The Avignon Popes and the Eastern Mediterranean: Power and Authority, 1305–62. By JamesHill. Bloomsbury, 2025. 216 pp. £85.

Reviewed by: The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery: Collected Essays by Patrick Zutshi Blake Beattie The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery: Collected Essays. By Patrick Zutshi. (Florence: SISMEL. Edizioni del Galluzzo. 2021. Pp. xiv, 466. €68,00. ISBN: 9788892900646. Starting with John XXII (1316–34), the popes of Avignon built up a remarkably elaborate administrative machinery that generated a voluminous body of official paperwork, on which so much of the study of the Avignonese papacy rests. The essential connections between the two–that is, the institutions of the papal bureaucracy, on the one hand, and their documentary output, on the other–has long stood at the heart of Patrick Zutshi’s scholarship. In this volume Zutshi presents twenty essays, all but two of which have been previously published, here revised, updated, and organized into a cohesive (if not quite fully monographic) study of “the largest and perhaps the most complex of the various departments within the Roman curia” (p. 4) at fourteenth-century Avignon, the chancery. The result is a brightly lit window into the inner workings of the single most advanced and sophisticated administrative system of the European Middle Ages, from one of the leading scholars in the field. The essays gathered together here span much of Zutshi’s career. Chapters 13 and 19 first appeared in the late 1980s; chapters 9 (“At the Point of Death: Licences to Choose a Confessor in mortis articulo Issued by the Avignon Popes,” pp. 179–203) and 12 (“The Autograph Letters of the Avignon Popes,” pp. 241– 252) were written for the book (2021). Following a foundational first chapter (a crystalline introduction to the high and late medieval papal chancery and the different types of documents it produced), the book is thereafter divided into five thematically organized sections. The first contains five chapters—one of which (no. 3) [End Page 807] was coauthored with the late Peter Linehan–which concern themselves with “Petitions and Registers” (pp. 27–138). Chapters 7–9 pertain to “The Chancery and Its Production” (pp. 141–203); chapters 10–12, to “The Role of the Pope” in the production of chancery output (pp. 207–51). Zutshi’s long-standing interest in the Avignon papacy and England is evinced by five chapters (13–17) on “Papal Letters and English History” (pp. 255–357). Neatly, the final three chapters (18–20) address “Papal Letters for the University of Cambridge,” where Zutshi served for years as Keeper of Manuscripts and University Archives. The sometimes byzantine intricacies of the curia and its departments can be daunting, but Zutshi is a sure and steady hand. An institutional scholar in the tradition of Guillaume Mollat, he guides readers easily through the chancery, its workings, and the different types of its documentary products. Zutshi has a superb sense of the bureaucratic spirit that animated the Avignon papacy and communicates it with clarity and precision. His work is everywhere informed by meticulous textual scholarship. Zutshi is never far from the manuscripts—indeed, most chapters contain appendices in which he presents exemplars of the documentary texts he elucidates. Much more than simply a useful assemblage of previously published works, The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery stands as the first major, stand-alone, monograph-length study of its subject, in any language (p. ix); as both a supremely informative overview and an eminently informative reference work, it will long be essential reading for scholars of the later medieval papacy and of medieval institutional history more broadly. Blake Beattie University of Louisville Copyright © 2022 The Catholic University of America Press

An exploration of how popes attempted to construct, maintain, and represent their power beyond Europe’s eastern frontiers during the Avignon period of the 14th century.After the main, numbered, crusades concluded with the loss of the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century, the papacy did not withdraw from or scale back its interests and activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. As the papacy moved to Avignon in 1305, in part to be nearer the increasingly troublesome Western and Northern European kingdoms, it maintained strong ties with the East and claimed control over a wide range of activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. This book, based primarily on the letters sent by the popes in the Vatican Archives, explores the power and authority of the popes in their attempts at influencing events in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 14th century. The Avignon Popes and the Eastern Mediterraneanexplores a wide set of circumstances and situations, taking into account efforts to control Latin activity beyond Europe, how the popes interacted with and attempted to control non-Latin Churches, and how the popes acted as a Europe-wide political body in diplomatic activities with the Mamluks and the Mongols. James Hill looks at how, in its dealings with the wider world, the papacy continuously encountered the same issue: its position as head of the Church gave it significant authority, but it was often unable to compel actions it wanted. Hill expertly charts how the popes attempted to use their authority to achieve concrete results, and the extent to which those attempts were successful.

