transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] From long-lost viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Janega, and some of the world's leading historians, as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

Speaker 2:
[00:42] Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Janega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here. The Avignon Papacy has been in the news. If you ask me, it probably always should be, given that it has to be one of the most interesting facets of church history. So when I noticed people talking about it, I decided that was as good an excuse as any to attempt that rare thing in Emergency Medieval History Podcast. Because the thing about the Avignon Papacy is that the phrase itself might ring a lot of bells for people, but most don't actually quite understand what it was. And look, this makes a lot of sense, as not everyone has had the opportunity to do a lot of in-depth learning about the medieval church. And even those who have done might fall prey to the propaganda surrounding this period. After all, it isn't unusual to see this 77 year period from about 1309 to 1376 as the Babylonian captivity. A pejorative indicating what people see as a specifically politicized and profligate era. This is a seductive view, and let's face it, the Babylonian captivity is an incredibly fun epithet to throw around. But can we ever say that there was a period of time when the papacy wasn't political? And why are we assuming that French politics are worse and more deleterious than Roman politics? And has anyone stopped to consider that 14th-century Rome was often a war zone? In other words, I have a lot of points to make about one of my favorite aspects of medieval history. Luckily for me, I also have a really great co-host who is willing to be dragged into my special interests, when they constitute an emergency, that is. So today on Gone Medieval, Matt is on day release from his dungeon, so I can talk to him about the lows, and often overlooked highs of the Avignon Papacy. Hi, Matt.

Speaker 1:
[03:32] Hello. I can't believe you dragged me away from some dungeon admin for this. I was going to clean my moldy corner today.

Speaker 2:
[03:39] Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, but it's so unusual for us to have the Medieval emergency. And also-

Speaker 1:
[03:46] We need like a Medieval hunting horn, like klaxon sound for breaking news.

Speaker 2:
[03:50] B-boop, b-boop.

Speaker 1:
[03:52] There you go, we've got it.

Speaker 2:
[03:53] Breaking news. Someone mentioned the Avignon Papacy. And, you know, I realized that this is my- one of my several hobby horses. I love the Avignon Papacy. And as a way of getting out in front of it, I thought that, you know, maybe you could ask me what my problem is and why I'm so obsessed with these guys.

Speaker 1:
[04:12] It's going to be great. I get to ask questions to a guest and I don't have to listen to you answer, I don't have to care what you say, I can cut you off, I can sash you and everything. This is going to be brilliant. I'm loving this.

Speaker 2:
[04:21] Okay, never mind, next time we're recording it in the dungeon, I'm keeping you chained up. That's it.

Speaker 1:
[04:26] Okay, best behavior on. Okay, so as you mentioned, it's been in the news recently. For you and I, the idea of secular leaders of nations being at odds with the Pope, kind of not new news, that is not breaking news. That's been going on for a while.

Speaker 2:
[04:44] That's kind of like the standard state of affairs, really, as far as I'm concerned. We've talked about this for you. We've talked a lot about the investiture contest or controversy. But I think that the Avignon Papacy is one of these interesting ones because I think it's a catchphrase, like a lot of people have heard about the Avignon Papacy, but I don't think that they really understand what it means, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:
[05:12] It's been chucked around a little bit in the news at the moment, isn't it? So we're going to get to the bottom of what it is, why it's important, what actually happened, what it really does mean. So I guess to orient us first off, when are we talking about? When does the Avignon Papacy happen?

Speaker 2:
[05:26] So this is one of the reasons why I love it so much. This is 14th century, baby!

Speaker 1:
[05:31] Most of, most of, the core of.

Speaker 2:
[05:33] Yeah, exactly. And so we kick off in 1309 is when the actual papal career moves to Avignon. So like the actual mechanism of the church itself leaves Rome and moves to Avignon. But as I'm sure you have surmised, the things that set that ball in motion are happening earlier on. And really, I would say this is one of the biggest stories of the 14th century. And it kicks off right in 1300. That's, that's when things start getting dicey, I would say.

Speaker 1:
[06:09] Yeah. I was trying to, trying to work out how to phrase questions to get at the background of all of this. And the question I wrote down is, what's wrong with Rome?

Speaker 2:
[06:18] So much, right? And this is one of the things that I think a lot of people don't quite understand because there is this tendency to relate to the Avignon Papacy as well. The French in air quotes sort of get a little too big for their britches and they steal the papacy. And that tends to not understand what's going on in Rome at the time. So one of the things that you have to really keep in mind is that Rome has been a super tricky place for quite some time. And in the first place, you have a lot of militarized fighting between two groups of people who are called the Guelphs, who are pro-Pope and the Ghiblians, who are pro-Emperor. And this breaks out in fighting constantly, constantly. And depending on who gets elected Pope, sometimes you kind of have pro-Ghiblian Popes, sometimes you do not. This really kind of is going to color what is happening in Rome because things get violent very, very quickly. And that's true of the rest of the Italian Peninsula as well. So for example, really the Florentines are super involved in this. There's all this very dramatic political horse-brokering going on in the backgrounds between these two factions.

Speaker 1:
[07:42] I'm going to give you a big tic for how quickly you got the Holy Roman Emperor involved there. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[07:48] Thanks.

