Avignon Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur France

Gundobad’s battle with his third brother, Godegisel, raged long according to Gregory of Tours.es

Unaware of the others actions, each call upon King Clovis trying to persuade him to join forces against the other.

Clovis sides with Godegisel, who had offered him his pleasure of tribute; Wood observes archly that Clovis' wife, Clotilde, whose father had been killed by Gundobad, "was not likely to encourage good relations between the Franks and the Burgundians."

Together they crush Gundobad's force.

Gundobad flees but Clovis pursues him to Avignon.

With Clovis's army at the gates, Gundobad fears the worst, but Aridius goes from Gundobad to Clovis and persuades him to spare Gundobad in return for a yearly tribute.

The chronicler Marius of Avenches dates this conflict to 500.

It seems apparent that the local magnates of Provence, ruling semiautonomously, had seen the impending danger coming from the north, and may have in turn called in the Muslim forces from bordering Septimania.

Arabs had occupied the city of Avignon in 734, after it had been surrendered to Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Umayyad governor of Narbonne, by Duke Maurontus of Provence.

According to the Continuations of Fredegar, Maurontus probably invited Yusuf into the city after forming an alliance with him against Martel.

The Chronicle of Moissac confirms that Yusuf's forces moved peacefully from Arab-held Septimania into Provence and entered Avignon without a fight.

In reaction, Martel had sent his brother Duke Childebrand south in 736, accompanied by fellow dukes and counts.

Childebrand had laid siege to Avignon, holding the field until his brother is ready to storm the city.

This battle is part of the campaigns of 736-737 during which Charles Martel for the second time keeps invading Muslim armies from Al-Andalus occupying further territory beyond the Pyrenees.

Unlike the invasion of 732-733, the Arabs come this time by sea, and force the Franks to come to them.

Notable at these battles is the use of heavy cavalry in addition to Martel's vaunted veteran Frankish infantry.

Though he has some catapults, the city of Avignon is largely taken by a simple, brutal, frontal assault using rams to smash through the gates, and ladders to scale the walls.

The city is burned to the ground following its capture.

The army then crosses the Rhône River into Septimania in order to lay siege to Narbonne.

Gelasius is received with great enthusiasm at Avignon, …

Construction of the outstanding Pont Saint-Bénezet at Avignon on the Rhône begins in 1177.

The bridge at this time may have consisted of a wooden superstructure supported by stone piers.

King Philip III, in accordance with the late Alfonso's wishes, grants to Pope Gregory X the Comtat Venaissin, a region surrounding, but not including, the city of Avignon, in about 1274.

Pope Clement V, although he is a servant of French interests, supports the June 1312 election of Henry VII as Holy Roman emperor rather than Philip IV of France.

Pope Celestine, who had been imprisoned by his successor until his death, is rehabilitated and canonized in 1313.

The Pope, who openly favors Frenchmen, as well as his relatives, promulgates the “Clementinae,” a collection of decretals (later incorporated in canon law), shortly before his death, at about fifty, on April 20, 1314.

A Frenchman named Jacques Duese, after his election in 1316, becomes Pope John XXII and establishes the papal residence at Avignon.

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.