ABSTRACT
The pope wrote St Thomas Aquinas, has a plenitude of power like a king in a kingdom'. This remark was given its fullest development by the able legists who occupied the see of Peter during the generations during which the popes were at Avignon. The popes at Avignon have been criticized on many counts and by writers of many persuasions. Protestants have shared in this only the antipathy for a Church made, as they assert, the tool of the French monarchy. The French popes were on the whole able and disinterested men, the first of them being guilty of supporting French policy. The system worked enough, for it gave princes the ultimate control but allowed the pope the theoretical powers and financial advantages of nomination. Judicial administration was important, for the high quality of papal justice and the frequent litigation provoked by papal action, especially in matters of benefices, brought a great deal of legal business to the curia.