Annates were one of the taxes imposed upon ecclesiastical benefices possessed by clerics, derived from the customary rights of bishops to oversee beneficial management in their (arch)dioceses. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, their collection become more and more common, allowing for ordinaries (and even cathedral chapters and archdeacons) to tap into the income of a benefice during the first year following the provision (appointment) of a new cleric. From the thirteenth century onward, the Papacy quickly realizing the potential of such income, sought to claim for itself the revenue generated during the first year of a minor ecclesiastical benefice reserved and given to a cleric under pontifical authority. Widely pursued across Christianity by the Avignon Popes, as the number of ecclesiastical benefices under the influence of the apostolic reserve increased, the collection of this tax was accomplished mostly in partibus under apostolic and cameral rules granting some latitude of action to the collector in charge. In this sense, the task of collecting annates wasn’t always a straightforward operation and ultimately depended of several factors such as the ecclesiastical geography in place, the economic income generated by each ecclesiastical institution, the current political and economic situation, the relations maintained at the time between Crown and Papacy and, even, the information and solidarities available to the collectors once in place. By scrutinizing available sources and data concerning the chronology, material details, agents involved and results of these tax-collecting operations in the realm of Portugal during the Papacy of Avignon, this chapter aims to place the Portuguese case in the broader spectrum of how annates were viewed and collected across Christianity, seeking to any practices specific to a realm located in remotis finibus mundi (at the back of beyond).

<i>England and the Avignon Popes: The Practice of Diplomacy in Late Medieval Europe</i>. Karsten Plöger

Patrick Zutshi’s impact on the study of the medieval papacy has been profound. In the anglophone world, he has both brought the insights of Continental scholarship to our attention, while also being a major contributor to that same tradition of European scholarship. However, much of his work is diffused throughout the many articles and chapters he has written (not to mention the books and papers of others which would not have been possible without his informal advice). This collection—which brings together twenty essays, two previously unpublished—is welcome then, as both a gathering of articles, and as a testament to Zutshi’s years of study. As Zutshi explains in his preface, there is no monograph on the Avignon papal chancery. Nevertheless, the range of articles here satisfactorily fills the gap, as well as moving beyond the chancery to the papal penitentiary. The methodological theme running through the essays—as through Zutshi’s entire career—is the importance of Diplomatic (Diplomatics, in the US), one of those skills, like palaeography, of which medievalists tend to be particularly proud. ‘[L]iterary criticism that is based on a detailed examination of documentary records’ (in Leonard Boyle’s formulation, although even this might be too narrow to contain the vibrancy and breadth of what Diplomatic offers) is a vital tool in the historian’s toolbox. It is therefore—as Zutshi notes—something to be regretted that there is now so little Diplomatic teaching in UK universities.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, His World and Life: Religion and Society in Late Medieval Europe. By Philip Daileader. [The New Middle Ages Series]. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2016. Pp. 282. $99.00. ISBN 978-1-137-54041-6.)The medieval Dominican saint Vincent Ferrer, who conducted a twenty-year preaching campaign throughout continental Europe and played a decisive role in contemporary ecclesiastical and political affairs, has long attracted scholarly attention, particularly in his native Iberia. Scholars have consequently produced a relatively large collection of edited primary sources by and about the saint as well as a plethora of geographically and topically specific studies about various aspects of the saint's activities and thought. What has been notably lacking from this wealth of published materials, however, has been a single cohesive and comprehensive survey of the charismatic preacher revealed by these sources. Philip Daileader's wellresearched study of Ferrer's life fills this scholarly lacuna.The monograph recreates the events of Ferrer's life and presents them chronologically, beginning with his childhood in plague-ridden Valencia, intellectual training in the Dominican Order, and his eventual ascent through the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the service of the Avignon papacy before turning to his preaching campaign. Daileader spends the majority of the study analyzing the complex social issues surrounding his preaching, which inspired enthralled audiences to act upon several issues important to the Dominican friar, namely, moral reform, the segregation of Jews, and acceptance of the Ferdinand of Castile as the Valencian monarch, ultimately linking these ideas to Ferrer's apocalyptic thought. Finally, Daileader argues that the saint left Iberia amidst waning popularity among Valencian audiences due to his involvement in the council of constance, which placed him between the Spanish monarch and the Valencian pope Benedict XIII, preaching in France until his death.It is, however, in the highly contextualized recreation of Ferrer's worldview, motivations, and intentions that this study particularly shines. Interpreting published sources by and about Ferrer through the lens of political, ecclesiastical, and intellectual history, Daileader vivifies long-standing historiographic debates about the extent of the friar's apocalyptic thought, intentions toward Jewish communities, and relationship to Iberian monarchs and Avignon popes. …

