the French kings. As noted, the "captivity" of the popes at Avignon lasted about the same amount of time as the exile of the Jews in Babylon, making the analogy convenient and rhetorically potent. The Avignon papacy has been and is often today depicted as being totally dependent on the French kings, and sometimes as even being treacherous to its spiritual role and its heritage in Rome. Almost a century and a half later, Protestant reformer Martin Luther wrote his treatise On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), but he claimed it had nothing to do with the Western Schism or papacy in Avignon. Effects on the papacy The relationship between the papacy and France changed drastically over the course of the 14th century. Starting with open conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France, it turned to cooperation from 1305 to 1342, and finally to a papacy under strong influence by the French throne up to 1378. Such partisanship of the papacy was one of the reasons for the dropping esteem for the institution, which in turn was one of the reasons for the schism from 1378 to 1417. In the period of the Schism, the power struggle in the papacy became a battlefield of the major powers, with France supporting the antipopes in Avignon and England supporting the popes in Rome. At the end of the century, still in the state of schism, the papacy had lost most of its direct political power, and the nation states of France and England were established as two of the main powers in Europe. See also References Further reading Ladurie, E. le Roi. Montaillou, Catholics and Cathars in a French Village, 1294–1324, trans. B. Bray, 1978. Also published as Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. Read, P. P., The Templars, Phoenix Press. Chapter 17, "The Temple Destroyed" Renouard, Yves. Avignon Papacy. Sumption, J., Trial by Fire, Faber and Faber, 1999. Tuchman, B., A Distant Mirror, Papermac, 1978. Chapter 16 The Papal Schism Vale, M., "The Civilization of Courts and Cities in the North, 1200–1500". In: Holmes, G. (ed.) The Oxford History of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press, 1988. Voltaire, F-M, "Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations et sur les principaux faits de l'histoire depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à Louis XIII. (English: "Essay on the manners and spirit of nations and on the principal facts of history from