Alphabetical list of Popes

The Popes, in chronological order

AD 1300-1400

193. Benedict XI . b. Treviso as Niccolo Boccasino; elected 27 Oct 1303; d. 7 July 1304, aged 64.  A Dominican monk ("unworldly" --S&S) who had become cardinal bishop of Ostia,  he spent his short pontificate in Perugia because of hostility in Rome. Benedict absolved two Colonna family cardinals whom his predecessor had excommunicated, and created three Dominican cardinals. He made peace with France after longtime disagreements, but harassed the Spirituals, followers of the late Celestine. He threatened to excommunicate Guillaume de Nogaret but  died--in exile in Perugia--prematurely after a mere nine months,  of dysentery, "not, as was widely alleged, of poisoning" (ODP). He was later canonized.
Fresco  by Fra. Angelico in S. Marco, Florence.

194. Clement V. b. France as Bertrand de Got; elected 14 Nov, 1305, d. 20 April, 1314, aged 50. As archbishop of Bordeaux and a former diplomat, he was consecrated at Lyons,  and in 1309 he moved the papacy to Avignon  under the influence of  France's king Philip IV,  in whose murder of the rich and powerful Knights Templar he acquiesced. It was the start of a 70-year hiatus at Avignon,  and this separation of the Holy See from its traditional home, noted HP, "seriously endangered the universal nature of the popes"  creating the  suspicion "that the highest spiritual power had become a tool of France" .Under this royal pressure (which had replaced pressure from emperors), Clement annulled many of Pope Boniface VIII's decrees, absolved his captor Nogaret and his collaborators, the Colonna family cardinals,  and created nine new French cardinals including four of his nephews. "Our two Clements have destroyed more of the Church than seven of your Gregories could restore". was the assessment of a French prelate quoted  by the 14th century historian Petrarch. Clement's order that inquisitors refrain from using torture without the consent of the local bishop proved to be ineffectual.
14th c. mural by Andrea da Firenze in Sa. Maria Novella, Florence.

195. John XXII. b. France as Jacques Duese, son of a cobbler; elected  5 Sept 1316; d. 4 Dec 1334, aged 90. Cardinal bishop of Porto, he was elected after a two-year gap. Though elderly he did much to streamline church administration, redrawing diocesan boundaries and increasing foreign missions. His action against Celestine V's Spirituals resulted in four of them being burned at the stake by the Inquisition. John began building a papal palace at Avignon, creating 23 cardinals during his pontificate and, despite pleas from Dante and others, the "pernicious dependence on France" continued  while cattle grazed beside Rome's abandoned  St Peter's . Germany's King Louis IV, excommunicated by the pope, entered Rome, was crowned emperor by the ruling Colonna family and arbitrarily installed a Franciscan Spiritual Pietro Rainalducci ("a harmless person of little importance"-ODP) as short-lived (anti) pope Nicholas V. During John's rule, records HP, "papal financiers adopted most questionable means of covering deficits"  causing especial  resentment among the order of Friars Minor who practised poverty.  D&F says John left 18 million gold florins and seven million in plate and jewelry.
Miniature in the British Museum.

anti-pope  Nicholas V (1328-30)

196. Benedict XII. b.  France as Jacques Fournier; elected 8 Jan., 1335; d. 25 April 1342, aged 57.  A cardinal priest who had conducted trials as an Inquisitor especially condemning homosexuals, he opposed nepotism saying, "A pope has no relations". ODP confirms that he was "completely innocent of (nepotism) ". He was a reformer who decreed that bishops should reside in  their dioceses while he himself was kept in France by Philip IV; and an anti-corruption advocate who completed the lavish Avignon palace that "manifests the decline of the ecclesiastical and predominance of the worldly, warlike and princely element which marked the Avignon period" (HP). In his 1693 history of the Avignon papacy, Baluze quoting Petrarch said that Benedict: "... loved the good overmuch and hated the bad....He drank heavily so that the phrase 'Let us drink like a pope'  became current in his lifetime. He was a Nero--a viper to the clergy".  Petrarch  bore him a grudge, explains ODP,  "because of his dependence on the French and his construction of the palace". Monument by Paolo di Siena in St Peter's.

197. Clement VI. b. France, as Pierre Roger de Beaufort; elected 19 May 1342; d. 6 Dec 1352, aged 61. While strengthening the Avignon court, he initially supported Rome's popular new leader Cola di Rienzo, but alarmed by the latter's growing strength and the early stirring of Italian nationalism (conflicting with the ideals of a Universal Church) finally excommunicated him. S&S says that he spent money with "reckless abandon" but was a charitable man who stayed in Avignon to nurse the sick during the devastation of the Black Plague. Clement excommunicated the emperor Louis IV, backing his successor the German king Charles. D&F says that during Clement's reign "Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure and...the bedchamber of the pope was adorned or polluted by the visits of his female favorites". Gold from all over Europe was pouring into the church whose cardinals, wrote Petrarch  "could be taken for kings...who demand to be worshipped and into whose presence must no man come empty-handed". St Catherine of Sienna protested that at the papal court "my nostrils were assailed by the odors of hell".
   There were growing protests by people who resented unjust papal taxes, which the pope dismissed with the remark: "My predecessors did not know how to live" (Uz). England's King Edward commented: "The Apostles were commissioned to lead the sheep into pasture, not shear them".
Painting by Andrea de Firenze, S. Maria Novella, Florence.

