Not available to order
Publication date:
20 August 2015Length of book:
328 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442215344
With the arrival of Clement V in 1309, seven popes ruled the Western Church from Avignon until 1378. Joëlle Rollo-Koster traces the compelling story of the transplanted papacy in Avignon, the city the popes transformed into their capital. Through an engaging blend of political and social history, she argues that we should think more positively about the Avignon papacy, with its effective governance, intellectual creativity, and dynamism. It is a remarkable tale of an institution growing and defending its prerogatives, of people both high and low who produced and served its needs, and of the city they built together.
As the author reconsiders the Avignon papacy (1309–1378) and the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) within the social setting of late medieval Avignon, she also recovers the city’s urban texture, the stamp of its streets, the noise of its crowds and celebrations, and its people’s joys and pains. Each chapter focuses on the popes, their rules, the crises they faced, and their administration but also on the history of the city, considering the recent historiography to link the life of the administration with that of the city and its people. The story of Avignon and its inhabitants is crucial for our understanding of the institutional history of the papacy in the later Middle Ages. The author argues that the Avignon papacy and the Schism encouraged fundamental institutional changes in the governance of early modern Europe—effective centralization linked to fiscal policy, efficient bureaucratic governance, court society (société de cour), and conciliarism. This fascinating history of a misunderstood era will bring to life what it was like to live in the fourteenth-century capital of Christianity.
As the author reconsiders the Avignon papacy (1309–1378) and the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) within the social setting of late medieval Avignon, she also recovers the city’s urban texture, the stamp of its streets, the noise of its crowds and celebrations, and its people’s joys and pains. Each chapter focuses on the popes, their rules, the crises they faced, and their administration but also on the history of the city, considering the recent historiography to link the life of the administration with that of the city and its people. The story of Avignon and its inhabitants is crucial for our understanding of the institutional history of the papacy in the later Middle Ages. The author argues that the Avignon papacy and the Schism encouraged fundamental institutional changes in the governance of early modern Europe—effective centralization linked to fiscal policy, efficient bureaucratic governance, court society (société de cour), and conciliarism. This fascinating history of a misunderstood era will bring to life what it was like to live in the fourteenth-century capital of Christianity.
History is such a wonderful tool for relativizing the present and norming the future. Rollo-Koster provides us with such a tool for understanding the functions of the papacy. . . .The Great Western Schism (1378–1417) ended the Avignon papacy through the Ecumenical Council of Constance (1414–1418). The power of the Emperor was needed to sustain the power of the pope; the power of an ecumenical council provided the Catholic Church with a pope—who, with time, became the absolute monarch reflected in today’s papacy. Rollo-Koster provides us with the details of the role of the Avignon popes in all this. We find out how much it cost, for example, to make the red slippers worn by the pope, how many days it took for the head of France to enter into the city, why people were hung in one place and whipped in another, and why the various attempts to return to Rome failed. When you finish reading this book you will have an excellent tool for understanding the papacy of yesterday and today.