The Latin Papal Church (Avignon to Fifth Lateran)

In 1309 Clement V settled the papal court at Avignon, and for nearly seventy years the popes governed the Latin church from the Rhône rather than the Tiber, building the largest Gothic palace in Europe and an administration to match. The return to Rome in 1377 produced something worse. A disputed election the following year left two popes, an attempt to fix it in 1409 left three, and the schism divided every kingdom, university and religious order in the West for a generation. It was ended not by a pope but by a council. Constance, which removed the rival claimants, elected Martin V in 1417, and declared that a general council holds its authority immediately from Christ. The decades after that were a contest over whether that was true, settled in the papacy's favour by the 1440s. The popes who followed rebuilt Rome, founded the Vatican Library, commissioned the Sistine Chapel and began the new St Peter's. The Fifth Lateran Council, which decreed a programme of reform that changed very little, closed on 16 March 1517 — seven months before Luther's theses.