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Avignon, City of the Popes

Type Object Region Western Europe Time 1309–1377

From 1309 to 1377 the papal court resided in Avignon, France, forming the Avignon Papacy;…

Timeline

  1. 1309–1314Avignon · ProvenceAmid Franco-French conflict and unrest in Rome, Pope Clement V moved the papal court's seat to Avignon, beginning the seventy-year-long "Babylonian Captivity," and the city thereby became the de facto capital of the Papal States.
  2. 1342–1352Palais des Papes, Avignon · AvignonClement VI, who acceded in 1342, greatly expanded the Palais des Papes, gathering artists and scholars, with papal diplomacy and finances highly centralized in Avignon. After the Black Death swept Europe in 1348, the city remained the center of the papacy's crisis response and indulgence-granting.
  3. 1377Avignon · ProvenceGregory XI returned to Rome in 1377, ending Avignon's phase as the papacy's permanent capital, but legacies such as the Palais des Papes kept the city long a major religious and tourist center.

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