The 1342 Avignon Papal Conclave: Crisis and Controversy in the Election of Pope Clement VI

How factional rivalry and French royal pressure at the Avignon conclave shaped the controversial election of Pope Clement VI.

17 March 2026 · Part of Famous Popes and Church, Papacy & Monasteries →

In the heart of the 14th century, the papacy was no longer centered in Rome but was firmly established in Avignon, France. This period, known as the Avignon Papacy, was marked by complex political pressures and factional divisions that shaped the Catholic Church for nearly seven decades. One of the most dramatic moments in this era unfolded during the papal conclave of 1342, which culminated in the election of Pope Clement VI. This conclave encapsulates the fraught intersection of religious authority and political intrigue during medieval Europe.

The Avignon Papacy: A Shift in Power and Perception

The relocation of the papal seat from Rome to Avignon in 1309 under Pope Clement V had already created considerable tension. Many in Europe viewed the papacy as increasingly subject to French royal influence, leading to suspicions and alienation among other European powers. By 1340, this perception contributed to a highly charged environment within the College of Cardinals, where memberships were often split along national lines, particularly between French and Italian cardinals.

As Pope Benedict XII approached the end of his papacy, the coming conclave was expected to be highly contentious. The political stakes were enormous—not only determining the spiritual leadership of Christendom but also the church’s ideological trajectory as it navigated threats like burgeoning heresy movements and rising national monarchies.

Avignon was not, strictly speaking, French soil. The city belonged to the Angevin counts of Provence and lay within the imperial kingdom of Arles, while the surrounding Comtat Venaissin had passed into papal hands in 1274, in the long settlement that followed the suppression of heresy in southern France. Successive popes used that distinction to argue that they did not live under the French king’s jurisdiction; few outside France were persuaded. The curia sat within easy reach of Paris, its cardinals were overwhelmingly French, and the memory of Clement V’s surrender of the Knights Templar under royal pressure had fixed the impression that the papacy could be leaned upon. Every Avignon conclave was therefore read as a test of whether the Church could still elect a pope the French crown had not chosen.

The 1342 Papal Conclave: A Battle of Factions

When Benedict XII died in 1342, the conclave convened in Avignon was dominated by two primary factions. The first was largely French, favoring a pontiff who would maintain strong ties with the French crown and continue the papacy’s Avignon residency. The second faction, while smaller, was more international and wary of French dominance, pushing for reforms and a more independent papal stance.

The conclave was marked by intense debate and political maneuvering. Rumors swirled of secret pacts and potential vetoes influenced by external monarchs, notably King Philip VI of France, who exerted considerable leverage over the cardinal electors. The cardinals were also acutely aware of the geopolitical instability affecting Europe, including the early tremors of the Hundred Years’ War and the spread of the Black Death, which further complicated the urgency of choosing a strong spiritual leader.

The Arithmetic of the College of Cardinals

Factional arithmetic, more than argument, governed what was possible. When Benedict XII died there were nineteen cardinals in the Sacred College, of whom seventeen entered the conclave. Thirteen were French, three Italian and one Spanish; ten owed their promotion to John XXII, six to Benedict XII and one to Clement V. A College assembled almost entirely by popes who had never resided in Rome was unlikely to elect one who would abandon Avignon, and the three Italians could not block a candidate the majority wanted.

Royal pressure belongs in that proportion. Philip VI sent his eldest son to Avignon to press the candidacy of Cardinal Pierre Roger; the prince arrived to find the matter already decided. The French interest did not have to be imposed on the cardinals, because most of the cardinals already embodied it—a structural dependence far harder to reform than any single royal veto.

The Election of Pope Clement VI: A Controversial Compromise

After weeks of negotiation and deadlock, Cardinal Pierre Roger was ultimately elected Pope Clement VI—a decision that reflected both compromise and the prevailing French influence. Born into a noble French family and previously the Bishop of Arras, Clement VI was considered a skilled administrator with diplomatic acuity but faced criticism for his lavish lifestyle and perceived partisanship.

His election was controversial, particularly among the Italian cardinals, who feared a continuation of Avignon residency would further alienate Rome and weaken papal authority. Yet, Clement VI’s tenure would prove influential; he maintained the papacy in Avignon, navigated complex European politics, and sought to bolster the Church’s moral authority through patronage of the arts and learning.

