Pope Gregory XI's Voyage From Avignon To Rome

Gregory XI, the last Avignon Pope, left that city and sailed to Rome -- but when, exactly? It seems there may be some disagreement among historians about whether Gregory arrived in Rome in 1376 or 1377. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that Gregory arrived in Rome on January 17, 1377. The first entry in the first volume of Ludwig Pastor's Ungedruckte Akten zur Geschichte der Päpste vornehmlich im XV, XVI und XVII Jahrhundert is from a Christopher of Piacenza to Louis II Gonzaga, capitano del popolo of Mantua. Christopher says he sailed with the Pope's fleet from Avignon to Rome, describes a very friendly welcome for the Pope in Rome, and dates his letter the 13th of December 1376. Where are all these other people getting the date of 17. January 1377? Did they all get it from Britannica, and where did Britannica get it? Pastor, in his notes to Christopher's letter, mentions some reasons to doubt some of the dates in Christopher' description of the Pope's journey, but these have mostly to do with his having traveled on a different ship than the Pope. He gives no indication that he doubts that Christopher knew what day it was -- indeed, that he knew what month it was, when he wrote his letter.

I don't know. I am but a humble farmer. All I'm saying is that I'm confused about this discrepancy.

Pastor says that he has transcribed Christopher's letter from the original in the Gonzaga archives in Mantua, and gives it as follows:

Magnifice domine mi recomendacione premissa. scio quod aliquantulum de me potestis admirari cur fui ita lentus in scribendo vobis pluribus mensibus elapsis, nec admirandum est si bene considerentur longa mora, quam feci in mari, magne tribulationes, terrores et expense, quas fui passus tribus mensibus elapsis in prefacto itinere. tamen de his que ocurerunt domino nostro pape et de presenti ocurunt seriatim . Dominationi Vestre scribam, esse verum, quod die nona mensis septembris Dominus Noster recessit de Avinione et ivit Marsiliam, ubi spatio quindecim dierum vel circa intravit mare, in quo passus est magnas tempestates et fortunas; nam stetit spatio XX dierum antequam posset attingere de Marsilia ad Niciam et ibi stetit spatio V dierum, quo transacto ivit ad Savonam, ubi duobus diebus stetit visus gratanter ab illa comunitate, et postea attingit Ianuam cum magna fortuna maris, ubi stetit spatio XV dierum male gratibus suis propter fortunam maris, sed tractu temporis sicut Deo placuit attingit portum Liburni1, ubi receptus est gratanter a domino Petro de Gambacurtis et a filiis suis et ibi erant multi ambaxiatores, Pisani et Luchani erant et tractatum fuit de concordia Florentinorum. sed papa unum minimum verbum audire voluit, imo in itinere mandavit publicari processus per modum et agravavit ipsos et nunc expelluntur de urbe malo modo sicut expulsi sunt de aliis locis; demum recessit de portu Liburni eundo ad Plumbinum et ea die recepit tantas tempestates in mari, quod omnia navigia que secum erant dispersa fuerunt huc et illuc, et ipsum oportuit discurere cum VI galeis Catalanorum ad insulam Herbe ubi stetit spatio decem dierum, quod nesciebant utrum esset vivus vel mortuus et omnes cortesani multum timebant dispersi huc et illuc. sed sicut Deo placuit dominus papa misit unum noncium cum una litera domino camerario suo ad portum Herculis, ubi evaserat cum V galeis, ubi erant Cardinales de Ursinis, Hostiensis, Florentinus, de Vernio et octuaginta alia navigia, in qua continebatur, sicut erat in insula Herbe sanus et salvus et quod in prima die, qua bonum tempus esset, de presenti esset in portu Herculis et ultra hoc ipsos confortavit dicendo, quodl iste tempestates, quas fuerat passus in mari, erant signum victorie magne et quod nonquam venit aliquis princeps ad partes Italie, si pateretur tempestates et tribulationes in mari. quin esset postea victor, allegando Eneam et regem Charolum, et quod in prima die, qua esset bonum tempus in mari, esset de presenti illuc; et camerarius ei rescripsit, sicut omnes naves et per sone erant sane et salve, alique in portu Herculis, alique in portu S. Stephani, alique in portu S. Reparatae duabus galeis exceptis, scilicet galea domini Cardinalis Ambianensis, que fracta est, sed omnes persone evaserunt, et galea domini Glandatensis. et transactis tribus diebus dominus papa attingit portum Herculis sanus et ibi honorifice receptus a comite Nolano et a multis aliis baronibus patrie et ibi stetit spatio X dierum ordinando et disponendo negotia patrie; subsequente ivit ad portum Corneti et ibi omnes illi de Corneto parvi et magni venerunt obviam sibi spatio trium miliarium cum ramis olivarum cantando «Te deum laudamus» et ei tradite claves et dominium liberum et ductus cum magno honore ad dictum castrum, in quo de presenti residet; sed spatio quatuor dierum erit in urbe, in qua gratanter expectatur et multe comunitates, que fecerunt rebellionem, expectant in urbe misericordiam suam. credo, ymo certus sum, quod facta bene prosperabunt. dominus Cometius exivit citadelam de Aschuli et ipsam dimisit fultam vitualiis et gentibus usque ad pascha resurecionis et speratur, quod de presenti ipsa sucuret; tamen quidquid sit Esculani libenter reciperent concordiam cum ecclesia, sed nollent habere dominium domini Cometii. Romani multa oferunt Domino Nostro et in casu, quo pax non fiat inter ecclesiam et prefectum, assument onus guerre cum ipsorum personis. vellem libenter habere unam ziferam1 de vestris ad finem, ut possem scribere Dominationi Vestre de secretis que sentire possim. die decima presentis mensis atingi Romam sanus, licet sim passus magnum dampnum de una navi passa naufragium infauce Romana, ubi habebam duas cassas, in quibus habebam quaxi medietatem omnium meorum honorum; sed de omnibus regratior Deo postquam sum in Roma. Altissimus Dominationem Vestram feliciter conservare dignetur.

