The Letters of Pierre de Cros, Chamberlain to Pope Gregory XI (1371–1378) (review)

The Avignon papacy marks a very interesting chapter in church history, not only because the fourteenth century itself was such a maelstrom of activity and disasters but also because the very oddity of the popes being exiled in southern France, away from their natural home, for seventy interminable years brought new pressures on the institutions and the men who staffed them.

Daniel Williman, an accomplished and always interesting student of the period, brings us a brief look at Pierre de Cros, cousin and chamberlain to Pope Gregory XI, and later a cardinal in the Curia of the antipope Clement VII. This small book is divided into four parts: a look at de Cros and his extensive family relations, his function as head of the Camera Apostolica, his role in the Curia, and the sources plumbed. There are two appendices: the Itinerarium of Pierre Ameilh, recounting Gregory XI’s voyage back to Rome; and a family tree.

As with all of medieval society, the papacy was a beehive of clan members buzzing around their leader. During the Avignon period, no clan was more prolific than the Rogers, which saw two of its members made pope, while a third refused election; twenty-three were created cardinal. Williman extends the research in this remarkable family.

Williman then presents a masterful overview of the Camera Apostolica, detailing its staffing and tax streams; the latter ranges from common services to spoils. Whereas others often assume the reader knows the intricacies of the papal Camera, Williman spells it all out clearly.

The third section,“The Ministerial Policies of Pierre de Cros,” is less successful, but that is a function of the evidence available. Gregory XI was a strong leader, who kept his eye on much that was going on in his administration. This, of course, leaves less room for a subordinate’s initiative, even someone as important as de Cros. In addition to the constant depredations, seizures, and bloodshed of the ongoing Hundred Years’War, the pope also had to deal with brigands in his own neighborhood and the bigger ones of the Italian peninsula. The Visconti brothers drew the wrath of Gregory, who, as always, threw himself into the fray. Calling on every ally and resource available, the pope launched armed forces against Bernabo and Galeazzo Visconti and had some signal, but temporary, success. Williman accepts an account by Pietro Gazata, who claimed that Galeazzo Visconti pounced unexpectedly on a shipment of 100,000 ducats intended for papal forces and thus turned the tide of war. That may have happened, but the pope does not refer to such a theft, and the condottiere John Hawkwood, in the pay of Avignon, explained that he retired his forces from battle because of high casualties—and the burden of profitable captives.

This is a book that helps us to gain a fuller picture of the papal court, especially in the 1370s. It is a fuller picture not only because Williman has shed more light on another important member of the Avignonese Curia but also because, in his meticulous descriptions of the activities of the likes of de Cros, we sense all the more strongly the worldliness that was steadily infiltrating the attitudes of the people surrounding the pope, the worldliness that would wreak such havoc on the papacy and Europe on the death of Gregory XI.