Speaker 1:
[07:48] Quick tic for the Empire. And I guess a lot of this, as you kind of mentioned there, revolves around papal relations with secular powers, which is that, you know, this is a hot topic throughout the medieval period. We've talked about it before in the context of the Crusades and the ways that popes are trying to galvanize the secular world and always present themselves as the leader of kings, you know, the king of kings kind of positioning themselves all around there. And I think my understanding is, as we lead up to some of this, there's a lot of that still going on and the pope is still trying to say, hang on, I'm the boss, really.

Speaker 2:
[08:22] Yeah, I think that you'll find I'm the guy. There's rather a lot of I'm actually the guy. And in particular, the best to ever do it with this in the 14th century is a pope called Boniface VIII. So there's a lot, I'm sorry to everybody, there's a lot of Bonifaces, there's a lot of Clements, because that is just what is going down at the time. It was very much the style. And there are a lot of Benedicts involved in all of this. But Boniface VIII comes into power after the previous pope, Celestine V, abdicated. That was one of the last times there was a big medieval emergency, remember, when the pope abdicated and then everyone said, is he allowed to do that? Yes, he is, he is. And Celestine V was real tired of all you people. Seems fair. And he got out of here, right? So Boniface VIII's deal is that he's super, super big on the idea of the church wielding temporal power. So he's incredibly involved in politics in France, in Sicily, in Scotland, because this is during the Scottish Wars of Independence. And he is also really involved in systematizing canon laws. So medieval historians, a lot of the time, if we're working on canon law in the late 13th, early 14th century, we're working with his stuff. He makes this big book called The Liber Sextus, and we always end up having to go back to it. So actually, thank you, Boniface VIII. You're a real one. We do appreciate that. The thing is, everybody hates this. All right, like, everybody hates this guy who is in any way secular. Among the prominent haters of Boniface VIII is your friend and mine, Dante Alighieri. This isn't surprising, because Dante's a Florentine, and Florentine politics rife with Guelph-Gibbeling issues. And so indeed, you will find Boniface VIII in the Inferno. He is in hell among the simmoniacs, who are people who buy and sell offices for money.

Speaker 1:
[10:29] Which is a pretty big thing to say about a pope for Dante, isn't it? The pope is going to hell. That's a big thing to be saying. 100%.

Speaker 2:
[10:38] And it also just goes to show you that popes do this really great version of kind of jumping up and saying, I'm the most important guy. And people in the temporal world are either going to take that or leave it. And even Italians are not necessarily going to agree with that. Again, Italians in air quotes, there's no such thing as an Italian at the time, ba-ba-da-ba, right? So there are going to be a lot of competing sentiments. But this all really comes to a head with the King of France, Philip IV.

Speaker 1:
[11:13] Who is also another big personality that we're bringing onto the stage now. He's a name that people may recognize. He's involved in lots of stuff that is going on that we'll touch on a little bit later. But there is some huge personalities around at this point in time.

Speaker 2:
[11:27] Yeah. These are some of the biggest names in medieval history. Also, the 14th century is one of just the wildest periods of history that ever happened to the world, let alone Europe. So these are people who are involved in really large international conflicts, I would say. And essentially, Philip IV's problem is that he wants to be able to collect taxes on members of the church. And in particular, he wants to collect taxes on members of the church because he's fighting with England. But you might have heard that the French and the English don't really get on in the 14th century.

Speaker 1:
[12:11] Not always, no. We've got Edward I in England at this point. We've got the ongoing wars in Scotland, the Scottish Wars of Independence happening. Like I said, there were just some big personalities around that are all butting heads and clashing at this point. And the Pope is desperately trying to elbow his way into the room and say, don't forget about me, guys.

Speaker 2:
[12:31] And so in the first place, he's coming in and saying, oh, well, I should be the arbiter of all this. I should be the one that you ask, oh, Scotland, you should be talking to me, the Pope. Sicily, talk to me, the Pope. And he's certainly going to tell Philip, no, I'm sorry, you can't tax the clergy. To be fair to Philip, you can understand why. Listen, the church is incredibly wealthy at this point in time. They have been tithing rather a lot. We have strayed so far from what St. Francis was attempting to do in the 13th century already, already. If you're trying to raise quick cash, it makes sense to try to tax the clergy. But you can also understand why the church wouldn't be particularly down with that.

Speaker 1:
[13:20] At the point where the church is still desperately, and Boniface is still desperately trying to position themselves as superior to kings, it's like, hang on, you can't have our tax money. If anything, maybe we should have some of yours.

Speaker 2:
[13:30] Exactly. This all ends up coming to a head in 1301. Boniface issues a papal bowl that is called Salvatore Mundi. This is also a time when there's just a lot of big name papal bowls. There's a lot of barnstormers in here, because Salvatore Mundi says very particularly, okay, well, that is it. We are revoking the former privileges that the French crown had, because the French crown had some little privileges. In particular, they were allowed to choose, for example, their bishops and archbishops. It was like one of these things where, in order to get around the investiture controversy, the papacy had said, okay, yeah, usually I get to pick the bishop, but I'm saying that you get to. And so then everyone's happy, right? And so that was off the table. And in particular, great quote in this one, where he says that, quote, God has placed us over the kings and kingdoms. So he says this, right? Like, so the pope is more important than kings and kingdoms.

