The Golden Bull of 1356, an edict promulgated by Emperor Charles IV (r. 1355-78) of the Luxemburg family, provides the basic constitution of the empire up to its dissolution.

It formalizes the practice of having seven electors—the archbishops of the cities of Trier, Cologne, and Mainz, and the rulers of the Palatinate, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Bohemia—choose the emperor, and it represents a further political consolidation of the principalities.

The Golden Bull ends the long-standing attempt of various emperors to unite Germany under a hereditary monarchy.

Henceforth, the emperor shares power with other great nobles like himself and is regarded as merely the first among equals.

Without the cooperation of the other princes, he cannot rule.

The German princes are not absolute rulers either.

They have made so many concessions to other secular and ecclesiastical powers in their struggle against the emperor that many smaller principalities, ecclesiastical states, and towns have retained a degree of independence.

Some of the smaller noble holdings are so poor that they have to resort to outright extortion of travelers and merchants to sustain themselves, with the result that journeying through Germany could be perilous in the late Middle Ages.

All of Germany is under the nominal control of the emperor, but because his power is so weak or uncertain, local authorities have to maintain order—yet another indication of Germany's political fragmentation.

West Europe (1252–1395 CE): Papal Provence, Commercial Flanders, and the Anglo-French Warlands

From the vineyards of the Rhône to the harbors of Bordeaux and the markets of Bruges, West Europe in the Lower Late Medieval Age combined papal finance, mercantile ingenuity, and dynastic rivalry. It was a region where the Mediterranean’s papal courts met the Atlantic’s trading republics, and where the long struggle between Capetians, Plantagenets, and Angevins reshaped the political map of France and the Low Countries.

In the south, the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) transformed the Rhône Valley into the financial and spiritual capital of Latin Christendom. The popes, resident at Avignon, presided over a clerical bureaucracy rivaling any royal court, collecting tithes from across Europe and dispersing them through the counting houses of Lombard and Provençal bankers. The walls of the Papal Palace rose above the Rhône, its treasury vaults serving as Europe’s most secure depository of the age. Around it, Lyon, Arles, and Marseille became financial arteries: Lyon’s fairs and money markets linked Italian credit to northern merchants, while Marseille’s shipyards carried papal and Provençal goods across the Mediterranean.

The Angevin dynasty ruled Provence as counts and kings of Naples, blending French administration with Italian commercial culture. Their patronage fostered Gothic cathedrals and urban universities. Montpellier, Narbonne, and Toulouse revived from crusade-era devastation, cultivating a learned bourgeoisie of jurists, physicians, and notaries. To the west, Roussillon and Perpignan tied the Provençal plain to the Crown of Aragon, serving as gateways between Occitania and Catalonia. Along the coast, Monaco, seized by the Grimaldi family in 1297, became a fortified port wedged between Genoese power and Provençal trade. Offshore, Corsica remained under Genoese control but contested by Aragon, a strategic way-station on the western Mediterranean routes.

The climate’s cooling after 1300 shortened harvests, yet vineyards and olive groves endured. Even plague could not fully halt economic life: though the Black Death (1348–1352) devastated Marseille and Montpellier, Lyon recovered quickly, its inland fairs diversifying the regional economy. Avignon’s clergy endowed hospitals and confraternities, fostering both spiritual and social recovery. When the Great Schism (1378) divided papal allegiance between Avignon and Rome, Provençal towns found themselves on opposing sides of Christendom’s authority, but commerce and piety continued side by side—wine, wool, and grain flowing north, while alum, silks, and spices arrived from the Italian and Levantine markets.

Farther north, along the Atlantic rim, the legacy of the Angevin Empire and the rise of the Hundred Years’ War(1337–1453) defined the political landscape. The duchy of Aquitaine (Guyenne) remained England’s continental stronghold, its ports—Bordeaux, La Rochelle, an Bayonne—thriving on the wine trade. Every vintage of Bordeaux claret sailed up the Channel to England, enriching Gascon merchants and English customs alike. Salt from the marshes of Saintonge and Poitou filled barrels bound for London, while wool and cloth came south in return.

The northern plains and river basins of the Loire and Seine remained the Capetian and later Valois heartlands. Paris, though scarred by plague and intermittent warfare, retained its status as the intellectual and administrative center of France. Gothic art reached its high refinement in the Ile-de-France, while Chartres, Amiens, and Reims stood as architectural witnesses to enduring faith amid crisis.

