With the ecclesiastical aspects of Pope John's character we have nothing to do here. It would require a large volume by itself properly to tell the story of his life, for he was one of the most influential men of an important time, and though he ascended the Papal throne when he was past seventy, he lived to be ninety, and his pontificate is filled with evidence of his strenuous activity till the end of his life. There is no doubt that the regulations for which he is responsible with regard to the Papal finances eventually led to very serious abuses in the Church. It is easy to understand, however, how special arrangements had to be made for the support of the Holy See at Avignon. Pope John XXII.'s predecessor, Clement, was the first Pope who, because of the unsettled state of affairs in Italy and the influence of the French King, resolved to live at Avignon instead of Rome. Under these circumstances, the ordinary sources of revenue for the support of the Papal Court, which required comparatively as expensive an establishment then as now, were more or less cut off. During the first pontificate at Avignon, this proved a serious drawback to ecclesiastical efficiency. In Pope John's time the necessity for providing revenues became acute. Besides, he wished to make the new Papal City as worthy of the Holy See as the old one had been. To him is largely due the development of Avignon, which {140} occurred during the fourteenth century. The abuses which his regulations in this matter led to did not culminate in his time, but came later. The revenues obtained by him were, as we shall see, used to excellent purpose, and were applied to such educational and missionary uses as would eminently meet the approval of the most demanding of critics in modern times. John was a liberal and discriminating patron of learning and of education in his time. He helped colleges in various parts of the world, established a college in the East, and sent out many missionaries at his own expense. These missionaries proved as efficient as modern travelers in adding to the knowledge of the East at that time, and practically laid the foundations of the science of geography. [Footnote 19] [Footnote 19: Those who are interested in the wonderful things accomplished for geography by these missionary travelers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will find a brief account of them in the chapter on Geography and Exploration in my book on The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.]