Speaker 1:
[14:41] He's now explicitly saying what popes have been trying to get at for a very long time. And he's saying it to Philip IV of France, of all people.

Speaker 2:
[14:48] Oh, it's so powerful and so wealthy. And like, it's just, it's crazy. Like, this is crazy work, actually. You're not supposed to go out there and say it. You're supposed to sort of hint at it, right? Like, that's the thing. So this is not going over very well with Philip and Philip gets summoned to Rome. And he's like, you think I'm going to Rome right now, dog? Like, you do not call me as though I am your puppy, right? Like, I am the king of France, right? So 1302, Boniface comes out with a new papal bolt. This is a huge one, Unum Sanctum. And in it, he specifically once again declares papal sanctity and papal universality. Another barnstormer quote. It is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.

Speaker 1:
[15:47] I mean, oof, as they go, that's like you're not getting into heaven unless you admit I'm the boss. You know, you can't be saved unless you explicitly confirm that I'm in charge of the King of France.

Speaker 2:
[15:58] And look, I can't stress how much this is not normal. Like this is not normal stuff, right? This is, he's having to say this because nobody really thought that previously.

Speaker 1:
[16:09] The thing is, if he's having to say it and issue papal bulls saying it, it means nobody believes it. Nobody's buying what he's saying. Two bulls in two years saying, I really, really am the boss, guys.

Speaker 2:
[16:21] And that is just, so Philip loses it, right? And Philip writes back and says, let thy foolishness know that in temporal things, we are subject to no man. And this is interesting, right? Because he's saying, I'm sorry, but the Pope's just a guy, right? So saying we are subject to no man. It's reaffirming his status as a human, right? In terms of temporality.

Speaker 1:
[16:49] It's an interesting tactic, isn't it? I mean, he's calling the Pope your foolishness, essentially, rather than your holiness or anything like that. Let's just go with your foolishness.

Speaker 2:
[16:58] You know that the Cardinals were all like, oh!

Speaker 1:
[17:01] Sick bird. But he's very carefully not denying the supremacy of God or of the Church or of anything like that. He's saying, I don't have to bow, much like the Hobbits. I don't have to bow to any man.

Speaker 2:
[17:16] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[17:16] The Pope is just a man. He's not God. I admit that God's up there. I simply don't see the Pope in between me and him.

Speaker 2:
[17:24] And you know what? I think that this is actually pretty carefully worded, because he does say in secular things. He's like, yeah, buddy, if you want to talk about the Lenten fast, we can talk about that. But if you want to tell me how to rule my kingdom, I don't understand what that has to do with you. Fair enough. Fair enough, right? But as I'm sure you guess, that you can't just have a sick burn, like calling the Pope thy foolishness and think that nothing is going to happen. And so in 1303, Boniface excommunicates Philip.

Speaker 1:
[18:00] Which is another big oof. I mean, this is just ramping it up and ramping it up and ramping it up at every turn.

Speaker 2:
[18:05] 100%. It's like the temperature is up now. And now, like, granted, people do be getting excommunicated, you know. Personal fave, Emperor Frederick II gets excommunicated twice. He seemed like he liked it.

Speaker 1:
[18:17] It was almost like when he was unexcommunicated, he was like, oh, I want to do that again.

Speaker 2:
[18:22] I was like, why? Why? I guess I haven't been naughty enough, right? It's good stuff. So, but Philip is not particularly happy about this in particular because he then threatens to put all of Franz under interdict, which means you are also kind of excommunicated until you get rid of this guy, essentially. It's sort of like putting a target on someone's back. It's the equivalent of like in John Wick when like they send all of the assassins after him, right?

Speaker 1:
[18:54] And the bounty is up to...

Speaker 2:
[18:56] Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[18:57] And it's also, this is what the Pope had done to King John in England a hundred years earlier. So Philip has a direct parallel there. You know, this was the green light for the Dauphin of France, Louis, to invade England and try and depose John. And this is essentially what the Pope has now done to Philip IV. He surely can't let that stand.

Speaker 2:
[19:16] And he does not, to be fair. So one of my favorite things...

Speaker 1:
[19:20] Otherwise this would have been a boring story.

Speaker 2:
[19:22] I know. Okay, so this sets up one of my favorite things that has ever happened in medieval history, which Philip then sends troops to arrest Boniface.

Speaker 1:
[19:35] Of course.

Speaker 2:
[19:36] It works. It works, which is just absolutely incredible. And it leads to a great term alert that what we call the sciafo di Agnani or the slap of Agnani, because the guys who get over there, they just really beat Boniface up. It's a beat down for the ages, and he dies about a month later as a result of just getting worked over.

Speaker 1:
[20:05] Which is sad, but I was imagining kind of WWE entrance music for all of these people coming in with grabbing chairs from the audience to smack the pope with.

Speaker 2:
[20:14] My God, that's the French soldiers music, etc. So, like, they're getting the loot in, beep-a-deep. That, you know, this is a whole situation, right? We have a new Boniface that comes in after this, Boniface IX. He's only poked for around about a year, and he is just trying to take the temperature down. He's just like, listen, listen, listen, listen, ignore previous Boniface. We are going to re-communicate Philip. We are ex-communicating the guys who killed Boniface VIII, which fair enough. Yeah, that's a freebie.

Speaker 1:
[20:55] I hope there's going to be a bit of comeback, surely.