To the north and east, the counties of Flanders, Artois, and Hainaut, together with the Low Countries, formed the engine of Western Europe’s urban economy. Cloth-making cities—Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres—wove English wool into the fabrics that dressed the courts of Europe. The Champagne fairs of an earlier era gave way to the great markets of Flanders and the credit systems of Italian bankers. Bruges became Europe’s first true commercial metropolis, where merchants from Venice, Genoa, Lübeck, and London exchanged goods, currency, and news. In the nearby Hanseatic towns of the North Sea, German traders joined the same networks that stretched south through Paris, Lyon, and Avignon to the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, along the Rhône’s northern reaches, Lyon and the southern Jura served as continental pivots. Goods from the Swiss Confederation and Burgundy met Provençal wine, salt, and silk there before moving downriver to Marseille or across Alpine passes to Milan and Genoa. Despite wars and epidemics, this integration of riverine, overland, and maritime circuits made Western Europe’s economy remarkably resilient.

Religiously and artistically, the region mirrored its contrasts. The papal splendor of Avignon stood beside the mendicant austerity of Franciscan and Dominican houses in Toulouse and Narbonne. Across France’s northern cathedrals, devotion to the Virgin and plague saints deepened communal piety, while the Schism’s rival obediences multiplied rituals of allegiance. In Flanders, urban confraternities sponsored altarpieces and civic processions that expressed both faith and prosperity; in Provence, illuminated manuscripts and early vernacular poetry echoed the lingering troubadour tradition.

By 1395 CE, West Europe remained a tapestry of overlapping sovereignties but shared economies. Avignon symbolized papal grandeur and conflict; Lyon mediated between northern fairs and Mediterranean ports; Marseille and Montpellier linked Europe to the wider sea. Bordeaux and La Rochelle bound England to the continent through wine and salt, while Flanders and the Low Countries emerged as Europe’s richest manufacturing and banking zones.

Amid plague, schism, and war, the Rhône, Loire, and Seine valleys, together with the coasts of Aquitaine and Flanders, continued to pulse with life and exchange. From papal Provence to the Atlantic ports, Western Europe’s cities formed an unbroken chain of commerce and culture that united the Mediterranean and northern seas, laying the foundations for the mercantile revolutions of the coming age.

Mediterranean West Europe (1252 – 1395 CE): Avignon Papacy, Angevin Provence, and Rhone–Mediterranean Finance

Geographic and Environmental Context

Mediterranean West Europe includes southern France (from the Rhône valley to the Pyrenees, plus Languedoc, Provence, and Roussillon), Monaco, and the island of Corsica.

• Anchors: the Rhône Valley (Avignon Papal Palace, Lyon fairs, Arles/Marseille trade), the southern Jura corridors toward Burgundy and Swiss Confederation, the Provençal littoral (Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Monaco), the Languedoc plain (Narbonne, Montpellier, Carcassonne, Toulouse’s southern marches), the Roussillon/Catalan marches (Perpignan, Pyrenean passes to Aragon/Andorra), and Corsica under Genoese authority but contested by Aragon.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• Little Ice Age onset (~1300): cooler winters, wetter harvests; viticulture resilient, cereals stressed.

• Black Death (1348–1352): devastated ports like Marseille and Montpellier; Lyon recovered faster due to inland trade.

Societies and Political Developments

• Avignon Papacy (1309–1377): Popes resided in Avignon, transforming the Rhône valley into Christendom’s financial center.

• Great Schism (1378): divided allegiance between Avignon and Rome, politicizing Provençal towns.

• Provence: Angevin dynasty (counts also kings of Naples) ruled.

• Roussillon integrated with Crown of Aragon.

• Lyon hosted church councils, grew as financial hub, controlling fairs and credit.

• Southern Jura linked Rhône corridor to Swiss Confederation and Burgundy.

• Corsica: Genoese control consolidated, though Aragonese claimed suzerainty.

• Monaco: seized by Grimaldi family (1297), developing as fortress–port under Genoese shadow.

Economy and Trade

• Rhone trade: Lyon’s fairs tied north Europe to Mediterranean goods.

• Ports (Marseille, Montpellier, Narbonne, Nice): exported wine, salt, wool; imported Levantine silks, spices, alum.

• Agriculture: vineyards, olives, cereals in Provence/Languedoc; Jura dairying.

• Finance: Papal Avignon drew Lombard and Provençal bankers; Marseille shipyards thrived.

Belief and Symbolism

• Catholic orthodoxy: Avignon Papacy emphasized papal authority.

• Mendicant friars: Franciscans and Dominicans flourished in towns.

• Schism: divided local piety; civic cults of saints anchored resilience during plague.

Long-Term Significance

By 1395, Mediterranean West Europe was a papal and mercantile hinge:

• Avignon symbolized papal finance and conflict.

• Lyon controlled Rhône trade and fairs.

• Marseille, Montpellier, Narbonne remained Mediterranean entrepôts.

