Guelf and Ghibelline in Italy

The fourteenth century in Europe was a period when many principles of social organization that had once been taken as axiomatic were thrust aside in the pursuit of personal or state interest. The Papacy, one of the most venerable of European institutions, was no exception to this trend, even if the day was still distant when nations of Catholic Christians would seek to repudiate the Roman See altogether. Though the Popes never entirely lost sight of their universal function, the displacement of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon in 1307 began a period in which the Papal office was to one degree or another the instrument of French royal policy.