During the second half of the fourteenth century most of France and many parts of Italy faced a social problem of massive proportions in the activities of theroutiers, unemployed and rampaging mercenary soldiers. The popes of the period, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Gregory XI, took a leading role in attempts to deal with this daunting problem, and the purpose of this article is to examine one of the chief instruments which they employed, the crusade. The place of the mercenary companies in the crusading movement was paradoxical. On several occasions from 1357 onwards the popes issued crusading indulgences to those who fought against theroutierson the grounds that they presented a serious threat to the well-being of the Christian community, thepopulus christianus.But the popes also hoped to use the companies in the service of Christian Holy War by persuading them to travel to the eastern Mediterranean, to Hungary or to Granada, to fight the Muslims. Both approaches sprang from long-established papal policy towards those considered as Christendom's internal foes. When thecuriatried to bring about the destruction of theroutiersby offering spiritual rewards to their opponents it placed the mercenaries in the roll-call of Christian rebels and excommunicates combatted by means of the crusade, alongside the emperor Frederick II, Peter II of Aragon, the Visconti, and others. And when it attempted to send the companies beyond the frontiers of Christendom, it was adopting a strategy which dated back at least as far as the First Crusade. So both aspects of papal policy towards theroutierswere highly traditional. They were also unsuccessful, which raises important questions about the way the later Avignon popes thought about and exercised their power. In the mid-thirteenth century the popes successfully resisted the ambitions of the Staufen and destroyed their might; a century later they proved unable to contain the companies. Was this because the Avignon papacy was out-of-date in its policies, because it failed to appreciate and adjust to the profound changes which had occurred in society and government? In broader terms, does traditionalism in this instance betoken the ideological bankruptcy which some scholars have seen as a leading characteristic of the papacy in the fourteenth century? In order to answer these questions I shall first examine the nature of the threat which was posed by the companies, then look in detail at the two aspects of the policy adopted by thecuriain response to it.

A Review of: “Karsten Plöger, England and the Avignon Popes: The Practice of Diplomacy in Late Medieval Europe”

England and the Avignon Popes

The Avignon Popes and the Eastern Mediterranean: Power and Authority, 1305-62, written by James Hill

Images of pontifical power in the books of Clement VII and Benedict XIII. If the vitality of the illuminated manuscript collection at the court of Avignon during the Great Schism is well known, one can nonetheless ask questions about the influence of political issues at the time on their iconographic content. An examination of some of the large manuscripts ordered by Clement VII and Benedict XIII indicates the identity of the pontiff being demonstrated most frequently by the heraldic system. On the other hand, the protective figure of Saint Peter is scarcely used, and the ambivalent image of God the Father as pope only appears very late in the manuscripts of Benedict XIII. A volume of the Historia ecclesiastica nova of Ptolemy of Lucca, ordered by the last Avignon pope and completed in 1401, nevertheless includes a remarkable iconographic series of the entire line of popes, from Peter to Boniface VIII. The artist Sancho Gontier created a homogeneous gallery while nonetheless emphasising the personality of each pope, thereby underlining better the continuity of the apostolic See. Such a programme is exceptional. It is rather in the manuscripts of the great prelates that one can find representations demonstrating pontifical power. It appears that this picture largely escaped the control of the Avignon curia, but contributed perhaps to its fight to defend its legitimacy.

