Avignon, Archdiocese of

AVIGNON, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City of southern France, on the Rhône, at the crossing of important natural routes and in a position easy to defend.

I. HISTORY

A. is an archiepiscopal see and the capital of the department of Vaucluse (3578 sq. km.). The diocese has 200,000 Catholics out of a population of 245,508 inhabitants; 176 parishes; 161 diocesan priests and 60 regulars (1948).

Its Christian origins are shrouded in legend. It is unknown who St. Rufus was, around whom the first Christians of Avignon in all likelihood gathered. The first bishop of whom history has preserved record is Nectarius, who appears in the Councils of Riez in 439, of Orange in 441, and of Vaison in 442. He affixed his signature to the letter that the bishops of Gaul, assembled at Arles in 451, addressed to Pope Leo I on the controversy of the Incarnation. After him the series of bishops is almost continuous down to the 6th century; it is interrupted thereafter, and only the name of St. Agricolus remains, who was to be the patron of the city.

Disputed in turn by the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Franks, A. was occupied in the 8th century by the Muslims; Charles Martel was able to dislodge them in 737.

Legally belonging to the old kingdom of Arles, it nevertheless fell within the possession of the counts of Provence. As the center of a rich region, on the navigable part of the Rhone, under the protection of those counts it had been able to develop a considerable economic activity, and a nearly wholly autonomous commune had formed there.

The 11th century saw Notre-Dame-des-Doms restored and the abbey of St. Rufus rise. Urban II visited A. in 1095 and 1096, Gelasius II in 1118, Innocent II in 1132.

The struggles for A. began at the start of the 13th century, under the pretext of the crusade against the Albigensians and against the counts of Toulouse and of Provence, their protectors. In 1226 a crusading army led by the king of France Louis VIII besieged A. In 1229 the count of Toulouse Raymond VII ceded to the Pope the Comtat Venaissin, extending along the left bank of the Rhone around Carpentras. Gregory IX entrusted the new papal possession to the custody of the royal seneschal of Languedoc, and the kings of France repeatedly sought to seize it. The popes restored it, and in 1274 Gregory X occupied it definitively. It was organized into 60 castles grouped into 9 bailiwicks and was given to be governed by an official called rector et comes Venassini. The new count of Provence, of the house of France, Charles of Anjou, in 1251 entirely suppressed the communal liberties of the city and subjected it to the government of comital officials. But A. enters the stage of great European history at the beginning of the 14th century, when it became the seat of the papacy.

When in 1309 Clement V, after staying in various cities of southern France, went there, he found himself the guest of the count of Provence and king of Naples, Robert of Anjou; and he took up residence in the convent of the Dominicans. His successor Jacques d'Euse had been, since 1310, bishop of A., and when he was elected pope under the name John XXII (1316) he decided without hesitation to keep the papal seat in the city he favored, living in his episcopal palace. On 2 Oct. 1316 he made his solemn entry into A. and set about organizing the curia there. Benedict XII (1334-42) then began the construction of the towered palace of the rocher des Doms, while the cardinals too began to build palaces for themselves outside A., at Villeneuve, on the right bank of the Rhone, which had already fallen into the possession of the kings of France. In 1348 Pope Clement VI decided to buy the city from the countess of Provence and queen of Naples, Joanna I, taking advantage of her need for money to fight the king of Hungary, who was contesting the kingdom with her. He paid out 80,000 florins (9 June 1348) and obtained the emperor Charles IV's approval of the cession.

The two pontificates of Benedict XII and Clement VI (1334-52) represent for A. an era of great importance. The papal court, including all those who had dealings with the curia, numbered fully 4,000 persons: pilgrims, ecclesiastics, prelates, men of business, politicians and merchants flocked there from every side. The small Provençal city became a great cosmopolitan center. Beyond the old ring of walls new suburbs arose; popes and cardinals built or embellished churches and monasteries there, summoning artists from every quarter. During the Avignon exile and the subsequent Western Schism, the pontiffs reserved to themselves the bishopric of A., governed by an administrator of their confidence. A moment of grave crisis for A. was the outbreak of the plague in 1348: the city was afflicted for fully seven months and lost half its population. Soon, however, life resumed its merry course. The manners of the papal court provoked violent attacks from Petrarch and from St. Bridget, who called A. "ungodly Babylon, hell of the living, sink of vices." An improvement in morals came under Innocent VI (1352-62) and a more visible one under Urban V (1362-70), who for this received Petrarch's praise.

