For most of the last 1500 years, the Catholic church has had at its head a pope, and the pope has been the Bishop of Rome. Yet the first thousand years of the Papacy included centuries of strife and turmoil, during which the popes, as well as being the spiritual leaders of the Catholic church, were also temporal rulers, major players in the geopolitics of Europe; they were princes with their own states and their own lands, even their own armies.
via Avignon – the papal palace a short visitor guide.
Avignon – Palace of the Popes – Portraits of Southern France – July 16, 2013
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