This textbook is taking a weirdly strong stance against the Avignon papacy

@Satsuma i don’t think i’ve ever really seen someone take a stance in support of it

@Lady i mean yeah but like, it’s still weird to it the Babylonian Captivity without any qualification in a supposedly neutral source

@Satsuma per Wikipedia, « The period has been called the "Babylonian captivity" of the popes. When and where this term originated is uncertain although it may have sprung from Petrarch, who in a letter to a friend (1340–1353) written during his stay at Avignon, described Avignon of that time as the "Babylon of the west", referring to the worldly practices of the church hierarchy.[26] The nickname is polemical, in referring to the claim by critics that the prosperity of the church at that time was accompanied by a profound compromise of the papacy's spiritual integrity, especially in the alleged subordination of the powers of the Church to the ambitions of the French kings. As noted, the "captivity" of the popes at Avignon lasted about the same amount of time as the exile of the Jews in Babylon, making the analogy convenient and rhetorically potent. The Avignon papacy has been and is often today depicted as being totally dependent on the French kings, and sometimes as even being treacherous to its spiritual role and its heritage in Rome. »

@Satsuma (my point here just being that it appears to be a metaphor with long historical precedent and it’s possible (?) they simply didn’t think too hard about it?)

@Lady I’m well aware of the history of the term which, which is why I think it’s an oddly political choice to use as the default term in a modern textbook

@Satsuma in my experience people who work regularly in given fields (the sort who might be writing textbooks) often get desensitized to the political nature of the terms they use, and such language usually only gets dropped after someone writes a scathing enough critique in a peer‐reviewed journal that enough of them read

maybe this is overly cynical of me

@Lady except its not the default term as far as i can tell — every other class i’ve taken uses Avignon Papacy in all the modern materials

@Satsuma wait do you mean to say they are *exclusively* calling it the Babylonian Captivity?!