Urban V's greatest reform was the decision to restore the papacy to Rome. The king of France made every effort to persuade the Pope to remain on the banks of the Rhone, but Urban V departed from A. on 30 Apr. 1367, resisting the pressure of the cardinals who were unwilling to follow him to Rome. He found, however, such a situation in Italy and in Rome that he soon decided to return to A. He re-entered it on 24 Sept. 1370. His successor Gregory XI very soon took up again the plan of returning to Rome: he announced his decision as early as 1374, but only in 1376 did he carry out his plan, also because of the exhortations of St. Catherine of Siena (v.). Once again the government of France, the cardinals and his relatives tried to hold him back: on 13 Sept. he left A., arriving in Rome on 7 Jan. 1377. When, after the death of Gregory XI, Urban VI was elected amid tumults (1378), the French cardinals withdrew on captious pretexts to Fondi and elected a pope of their own, the cardinal of Geneva, who took the name Clement VII. The latter, having failed to overcome his adversary, transferred his seat to A. (20 June 1379). Clement VII lived there until his death (1394), and so did his successor Benedict XIII, who only during the Council of Constance resigned himself to abandoning A., withdrawing to Catalonia at Peñíscola.

Once the schism was closed, Eugene IV in 1433 reorganized the government of A., entrusting it to a pontifical legate who was usually an Italian cardinal, on whom the rector of the Comtat Venaissin depended. From 1391 only a vice-legate was sent to A.: the last, Filippo Casoni, was driven out by the insurgent Avignonais on 12 June 1790. In 1475 Sixtus IV raised the see of A. to a metropolis, with Cavaillon, Carpentras and Vaison as suffragans, in favor of his nephew, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Julius II. From 1634 to 1637 Mazarin held the office of vice-legate. The French monarchy, from the time when in the second half of the 15th century, as heir of the Angevins, it absorbed the county of Provence, ill tolerating the existence of the papal possession of A., sought on several occasions with various pretexts to seize it; to this end the rights of purchase were debated, indeed the rights of the king of Naples over Provence. A first French occupation occurred under Louis XI, from 1476-83, then again in 1536 under Francis I. More important occupations occurred in the 17th century through the work of Louis XIV, the first time in 1662 as reprisal against the Pope for the affair of the Duke of Créqui, the second time in 1668 for the conflict with the Pope over the extraterritorial rights of the French embassy. Both times the king provoked decrees of annexation by the Parliament of Provence. Again in 1768, when the Pope protested against the anti-ecclesiastical legislation of Philip of Bourbon, Duke of Parma, the government of Louis XV decided on occupation and annexation; but in 1774, when the Pope granted the requested abolition of the Jesuits, the French government consented to the restoration of A. to the Holy See. However, as soon as the French Revolution broke out, unrest and protests against the papal government began in A.; at the Estates General and then at the Constituent Assembly the annexation of A. was discussed, and it was decreed by the Assembly itself. Pope Pius VI protested against the violation of the rights of the Holy See, but in the Treaty of Tolentino he had to recognize the accomplished fact (19 February 1796). The Holy See attempted to raise the question again after the fall of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna, but without success.

The department of Vaucluse constitutes the diocese of A., which became a simple bishopric again with the concordat of 1801, was restored once more as a metropolitan see in 1822, with the dioceses of Montpellier, Nîmes, Valence and Viviers as suffragans. It has united with it the titles of Apt, Cavaillon, Carpentras and Vaison.

The city preserves the memories of its University, of the marvellous flowering of religious institutes which, through the initiative of the archbishops, formed a dam against Protestant heresy in the 16th and 17th centuries; furthermore, of no fewer than twelve councils.

Francesco Cognasso

II. COUNCILS OF AVIGNON

Many councils were held at A.; the principal ones are indicated here.

In 1080, under the presidency of Hugh of Die, there were elected bishops Gibelin of A. in place of the intruder Acard, Lantelme of Embrun, Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, and Desiderius, bishop of Cavaillon; the legates took the newly elected with them to Rome to have them consecrated by the Pope himself.

In 1209, in the presence of the archbishops of Vienne, of Arles, of Embrun and of Aix, and of others besides, together with a considerable number of abbots, under the presidency of the two pontifical legates Milo and Hugh, 21 canons on discipline were promulgated at A. The second of these obliged the bishops to require from counts, castellans and burghers the oath to expel and remove the Jews from every office. On that occasion, for his weakness toward the heretics, the count of Toulouse was excommunicated.

The third Synod, of 1279, concerned itself with protecting the rights, privileges and immunities of the clergy, threatening censures against the usurpers of ecclesiastical property. The other canons contain ancient ordinances published at Bourges, Valence and Arles.

In 1283 Bertrand Amaury, archbishop of A., presided over a provincial synod and in 10 canons renewed the ancient laws against usurers and the alienation of church property.

On 18 June 1326 a general Synod was held in the abbey of St. Rufus for the three ecclesiastical provinces of southern France: A., Aix and Embrun. There a regulation of 59 articles was published, almost all concerning the temporal goods of the Church and its jurisdiction.

A general Synod in the same monastery of St. Rufus was held in 1337, where 70 canons were promulgated, almost all taken from the preceding synod.

