The Papacy Moves to Avignon

In March 1309, Pope Clement V established the papal curia in Avignon, beginning an era of nearly seventy years in which the leaders of the Catholic Church governed from the banks of the Rhone rather than from Rome. Clement, formerly the archbishop of Bordeaux, was elected in 1305 following a prolonged deadlock in the conclave. Rather than journeying to central Italy, he kept his administration in southern France, settling in an enclave surrounded by the Comtat Venaissin within the Kingdom of Arles. The relocation reflected deep friction between secular rulers and the papacy, which had suffered severe disruption during the opening years of the fourteenth century.

The immediate origin of the move lay in a bitter dispute between King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII over royal taxation of ecclesiastical funds and the limits of papal supremacy. Boniface asserted supreme spiritual authority in the 1302 bull Unam sanctam, but French royal agents and their Italian allies assaulted the pontiff at his residence in Anagni the following year. Boniface died shortly after the attack. His short-lived successor, Benedict XI, attempted to placate Philip before dying after just eight months in office. Clement V, heavily pressured by the French court, sought to escape the violent factionalism of Rome's leading families, such as the Colonna and Orsini, by remaining north of the Alps.