Seen plenty of threads about a longer lasting Avignon Papacy, but none about a it never happening, so what if the Avignon Papacy did not take place? As I understand it, the Avignon Papacy began due to conflicts between church and state in France, so let's say that something happens Philip IV is confronted with other priorities and is unable to come into conflict with the Church. This presumably averts the Western Schism also. What oher effects would it have on Europe and Catholicism? What would a plausible PoD to avoid Avignon be?
No Avignon Papacy
- Thread starter Aichi72
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then your question is legitimately interesting, to avoid the Avignon captivity, it would be more than enough to distract Philip enough with other problems, given that the problem with the church dates back much earlier : it is to a certain extent the continuation of the secular conflict between the papacy and secular powers , which began with the investiture controversy and then continued with Frederick II, only this time it was the papacy that had the wrong tactic to use, I also believe that with a pope other than Otl Boniface VIII, the clash would have arrived anyway ( in a different bases and times ) in a world without Avignon, the papacy would not have suffered the shock and loss of prestige associated with it, the strong xenophobia caused by this would not have been so evident in the high positions of the clergy ( making possible some foreign pontiff in more ) depending on the situations we could see the pontiffs still pushing towards a very active policy in foreign policy ( not only in the role of mediator, as happens historically, given the relative weakness of the post-schism papacy ) with regards to the rampant corruption of the period, will still be present, but at least not so rooted at a local level and without any control over it ( historically those who gained from the schism were the local clergy, who saw themselves no longer held under a fairly rigid centralizing control, something which I take advantage of to increase their privileges and rights without anyone supervising their conduct, something very visible in HRE, where ecclesiastical princes had become comparable to mini popes in their territories )
but I will be able to go into more detail at another time, unfortunately I am not at home at the moment
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It would butterfly away a lot of the angevin expansion into italy and the eastern med, seeing as the Avignon pope was backing them in a fairly blatant ethnic favoritism, the Templars might still be around if Phil gets distracted or overthrown before taking down Boniface then he doesnt have the presumption of backing by his puppet pope. Rome doesnt decline as much as it did, might change the domination of the roman nobility in the city, not as bad as before otto but still very present
very true, what you say, but it must be remembered that the Roman nobility was and is an integral part of the administration of the papal state, they are one of the main components of the backbone of the papacy (together with the clergy and the citizen population) the papacy is a purely Roman institution which, evolving and expanding, became first Italian and then international, but its base is still strong and existing (we are in the same period where the citizens locked up the cardinals until a new pope was not elected quickly, he is possibly chosen from among the members of the clergy of Roman origin (in short, the city itself wanted one of its sons as a representative ), a new pontiff will always have to deal with this, the competent popes can be recognized by how they manage to reconcile the needs and requests of the Urbe with foreign policy ( and the two things do not always coincide, and several times making mistakes in this delicate balance has made the difference between maintaining control in the city, having an antipope created or exile and the consequent deposition, because the pontiff is first of all the emanation of the city of Rome, as well as its first citizen / representative )