Clement VI

Which of the two sides of Clement prevailed the ‘official’ or the personal? The book attempts to answer this question by examining his ideas and actions in connection with some of the major issues of the reign: for example, his attempts to solve the problem of the ‘usurping’ emperor, Louis of Bavaria, through the appointment of Charles of Bohemia (Charles IV); to deal with a crisis in the Hundred Years War between France and England; to check Islamic expansion and to heal the Greek Schism; to curb the oligarchic challenge of those who thought that the papacy should be at Rome rather than at Avignon. Clement was a great orator and the book is based partly on his sermons, many of which are unpublished. It is the only study of an Avignon pope in English.