Speaker 2:
[20:57] Yeah, absolutely. And he's just like, listen, what we need to do is cool things down. Like, everything is too hot. We need to re-establish some level of normality. But then as I say, he dies. He's elected in July and he dies the following October. Then we have a new papal conclave. And during said conclave, now listen, is some pressure applied to this conclave by Philip? Science points, yes, yes, yes. Okay. And this is one of those conclaves that is just going on and on and on. People really cannot agree on what to do. But eventually-

Speaker 1:
[21:43] Didn't want to make a decision, because there was no decision here that was going to satisfy everybody. You were going to make an enemy, whoever you decide. So it's almost like they go in every day thinking, should we just pretend we're talking about it and we'll say we can't decide at the end of the day?

Speaker 2:
[21:57] Exactly. And you're just like, oh, whoa, there's just so many qualified candidates. I don't know what to do. Because it's a real damned if you do damned if you don't, because on the one hand, the French king, who is arguably outside of the Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful guy in medieval Europe, is going to be really mad at you. On the other hand, the Romans are going to be really mad at you if you don't elect someone who is going to uphold what they want, because there's a lot of behind the scenes Italian beef going on, which that's a Chicago reference. But that's fine, that's fine. So listen, eventually we do get a pope out of this, it's Clement V, and he is the Archbishop of Bordeaux, which tells you-

Speaker 1:
[22:52] A big warning clock soon, big French name there.

Speaker 2:
[22:57] So here we go. We've got a French pope, and what Clement does next is he just says, yeah, that's cool, I'm not moving to Rome.

Speaker 1:
[23:07] Oof. I like the job, but I don't like the office location.

Speaker 2:
[23:13] Exactly. Exactly. He's like, listen, we're doing some work from home, which actually, no, he doesn't say that. He says that we're gonna move to Avignon. And the papacy did hold this whole fiefdom around Avignon. It was their lands already. They were drawing considerable income from it. And so he's like, look, we're moving down there. That's what's going to happen instead. And, you know, to be fair, part of the reason he says that is, you know, it's not just the Gwelsim Gibblings kicking off in Rome at this point, but we also have a lot of friction between the two big Roman noble families, the Orsini and the Colonas.

Speaker 1:
[24:03] Who were used to providing popes, so they're also going to feel kicked in the stomach that one of them isn't providing a pope this time.

Speaker 2:
[24:11] Exactly. Like that's part of what the contingent was dragging their feet about when they elect Clement V, because they're like, am I going to face retribution from the Colonas or the Orsini about this? And I think that this is a really important point because people just sort of forget about it and they say, oh wow, it's crazy how much pressure the French king was putting on the papacy. I'm like, babe, that's nothing new. Like Italians are constantly putting pressure on the papacy. And we have these two noble families who are constantly infighting. I mean, quite famously, the recent Pope, Pope Nicholas III was an Orsini who was also elected as a Roman senator, right? So like, and he's like making rules about who can and can't be involved in the Roman Senate. And it's like, look, the politics has been there the whole time. It's just that we're used to forgiving Romans for doing it. But when French people do it, everyone's like, hey, wait a minute.

Speaker 1:
[25:11] And I guess we ought to clear up. So having said, begun this by saying, what's wrong with Rome? I guess the next question is what's right with Avignon? Because I think there is a perception that moving to Avignon is moving to France. But as you've already said, this is a papal fiefdom already. I think there is this perception that the move to Avignon was very firmly a move into the lands and into the sphere of influence of the King of France.

Speaker 2:
[25:34] Yeah. And I think that this is one of these things that is really kind of a modern way of looking at things. Because France exists now, like this whole idea of Frenchness is not always happening at the time. Avignon is very firmly in Ocitania, and they've got a different language. They don't speak French. They speak Occitan. They are very much abutting Arles, which is not France at the time. Arles is part of the Holy Roman Empire. Let's just be so for real about that. And they already owned this land. This is their land. Right? So this is not really where the French sphere of influence is. The French sphere of influence is north. You know, we talk about this all the time when we talk about Eleanor of Aquitaine, for example, where we're like, look, they just do things differently in Aquitaine. Even more so in southeastern France. Like, this is a part of the world which does not consider itself to be France. And when we say that it is now, that's just a modernism that's kind of leaking into the back. You know, it's an anachronism. That's not something that they would have said at the time.

Speaker 1:
[26:51] Yeah, so we need to be aware that the move to Avignon is about moving to a different place that the papacy still owns. It's not Rome, but it's papal lands still. It's actually more connected to the Holy Roman Empire than it is to France at the moment. So although they look like they're moving to a modern sensibility, to a modern geography, it looks like they're moving to the sphere of influence of the King of France. They're not really at this point.

Speaker 2:
[27:15] No, no. I mean, and down to the fact that if you go to Avignon now, which you should, like a strong recommendation for me, and one of the big things that ends up happening is the French King ends up building a huge castle across the river from it in Villeneuve de Avignon because he's like, oh, I don't know about you, because there is still this tension between papal and royal power at the time. It isn't just a completely sewn up, done deal. It's much more complex than that, really.

Speaker 1:
[27:45] Yeah. But it must have felt like a moment though for the Bishop of Rome not to live in Rome anymore.

