The Avignon Papacy

The Avignon Papacy is the period in which the Papal See was transferred from Rome to Avignon, leaving Rome without the Papal Court. The Decameron invokes this change to explain a contemporary contrast: Rome, once the head of the world, had become its tail.

The move and its duration

A note accompanying the story of Pietro Boccamazza identifies Clement V as the pope who moved the Papal See to Avignon in the early fourteenth century. It says that the Papal Court remained there through the reigns of five succeeding popes, while Rome was abandoned as the court’s seat. The note ends the period with Gregory XI’s return to Rome in 1376.

Rome in the story’s historical frame

The historical allusion appears as an explanation of the story’s description of Rome as diminished from its former pre-eminence. The contrast between Rome as the world’s head and its present condition as its tail connects the lovers’ flight from the city to a larger political change: the absence of the Papal Court had altered Rome’s standing. The note supplies the chronology behind that image, rather than describing the transfer as part of the lovers’ own action.