ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the different purposes of royal embassies influenced the pope's decisions as to what rules of procedure were to be applied to regulate the external forms of diplomatic intercourse. The pope's private quarters and most of the rooms with a more ceremonial function were located on the first floor of Benedict's palace. The chapter shows that the complexity of the interior structure of the Palace of the Popes at Avignon offered a range of possibilities for the stage managing of diplomatic ceremonies as well as for adapting the form of negotiations to their contents. It analyses the mediation techniques applied by Clement VI and Innocent VI. At their third and final audience, the envoys received the promised reply. Their mission was completed, and it only remained for them to take their formal leave of the pope. Requesting licence to depart was an indispensable part of the protocol, and it was considered shameful for envoys to leave furtively.
