The Papacy in the Late Middle Ages

Avignon

Avignon - Pont St. Benezet
St. Benezet Bridge, Avignon

The city was located on the Rhône River, about thirty miles upstream from the Mediterranean. The port town was Marseilles, so Avignon didn't get that sort of business. It was, rather, a somewhat sleepy provincial town. Until the popes arrived, that is.

Clement simply lived in one of the monasteries, and not for very long at that, having spent the first four years of his pontificate on the move. John XXII began creating an actual papal dwelling, but it was Benedict XII who had the actual papal palace built. Even John thought he might one day return to Rome, but Benedict had no inclination to do so.

The papal palace is, as you can see, a rather severe-looking building, almost as much fortress as palace. The popes were not especially worried about being attacked yet, though they soon would be, for in the 1360s the city was threatened by routiers.

This would be the home for popes for almost a century. In addition to the papal palace, a number of cardinals built their own palaces, both in the city and in the beautiful Provençal countryside. They were, in fact, behaving very much as they had in Rome, becoming the equivalent of local nobility.

By the time of Gregory XI's pontificate, Avignon was dominated by the curia. The direct members and their households accounted for hundreds in a city of only a few thousand. The papal palace dominated the skyline, and the greatest houses belonged to the cardinals. Besides these people, there could be found at any one time hundreds or even thousands of petitioners and visiting officials and dignitaries. Whole businesses grew up directly dependent upon the business of the curia. It was not unlike the effect of a modern military base.