The Synod of 1403 voted monetary subsidies for the king of France. In 1457 a provincial synod met, presided over by Card. Peter of Foix. Its chief purpose was to renew the decree of the Council of Basel concerning the Immaculate Conception.

Romualdo Souarn

III. THE SANCTUARY OF NOTRE-DAME-DES-DOMS

The date of origin of this sanctuary is certainly earlier than the stay of the Popes in A. It was called Our Lady "des Doms," or rather "des Dons," because of the multitude of heavenly gifts granted in that place. Others suggest a different etymology: of the "Domini" or Lords, that is, the bishop and clerics who lived near the church, "de domo episcopali."

John XXII was buried near it. Benedict XII was here raised to the supreme dignity, and wished to remain here after death. The kings of France, from Louis VIII to Louis XIV, went to venerate this image of the Virgin. The Revolution stripped the ancient statue and reduced the building to miserable conditions. Brought back to life by Msgr. Dupont, the Sanctuary was erected anew as a basilica by Pius IX in 1854.

Romualdo Souarn

IV. THE UNIVERSITY OF AVIGNON

A. had a famous university, one of the oldest in France. Its origins can be traced back to the beginning of the 13th century, when the papal legate Cardinal Romano, by an ordinance of 4 January 1227, organized there a theological teaching ("in theologica facultate") to combat heresy. Charles II, king of Naples and count of Provence, by a letter of 5 May 1303 granted the school of A. various privileges, while Boniface VIII, by the bull Conditoris omnium of 1 July 1303, raised it to the dignity of Studium generale, with the faculties of civil and canon law, of medicine and of arts. The faculty of theology was added to it by John XXIII with the bull Dum attente of 6 September 1413.

The Statutes, drawn up "doctorum consilio et assensu" by the bishop of the city, Bertrand Aymin, in 1303, were considerably modified in 1376. The natural chancellor of the University was the archbishop of A.; the rector, called primicarius, was normally chosen from among the professors of law (Decretals of Gregory IX, book I, tit. 25). Subsequent reforms of the statutes took place in 1407 on the initiative of the bishop Gilles de Bellemère, in 1441 through the work of the bishop Alain de Coetivi with the cooperation of the doctors of the University, and in 1503 by order of Cardinal Archbishop Giuliano della Rovere, who entrusted the task to his nephew Galeotto della Rovere: these last statutes are valuable for understanding the situation of the University of A. at the end of the Middle Ages.

By a bull of 6 September 1413 John XXIII granted to the University of A. the privileges enjoyed by those of Toulouse and Orléans, which were similar to those of the University of Paris: so that, in practice, the Pope granted to A. all the university privileges of the time.

Characteristic of this University are its numerous colleges, each of which has its own history: 1) the college of St. Martial, erected by Clement VII, with the bull Pia devotorum of 21 April 1379, for the monks of Cluny: by the agreement of 7 September 1427, this college housed the library of the University; 2) the college of St. Nicholas of Annecy, founded by a document of 23 July 1424 by Cardinal Giovanni de Brognay, bishop of Ostia, for the Savoyards (Magnum Collegium Sabaudiae); 3) the college of St. Michael, founded, by a testament of 8 April 1453, by the jurist Giovanni Isnard for students of civil law; 4) the college "de Jujon" (or Dijon), founded on 9 September 1471; 5) the college "du Roure" (Collegium de Rovere), founded on 22 August 1476 by Cardinal Archbishop Giuliano della Rovere for 36 poor students; the cardinal, nephew of Sixtus IV, obtained from the Pope, for this college, the library of the palace of the Popes (bull Ad Apostolicae Sedis apicem, 6 May 1481); 6) the college of "Notre-Dame de la Piété" founded by the Dominican Bartolomeo de Riquetis, professor of theology (1491-1494); 7) the college of Sénanque (or of St. Bernard of Sénanque), founded in 1496 for the Cistercians; 8) the college "de la Croix", through the work of Guillaume Ricci (1500). In the 18th century only the collège d'Annecy functioned regularly, and the collège du Roure was united to it in 1709.

To foster the piety of the young, on 21 March 1441 the Corporation or Confraternity of "St. Sebastian" was established for students of law, while between 1450 and 1480 another was founded for the doctors of the University.

Since the University had declined from its original splendor, Sixtus IV sought to restore its prestige with the bull Cum rationis of 5 June 1475, while his nephew Giuliano della Rovere, a cardinal, became its great patron and restorer. Among its most illustrious alumni and teachers, Blessed Urban V (Guillaume de Grimoard) should be remembered. The University distinguished itself, especially in the 17th century, in the teaching of law. It disappeared during the French Revolution (1792).