Speaker 2:
[27:51] I mean, like, to be fair, that is wild. Like I'm not saying that it isn't weird, but also let us consider that the Roman Empire for quite some time was run out of Ravenna, right, before we even get to the medieval period. So this concept of Roman-ness, the trouble with projecting that as a reason to justify what it is that you're doing is that cuts both ways, right? So if Rome is universal, if the power of the Bishop of Rome is indeed universal, well, then maybe you can do that from anywhere, right? You don't have to do it in the city that's currently undergoing civil war, right? There's no reason that the Pope has to necessarily do that. If his power truly is universal.

Speaker 1:
[28:37] Yeah, hoist by their own petard.

Speaker 2:
[28:40] Real intellectual issue that they've got themselves into, right?

Speaker 1:
[29:12] So even though they're not in French territory, they're not in land that belongs to Philip IV, it kind of feels, to me at least, very much like Philip is the winner in this.

Speaker 2:
[29:20] Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we can say that pretty substantially, because I am gonna be real with you. I just gave you these reasons why it's not that bad. Listen, Clement V, he does do some things that are kind of like very clearly at the behest of Philip IV.

Speaker 1:
[29:47] And you can imagine everyone in Rome going, this is what we meant, this is why we don't want French.

Speaker 2:
[29:51] Yeah. I mean, primary among these things is he is the guy who condemns one of everybody's favorite groups of people, the Knights Templar. Oopsie.

Speaker 1:
[30:11] Which is very much doing Philip's work, isn't it? I mean, let's just be clear, it's Philip that wants rid of the Templar.

Speaker 2:
[30:16] Yeah. This is not something that Clement really cares about. Philip wants rid of them. He sees an opportunity to get hold of a lot of ready cash. Again, one of the big themes of his rule as king is that he doesn't have enough money to accomplish what he wants to do militarily. And he's looking at what is essentially an order of bankers at this point in time and he's thinking, well, I would like to get hold of that. So when in 1314, so this is only five years after the Curia has moved to Avignon, they actually condemned the Templars at the Council of Vien. Alongside Clement V on stage, yeah, Philip is there and so is his son who is the King of Navarre.

Speaker 1:
[31:06] I mean, it couldn't be more clear what's going on. I mean, Philip is very clearly getting some very tangible rewards very quickly from this situation.

Speaker 2:
[31:15] Yeah. So listen, I think the people are too quick to make this entire situation really cut and dried. This is about French power. But then there are certain things where I'm like, yeah, dog, that's bad. I don't think that is good. One of the big things that happens at V quite famously is that Clement says, no one can talk unless I say you can. So the Knights Templar aren't able to defend themselves at all. Then basically Philip takes all of their stuff. Now, having said this, Philip's not the only ruler who benefits from that quite famously. The English King is very happy to jump in on that as well, which is how the temple goes into the crown's hands here in London. So it's just that Philip was there. This is a direct request from Philip. Let's be so for real about it right now.

Speaker 1:
[32:13] Because it does feel like Edward II in England is very much dragging his heels around the Templar stuff. It's not something he's interested in. It's not something he particularly wants. I don't think he agrees with Philip, but he's also feeling the pressure from Philip and now from the Pope as well. Everybody's saying the Templars are really, really bad and it kind of makes you look bad if you don't go along with that.

Speaker 2:
[32:33] Exactly. There's a pretty big propaganda war happening. He's trying to justify himself and what it is he's doing. If everyone is really saying that the Templars are a problem, cracking down on them is a way of proving your bona fides, as it were, saying, oh yeah, well, I am a reformer though. This is all in the name of reform. Because the Knights Templar have a ton of money and a lot of influence. We are quite soft towards them now because things got a little bit crazy, but they're not exactly like someone to look up to. In terms of what it is they're doing at the time, they're just bankers. That's all that is happening right now. I wouldn't feel too worried about it personally.

Speaker 1:
[33:17] Yeah. I guess then we have this period in which we get successive French popes, which I think we have to allow ourselves to see the influence of the French king in there. All of a sudden, there's this break with what had previously been an almost exclusively Roman club is now becoming an almost exclusively French club. So, how many popes are there and are they all French and are they good popes? Are they bad popes or are they a little bit of both popes?

Speaker 2:
[33:47] So we have seven Avignon popes. There are more, but those are anti-popes and listen, babe, we do not have time to do the Western Schism today. That's an episode for a later date.

Speaker 1:
[34:02] I'm just going to say though that the term anti-pope always makes me laugh. I don't know what it is about it, but the idea of an anti-pope just makes me laugh.

Speaker 2:
[34:10] I love it. I'm like another pope for your troubles. My favourite is when there's three popes, but again, a later date. So they're all French. Yes, they're all French of varying degrees. I would say they're a real mixed bag. Some of them are kind of terrible popes, but my favourite pope of all time is one of them. So you get Clement V, moves the Curia to Avignon. You can feel how you want to feel about that. Condemns the Templars. That's bad. He does some things I like. At a point in time, he tries to make an alignment with the Mongols to fight against the Muslims. And I think that's fun. I think it's really cute where he's like, we're going to have a French-Mongol alliance. And I'm like, oh, he's international, like.

Speaker 1:
[35:02] I like the idea of the Mongols being like, what on earth would we need you for? So good.

