Clement V moves the papacy to Avignon, in a move which is expected to be temporary but which lasts for nearly seventy years

John Wycliffe, writing mainly in Oxford, is critical of the contemporary church and can find no basis for the pope's authority

The papal curia returns to Rome in what would seem a conclusive move if there were not, two years later, two popes - one of them elected back in Avignon

The French cardinals, objecting to the new Italian pope, elect their own man as Clement VII - and thus inaugurate the Great Schism of the papacy

The Council at Pisa elects a new pope, Alexander V, without persuading the other two to resign - bringing the total to an unprecedented three

A council is called at Constance, to consider the radical views of John Huss and to deal with the present excess of popes

The Council of Constance, having done its best to dispose of the three existing popes, elects a new one - Martin V

Jan Zizka wins a series of victories against papal armies, using the mobile barricade which becomes known as his 'war wagon fortress'

The Compacts of Prague, agreed with the papacy in 1433, allow the Hussite laity to receive the sacrament in both kinds

The French clergy pass a resolution at Bourges, limiting the power of the papacy within France, which is adopted by the king as a 'pragmatic sanction'

The new pope, Sixtus IV, secures his name in history, establishing the Sistine chapel and the Sistine choir

A plot by the Pazzi family, with papal connivance, results in the murder of Guiliano de' Medici during high mass in Florence's cathedral

Savonarola, the new prior of San Marco, is a stern critic of both the pope in Rome and the Medici in Florence

Rodrigo Borgia, elected pope as Alexander VI, already has four illegitimate children and possibly sires three more while pope

Pope Alexander VI draws a line through the Atlantic, dividing new discoveries between Spain (west) and Portugal (east)

Pope Julius II summons Michelangelo to Rome to create the pope's own elaborately sculpted tomb

Raphael begins work on the frescoes in the pope's apartment in the Vatican, known as the Stanze ('Rooms')

Luther's writings are burnt in Rome by order of the pope

Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther after he has refused to recant

Pope Clement VII hides in Castel Sant'Angelo while Rome is sacked by German mercenaries

Pope Paul III establishes Ignatius Loyola and his followers as the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits

Pope Paul III establishes the Roman Inquisition, with the specific task of fighting against the Protestant heresy

Pope Pius V excommunicates the English queen, Elizabeth I, causing a severe crisis of loyalty for her Catholic subjects

The new and more accurate Gregorian calendar is introduced by Gregory XIII in the papal states

Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry