He recruited composers and music theorists for his court, including figures associated with the then-innovative Ars Nova style of France and the Low Countries.

Pierre Roger (also spelled Rogier and Rosiers) was born in the château of Maumont, today part of the commune of Rosiers-d'Égletons, Corrèze, in Limousin, France, the son of the lord of Maumont-Rosiers-d'Égletons.

[4] After six years there, he was directed to higher studies by the Bishop of Le Puy, Jean de Cumenis, and his own abbot, Hugues d'Arc.

He was appalled by the Defensor Pacis of Marsilius of Padua, and wrote a treatise in 1325 condemning its principles and defending Pope John XXII.

[14] On 3 December 1328[15] Peter Roger was named Bishop of Arras, in which capacity he became a royal councilor of King Philip VI.

[18] In 1329, while Pierre Roger was still Archbishop-elect of Sens, a major assembly of the French Clergy was held at Vincennes in the presence of King Philip VI (1328–1350), to deal with issues involving the judicial powers of ecclesiastical authorities.

Pierre was forced to go to Paris, where an agreement was worked out that, should someone other than a member of the royal family become Duke, then the Archbishop would swear fealty directly to the King.

[20] As Archbishop of Rouen, Roger was one of the Peers of France and he was a member of the embassy sent by King Philip to his son John, in 1333, to swear in their name to take the cross and serve in a crusade in the Holy Land.

Later in the year, in Paris in the Prés des Clercs, the King received the cross personally from the hands of Archbishop Roger.

[25] The French Royal Court had been hearing complaints from various quarters, and the King and Queen finally decided to seek competent advice.

[24] Early in 1334 Pope John XXII informed the King that he had ordered the Cardinals and prelates and Doctors of theology and of Canon Law at the Papal Court to look into the propositions thoroughly and report to him their findings.

[27] John XXII was attempting to save face by placing the matter in the hands of a committee, but in the end, on his deathbed, he was compelled to repudiate his opinions, which were formally condemned by his successor, Benedict XII.

[29] In September 1335 Archbishop Roger held a provincial council at Rouen in the Priory of Nôtre-Dame-du Pré (later called Bonne-nouvelle).

King Philip VI immediately sent his eldest son, Prince John, to press the candidacy of Pierre Roger, but he arrived too late to have any effect.

He appointed ten prelates, including three nephews, Hugues Roger, Ademar Roberti[40] and Bernard de la Tour d'Auvergne.

[41] He also elevated Guy of Boulogne, the archbishop of Lyon and son of Count Robert VII of Auvergne, and Gerard de Daumar, the master-general of the Dominicans and a papal cousin,[42] who died a year after his creation, on 27 September 1343.

[43] Like his immediate predecessors, Clement was devoted to France, and he demonstrated his French sympathies by refusing a solemn invitation to return to Rome from the city's people, as well as from the poet Petrarch.

[47] On 23 February 1343 Pope Clement appointed Pons Saturninus as his "Provisor of Works of the Palace", thereby beginning a program of construction and decoration that continued throughout his reign.

It was immediately clear that the Pope had no intention of returning to Rome, and that he intended to provide offices and quarters for the various organs of the Roman Curia in the Palace.

Pope Benedict XII, his predecessor, had built a palace, sufficiently accommodating for a Cistercian monk, but Pierre Roger had spent much of his career at the French Court and had imbibed its tastes for far greater display and ceremony.

He commissioned the new Tower of the Garde-Robe, the Audience (for the Auditors of the Rota), the new Papal Chapel and the grand staircase that led to it, and the Tour de la Gache (where the Audientia contradictarum, the appellate court for countersuits, had its offices).

[54] One of Pope Clement's physicians, Gui de Chauliac,[55] later wrote a book called the Chirurgia magna (1363), in which he correctly distinguished between bubonic and pneumonic plague, based on his own observations of his patients and himself.

[57] On 17 December 1350, he added twelve more cardinals, nine of them French and only three from Limoges, including two relatives, Guillaume d'Aigrefeuille and Pierre de Cros.

Clement issued two papal bulls in 1348 (6 July and 26 September), the latter named Quamvis Perfidiam, which condemned the violence and said those who blamed the plague on the Jews had been "seduced by that liar, the Devil.

[61] Pope Clement was also involved in disputes with King Edward III of England as a result of the latter's encroachments on ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Pope Clement had appointed Cola to a civil position (Senator) at Rome, and, although at first approving of Rienzo's establishment of the tribunate, he later realized the implications of a permanent antagonist to papal government in the form of a popularly elected Tribune, and sent a Papal Legate who excommunicated Rienzo and, with the help of the aristocratic faction, drove him from the city in December 1347.

To bring good music to the celebrations, he recruited musicians from northern France, especially from Liège, who cultivated the Ars Nova style.

Three months later, the body was transferred in a splendid procession to the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu, passing through Le Puy on 6 April.

[74] In 1562, the tomb was attacked by the Huguenots and severely damaged, losing the forty-four statues of Clement's relatives which surrounded the sarcophagus.