The controversial issue of the papacy's residence in Avignon – the so-called ‘Babylonian Captivity’ – appeared to be settled in 1367, when Urban v (1362–70) finally returned to Rome. No pope had lived there since Boniface viii, some six decades previously. Despite Urban's apparently clear intention to undertake this move, it took some time to materialise: by the time that the pope and his court left on 19 May 1367, nearly five years had elapsed since Urban's election, which was taken as a sign that the end of the papacy's ‘exile’ was nearing; a further two had passed since the pontiff's formal announcement in consistory of his decision to leave Avignon,Footnote ¹ greatly frustrating those who could hardly wait for a return to what they saw as the natural order. Hence comments such as that of Petrarch:

These words come from his letter to Urban v, included in his ‘Letters of old age’ (Rerum senilium libri, book vii, ep. i), written in the summer of 1366. Quite apart from Petrarch's hopes (he had been writing to popes to urge them to leave France ever since the pontificate of Benedict xiiFootnote ³) it fulfilled those of many of his fellow Italians, from the Florentines, whose embassy of 1365 urged Urban to come back to Rome for the sake of the peace and harmony of the Italian peninsula,Footnote ⁴ to the various cities which, along with Joanna of Naples, provided transport and other support for the pontiff,Footnote ⁵ and of course Romans themselves. It was they who had suffered most of all from the absence of the papal court, both in terms of the further political instability caused by the papacy's absence and the economic weakness arising from the absence of the curia as a market for goods and services. Representatives of the senate repeatedly lobbied for its return, most recently in 1364.Footnote ⁶ Apart from the king of France – who stood to lose by the end of the papacy's residence in Avignon – many others were highly gratified by the prospect of a papacy restored to Rome. It satisfied those like Bridget of Sweden, who like Petrarch objected to the choice of corrupt Avignon over Apostolic RomeFootnote ⁷, and those who perceived too great a French influence over the papacy thanks to the curia's location on the Rhône.Footnote ⁸

Petrarch's letter reflects his concern as to whether the pope was hesitating over the departure from Avignon, given how much time had elapsed between the announcement of the decision and the accomplishment of the promise. This induced him to write to Urban in the hope of stiffening his resolve. To that end Petrarch assembled a series of arguments in favour of leaving Avignon for Rome, and examined the case against. Partly conceived as a literary exercise, the letter is both a stylistic tour de force and a source that conveys something of the atmosphere of the papal court, along with the debates for and against leaving Avignon as preparations were made for the curia's relocation in 1367. Petrarch anticipated, and summarily demolished, objections to returning to Italy; scolded the pope for his lack of resolution; pleaded with him; appealed to his better nature; and even sympathised with the dilemmas that he faced. The quotation cited above reflects this latter mode

It is somewhat unusual to find Petrarch so concerned with the practical aspects of the move to Rome – even in this letter it is more common to find him railing against ‘luxury’, especially among the cardinals, whose judgement ‘is often choked and bent by wealth … and by the carnal passions that at times hold even brave spirits under their yoke’.Footnote ⁹ The move to Rome was, for him, as it was for others, a matter of principle, and day-to-day considerations were as a rule unimportant: yet in this letter he discusses them alongside political dimensions of the issue as a whole, such as the more self-indulgent objections raised by cardinals.Footnote ¹⁰ Given that Petrarch, despite his absence from Avignon, was even at that stage a knowledgeable and informed witness of what went on at the curia, it can be inferred that he was aware that the organisational challenge that leaving Avignon entailed was a matter of concern for the pope. After all, the curia had been resident on a permanent basis there for more than fifty years.Footnote ¹¹

This article is concerned with the difficulties that arose as the prospect of leaving Avignon loomed as a practical reality. Petrarch's elegant language reflects the prosaic truth that continuity had to be maintained even as adjustments to routine – which he describes as habit – were made. Various historians have considered aspects of this transitional period: the survey of the papal archives commissioned by Urban v in anticipation of a future meeting with John v Paleologus and representatives of the Greek Church, to which end the pope selected and copied some of the key documents, has been described by Karl BorchardtFootnote ¹²; Michel Hayez has looked at arrangements made in AvignonFootnote ¹³; and of course Johann-Peter Kirsch edited and published financial accounts for the years that Urban v and Gregory xi spent in Rome.Footnote ¹⁴ Kirsch's analysis of the sources touches on the domestic arrangements made in Rome and Montefiascone (as well as, to a lesser extent, in Viterbo) in anticipation of the pope's arrival. However, although he published the relevant sources he does not examine the organisation of the papal household and its affairs on the trip to Rome per se. (Since the correspondence for this period of the Apostolic Chamberlain, Etienne Aubert, has not survived, even the excellent commentaries in Daniel Williman's edition of his letters do not throw too much light on the issue.Footnote ¹⁵) This leaves a gap in the historiography.

The household offers an excellent perspective on the habits to which Petrarch referred in his letter to Urban, especially if that phrase is interpreted as an implicit reference to the routines that governed how the curia functioned. The papal household was a vital element of the papal court as a whole, arguably providing its focal point, but it is hard to define neatly. While it may be possible to describe the Apostolic Chamber and other administrative offices as institutions – permanent bodies with hierarchies, structures and procedures designed to perform more or less fixed functions – it is difficult to speak of the household in quite these terms. Its functions were ill defined, and in practice what they entailed, and the means used to discharge them, varied considerably, from the formal channels represented by the household offices, to more ad hoc solutions. Nevertheless, Bernard Guillemain gives a serviceable definition where he describes the household as comprising everything associated with furnishing popes and their dependants with their day-to-day needs.Footnote ¹⁶

In terms of personnel and offices, the household was no longer the discreet and relatively small corpus of the pre-Avignon era. Its ‘habits’ had changed considerably over the decades that the papacy had spent in Avignon. The court had ceased to be an itinerant body, for example, and money had assumed a much more central role in the curial economy: cash was the standard means of exchange for the remittance of salaries as well as for purchase of goods and services.Footnote ¹⁷ The growth of papal fiscalism, which meant that the volume of money flowing into the curia reached unprecedented levels, appears to have stimulated demand. In other words, popes spent more as they grew richer. As the scale of domestic expenditure was larger than ever before (though it is hard to put a precise figure on it, owing to the lack of sufficient data for the pre-Avignon period), greater demand further complicated the household's task. The household offices also became highly bureaucratic institutions, each of which kept very exact records of what was spent, records that were submitted to the Apostolic Chamber for verification and approval on a regular basis. The Chamber itself was a monolithic bureaucracy with wide-ranging powers, which served as the main point of contact between the fiscal system and those institutions such as the household which spent the money derived from tax revenues.

These sprawling, interlinked bureaucratic systems, co-ordinated by the Apostolic Chamber, functioned according to a routine different from that which had been employed at the pre-Avignon curia. Officials at the papal household under Boniface viiiFootnote ¹⁸ and Clement vFootnote ¹⁹ – from whose pontificates the only sets of pre-fourteenth century financial accounts survive – settled accounts with the Apostolic Chamber on a weekly basis: a format that appears to have worked well for an itinerant court. The Avignon popes from John xxii onwards used a monthly cycle, an arrangement that suited the court when it resided permanently in Avignon (or journeyed only so far as Pont de Sorgues, Marseilles or Montpellier, cities visited in 1365 and 1367 respectively.Footnote ²⁰) The Chamber settled accounts promptly and officials would be reimbursed accordingly. Those suppliers of goods and services who dealt directly with the Chamber, rather than one of the household offices, were also paid on a regular basis.

The question here, prompted by Petrarch's casual observation about set habits, is how Urban v dealt with the important matter of how and when to settle his household accounts. This relatively mundane issue – a change in when and how money was to be paid to the familiares papae – made it possible for popes to live as they had at Avignon, with the household providing their day-to-day needs. Urban either had to change the status quo, or revert to an older, simpler system more suited to an itinerant court. He chose the former option, but with some adjustments to take account of the fact that he would be in transit for a number of months.

The situation was made yet more complicated by the fact that, once the curia left Marseilles, the Apostolic Chamber would effectively be split in half.Footnote ²¹ Its head, the Chamberlain, accompanied the pope on his journey to Rome: he remained in overall control of how the Chamber was run, and continued to supervise the papal court and in particular the household. His deputy, the Apostolic Treasurer, went as far as Marseilles,Footnote ²² travelling with the pope as he had when the curia moved in 1365 and 1367, but, after making the final arrangements, returned to Avignon just before Urban v embarked. Back in Avignon he was in charge of the collection of papal revenues, which were to be transferred, as necessary, to the pope and the Chamberlain in Italy, via companies of Florentine and Pistoiese bankers, the Alberti Antichi and the Tici. There is every reason to believe that this was an unprecedented move (no such arrangement had ever been recorded before, and it is extremely unlikely that it had ever been attempted.) As far as the household is concerned, this required some readjustment, since the Treasurer was responsible for key functions – checking accounts presented by officials and expenses claimed by others who supplied the papal household, and handing over the money due to them. This caused further organisational complications.

As the financial accounts show (among them the two libri magni, copies used by the Apostolic Chamber in Rome to keep a running total of expensesFootnote ²³), careful preparations were made to avoid disruption as far as possible. The Treasurer, in his function as paymaster, was not replaced immediately from among the ranks of the cameral officials – instead the pope and the Apostolic Chamberlain looked outside the ranks of the officiales sedis apostolicae for assistance and expertise when it came to managing the curia's finances in transit, engaging the services of Thomas Monis, an associate (socius) of the Alberti Antichi, who was employed as the locum tenens responsible for handing out money to those that the Chamber had to pay. That he acted as paymaster or bursar is indicated by his description in the record: ‘administratori et solutori expensarum d'ni nostri pape in itinere et suo recessu’;Footnote ²⁴ he was to receive instructions, written or oral, from the Apostolic Chamberlain or the cameral official who stood in for the Apostolic Treasurer, Gerald Maurelli.Footnote ²⁵ No mention is made of the Apostolic Treasurer in this arrangement, though no doubt he would have been able to issue orders in the same way as the Chamberlain and his immediate subordinate.

Monis himself would have been a reasonably well-known figure at the papal court, one of the many agents who helped to run its finances, essentially through the provision of banking services.Footnote ²⁶ A number of other associates of the Alberti Antichi made themselves useful to the Avignon popes from time to time and in similar ways. They helped to maintain the financial networks that linked the curia at Avignon to the rest of Latin Christendom – indeed, they were part of it: their skill at handling money, in particular their familiarity with handling and converting different currencies, made them very useful to the Apostolic Chamber. They could keep accurate records, naturally, and above all they could be trusted. Hence figures such as Monis assumed other responsibilities associated with papal government and even the household, becoming, in effect, auxiliary bureaucrats without enjoying the corresponding status enjoyed by the permanent officiales sedis apostolicae or familiares papae. The Alberti Antichi, the company with which Monis and various other associates were affiliated, had had something close to a monopoly on the provision of financial and banking services to the last two pre-Great Schism Avignon popes.Footnote ²⁷ It would therefore appear that Thomas Monis offers a classic example of the kind of phenomenon that Renouard identified – the merchant banker as papal functionary.Footnote ²⁸

There was a financial element to Monis's function, then, but it must be stressed that in the strictest sense Urban did not borrow from the Alberti Antichi (or from Monis) to finance his journey. This can be a fine distinction – Monis paid for Urban's expenses even before the curia had set sail from Marseilles – but it is clear that the appointment specifically involved keeping the books in order for the duration of the journey.Footnote ²⁹ The Apostolic Treasurer, while he was still in Marseilles, made over the revenues of the collector of Agen and Embrun to Monis, a sum that came to a little over 1,100 florins.Footnote ³⁰ The terms of the record – ‘pro expensis tam factis quam faciendis’ – indicate that this money was assigned to defray costs that had already been incurred, as well as future ones.Footnote ³¹ Shortly after this, after the Treasurer had left but before Urban embarked on the journey proper, Thomas Monis was given another, larger payment by the pope's order (‘de mandato pape’) via a promissory note (cedula) to be redeemed by the Apostolic Treasurer at Avignon by his associates: this sum came to well over 4,100 florins.Footnote ³² The total amount made over to Monis in this way came to 5,256 florins and 829 pounds.

This represented a break from the Avignon routine. Under the circumstances the role played by Monis was not all that unusual in itself: it was fairly common for the itinerant curia to make use of a paymaster drawn from outside the ranks of the papal officials. Even in the thirteenth century, Boniface viii had made use of bankers – the Mozzi and Spini of Florence, and the Chiarenti of Perugia – to handle household finances from week to week.Footnote ³³ More recently, Urban had done much the same: earlier in 1367 he had made a comparable arrangement with Jean Vezati, a merchant from Rodez, who received a large lump sum when the curia visited Montpellier to dedicate the pope's new foundations in the city;Footnote ³⁴ and another interim payment for the trip from Avignon to Marseilles had been made to Girardino Neri, another associate of the Alberti Antichi.Footnote ³⁵ Money was made available up-front in the latter two cases, an arrangement which, it must be stressed, was unusual. Normally the Apostolic Chamber did not anticipate its expenses in this way, and extraordinary costs, which could vary greatly, were settled at the end of each month. The journey to Rome, however, was open ended, and so a lump sum was required to anticipate every eventuality. So it was that, no doubt unintentionally, the Chamber was forced to set a rudimentary budget for the running costs of the papal court, setting aside money for them in the expectation (presumably) that they would suffice until normal service could be resumed.

However, a significant proportion of the total sum of 4,548 florins that the Treasurer recorded in Marseilles prior to his departure from the curia and its departure for ItalyFootnote ³⁶ did not go to Thomas Monis or his associate: instead it went towards miscellaneous costs asociated with transportation or to paying messengers, or was given directly to household officials. While Thomas Monis kept his ‘budget’ to pay for petty expenses, which are recorded in detail in the accounts,Footnote ³⁷ the complexity and the scale of the papal household meant that other arrangements had to be made too. The money handed over to Thomas Monis was not intended to cover the running costs of the four ‘traditional’ domestic offices – the kitchen, the stables, the buttery and the pantry – or the papal almonry (Pignotte), which was in effect the fifth pillar of the household. They received their own allocations of money, as did more specialised officials such as the custodes cere and the aquarius papa.

This in itself was unusual, since there is no indication in the accounts of the Apostolic Chamber or in other records that officeholders ever received money up-front, with one exception. This was the Secret Almoner, who, at the start of every month, was paid a hundred florins, which he was to spend as directed by the pontiff.Footnote ³⁸ He can be taken as the exception that proves the rule: such was the precision of the records kept by the Chamber that, had any other papal familiaris received an advance payment for goods and services that he furnished, it would surely have been recorded.

As with Monis, it was the Apostolic Treasurer who handed over money to domestic officeholders in Marseilles shortly before he left the stage and returned to Avignon: and as with payments to the curia's temporary paymaster, cash was not handed over in one go, but piecemeal – a sign, perhaps, that the Apostolic Chamber was forced to adopt improvised solutions at the last minute, despite careful advance preparations. The sum set aside for the expenses of the household offices – approximately 2,000 florins – appears to be a somewhat arbitrary figure, spread among the officials: the kitchen buyers (Durand and Raymond Andre) received 600 florins in two tranches. The former was given a sum of 400 florins shortly before the pope set sail from Marseilles,Footnote ³⁹ and half that amount was allocated to Raymond Andre the following day.Footnote ⁴⁰ The butlers initially received 100 florins,Footnote ⁴¹ and were later given a larger sum of money (400 florinsFootnote ⁴²) though some wine had already been sent over. The panetarii received a total of 400 florins, remitted in two payments,Footnote ⁴³ and, as the temporary custodians of the officium cere, they received 200 florins. Some payments were inexplicably low: although the running costs of the Pignotte were normally much higher, the administrator received just 100 florins.Footnote ⁴⁴ Similarly, the master of the stables received just 200 florins,Footnote ⁴⁵ despite the fact that he had to pay for the vehicles and pack animals that would be used to transport the papal court. When the money given to the bursar (approximately 5,250 florins) is added to these figures, the total set aside by the Apostolic Chamber for the running costs of the curia comes to around 7,250 florins.

These were exceptional payments, unlike those made to household officials earlier in Urban's pontificate when the curia was still based in Avignon and the routine of presenting accounts on the last day of each month was in operation. Earlier payments were reimbursements for costs already incurred, as indicated by the use of the term soluit which suggests a completed transaction. However, those made prior to the departure from Marseilles were for future costs, as well as for contingencies that might arise. For example the butlers were given money to perform their duties and ‘for certain other expenses for which they will give reckoning’ (‘pro aliis certis expensis de quibus computabunt’Footnote ⁴⁶): there are variations between entries – the pantlers' entry is phrased differently (‘de quibus particulariter conputabunt’Footnote ⁴⁷), and so too is the record relating to the master of the stables (‘de quibus computare tenetur’Footnote ⁴⁸) – but the essential meaning or intention was the same in each case. The difference can be explained with reference to the routine as it normally operated in Avignon, which, on the journey to Rome, was disrupted. It was anticipated that the curia would take several months to get there, during which time there would be no opportunity to settle accounts on a regular basis, and so Urban was forced to break with his long-established habits.

Eventually the journey towards Rome neared its end. Once the curia reached Viterbo, where Urban set up his base for the summer, the familiar household regime resumed, with one of the cameral clerks, Geraud Maurel, stepping into the breach. It was he who produced the account books in which the reckoning of the household finances carried out in Viterbo at the end of July 1367 was recorded.Footnote ⁴⁹ These indicate how well the household was able to cope with the adjustments made to compensate for the departure from Avignon.

This was the opportunity to assess how well, or otherwise, the new routine worked. As the sources indicate, the Apostolic Treasurer's calculations had been hopelessly wide of the mark. There were, without exception, significant shortfalls in the ‘budget’ allocated to each of the household offices: far from having to hand money back to the Apostolic Chamber, as had been anticipated, the officeholders concerned were each reimbursed for what they had paid out on the pope's behalf since leaving Marseilles in May. Some were compensated for significant sums, others for trivial amounts. For example, the kitchen buyer's expenses exceeded the sums given to him earlier by 454 florins,Footnote ⁵⁰ while the pantlers (panetarii) had to contend with a shortfall of 177 florinsFootnote ⁵¹ and the administrator of the Pignotte one of 163 florins.Footnote ⁵² The deficits were unevenly distributed – for instance, officium cere showed a deficit of a mere three florins.Footnote ⁵³ The master of the stables presented a deficit of only 33 florins,Footnote ⁵⁴ a comparatively small sum under the circumstances, given that he had the greatest adjustment to make of all the household officials. While the stables operated throughout the years spent at Avignon, its role had inevitably changed because the curia was no longer an itinerant court, hence the number of animals and vehicles and amount of equipment stored by the stables was kept at a relatively low level.Footnote ⁵⁵ There appears to have been extra allowance made for its additional costs – other payments were made to the Master of the Stables at irregular intervals on the journey,Footnote ⁵⁶ while others had been designated to provide horses and other transportation for the pope and members of his family.Footnote ⁵⁷

The total overspend for the household for the period in transit came to some 830 florins. This rose still higher when July's accounts were settled at the end of the month in Viterbo: 634 florins for the kitchen since 19 May (the day on which the curia set sail from Marseilles)Footnote ⁵⁸ 205 florins (for four months going back to April) for the pantry;Footnote ⁵⁹ 735 florins for the butlers since setting sail for Italy;Footnote ⁶⁰ for the stables 735 florinsFootnote ⁶¹ and the Pignotte 730 florins,Footnote ⁶² both for an unspecified period. The stand-in treasurer Gerald Maurelii recorded a small overall deficit of 370 florins out of spending that came in total to 14,970 florins.Footnote ⁶³

For some of the household offices the shortfall represented a significant proportion of the total spent: 62 per cent in the case of the Pignotte, 43 per cent in that of the kitchen and 31 per cent for the pantry's expenses. The shortfall at the Pignotte was for some reason especially severe – it came to 163 per cent of the sum initially made over to the administrator. (Perhaps this explains why its personnel were paid on the journey.Footnote ⁶⁴) In fact the bare expenses of the household as given above do not represent everything that offices such as the pantry and the Pignotte spent, since over and above the normal running costs – grain to make the bread eaten by the pope – his dependants had to be provided for.Footnote ⁶⁵ There were further overheads, notably fodder for the pack animals that transported the offices' personnel and equipment. These goods – along with food, fuel and candles – had formed part of the remuneration given to members of the household before the curia switched over to a regime of remuneration in cash, rather than in kind.Footnote ⁶⁶

Although it is not clear how the officeholders paid for what they acquired in transit – the manualia they produced, which may have answered this question, have not survived – the other familiares papae who incurred expenses on the pope's behalf did so out of their own pockets. This was certainly the case where Urban v's almsgiving was concerned.Footnote ⁶⁷ It would be dangerous to extrapolate from these examples, so the question of exactly who paid for what on the journey must remain a moot point: however, the fact remains that certain familiares papae, who were responsible for the finances of the offices which they served, were personally redeemed for costs incurred on the journey. There is, at least, strong circumstantial evidence pointing to this conclusion. Yet perhaps the question of exactly who provided the money when the Apostolic Chamber's advance funds ran out is relatively unimportant – plenty of suppliers could have done so, for example merchants associated with the curia who provided their goods on account or by contract. That certainly happened in Avignon, though in transit it was a much less likely proposition.

Whatever means was used to fund it, the pope's consumption (including whatever his dependants consumed) was difficult to estimate, and a complex business to handle: this is what the journey to Rome brings out with particular clarity. It was not just that it was beyond the Apostolic Chamber to put a figure on what it cost, though that was certainly the case. Even if a de facto budget was set before the journey began, such thinking was alien to curia at this time. The system itself was a ‘sticky glue’ that made it harder to break away from Avignon, as Petrarch noted. This was a function of how the curia changed over time from an itinerant court to one accustomed to a settled base, which had a two-fold effect. First, it raised consumption to unprecedented levels, which, for Petrarch, represented an addiction to luxury, but for others, popes – even the ascetic Urban v – included, represented comforts of life that were necessities commensurate with such an important court. Urban certainly showed little inclination to reduce his living expenses.

More abstract and technical changes served to bind the Avignon popes and the courts to Avignon. The routine of the household, the system of monthly payments especially, had changed beyond recognition since the last time that the curia was regularly itinerant, as the journey to Rome shows. The major concern for the Apostolic Chamber when interrupting this routine, as with the advance payments made to household members, was liquidity: would there be enough money to hand to pay for whatever the pope needed? Since it could not be sure – on leaving Marseilles it was not clear when accounts would next be settled because the curia was in transit – it made money available in advance to certain key individuals. Liquidity was, in short, an organising principle of the arrangements made in 1367. The need for ready money to be available may appear unique to the circumstances of the 1367 move, but it was not necessarily so. Between the routine of monthly payments to household officials and other suppliers and the Apostolic Chamber's sprawling, intensive bureaucracy, money was generally available at the right time, in the right place. That was the rationale of the system as it worked in Avignon, and explains why, for instance, the Chamber's bureaucracy was quite so complex – it was a function of monitoring the circulation of money. It is here that the historiographical importance of Urban's arrangements for his return to Rome ultimately lies, because it clarifies aspects of the domestic routine as it functioned in Avignon. It happens that things only become apparent during the process of moving house, when structures have to be taken apart and habits revised, to be reconstituted elsewhere: this at least ought to be familiar to every one of us.