Speaker 2:
[35:08] After him, we get John XXII. I would argue this is a bad guy. He will be one of several popes who is in conflict with the Emperor Louis the Bavarian. He didn't want to support Louis the Bavarian's election to be Holy Roman Emperor, because he only had five out of the seven votes. You had to have seven at the time. It's a whole thing. That's one thing or another. Louis the Bavarian, he's a slippery character, and no one really likes him in the papacy. But he also beefs with a group of guys who I think are cool, who are the spiritual Franciscans. The spiritual Franciscans are a group of Franciscans who are like, hey guys, remember when everyone said we were going to do apostolic poverty? Yeah, like remember how we were supposed to like beg? And now we're really rich? Maybe we should stop doing that. John the 22nd hates this, and he really cracks down on the spiritual Franciscans and he declares them heretics, which is sad, because I think that they were a good group of guys. My heart is always with reformers. So we don't like John the 22nd very much. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:26] Yeah, bad guy.

Speaker 2:
[36:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:27] And I wonder, as we go through these popes, what is this doing for the idea of the papacy trying to position itself above secular authorities? Because it sounds a little bit like, getting dragged into the politics of the empire is one thing. The papacy has always had its feet in there. But are they getting dragged into French politics? Are they getting dragged into more wide secular politics in Western Europe? And are they doing that kind of as, are they at any stage a puppet of the French king at this point? Are they losing that idea that they stand above secular rulers because they're becoming so influenced by the French king?

Speaker 2:
[37:08] It really depends on the pope, is the answer to that. Because people like the Clements, I would say both the Clements, Clements the fifth and the Clements the sixth are really, really involved in court politics. And then others, much less so, right? Like John XXII, one of his deals with his conflict with Louis the Bavarian is I think he's kind of trying to prove that secular rulers don't tell him what to do, right? You know, that he can kind of do varying things. You know, his follow-up, who is Benedict XII, he's a really big reformer, right? Like one of the things that he's expressly trying to do is show that he's not like other popes, right? He's not like Clement V. He's not like John XXII, who condemned spiritual Franciscans and is trying to meddle in politics. He is expressly like, hey guys, actually we have too much money there. We've got real big problems with simony and people buying office. The church has too much money. Let's get back to brass tacks, right? And so he's actually pretty well liked by varying people. Not the King of France, right? Like he does not, they don't really get on with Benedict XII, which is how you end up with Clement VI, who's a guy I'm really interested in. Clement VI comes in in 1342 and he is drawn from the court. Of King Charles.

Speaker 1:
[38:47] I mean, have we just given up any pretense here? You know, we're just going to now get a French courtier to be Pope.

Speaker 2:
[38:53] Oh, I'd like, listen, this is such a tricky one, right? Because I'm really interested in Clement because he was the tutor of my favourite emperor, the Emperor Charles IV, right? And Emperor Charles IV grows up at the French court, even though he's Czech, just because his mom tried to revolt against his dad. Like, you know, Czech girls aren't allowed to have any fun ever. But so that's why he's called Charles, is he names himself after his uncle. And Clement, this is his tutor before he becomes, before he becomes the Pope. And there's like this probably, like, probably it's a fake quote, or it's like someday, Clement says, oh, you're going to be emperor someday Charles. And Charles says, oh, not before you're going to be Pope. Razzle, razzle, razzle, you know? But you cannot say that Clement VI isn't like an excessive Pope. Like he is spending money on art. He is really putting a lot of money into the papal palace that is being built in Avignon. He is at court constantly.

Speaker 1:
[40:30] I mean, he's going with the reformers, surely. He's interested in making himself poor. He's going to spend all of his money on building palaces and buying artwork so we can be poor again.

Speaker 2:
[40:40] Yeah, and he does a great job on that. And he is super involved in politics because the reason Charles IV gets elected, the emperor in the first place, I mean, Louis the Bavarian is still the emperor, and Charles is kind of like an anti-emperor, if you will, and I will. But then Louis dies on a bear hunt, and then everyone goes, ah, screw it. We'll just go with Charles, that's fine. But then the other thing that happens at this period is that this is when the Black Death kicks off. And so Clement is very much on the throne for that. And when people are like, hey, I think that maybe the Black Death is happening because, see that palace you're living in, and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:
[41:26] What palace?

Speaker 2:
[41:27] I don't, who?

Speaker 1:
[41:30] What?

Speaker 2:
[41:31] So he's not, I would say, a particularly popular pope, Europe-wide. Yeah, we could say that. We could certainly say that about Clement. But then his successor, who is Innocent VI, he's pretty cool. Like he's a pretty cool guy. And he's like, oh, it looks like we are bankrupt.

Speaker 1:
[41:58] Yeah, he went poor again.

Speaker 2:
[42:00] Yeah, he's like making a virtue of necessity. He's like, oh, no, because like I really believe in reform. I'd like he's, he's selling the art that Clement bought. He is like saying, guys, like the, I'm serious. The Black Death keeps happening. We've really got to refocus on God. He spends a lot of time trying to intercede with war that is happening in Italy. Like he, he's a pretty good dude. He's, he's kind of saying everybody like stop fighting each other. We've got a plague on and there are bigger fish to fry. So he's a pretty good guy. We like, we like him. Like Innocent the Sixth is a good guy.

Speaker 1:
[42:46] It's a conversational buzzkill though, isn't it? What we don't want there is a perfectly competent man who is dealing with the issues of the day.

