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CHAPTER XXX THE PAPACY AND ITS OPPONENTS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES From 1309 to 1376 the popes remained at Avignon, a period of seventy years which suggested comparison with The Papacy the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish people, at Avignon ^his long absence from Rome greatly scandalized many persons. First, the Romans, who lost the presence of the splendid papal court and the profitable stream of pil- grims and clergy from other lands. Second, the Italians like Dante and Petrarch, who felt aggrieved that Italy had thus been abandoned to its fate and that Italian families had been deprived of their accustomed first pick of all the choice church positions. Third, the English, who contended that the popes were favoring their foes, the French. Fourth, the Germans, who resented the pope's claim to temporal supe- riority over the Holy Roman Emperor and his refusal to con- firm as emperor whomsoever they elected, his disinclination to recognize any longer the imperial power in Italy, and his attempt on one occasion to make the French king Holy Roman Emperor. Fifth, all Christians who believed as a matter of principle that Rome was the true capital of Christendom. A prominent feature of the Avignon residence was a large increase in papal expenditure and revenue. This was ac- Increased complished partly by bringing into the pope's papal hands the right of appointment to an increasing number of church offices, and then demanding of these papal appointees, not five per cent, as a modern em- ployment bureau does when it gets one a position, but one half of the first year's income of the bishopric or other pre- bend. This payment was known as " annates." Moreover, far-sighted office-seekers in the Church sometimes, by a liberal expenditure, received assurances at the papal court