Its documents have been fairly well preserved: the Archives de Vaucluse possess the most complete collection of them. M. Fournier published the principal ones in Les Statuts et Privilèges des Universités Françaises depuis leur fondation jusqu'en 1789 (II, Paris 1891, pp. 301-535, and III, ibid. 1892, pp. 647-66).

Igino Cecchetti

V. THE PALACE OF THE POPES

It is one of the principal monuments of French architecture in the Middle Ages.

With a bull of June 1336 Benedict XII (1334-1342) solemnly expressed his intention to build in A., where the pontifical court then had its provisional seat, a palace that would fully meet the requirements of papal dignity. His predecessor, John XXII (1316-1334), who had taken up residence in the bishop's palace of the city, next to the Cathedral, had already been forced to carry out considerable adaptation work on that ancient building and to purchase some adjoining properties in order to house there the offices and the necessary services.

The Avignon palace of the Popes is composed of two groups of buildings clearly differentiated within the same unified appearance of the complex. They are designated as the Old Palace and the New Palace and are the work respectively of Benedict XII and of Clement VI (1342-52); Innocent VI and Urban V perfected those works and made some additions which, however notable, did not substantially alter the ensemble of the constructions. The Old Palace, or Palace of Benedict XII, rises to the right of the Cathedral and occupies for the most part the space where the bishop's palace previously stood. It unfolds around a trapezoidal courtyard whose sides are formed by the flank of four great building masses: the Papal Chapel, at whose ends rise the tower of the Campana and the tower of Trouillas, the wing of the Consistory, the wing of the Conclave and the wing of the familiars. At the corner formed by the wing of the Consistory and that of the Conclave rest the buildings that constitute the papal apartments, dominated and protected by the gigantic tower of the Angels. This complex group of constructions, carried out by the architect Pierre de Poisson, although it may appear at first examination as disconnected, almost as if each building had been conceived as standing on its own, on closer observation will appear not only dictated in its developments by the logical distribution of the rooms but also architectonicly, especially on the exterior, made unified by the motif of the gigantic buttresses or piers which, placed very close together, run along its smooth walls with admirable ascending impetus, joined at the top by elegant arches. On the other hand, presiding over this part of the construction is that very evident taste for architectural picturesqueness, for the animated distribution of plastic masses, for the surprising scenographic effects that was held in the highest honor by the architects of the Middle Ages and that we too often regard as the fruit of chance. On the other hand, the building of Benedict XII faithfully reflects the taste and temperament of that Pontiff; more than a palace one would call it a monastery or a fortress. Different is the character of the Palazzo Nuovo erected in the time of Clement VI (1342-52). It is a true palace; its rooms are grandiose, and in its architectural and decorative elements, most elegant, every refined care is lavished. The palace of Clement VI is composed of two great building masses, the wing known as that of the Grandi Dignitari, adjoining which is the hall of the Piccole udienze, and the wing of the hall of the Grandi udienze, which also rests against the tower of St. Lawrence. These two building masses, together with the wing known as that of the Conclave and the complex of the papal apartments of the time of Benedict XII, bound the area of the palace's great courtyard. The architect of the buildings erected in the time of Clement VI was Jean de Loubières. He took up again on the exterior of the construction the motif of the great piers joined at the top by pointed arches, thereby maintaining a unified character for the gigantic building. As was said, this second part of the construction, especially the wing where the hall of the Grandi udienze and the papal chapel above it are located, is the one of greater architectural as well as decorative importance. Also in the hall of the Grandi udienze, as in other rooms of the palace, such as the oratory of St. John and the tower of the Gnardoroba, there appear interesting 14th-century frescoes, unfortunately much deteriorated. They are due almost entirely to a workshop of Italian painters led by Matteo Giovanetti da Viterbo (v.), who, in the capacity of general director of the paintings, had installed himself in the palace in the time of Clement VI. Matteo Giovanetti worked in the taste of the Sienese painters of his time, the greatest of whom, Simone Martini (v.), must already have been at Avignon in 1339 at the court of the Pope, engaged in works that greatly influenced the development of French painting in the region. At Avignon Simone met Petrarch (v.) and there died in the year 1344.

When the pontifical court transferred once again definitively to Rome, there began for the Avignon palace of the Popes a phase of decline that could not be halted by the works carried out over the course of the centuries by the cardinal legates and vice-legates. Disastrous was the period of the French Revolution; then the palace was prey to abandonment and plundering.

Napoleon, by decree of 23 April 1810, included it among the public buildings of municipal property. In 1818 the Ministry of War took possession of it and transformed it into a barracks, while a part remained used as a prison.

From 1876 the palace, whose high historical and artistic value had finally been understood, became the object of the care of the offices for Fine Arts, and a systematic restoration was begun that has, as far as was possible, repaired the deplorable damage.

For the archive and the library of A.: v. VATICANO ARCHIVIO; VATICANA BIBLIOTECA.

Emilio Lavagnino