Clement VI

Pierre Roger of Beaufort (1291 - 1352) becomes pope under the name of Clément VI .

The son of a knight the Limousin and monk Benedictine with the Chair-God studies with Paris. Master in Theology and strong of an at the same time traditional and crowned field crop, it is quickly famous like Prédicateur.

He becomes abbot of Fécamp in 1326, bishop of Arras in 1328, archbishop of Direction in 1329, then of Rouen in 1330. He is to advise and on several occasions ambassador of Philippe VI in England and with Avignon. In 1329, he is spokesperson of the clergy at the assembly of Vincennes on the ecclesiastical jurisdictions. In 1333, it is charged by Jean XXII with preaching the Croisade. Cardinal of the title of Saint-Nérée-and-Achillée in 1338, it is elected pope the May 7th 1342. This election is done in one day and unanimously.

Clement VI gives to the Roman Curie an increased role in the government of the Church and to the pontifical court a gloss without precedent. He preserves like Camérier Gasbert de Valle, which already fulfilled this function under its two predecessors, and which he names in 1341 archbishop of Narbonne. It reinforces the pontifical administration and weighs down the taxation. After having bought the seigniory of Avignon to the queen Jeanne Anger of Naples, it expresses its intention not to try an installation in Italy by the spectacular construction of a new palate, to which it makes work artists from all Europe. It there multiplies the festivals and leaves free course to its taste for ostentation. Pope builder one owes him the transformation and the enlarging of the Palate of the Popes in Avignon as well as the rebuilding of Abbey of the Chair God, founded by St Robert and of style originally Roman, in a strengthened Gothic style similar to the modifications made to the Palate of the Popes and this by the same architect. Its tomb is there in the center of the chorus, as if he had thought of making this abbey his majestic burial. To note paintings covering the walls of its apartments in Avignon where do not appear any religious reason but of the pastoral scenes and hunting. On some of these paintings one notices the early use of the prospect (bird cages and basin).

Its family holds in the Church a place that the contemporaries judge excessive: four of its nephews are cardinals - one will be the pope Gregoire XI - and another archbishop. Another nephew is Maréchal of the Church. Nevertheless, this apparent nepotism is to be moderated insofar as his/her brother Hugues Roger of Beaufort, elected official pope in 1352, gives up the tiara by “humility”. the uncle who had led it to enter orders will be rewarded by him while becoming Archevêque for Rouen, archevéché considered at the time as richest of the Hexagon.

But Clément VI gives during the Black Death of 1348 the example of courage and clearness: he lives Avignon in full epidemic, condemns the fanaticism of the Whipping S and tries to protect the Juif S against the exactions, particularly brutal in the Iberian peninsula and the Germanic Empire. He promulgates two papal bubbles in 1348 for this purpose, of which that of the July 6th 1348. Nevertheless, nearly 900 Jews are flarings a few months later in Strasbourg, whereas the epidemic was not declared yet in the city. With this occasion it authorizes the autopsies in the hope to discover the cause of the evil and its therapeutic.

He is the last pope to play the role, already very disputed, of a referee of the European businesses. He vainly tries to bring back peace between France and England, fails in a mediation between Aragon and Majorque, loses itself, after the death of. One can reproach him for having adopted often a French attitude partisane pro during the long Anglo-Français conflict by his use of Trier and the Legates as soon as the situation seemed to turn to the disadvantage of the French. To note its determining role in the election of Charles of Bohemia as a King of the Romans then of Emperor. He also takes part in the creation of the University of Prague.

External bonds

Biography of the pope of Avignon Clement VI

References

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