Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309-1417

This book traces the compelling story of the transplanted papacy in Avignon, the city mainly French popes transformed into their capital. Through an engaging blend of political and social history Joëlle Rollo-Koster tells the fascinating tale of a misunderstood era that brings to life the fourteenth-century capital of Christianity.

Joe-lle Rollo-Koster is professor of medieval history at the University of Rhode Island and author of Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism and The People of Curial Avignon: A Critical Edition of the Liber Divisionis and the Matriculae of Notre Dame la Majour. She has been named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in recognition of her outstanding academic research in French history.

Author's Note Maps Introduction Notes Chapter One: Early Popes -Before Clement: Boniface VIII, Philip the Fair, and Rome -Clement V: French Puppet or Able Diplomat? -The Past Catching Up: Boniface and the Templars -Why Not Return to Rome? -Centralization: John XXII -Satanic Beginnings -The Franciscan Poverty Debate and Its European Implication -Beatific Vision -Monasticization: Benedict XII -Staying in Avignon -Notes Chapter Two: Papal Monarchy -How to Be Pope: The Papal Monarchy of Clement VI -Clement VI and Rome: Cola di Rienzo -Clement VI and Joanna of Naples -Clement VI and Italy: Milan and Louis of Bavaria -Clement VI: Arbiter of the Hundred Years' War -The Arrival of the Black Death -Clement VI: The Humanist -Lawyer and Conqueror: Innocent VI -The Lands of St. Peter -The Hundred Years' War: Poitiers and Its Aftermath -The Free Companies in Provence -Holy Roman Empire -Notes Chapter Three: Returning to Rome -Urban V -A Fastidious Man -How t