Clement V

Giovanni Villani, a Florentine contemporary, says that the cardinals at Perugia, after more than nine months of deadlock, elected the archbishop of Bordeaux in 1305, and repeats a story of a secret bargain between him and Philip IV of France (Giovanni Villani, Chronicle 8.80). Villani calls him Raymond de Got. From Lyon, in February 1306, Clement declared that the bull Boniface VIII Issues Unam Sanctam was to bring no prejudice on the king or kingdom of France (Clement V, Meruit).

Villani places his court at Avignon by 1308 and again in 1310 (Giovanni Villani, Chronicle 8.102, 9.8). He dates Clement’s death to 20 April 1314, at Roquemaure on the Rhône, on the way to Bordeaux, and gives him a bad character: greedy for money and a seller of benefices (Giovanni Villani, Chronicle 9.59). See the Popes at Avignon.