ABSTRACT

Papal Avignon was an unusual medieval city. By contemporary standards, it had many of the characteristics of a modern city, including anonymity and social fl uidity. The population grew throughout the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries to some fi ve to six thousand inhabitants on the eve of the papacy’s move to the city in 1376.1 Most historians agree that with the papacy, the sedentary population of Avignon climbed to approximately thirty thousand inhabitants by the 1370s, a number swelled by thousands of visitors-laic and religious petitioners at court, students, beggars, and offi cials-who escaped statistics because of their transience.2 The large immigration pool obliterated traditional ties of family, kin, and friendship, and the anonymity that allowed a person to die alone in a street also favored social fl uidity. Newcomers rose to the level of the merchant nobility with hard work, social connections, good marriages, and sheer luck. Schematically the population consisted of native inhabitants; a Jewish community; secular and religious offi cers of the curia; cardinals, along with their lay and religious entourage; secular and regular clergy; and, fi nally, other immigrants needed to serve this rapidly growing population.3