• Corsica tied to Genoa, Roussillon to Aragon, and Provence to Angevin Naples.
  Despite plague and war, the region bound northern Europe, Iberia, and Italy into a shared economic system.

Pope John XXII formalizes the persecution of witchcraft in 1320 when he authorizes the Inquisition to prosecute sorcery, which has come to be associated with heresy and apostasy.

Among Europe’s Catholics, Protestants, and secular leaders of the age to follow, fears regarding witchcraft will rise to fever pitch, and sometimes lead to large-scale witch-hunts.

Throughout this time, it is increasingly believed that Christianity is engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches, who have entered into diabolical pact.

In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people will be executed, and others imprisoned, tortured, banished, and suffer the confiscation of lands and possessions.

The majority of those accused will be women, though in some regions the majority will be men.

Accusations of witchcraft are frequently combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Cathars and Waldensians.

Avignonese Pope John XXII, denied the right to veto the election of German king Ludwig (Louis) IV, excommunicates him in 1324.

Louis releases his Habsburg rival Frederick the Fair in 1325 and makes him co-ruler of Germany, but limits Frederick’s authority to Austria.

In defiance of the pope, Louis declares that he does not require papal confirmation to rule, just majority approval.

Marsilius, taking refuge at Ludwig’s Munich court in 1326, is in 1327 also excommunicated by the pope for his pro-imperial political philosophy.

Along with fellow philosopher John of Jandun and several disaffected Franciscan friars, Marsilius accompanies Ludwig on his march to Rome in 1327-28.

Following Ludwig’s imperial coronation by lay officials and his installation of Nicholas V as antipope, Marsilius returns with Ludwig to Germany the following year and lives at Ludwig's court.

In this year, Louis also welcomes William of Occam and Michael of Cesena, the Franciscan minister-general, despite their also being under a ban of excommunication.

William, in flight from a protracted heresy trial in Avignon, reportedly says to Louis: "Defend me with your sword and I will defend you with my pen."

Most of the German princes come to back Ludwig’s political camp against increasingly fierce papal denunciation.

Avignonese Pope John XXII, denied the right to veto the election of German king Louis IV, excommunicates him in 1324.

Pope John XXI issues another collection of canon law, the “Extravagantes,” in 1325.

Marsilius of Padua and Defensor Pacis (1324): A Revolutionary Treatise on Sovereignty

In 1324, Marsilius of Padua published Defensor Pacis (The Defender of Peace), an anonymously written but vehemently anticlerical work of political philosophy. This groundbreaking treatise laid the foundation for modern doctrines of sovereignty, asserting that all authority rests with the people and that the Church is entirely subordinate to the state.

Key Arguments in Defensor Pacis

• Sovereignty and the People

  • Marsilius argued that ultimate authority resides in the people, making him one of the earliest proponents of popular sovereignty.
  • The government should be rooted in the will of the citizenry, not in divine or hereditary rule.

• The Church’s Subordination to the State

  • Marsilius rejected papal supremacy, asserting that the Church must be subject to secular rulers.
  • The Church, he argued, derives its jurisdiction (both spiritual and temporal) from the state, rather than exercising independent authority.
  • The pope was not infallible and had no rightful power over secular rulers.

• The Influence of Aristotle

  • Marsilius extensively quoted Aristotle’s Politics, reviving Aristotle’s political theories in support of secular government.
  • He treated political secularism and civil governance as entirely respectable and necessary for a well-ordered society.

Controversy and Political Ramifications

• Defensor Pacis provoked outrage within the papacy and clerical establishment, as it directly challenged the foundations of medieval papal authority.
• When Marsilius’s authorship became known in 1326, he was forced to flee Paris and sought refuge with Louis IV of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor-elect, who was in an open power struggle with Pope John XXII.
• Louis IV embraced Marsilius’s theories, using them to justify imperial authority over the pope in their ongoing dispute.

Long-Term Impact and Legacy

• Defensor Pacis laid the intellectual groundwork for later secular political theories, influencing thinkers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, and early modern theorists of state sovereignty.
• The treatise anticipated the Reformation-era struggles between Church and State, helping to shape emerging ideas of national governance free from papal interference.
• The controversy surrounding Marsilius’s ideas persisted throughout the 14th century, as his radical rejection of papal supremacy and ecclesiastical power continued to influence secular rulers and political philosophers.

Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor Pacis (1324) stands as one of the most revolutionary political texts of the Middle Ages, marking the transition from medieval theocracy to the modern concept of secular sovereignty.

The pope, in 1327, condemns five propositions taken from “Defensor” and excommunicates Marsilius, revealed as the anonymous author of the tract.