All corrections
Wikipedia July 20, 2026 at 07:08 PM

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_V

2 corrections found

1
Claim
Clement sent John of Montecorvino to Beijing to preach in China.
Correction

John of Montecorvino was sent to China by Pope Nicholas IV in 1289, not by Clement V. Clement V later promoted him after his success there.

Full reasoning

This sentence reverses the chronology of John of Montecorvino’s mission.

John of Montecorvino was already sent east by Pope Nicholas IV years before Clement V became pope. A standard Catholic reference states that Nicholas IV entrusted John with the mission to Farther China, and that he started on his journey in 1289. A second biographical reference likewise says that in 1289 Pope Nicholas IV sent John as his legate to the Great Khan in Khanbaliq (Beijing), and that John reached Beijing in 1294.

Clement V’s actual connection came later: after John had already been working in China for years, Clement V appointed him archbishop of Beijing in 1307 and sent supporting bishops. So Clement did not send John to Beijing to begin preaching in China; Nicholas IV did.

2 sources
2
Claim
This move, actually to Carpentras, the capital of the territory,
Correction

Clement V’s 1309 transfer of the curia was to Avignon, not to Carpentras. Carpentras became an important curial location later, by the end of his pontificate.

Full reasoning

The sentence is chronologically wrong about where Clement V relocated the curia in 1309.

A standard Catholic reference says that after residing in several places in France from 1305 to 1309, Clement V finally took up his residence at Avignon. Another reference states that until 1309, when Clement fixed his residence in Avignon, the papal curia was itinerant.

Carpentras was associated with Clement later, but that does not make the 1309 move “actually to Carpentras.” The Carpentras library-museum’s historical summary explains that Clement V chose to establish himself at Avignon after his election, while the papal Audience was at Carpentras when he died in 1314. So the article’s wording incorrectly substitutes Carpentras for Avignon in describing the original transfer of the curia.

3 sources
Model: OPENAI_GPT_5 Prompt: v1.16.0