| ..After Benedict died, the cardinals wrangled for almost a year before Orsini and Colonna interests agreed on a compromise candidate, Bertrand de Got. Bertrand had been absent visiting his see of Bordeaux. He accepted, took the name Clement V, and summoned the cardinals to Lyons for his coronation. Born at Villandraut in Gascony in 1264, Bertrand rose steadily in the service of the Church to be archbishop of Bordeaux. Though a friend of Philip IV, he had been loyal to Boniface VIII in his struggle with the French monarch. Naturally, however, he welcomed Benedict's appeasement policy and had renewed his friendship with Philip. |
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Clement, unwilling to face the trouble of living in turbulent Rome, wandered about France. Finally in 1309 he settled at Avignon, a pleasant little town on the banks of the Rhone. Avignon then belonged not to the king of France but to the king of Naples. It was almost surrounded by the papal territory of the Venaissin, and Clement VI purchased the town itself. Thus started the Avignon "exile" or the "Babylonian Captivity" of the papacy which was to last, with a slight interruption, until 1378. |
