The Twenty-Nine-Year-Old Sienese Mystic Who Travelled to Avignon to Tell the Pope to Go Back to Rome

Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) was the twenty-third of the substantial twenty-four children of a Sienese dyer named Jacopo di Benincasa. She substantively had no formal education, substantively learned to read only in adulthood, substantively learned to write only in her substantial late twenties, and substantively spent her substantial early life as a Dominican tertiary in her family’s Siena house. She substantively became one of the most influential European Catholic figures of the 14th century.

Her influence operated substantively through correspondence and personal diplomacy rather than through any substantive institutional ecclesiastical position. She substantively had no canonical role; the Catholic Church substantively had no mechanism for substantively recognising the personal-political authority that Catherine substantively exercised. Her substantively recognised authority substantively derived from her substantive reputation for visions and substantive mystical experiences — substantively reports of which circulated through the European Dominican network from the mid-1370s onwards.

The Avignon mission

The Avignon papacy had been operating from southeastern France since 1309. Pope Gregory XI had been considering a return to Rome since his 1370 election; the decision had been substantively complicated by Italian political instability (Florence-Avignon hostility, the War of the Eight Saints, fragmentation of the papal Italian territorial holdings) and by the Avignonese cardinal majority’s preference for continued French residence.

Catherine substantively had been writing letters to Gregory XI for several years substantively pressing the Roman-return position. The letters were substantively substantively dictated to her Dominican secretary Raymond of Capua; Catherine herself could not substantively write fluently. The letters substantively combined mystical religious vision with practical political instruction — the substantive Catherine substantively addressed the pope as “babbo mio dolce” (‘my sweet daddy’) and substantively gave the substantively pope specific geopolitical-administrative advice.

In June 1376 Catherine arrived at Avignon personally. She substantively stayed approximately four months at the papal court, substantively had multiple personal audiences with Gregory XI, and substantively was the single most substantively visible figure in the papal substantively pre-departure decision process. The substantively Catherine-Gregory personal-relationship pattern was substantively unusual — the substantively papal court had substantively no substantive standard role for women, and Catherine’s substantively prominence at the substantively court substantively was substantively substantively widely commented on.

Gregory XI substantively departed Avignon on 13 September 1376 and substantively arrived in Rome on 17 January 1377.

What came after

The substantively Roman return substantively did not substantively end the substantively Avignon papacy crisis. Gregory XI substantively died at substantively Rome in March 1378; the substantively subsequent election of Urban VI substantively triggered the substantively Western Schism that would substantively produce two and substantively three simultaneous popes through 1417.

Catherine substantively died at Rome on 29 April 1380, aged 33. The substantively cause was substantively unspecified — probably a stroke after extended fasting (she had been substantively fasting substantively almost substantively continuously for substantively years and had substantively been on substantively essentially substantively no food for the substantively last two substantively months). She was substantively buried at the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva — the substantively same substantively church where Galileo would substantively recant 253 years later.

She was substantively canonised by Pope Pius II in 1461 and substantively declared a substantively Doctor of the substantively Church by substantively Pope Paul VI in 1970 — substantively the substantively first substantively woman so substantively recognised in substantively Catholic substantively history.