<P> Beginning with Clement V , elected 1305 , all popes during the Avignon papacy were French . However , this makes French influence seem greater than it was . Southern France at that time had a culture quite independent from Northern France , where most of the advisers to the King of France were based . The Kingdom of Arles was still independent at that time , formally a part of the Holy Roman Empire . The literature produced by the troubadours in the Languedoc is unique and strongly distinct from that of Royal circles in the north . Even in terms of religion , the South produced its own variety of Christianity , Catharism , which was ultimately declared heretical . The movement was fueled in no small part by the strong sense of independence in the South even though the region had been severely weakened during the Albigensian Crusade a hundred years before . By the time of the Avignon Papacy , the power of the French King in this region was uncontested , although still not legally binding . </P>
<P> Beginning with Clement V , elected 1305 , all popes during the Avignon papacy were French . However , this makes French influence seem greater than it was . Southern France at that time had a culture quite independent from Northern France , where most of the advisers to the King of France were based . The Kingdom of Arles was still independent at that time , formally a part of the Holy Roman Empire . The literature produced by the troubadours in the Languedoc is unique and strongly distinct from that of Royal circles in the north . Even in terms of religion , the South produced its own variety of Christianity , Catharism , which was ultimately declared heretical . The movement was fueled in no small part by the strong sense of independence in the South even though the region had been severely weakened during the Albigensian Crusade a hundred years before . By the time of the Avignon Papacy , the power of the French King in this region was uncontested , although still not legally binding . </P>
from 1309 to 1377 the headquarters of the papacy was located in a town in southern
from 1309 to 1377 the headquarters of the papacy was located in a town in southern
France
France