Between Avignon and Rome. The Domestic Papal Court in the Pontificate of Urban V (1362-1370)

• Main Author: Ivan, Polancec
• Published: University College London (University of London) 2008
• Subjects: 282.092
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.486354

My thesis considers the pontificate of Urban V (1362-1370), with particular reference to the years he spent in Rome (1367-1370.) It examines the circumstances of his departure from Avignon and the course followed by events over the subsequent years, with a view to explaining Why he chose to return the papacy to Avignon once more. It goes on to examine the practical measures taken by the pontiff to arrange the transplantation of his court from France to Italy, concentrating on the household as the institution key to the success or failure of this enterprise. The thesis then goes on to consider the responses to Urban V's decision, with a view to deciding whether these and other obstacles encountered by the pope as he attempted to settle in Rome contributed to his eventual failure and the curia's return to AVignon in 1370. In tackling these questions the thesis reassesses the accepted historiographical model of the papal court in Avignon - in particular the question of its nature as a society - and with a view to later developments suggests why the period of medieval papal history referred to as the Avignon should have come to a catastrophic end with the outbreak of the Great Schism in 1378.