Throughout the pontificate of John XXII, Franciscan friars acted as advisors to the pope, as curial officials and as members of papal commissions. Their role at the curia and their involvement in papal decision-making could bring them into conflict with the papacy, however, especially in the protracted and acrimonious debates about Franciscan poverty when members of the order needed to navigate the tension between their Franciscan identity and their service to the papacy. Nevertheless, the curia provided spaces for dissent and opposition, and John XXII encountered resistance and counter-arguments to his policies and views from cardinals, advisors and other members of the curia. Papal consultation mechanisms provided both a forum for dissent and a mechanism for the production of consent, and this double role of consultations was exploited by the pope and by his advisors. This paper will examine some of the spaces for opposition at the papal court in Avignon, exploring how these curial mechanisms were used by John XXII in managing and neutralising dissent, and comparing this to Franciscan strategies in articulating dissenting opinions, not just in the debates about Franciscan poverty. The paper will therefore shed light on the dynamics of negotiation, consultation and decision-making at the curia, highlighting the plurality of voices underpinning these processes, independent of their outcomes or the consequences for the actors involved, as both pope and the Franciscans navigated the religious, political and intellectual conflicts of the early fourteenth century.