A Career Built Between Crown and Curia

Clement VI’s administrative reputation was earned long before the conclave. Born around 1291 at Maumont in the Limousin, Pierre Roger entered the Benedictine order as a boy and studied at Paris. He was named abbot of Fécamp, one of the wealthiest royal abbeys in Normandy, in 1326; bishop of Arras in 1328; archbishop of Sens in 1329; and archbishop of Rouen in 1330. No purely ecclesiastical career produced that sequence of promotions in four years. Along the way he served as chancellor of France and as a councillor of Philip VI, and Benedict XII made him a cardinal in 1338.

He was exactly the candidate a French-dominated College would find safe: a trained theologian and celebrated preacher who also understood royal government from the inside. The record that made him the obvious compromise also made the charge of partisanship impossible to dismiss, and his election confirmed the entanglement of papacy and crown in a single person.

What the Election Produced

The decade that followed showed what the cardinals had chosen. In 1343 a Roman embassy—among its members the notary Cola di Rienzo, who met Petrarch at the curia—begged the pope to return to Rome and to shorten the interval between jubilee years. Clement granted the second request and refused the first: the bull Unigenitus Dei filius fixed the jubilee at every fifty years, and the celebration took place in Rome in 1350 without him. In 1348 he settled the question of residence concretely, buying Avignon outright from Joanna I of Naples for 80,000 florins: a temporary refuge had become papal property.

That same year the Black Death reached the city, and Clement issued two bulls insisting that the Jews were not poisoning the wells and were dying of the plague like everyone else—a rare, and largely unheeded, intervention against the massacres then sweeping the Rhineland. He also spent lavishly: the Palais Neuf roughly doubled the papal palace between 1342 and 1352, and the Italian painter Matteo Giovannetti was brought north to fresco its chapels.

Legacy of the 1342 Conclave: Impermanence and Influence

The 1342 conclave stands as a critical moment in the Avignon Papacy, illustrating the complex interplay of religious leadership and secular power in medieval Europe. It underscored the challenges of maintaining spiritual independence amid increasing political entanglements. While Clement VI’s election did not resolve the papacy’s foundational crisis of legitimacy, it exemplified the nuanced realities of church politics during a turbulent era.

Moreover, the conclave highlighted the broader implications of the Avignon Papacy on European Christendom—laying the groundwork for future conflicts and eventual calls for reform, which culminated centuries later in the Western Schism and Reformation. The 1342 papal election remains a poignant example of how medieval religious institutions were deeply enmeshed with the political currents of their time.

Chronology: from Avignon to the Western Schism

Frequently asked questions

Why was the papacy at Avignon rather than Rome when Clement VI was elected? The papal seat had moved to Avignon in 1309 under Clement V, and by the 1340s it had hardened from an emergency measure into an institution. Avignon lay outside the French kingdom in law, bordering the papally held Comtat Venaissin, but contemporaries treated that distinction as a fiction. Clement VI removed the ambiguity in 1348 by buying the city outright.

Why was Clement VI’s election considered controversial? The Italian cardinals feared that another French pope would prolong the Avignon residency indefinitely, alienating Rome and weakening papal authority there. Clement’s background—bishop of Arras, chancellor of France, councillor to Philip VI—made the charge of partisanship easy to level and hard to refute. His lavish spending on the enlarged palace and on curial patronage then confirmed his critics’ suspicions.

How much control did the French crown actually have over the conclave? Less than the rumours of vetoes and secret pacts suggested, and more than any reformer could accept. Philip VI sent his eldest son to advance Pierre Roger’s candidacy, but the election was over before he arrived. The crown’s real leverage lay not in instructions to the electors but in the composition of a College in which thirteen of the seventeen participating cardinals were French.

Did the 1342 conclave settle where the papacy belonged? No, and that is its lasting significance. Clement VI kept the curia at Avignon and turned a provisional residence into papal property, deferring rather than resolving the question of Rome. The court returned only in 1377 under Gregory XI, and the disputed election that followed his death in 1378 opened the Western Schism the Avignon decades had made possible.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in Recommended reading — and in Further reading on older articles — may earn Writesides of History a commission at no extra cost to you.

From the archive