The Pope who moved the Papacy to France under a King's shadow

Health · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1305, Bertrand de Got was elected Pope Clement V, but his reign was far from independent. Caught between the ambitions of King Philip IV of France and the powerful Knights Templar, his decisions reshaped the Catholic Church and launched the era of the Avignon Papacy.

Elected in Perugia in 1305, Clement V was a Frenchman whose pontificate was largely defined by his attempts to appease King Philip IV of France. This pressure led to one of the most controversial moves in ecclesiastical history: the relocation of the papal residence from Rome to Avignon in 1309. This period, often called the 'Babylonian Captivity,' saw the papacy centered in France until 1377, a shift that eventually weakened church authority and contributed to the Great Western Schism.

The most significant casualty of this political maneuvering was the Knights Templar. Driven by Philip IV’s desire to seize the order's vast wealth, the French king accused the Templars of heresy and other grave crimes. Although the Council of Vienne initially resisted, Clement was forced to officially suppress the order in 1312. To prevent the king from acting entirely independently, Clement also dissolved the order himself, transferring their properties to secular rulers or the Hospitallers.

Clement's legacy is equally marked by his legal and academic contributions, such as the Clementinae, a collection of his decretals. However, his perceived subservience to the French crown earned him harsh criticism; the poet Dante Alighieri famously cast him into the Inferno. Despite the political turmoil, he expanded learning by establishing chairs of Asiatic languages at prestigious universities in Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca.

Clement's personal life was also marked by hardship; he was described as a timid leader who suffered from chronic illness, specifically cancer. He died on April 20, 1314, in Roquemaure, leaving behind a fractured church and a precedent for monarchical interference in papal affairs.

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