Speaker 2:
[42:53] Right. And that's the thing, right? It's so easy to say, oh, the Avignon Papacy, it's this terrible political thing. But there are, there are people in there who are genuinely trying to do their best in very difficult circumstances. And really like while the Black Death has broken out, are you going to tell anyone, I'm sorry, you need to go back to Rome? Like babe, half of everyone there is dead. Like we can't even get the baggage train sorted out, right? Like there's not enough people to be marching around.

Speaker 1:
[43:21] It turns out it was a good idea to leave Rome, right?

Speaker 2:
[43:24] I know, right?

Speaker 1:
[43:25] We did it 40 years early as well, you know?

Speaker 2:
[43:27] Bit of forethought there. We just saw it come in, you know? That's what's going on, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:32] This period as well, it's been referred to as the Babylonian captivity, the idea that the Pope is a prisoner in France, and also that it's becoming increasingly kind of wanton and concerned with worldly things, as you mentioned there, buying artwork, building palaces and all of that kind of thing. I think that quote might have come from someone like Petrarch, but it does seem to reflect a kind of a growing dissatisfaction with ecclesiastical wealth. We're moving towards a period of increased religious reform at the end of this century where those things will really, really intensify. Is it a fair charge to lay at the Avignon Papacy? Because we've just talked about spending lots of money on art and building palaces. Are they becoming more avaricious? Is this a more splendid court than you might have seen in Rome?

Speaker 2:
[44:22] It certainly is a more splendid court. And listen, if you want to talk about Clement VI, I will give it to you all day long. The man's avaricious. He is ostentatious. It's often said that at this point in time, the Cardinals are living much nicer lives than they ever had been before. You know, this idea that they are the princes of the church. It really takes off at this point. And listen, they're drinking Chateauneuf de Pape every day, babe. Oh, perfect. Like, they're living the life. And so under Clement, you know, in the 1340s to early 1350s, like, that is absolutely true. But I do think the last three Avignon Popes, they are not doing that at all. You know, you've got lovely little Innocent VI, and then you've got Urban V, who's arguably my favorite Pope. Yay, yay. I just love Urban. I just think he's great because you can really see in all of his correspondence, him grappling with the various pressures that he is receiving both from the French side. And he's in constant contact with Charles IV. So obviously, like, this is why I know my boy, right? And my reform preacher that I work on all the time, Jan Mulec of Cremurgiege, is writing to him all the time because he's like, no, you get it. You get it. You understand what I mean. You and I, baby, we're going to take on the world. We're going to reform the church. And Urban V really tries. He tries to move back to Rome, right? He gives it a go. And he goes in 1367 back to Rome. He's like, okay, look, we're going to try. But Rome at the time again is experiencing civil war. This is the time around when we have like the Tribune Colle di Rienzo. This is when Petrarch is writing. So we have a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people talking trash about Avignon. Well, that's because Petrarch is trying to argue that Rome should be the center of the world again. And it's like, honey, it's been like 800 years. I might want to let it go, you know? And like, it's in tatters. Like there's a major, major civil war going on. And Urban V tries so hard to move the papacy back. And ultimately he can't do it. He can't make it stick. So in 1370, he goes back to Avignon and dies. And so there you see this real willingness to do the best that you can. But the circumstances in Rome are simply too violent. And I think that gets swept under the rug a lot. And now listen, my preacher would tell you, Millage would tell you, he would say, okay, yeah, like Rome is violent, but you're the Pope, who cares? Like I don't care whether or not your personal safety is threatened, but that's super easy to say when it's not your personal safety.

Speaker 1:
[47:25] Right?

Speaker 2:
[47:26] It's, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:27] So I guess as we're coming towards the end of the Avignon Papacy, should we think about the Avignon Papacy as being a period that has changed the papacy, has being out of Rome made a significant change to the Pope, the papacy, the way that, I was going to say the way that Rome sees itself, but they're obviously not in Rome, the way that Avignon sees itself. Or is there an extent to which this is a lot of Rome, Petrarch, people like that. Rome is throwing mud at Avignon because they want the Pope back.

Speaker 2:
[47:59] I mean, I think that you are actually right. I think it has made a change to how Rome sees itself because Rome is undergoing an existential crisis as a result of this, fundamentally. It's one that we've sided with because we like Roman history. It's just like a modern thing. We're like, well, yeah, obviously, everybody should always like Rome. But I think it also does obviously make a huge difference to everyone in Avignon because they're like, yeah, sorry buddy, my entire livelihood depends on building this palace now. I import things specifically for these guys. But it is very much considered to be a time of soul-searching to an extent. These last Avignonese popes really, I think, they're quite good because I think that they are aware of how mad everyone is about this. And so they're trying to say like, yes, I hear you. I understand you. And they're trying to thread the needle between what the reformers are saying and also not wanting to go to a city that's on fire. Like the last proper Avignonese pope, Gregory XI, he's trying really hard to do political things that are good, right? Like he's trying to stop the Hundred Years War. His whole thing is that he's trying to intercede with Christians who are fighting each other. And I have to say that's an unambiguous good, right? That is certainly a good thing to attempt to do. But there are some facts about what happens during the Avignon Papacy. Tithes across the church are increased by about 10 percent. And this is because they have...

