14. Clement VI brought nepotism and benefices to a new level from Avignon
Cardinal Pierre Roger was elected to the Throne of St. Peter in 1342 and immediately began a campaign to enrich himself and his family through the incomes and benefices of church properties including abbeys, prelatures, and monasteries. He created ten new cardinals, all of them French, including his three nephews. He declared void the previous elections and appointments in monasteries, reserving them to his own appointees and promised rewards to all clerics who appeared before him in Avignon during the first two months of his reign. When it was pointed out that such a path had never been followed by a predecessor he proclaimed, “Our predecessors did not know how to be pope.” His dedication to France was further demonstrated when cardinals died, and he replaced them with French clerics.
Clement ignored pleas of the citizens of Rome and the College of Cardinals to restore the papacy to the Vatican. He viewed the papacy as a monarchy, to which other monarch’s owed their loyalty, and he expanded the papal enclave in Avignon creating luxurious rooms, decorated with lavish tapestries, paintings, and statuary. More than forty statues of relatives which he had appointed to offices in the church hierarchy were commissioned to surround his sarcophagus after his death; they were destroyed during the Huguenot uprising in 1562. Like others before and succeeding him, Clement VI used the papacy to amass personal wealth and power for himself and his family, and tightened the ties between the church and the French throne, which would remain strong for more than two centuries.