The papacy moves to Avignon, then splits into rival claimants in the Western Schism
Seven French popes rule from the Rhone before three men claim the office at once
Quick facts
- Avignon Papacy
- 1309-1377, seven popes
- Western Schism
- 1378-1417, up to three rival popes
- Resolution
- Council of Constance elects Martin V, 1417
- Critic
- Petrarch, coined 'Babylonian Captivity'
What happened
Pope Clement V, elected in 1305, relocated the papal court to Avignon in 1309 rather than face chronic violence and instability in Rome, where rival aristocratic factions had made the city unsafe; the shock of the 1303 Outrage at Anagni, when a previous pope was physically assaulted, underscored the risk. Seven successive popes governed from Avignon through 1377, building an increasingly professional, centralized administration with systematic financial and legal record-keeping, even as critics like the poet Petrarch branded the period a 'Babylonian Captivity' and accused the popes of being tools of the French crown. When Pope Gregory XI finally returned the papacy to Rome and died there in 1378, disputed elections produced rival popes in Rome and Avignon simultaneously, and at times a third claimant in Pisa, a division called the Western Schism that fractured Europe's allegiance along political rather than doctrinal lines until the Council of Constance deposed or forced the resignation of all three claimants and elected Martin V in 1417.
Why it matters
Scholars including Joelle Rollo-Koster have argued the traditional 'Babylonian Captivity' framing, an idea that originated as hostile propaganda from Italian humanists like Petrarch, obscures how administratively effective and independent the Avignon papacy actually was; the Western Schism that followed is better understood as the product of that same administrative strength, since both rival obediences had the bureaucratic and financial resources to sustain competing papacies for decades, than as proof of Avignon-era decline.
How we know
This event's traditional narrative and its modern scholarly revision are both well documented; papal registers and financial records from Avignon survive in unusually complete form precisely because of the administrative system the Avignon popes built, and the Council of Constance's own acts record the resolution of the schism in 1417.
Sources
- Medievalists.net (Joelle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island). Avignon as Threat: How a Medieval Myth Became a Modern Weapon · Reputable sourcemedievalists.net · The domain "medievalists.net" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Medievalists.net (Joelle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island). Avignon as Threat: How a Medieval Myth Became a Modern Weapon · Reputable sourcemedievalists.net · The domain "medievalists.net" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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