Speaker 1:
[49:55] Taxes are up. Nobody's happy.

Speaker 2:
[49:56] No one's happy. And they're using it to build a new papal palace. This is interesting because it's kind of like a precursor to what happens when Martin Luther takes off, right? Because when the whole selling indulgences things happen, that's to pay for the Sistine Chapel, right? So like whenever the papacy decides that it wants to redecorate, ordinary people pay for that. And that's not good, right? I don't think that that is good. Truly the cardinals are living it up. Say what you want about the Pope's, but like the cardinals are... They're living that lifestyle at this point in time. And also I think that we do have to be very hypercritical about what goes on with the Templars in 1314. I think that that is pretty bad. We should certainly say this. And we do see these massive reactions on the part of ordinary people. So you have the spiritual Franciscans, the Fraticelli, who are a group who rises up against this. There's also in the Italian lands, the Waldensians, who don't care for this. And they make a little heresy about that. The Lollards here in England have rather a lot to say about the state of affairs. And this is also going to be one of the things that the Hussites really latch on to later as well. So it opens the church up to a lot of criticisms, very specifically because, yes, is their personal safety threatened? Yeah. But if you are truly universal also, yeah, okay, you could be an Avignon, but if really what it is is about doing God's bidding, then who cares that your lifestyle is somewhat threatened by the war outside is kind of the idea. You should, in theory, be having your mind on greater things, and if you are doing the correct religious thing, then why do you care if Rome is burning outside your window? Get out there and do your job, right? It would hardly be the first time Rome's burning.

Speaker 1:
[52:13] This isn't God going to protect you of all people.

Speaker 2:
[52:15] Yeah, you know, and so, like, and if you look at earlier justifications for why the Bishop of Rome is important, it all hinges on being in Rome and proximity to the saints that are buried there and things of this nature. So, you know, but then again, Rome's a large tent, okay? Like the idea of Rome is bigger than the city itself. But I just think that it's incredibly important for us when we talk about the Avignon Papacy to understand how complex all of these ideas are at the time.

Speaker 1:
[52:52] Yeah, and just to bring it to an end then, we've seen the Pope try, seen a couple of popes try to go back to Rome and find it really, really difficult. How do they end up bringing this period to a close? How does the Pope end up back in Rome?

Speaker 2:
[53:04] Well, the Pope ends up back in Rome because everybody wants the Pope to be back in Rome at this point in time. So like really, really Gregory XI, he does it, he returns. So he takes the papacy back, he returns on the 13th of September, 1376. And he is then in Rome for two years until his death. And after he dies, there is a lot of pressure to elect a new Roman Pope. They elect not a Roman Pope, but a Neapolitan Pope, which is kind of seen as good enough. But the French Cardinals say that they were basically like threatened into it. And that's how you get the Western Schism. But the point is that these last popes, these last popes, Pope Urban V, Pope Gregory XI, they were trying. They were trying super hard to end the Avignonese papacy. But it's just that the political circumstances were such that they were unable to do it. And I just think it's not fair to look at Clement V, to look at Clement VI, and tarnish all these guys with the same brush, because some of them are actually super religious and really interesting.

Speaker 1:
[54:24] Yeah. And it's also, it strikes me as odd that the reason we're talking about this today, obviously we're not going to get into contemporary politics, but the reason we're talking about this is because the idea of the Avignon papacy has somehow sprouted up as a threat, but it doesn't feel to me like anything that you've just described is something that you could use as a threat. The papacy moved to different papal lands and carried on its business.

Speaker 2:
[54:48] Exactly. And yes, there are a couple of popes that are certainly entwined with the French court, but not most of them. Most of them are actually trying to do the right thing in really difficult circumstances. And pretty much the reason that the papacy moves isn't because of this political entanglement necessarily. It's also because of the political instability that was happening in Rome at the time. And any analysis that overlooks those very real dangers is juvenile at best, I would say.

Speaker 1:
[55:28] Yeah, yeah. It feels a little bit like maybe the Western Schism is the threat, rather than the Avignon Papacy itself being a threat.

Speaker 2:
[55:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[55:37] But maybe that's a story for another day.

Speaker 2:
[55:38] Absolutely. Listen, I would love to get in to the Western Schism at another point in time, but it's very important to note that the Avignonese Papacy and the Western Schism are two different things. Do you have a pope in Avignon after that? Sure. But there's seven of them who are legitimate popes and no one argues that they aren't.

Speaker 1:
[55:58] Yeah. And then we get back to anti-popes, my favorite word. Well, thank you so much for allowing me out of the dungeon to come in and invade your episode earlier in the week. It's been fascinating for me to get my head around the Avignon Papacy a little bit more and maybe to understand why it's been appearing in the news and perhaps why it's not been appearing in the right way in the news.

Speaker 2:
[56:19] Yuli, listen, I am so glad that there was someone to come and listen to me yell about this thing that I love so very much. Thank you, Matt.

Speaker 1:
[56:27] Thank you very much.

Speaker 2:
[56:30] Thank you so much to Matt once again for joining me from his dungeon. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you were interested in some of the topics we mentioned in this episode, you might want to go back and check out our past episodes on the Investiture Contest and the Knights Templar. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent documentary on The Trials of Joan of Arc, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts. Until all your friends and family that you've Gone Medieval. Until next time.