Gregory XI
The pope who brought the papal court back from Avignon. Urged on by Catherine of Siena, he entered Rome in January 1377 and died in March 1378.
Catherine of Siena wrote to Gregory repeatedly while he was at Avignon, begging him to come to Rome, to resist the counsel of those who held him back and to give the church good pastors (Catherine of Siena, Letters To Gregory XI (“Be manly”)). The editor of her letters, Vida Scudder, records that he announced his intention of returning in 1372, declared war on Florence in 1376, reached Rome on 17 January 1377 and died in March 1378 (Catherine of Siena, Letters editor’s table of public events, 1372–1378). See the Popes at Avignon and, for what followed his death, the Great Western Schism.
In the timeline
- 1309 to 1377, estimated dateThe Popes at Avignon
After the election of a Gascon pope in 1305 the papal court settles at Avignon on the Rhône and stays for some seventy years. Petrarch calls it Babylon; Catherine of Siena urges Gregory XI to come home, and he returns to Rome in 1377.