Clement V

(1264–1314)

   Pope.

   Clement was born Bertrand de Got, of an aristocratic French family. He was consecrated Bishop of Comminges in 1295, Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1299 and was elected Pope in 1305. His election was largely due to the influence of Philip the fair of France; Philip had been humiliated by Pope Boniface VIII and was determined that it would not happen again. In obedience to his royal master, Clement annulled Boniface’s bulls of excommunication and he agreed to dissolve the Knights Templar Order. He also established the papal court away from Rome in Avignon. There the Papacy remained for the next seventy years. Clement himself is remembered as a patron of scholarship; he founded the universities of Orléans and Perugia and interested himself in the problems of Canon Law.

   G. Mollat, The Avignon Popes (1963);

   H.G. Richardson, ‘Clement V and the See of Canterbury’, English Historical Review, lvi (1941).