Clement VI: The Pontificate and Ideas of an Avignon Pope.

An increasing number of men wanted, or needed, to transact business at the papal curia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The contemporaneous development of the papal administration – partly responding to and partly encouraging the growth of business – made its transaction a more elaborate affair for those engaged in it. In a sense, the office of proctor came to the rescue of men faced with the greater frequency and complexity of business at the curia.

Urban V (1362-1370): Kirchenreform zudschen Kardinalkollegium, Kurie, und Klientel. By Ludwig Vones. [Papste und Papsttum, Volume 28.1 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann. 1998. Pp. xii, 719, DM 340.) Raised from an abbacy to the throne of St. Peter without having been either bishop or cardinal, and after a career in which his most notable role had been as a legate in Italy, Guillaume Grimoard succeeded Innocent VI as Pope Urban V in 1362. One of the succession of Avignon popes, in 1367 he led the papacy back to Italy. Ibis proved to be only a temporary shift: in 1370 he would return to Avignon, to die. A few years later the first examination began in his process of canonization, but beatification was delayed until 1870. In this massive tome, Ludwig Vones offers a detailed dissection of aspects of the pontificate, in a revised version of his Habilitationsschrift of 1994. Following a lengthy introduction, establishing a broad context (with a strong focus on reform movements and eschatology), the volume divides into three parts. The first, at just under a hundred pages, tackles the pope's family, tracing the genealogy and inheritance from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Here Urban himself plays only a minor part, although his early career merits some twenty pages. In the nature of genealogical studies, there is little debate or argument here, the stress being very firmly on establishing facts and tracing a succession. The second section (pp. 147-309) treats Urban V's election as pope in 1362, and his dealings with the College of Cardinals, paying particular attention to his appointments to the College mid his policy on the cardinals' benefices. The third part (pp@ 311-457) considers the personnel surrounding the pope; his involvement in monastic reform (notably at St-Victor at Marseilles and Montecassino); his fostering of universities; and preparations for the return to Rome. A final consideration (pp. 459-487) summarizes Urban's reform policy in the context of the Church as a whole. This is a major study, but by no means a full dissection of the pontificate. The focus is very much on concerns in the curia, only moving to a larger canvas when assessing particular aspects. Events in southern Italy accordingly gain prominence as they connect with factional divisions among the cardinals; England comes to the fore when considering the problem of benefices and clerical careers@ Germany and eastern Europe are important in the discussion of universities. There is, however, no comprehensive analysis of the pope's impact on international politics, for instance, in the diplomacy of the Anglo-French conflicts. …

the southern French popes who ruled the universal Church from Avignon during most of the fourteenth century brought papal monarchy and the papalist ecclesiology that justified it to their highest pitch. What drove them chiefly was the need for enormously higher revenues to finance the endless wars that they fought to subdue the Papal States in Italy. For at the core of Avignon’s papal monarchy was a rampant ‘fiscalism’ in which the steady extension of papal rights of provision to benefices steadily generated new or heightened impositions on clerical revenues. But the communes and signorie of the Papal States never learned to accept their French overlords and in 1375 they joined Florence in war against them. The seventh Avignon pope, Gregory XI (1370–8), realising that papal domination could not be consolidated from afar, gave ear to pious voices urging a return to Rome and decided to make the move; he left Avignon in 1376 along with seventeen of his twenty-three cardinals and hundreds of officials of the papal curia, mostly French; only six cardinals and a reduced staff were left behind. The papal party entered Rome on 17 January 1377; just over a year later Gregory was dead.