Clement VIArticle Free Pass Clement VI, original name Pierre
Roger (born c. 1291, Corrèze, Aquitaine [France]—died Dec. 6,
1352, Avignon, Provence), pope from 1342 to 1352. Abbot of the
Benedictine monasteries at Fécamp and La Chaise-Dieu, France, he
became archbishop of Sens in 1329 and of Rouen in 1330. He was
made cardinal in 1338 by Pope Benedict XII, whom he succeeded,
being consecrated at Avignon on May 19, 1342. His pontificate
was confronted by three problems: the last of the Crusades, the
failure of the Florentine bankers, and the state of papal
possessions in Italy. Clement considered the crusade against the
Ottoman Turks as the pope’s first duty. In 1344 he was
responsible for a crusader naval expedition that took Smyrna,
ending its piratical raids in the eastern Mediterranean. Smyrna
was then entrusted to the Knights of St. John. The Florentine
bankruptcies caused Clement to seek elsewhere for his bankers,
but the problem was not a lack of revenue. The papal territories
in the Italian regions of t