon Papacy - was also called the Babylonian Captivity of - exile, in reference to the Israelites’ enslavement in biblical times. The analogy fitted Avignon in another sense-the venality of the papal court caused the city to become infamously corrupt, much as Babylon had been accused of being. The poet Petrarch condemned the city’s corruption, contributing to the papacy’s return to Rome out of sheer embarrassment as much as anything else.

The walls built by the popes in the years immediately succeeding the acquisition of Avignon as papal territory are well preserved. They were not, however, particularly strong fortifications; the Popes relied instead on the immensely strong fortifications of their palace, the “Palais des Papes”. This lofty Gothic building, with walls 17-18 feet thick, was built 1335-1364 on a natural spur of rock, rendering it all but impregnable to attack. After being expropriated following the French Revolution, it was used as barracks for many years but is now a museum.

Avignon, which at the beginning of the fourteenth century was a town of no great importance, underwent a wonderful development during the residence there of seven popes and two anti-popes, Clement V to Benedict XIII. To the north and south of the rock of the Doms, partly on the site of the Bishop’s Palace, which had been enlarged by John XXII, rose the Palace of the Popes, in the form of an imposing fortress made up of towers, linked one to another, and named as follows: De la Campane, de Trouillas, de la Glaciere, de Saint-Jean, des Saints-Anges (Benedict XII), de la Gache, de la Garde-Robe (Clement VI), de Saint-Laurent (Innocent VI).

The Palace of the Popes belongs, by its severe architecture, to the Gothic art of the South of France; other noble examples areto be seen in the churches of St. Didier, St. Peter, and St. Agricola, in the Clock Tower, and in the fortifications built between 1349 and 1368 for a distance of some three miles, and flanked by thirty-nine towers, all of which were erected or restored by popes, cardinals, and great dignitaries of the court. On the other hand, the execution of the frescoes which are on the interiors of the papal palace and of the churches of Avignon was entrusted almost exclusively to artists from Sienna.

The popes were followed to Avignon by agents (factores) of the great Italian banking-houses, who settled in the city as money-changers, as intermediaries between the Apostolic Chamber and its debtors, living in the most prosperous quarters of the city, which was known as the Exchange. A crowd of traders of all kinds brought to market the products necessary to mainten the numerous court and of the visitors who flocked to it; grain and wine from Provence, from the south of France, the Roussillon, and the country around Lyons.

Fish was brought from places as distant as Brittany; cloths, rich stuffs, and tapestries came from Bruges and Tournai. We need only glance at the account-books of the Apostolic Chamber, still kept in the Vatican archives, in order to judge of the trade of which Avignon became the centre. The university founded by Boniface VIII in 1303, had a good many students under the French popes, drawn thither by the generosity of the sovereign pontiffs, who rewarded them with books or with benefices.

The papal return to Rome prompted the Great Schism, during which the antipopes Clement VII and Benedict XIII continued to reside at Avignon. The former lived there during his entire pontificate (1378-1394), the latter until 1403, when he fled to Aragon.

After the departure of the popes

After the restoration of the Holy See in Rome, the spiritual and temporal government of Avignon was entrusted to a gubernatorial Legate, notably the Cardinal-nephew, who was replaced, in his absence, by a vice-legate (contrary to the legate usually a commoner, and not a cardinal). But pope Innocent XII abolished nepotism and the office of Legate in Avignon (7 February 1693), handing over its temporal government in 1692 to the Congregation (i.e. department of the papal Curia) of Avignon, residing at Rome, with the Cardinal Secretary of State as presiding prefect, and exercising its jurisdiction through the vice-legate. This congregation, to which appeals were made from the decisions of the vice-legate, was united to the Congregation of Loretto; in 1774 the vice-legate was made president, thus depriving it of almost all authority. It was done away with under Pius VI (12 June 1790 ).

The Public Council, composed of 48 councillors chosen by the people, four members of the clergy, and four doctors of the university, met under the presidency of the viquier (Occitan for vicar, i.e. substitute), or chief magistrate of the city, nominated, for a year, by the papal Legate or Vice-legate. Their duty was to watch over the material and financial interests of the city; their resolutions, however, were to be submitted to the vice-legate for approval before being put in force. Three consuls, chosen annually by the Council, had charge of the administration of the streets.

Avignons survival as a papal enclave was, however, somewhat precarious, as the French crown maintained a large standing garrison at Villeneuve-les-Avignon just across the river.

From the fifteenth century onward it became the policy of the Kings of France to unite Avignon to their kingdom. In 1476, Louis XI, annoyed that Giuliano della Rovere should have been made legate, rather than Charles of Bourbon, caused the city to be occupied, and did not withdraw his troops until after his favourite had been made a cardinal. In 1536 king Francis I invaded the papal territory, in order to drive out the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, who held Provence. In return for the reception accorded him by the people of Avignon, Francis granted them the same privileges as those enjoyed by the French, that, especially, of being eligible to offices of state. Henry III made a fruitless attempt to exchange the Marquisate of Saluzzo for Avignon, but pope Gregory XIII refused (1583).

In 1663, Louis XIV, in consequence of an attack, led by the Corsican Guard, on the attendants of the Duc de Crequi, his ambassador in Rome, seized Avignon, which was declared an integral part of the Kingdom of France by the provincial Parliament of Provence. Nor was the sequestration raised until after Cardinal Chigi had made an apology (1664). Another attempt at occupation made in 1688, without success, was followed by a long period of peace, lasting till 1768.

Louis XV, dissatisfied at Clement XIII’s action in regard to the Duke of Parma, caused the Papal States to be occupied from 1768 to 1774, and substituted French institutions for those in force with the approval of the people of Avignon, and a French party grew up which, after the sanguinary massacres of La Glaciere, carried all before it, and induced the Constituent Assembly to decree the union of Avignon and the Comtat (comital district) Venaissin with France (14 September, 1791). On 25 June 1793 Avignon and Comtat-Venaissain are integrated along with the former principality of Orange to form the present republican departement Vaucluse.

Article 5 of the Treaty of Tolentino (19 February, 1797) definitely sanctioned the annexation; it stated that “The Pope renounces, purely and simply, all the rights to which he might lay claim over the city and territory of Avignon, and the Comtat Venaissin and its dependencies, and transfers and makes over the said rights to the French Republic.” In 1801 the territory had 191,000 inhabitants. On 30 May 1814, the French annexation is recognized by the Pope. Consalvi made an ineffectual protest at the Treaty of Vienna, in 1815 but Avignon was never restored to the Holy See.