Avignon Exchange

[5] Even in Western Europe, direct transfer of funds was required when the foreign exchange market could not provide the necessary liquidity; for example, in 1327, 100,000 florins were sent from Avignon to Bologna in a caravan of fifteen pack animals guarded by an armed escort of forty-six.

[5] The papal residences of Rome, Viterbo, and Rieti were close to the two main banking centers in Italy: Florence and Siena; however, these connections were severed during the reign of Pope Clement V (1305–1315) as he wandered through Languedoc and Provence.

[5] Only when Pope John XXII (1316–1334) began the construction of a permanent papal residence in Avignon, the Palais des Papes, did the major Italian banks open branches in the Curia and resume their dealings with the Camera.

[6] Raymond de Roover notes that: Thus, "Profit and Loss on Exchange" (Pro e danno di cambio) was not considered usury and was frequently listed in accounting books.

[6] From 1316 to 1342, the Avignon popes relied on the exchange services of three large Florentine banking houses—the Bardi, Peruzzi, and Acciaioli—all of whom failed in 1342, bringing down the entire papal transfer system with them.

A map of the old city of Avignon (1914); the Exchange was located in what is now the Rue de la République running from the center of the city to the southwest.
The Avignon Exchange was created in a theological environment more permissive of money-changing than Biblical accounts of Jesus .