Benedict XII begins Avignon's monumental building

December 1334

The new Cistercian pope, an austere man who slept on straw and despised his predecessor's extravagance, ordered construction of a fortress-palace on the rocky hilltop of Avignon. Over the next century the Palais des Papes would grow into Europe's largest Gothic palace, simultaneously cathedral, court, treasury, and prison, its massive walls declaring that the papacy intended to stay in France.