The Papacy in the Late Middle Ages
Pope Innocent VI (1352-1362)
The cardinals were in full control of the papacy now. When they held their conclave in 1352, they each agreed that whoever was elected pope would share out his revenues equally with the other cardinals. They agreed also that the new pope could not depose any of them, that their number would be capped at sixteen, and that no property could be sold without their approval. If the agreement had held, the pope would have been no more than a figurehead put forward by the College of Cardinals.
In fact, as soon Etienne Aubert took the name Innocent VI, he declared the agreement illegal and proceeded to behave like every pope before him. He had had a career as a lawyer and judge, and he demonstrated that he had a very strong sense of legal rights and responsibilities.
Innocent was one of the better popes of the 14th century. He might have instituted significant reforms, for he certainly took strong action to curb the power of the cardinals, though with little long-term success. But he was faced with daunting problems, which could be addressed only by spending large sums of money, which in turn forced him to resort to and continue the fiscalist policies of his predecessors. In other words, the worst abuses of the time centered around money, and money was the chief thing Innocent needed.
One of his pressing concerns was to recover the Papal States. In theory, the pope ruled most of central Italy. In practice, he controlled almost none of it. A score of petty lords were going their own way without regard or respect for the pope in far-off Avignon, and the income that should have been generated from those states was all but non-existent. Innocent made up his mind he would recover the papal patrimony.
Doing so meant sending an army, and this was the main drain on papal revenues. He chose a great captain, himself a cardinal—the Castilian, Gil de Albornoz. His cardinal-captain fought a series of campaigns. He went first (in 1353) to Tuscany and settled with the rebel Giovanni di Vico. The same year, he came to terms with the Malatesta rulers of Rimini. He captured Forli and Cesena in subsequent years. His greatest triumph was the capture of Bologna from the Visconti, in 1360. Perugia was recovered in 1367, the year Albornoz died. The cardinal-captain did not win lasting victories; other generals would be sent under other popes, but his victories put an end to the loss of territory and authority, and began to pave the way for a return to Rome.
Innocent was faced with military concerns at home, too, because of the routiers plaguing southern France. It was he who completed the fortifications of the city. It's ironic that this legalistic-minded, educated man, concerned mainly with pious reform, should have his papacy associated with such worldly concerns as war. He did at least manage to be the one who helped bring about the Treaty of Bretigny, which marked the most truce of the Hundred Years War.