Perpignan in the context of "James II of Majorca"

The Avignon Papacy (Occitan: Papat d'Avinhon; French: Papauté d'Avignon) was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon (at the time within the Kingdom of Arles, part of the Holy Roman Empire, now part of France) rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by agents of Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip pressured a deadlocked conclave to elect the Archbishop of Bordeaux as pope Clement V in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity" of the Papacy (cf. Italian cattività avignonese, i.e. "Avignonese captivity").

A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon, all French, and all under the influence of the French Crown. In 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome, arriving in January 1377. After Gregory's death in 1378, deteriorating relations between his successor Urban VI and a faction of cardinals gave rise to the Western Schism. This started a second line of Avignon popes, subsequently regarded as illegitimate. The last Avignon antipope, Benedict XIII, lost most of his support in 1398, including that of France. After five years besieged by the French, he fled to Perpignan in 1403. The schism ended in 1417 at the Council of Constance.

The Golden Banana or Sun Belt is an area of higher population density lying between Cartagena in the west and Genoa in the east along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The area runs along the Mediterranean coast, including the French cities of Nice, Marseille, Montpellier, and Perpignan, and the Spanish cities of Figueres, Barcelona and Valencia. It was defined by the "Europe 2000" report from the European Commission in 1995 similarly to the Blue Banana.

Rosselló (Catalan: [rusəˈʎo] ) or Roussillon (French: [ʁusijɔ̃] ) is a historical and cultural Catalan comarca (county) of Northern Catalonia (France). Its capital and most populated city is Perpignan (Catalan: Perpinyà).

It borders the counties of Alt Empordà (Southern Catalonia) and Vallespir to the south and Conflent to the west, as well as the Occitan region of Languedoc to the north and north-west.