Datum Rome die XIII decembris.

Servitor vester Cristoforus de Placentia in curia procurator.

Some Remarks On The Term "Pope"

When the Roman Empire became officially Christian in the late 4th century, the Emperor or Emperors were the head (or heads) of the Church. I say Emperor of Emperors because sometimes there was one Emperor, and sometimes there were two, one in the Latin West and one in the Greek East. But then the Western Empire ceased to be in AD 476 -- or so they say. It's a little more complicated than that. Some people still claimed to be the Western Emperor in the years after 476, and there can be a reasonable discussion about how serious some of those claims were. And in the 6th century, Justinian, the Eastern, Byzantine Emperor, warred quite vigorously and won back quite a bit of the Western Empire: the entire Italian peninsula and modern-day Slovenia and Croatia, and Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica and most of the northern coast of western Africa and most of the southern coast of Spain. But the Empire only held of these re-conquests for a few years. The wars which won all that territory also bankrupted the Eastern Empire, and that's why they weren't able to hold onto the territory -- after 476 the Popes moved into the power vacuum left by the disintegration of the Western Empire.

For most of the period between 476 and 800 -- when the Pope crowned Charlemagne as the Western Emperor -- the Popes were the most powerful ruler in Western Europe, they gave the region most of what political cohesion it had, and they continued to be the strongest political power for centuries after 800. There were Emperors again in the West, but they never held the sort of power which Emperors had had until 476, and which the Eastern or Byzantine Emperors retained until 1453. The Byzantine Emperors were the unquestioned heads of both church and state. The Popes were unquestioned as the rulers of the Western Church until the 16th century, and they often contested the position of highest earthly power with the Emperors.

I don't know the details of how the use of the term "Pope," to refer specifically and only to the Bishop of Rome, originated and spread. In 1073, Pope Gregory VII officially declared that it would not be applied to any other Bishop in the Catholic Church except for the Bishop of Rome. This had been the unofficial understanding of the meaning of the term for some time already -- for how long? Good question. In the 3rd century, the term "Pope," meaning "Holy Father," was occasionally applied to various Bishops. All I can say for sure is that sometime between the 3rd and 11th centuries, the Bishops of Romes became known as the Popes.

Before 476, when the Papacy began to (partially) fill the role of the Emperors, the Bishop of Rome was just one of several powerful bishops alongside those of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. The question of which of these bishops was the most powerful was far overshadowed by the fact that all of them were subservient to the Emperor or Emperors. When people claim that Constantine and the Pope re-wrote the Bible at Nicea in 325, not only do they not know that Bishop Sylvester of Rome -- to whom we often in retrospect, anachronistically, refer as Pope Sylvester I -- not only are they unaware that Sylvester didn't actually go to Nicea -- they also assume that he had a distinction above the Bishops of Constantinople and Alexandria and Antioch and Jerusalem, which he didn't have.

Things I Still Haven't Done

1. Ski down Mt Everest --in my sleep.

2. Cover the entire surface of Michelangelo's Pietà with peanut butter.

3. Be Pope.

4. Go to court and force Koch Industries to provide $300 billion for the creation of wind farms, including Jim Gordon's project for an offshore wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. In addition to this $300 billion in start-up capital, Koch industries would be required to pay all of the operating expenses for the wind farms for the first 10 years after they began generating power, with all of the revenue from that electricity going to the Democratic Party for the same 10-year period. After that, all of the wind farms would become Federally-owned and operated public utilities, with the exception of that Cape Cod facility, which would become the property of Jim Gordon.

5. Produce a remake of David Mamet's House of Gameswhich would follow the original word-for-word with one exception: the word "thing" would always be replaced by "vagina." This also would apply to "something," "anything" and "everything." Just think about it: "There are a lot of vaginas in this world." "Some vagina is wrong. I can feel it." "Let me know if there's any vagina I can do." "Hold on! I'm doing every vagina I can!" You know this one is brilliant.

6. Ride across China on one of Charlie Sheen's motorcycles. (After first having had it thoroughly sterilized, of course. The motorcycle, I mean.)

7. Restore Latin to its prominence among the languages of academia and diplomacy. (The Papacy would be a great help with this one. See, this all fits together logically.)

8. Prove definitively either that Jesus existed or that he didn't, so that we can all move on.

I'm counting on your support, my readers, to help me accomplish all of these things. Together we can do great things. (Together, but with me in charge, of course. I'm the alpha ape in this shrewdness.)

They Should Elect ME Pope

If they're serious about sending the world a bold statement about change, that is. Electing a non-Catholic openly avowed atheist would be bold.

I'm not saying there's much chance that the Cardinals are actually going to elect me Pope. But it would be pretty cool. And I know some Latin, I can legere and dicere me a bit of lingua latina. I must say, there is exactly one thing I can think of which I really like about Benedict XVI, and that is his enthusiasm for the Latin language. When he gets going on that topic, you can pretty much safely assume that I agree with what he's saying. And I know some other languages as well. The Church seems to like its Popes to be multiligual, to be able to speak to folks in their own languages when they tour the world and whatnot.

Clearly, I would be a controversial choice. Even more controversial than, say, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. Do I really want to live amid strong controversy?

...Well, maybe I do. Intense worldwide controversy would drive more traffic to my blog, for one thing. And there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

And the thing is, the Vatican is... just really nice. So much beautiful art and architecture. I mean that. Zero sarcasm right now. I deeply appreciate that art and architecture. And the location is great too. And since my elderly cat passed away recently, travel has become less complicated for me.

So. If any of my readers has any pull with the College of Cardinals, let 'em know. Throw my hat into that ring. Thank you.