198. Innocent VI. b. France as Etienne Aubert; elected 18 Dec 1352; d. 12 Sept. 1362,  aged 80.  Fifth of the Avignon popes, he was a cleric who served as cardinal bishop of Ostia. He rejected  an attempt by the cardinals to restrict papal authority, built a defensive wall around Avignon,  insisted that priests live in their parishes and thus "emptied the papal palace of a crowd of useless courtiers whose only occupation was intrigue and money-making" (HP). He appointed only those he considered worthy, commenting: "Ecclesiastical dignities should follow virtue not birth" . With the aid of his legates and a rehabilitated Cola di Rienzi, he tried to restore hegemony over Rome and the Italian papal states.

199. Urban V. b. France as Guillaume de Grimoard; elected 6 Nov 1362; d. 19 Dec. 1370, aged 60. As pope he continued to live simply as he had as a Benedictine monk, patronizing the arts, supporting students and founding universities. After Milan's Bernabo Visconti  tried to possess church lands in northern Italy, Urban excommunicated him but when legates arrived with the Bull, the arrogant Visconti made them eat it (PRW). Aided by emperor Charles IV and over the opposition of the French cardinals, Urban brought the papacy back to Rome for three years during whicb he restored buildings and battled widespread corruption. He "resided three years in the Vatican with safety and honor" (D&F). But, despite the pleas of Romans and the urging of the writer Petrarch, he eventually returned  to Avignon where he died within months. Later he was canonized.

200. Gregory  XI. b.  France as Pierre Roger de Beaufort; elected 5 Jan, 1371, d. 26 March, 1378, aged 48. Created a cardinal deacon at 19 by his uncle Pope Clement VI, he was urged by Siena's Catherine Benincasa (later St Catherine)  to "delay no longer in returning to Rome and proclaiming the Crusade". However, his arbitration between France and England delayed this until 1376. Petrarch described Avignon as "the Babylon of the West" and BS quotes assistant vice chancellor  Alvaro Prelayo: "Whenever I entered the chambers of the ecclesiastics I found brokers and clergy engaged in weighing and reckoning the money which lay in heaps before them". Pope Gregory, despite his "learning, piety, modesty and purity" (HP)  was bitterly opposed by the leaders of Florence whom he defeated. This was  with the aid of a mercenary army led by Geneva's militant Cardinal Robert, later responsible for a  bloodthirsty massacre at Cesena. Despite Florentine Chancellor Coluccio Salutato's  demand that Romans  rise against "the barbarians, the French robbers and the flattering priests", the Catholic Fact  Book  avers "there was a resolve born in Gregory"  to return to the Vatican from which he campaigned against heresy  and "used the Inquisition ruthlessly" (ODP).
Portrait by Vasari in the  Sala Regia, Vatican. .Fresco by Matteo di Giovanni in S. Maria della Scala, Siena.

POPES OF THE ROMAN OBEDIENCE

201. Urban VI. b. Naples as Bartolomeo Prignano; elected 18 April 1378, d. 15 Oct, 1389, aged 70. With ten French cardinals out of 16--of the 133 created during the Avignon era, all but a handful had been French--demands by a threatening crowd of Romans that the new pope be Italian,  the archbishop of Bari became the compromise candidate. "Simplicity, learning and temperance  were among Urban's qualities but "he lacked Christian gentleness and  charity" (HP) and "allowed himself to be carried away by the impetuosity of his temper". Pressured by Charles V, cardinals assembled at Anagni later that year to declare Urban's election invalid and Cardinal Robert of Geneva to be Pope Clement VII.  Apparently indifferent to resolving this schism, Urban became preoccupied with what ODP calls "a petty, endlessly shifting struggle punctuated by explosions indicating his mental instability, over the kingdom of Naples (a vast tract of land including Sicily and all southern Italy almost to Rome where it abutted against papal states) which he wished to secure for a worthless nephew".   

   Beaten by Urban's forces in battle, Clement retreated to Avignon where he stubbornly refused to resign. Urban, whose threats and paranoia about witchcraft spawned a plot to depose him, imprisoned and tortured some of the cardinals who had been involved and  died "unlamented" (HP). He was probably poisoned.
Sculptured sarcophagus in the Vatican.

202. Boniface IX. b.  Pietro Tomaceli at Naples. elected Nov 1389; d. 1 Oct. 1404, aged 48. Unwilling to settle the schism with Avignon's anti-pope Clement, the rival popes excommunicated each other and despatched letters throughout the Christian world each seeking support. Boniface survived Clement by 10 years  and greatly restored papal authority with his "benevolent despotism" although ODP described his methods of raising money as "unscrupulous" and scandalous, adding that his conferring of benefices "became a matter of bare-faced marketing with.....offices sold for cash down to the highest bidder". LP charges that those who opposed these policies were tortured, jailed or mutilated. At Avignon, Clement had been succeeded by Cardinal Pedro de Luna, the (anti) pope  Benedict XIII,  who despite being deposed and abandoned, obstinately withstood all pleas  to resign until his death almost 30 years later in  Spain. S&S points out that the strength of the Avignon group was bolstered by what had been three generations of administrative machinery and archives.
Painting, British Museum.