Pope had learnt, that the kings both of France and England had levied contributions on their clerical, as well as their lay, subjects for purposes of state. In consequence, he published, Bull Clericis in 1296, his celebrated Bull, beginning Clericis Laicos, of Laicos. which the substance was this: Antiquity relates to us the inveterate hostility of the laity to the clergy, and the experience of the present age confirms it manifestly-since, without consideration that they have no power over ecclesiastical persons or property, they load with impositions both prelates and clergy, regular and secular; and also, to our deep affliction, prelates and other ecclesiastics are found, who, from their greater dread of temporal than eternal majesty, acquiesce in this abuse.' He then proceeds to pronounce sentence of excommunication against all who shall hereafter exact such impositions, whether kings, princes, or magistrates, and against all who shall pay them.

Disputes between Boniface and Philip.

Very soon afterwards, Philip published, in retort, an edict, forbidding the export of money, jewels, and other articles specified, out of his dominions. The Pope, who was thereby deprived of his ecclesiastical contributions, presently put forth a long reply and remonstrance, in which he explained his preceding Bull to mean, that the consent of the Pope is necessary for the levying of the aforesaid contributions; that, in circumstances of great national exigency, even that might be dispensed with; and that the prohibition did not extend to donations strictly voluntary †. At the same time he enlarged on the liberty of the Church-the ark of Noah-the spouse of Jesus Christ-to which He had given power over all the body of the faithful, and over every individual member of it. By these general expressions he intended to insinuate, not only that princes had no power over the Church, but that the Church possessed unlimited control over princes. The rejoinder on the part of the king had more reason in its theology, and more piety in its reason. It professed a holy fear of God, and respectful reverence for the ministers of the Church; but, in the full consciousness of justice, it repelled with disdain the senseless menaces of man. In the following year, the Pope had the prudence to address to the archbishop of Rheims such an interpretation of the Bull as left to Philip no reasonable ground of complaint; and French historians, with great probability, attribute the rare moderation of Boniface to his necessities or his avarice ‡.

The truce thus tacitly established between the parties was of very short duration. Indeed, where were so many undefined and disputable rights, it was not possible that peace could long subsist between two rivals equally disposed to encroachment and usurpation. In the year 1301, Philip arrested (and seemingly with justice) Bernard de Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, a creature of the Pope, on the charge of sedition and treasonable language, and caused him to be confined until the sentence of degradation should be passed on him, previous to the infliction of legal punishment. At the same time he wrote a respectful letter to Boniface, praying him to

* On this sentence, Fleury, the most candid of Catholics, very simply remarks, ‹ That aversion of laymen for the clergy, which the Pope mentions, ascended not to a very high antiquity; since for the five or six first ages, the clergy secured the respect and affections of all men, by their charitable and disinterested conduct.' (liv. lxxxix. s. xliii.) No clergy, which shapes its conduct by any other principle, ever will secure, or ever ought to secure, either affection or respect.

Pagi, Vit. Bonif. VIII., sect. xxviii.

To the same cause we may probably ascribe the proclamation of the first Jubilee, in the year 1300, by Boniface,-an institution to which we shall recur in a future chapter.

deprive the culprit of his clerical privileges, or at least to take measures for his conviction. But Boniface, having learnt that a bishop had been placed in confinement, addressed his answer (which he sent by a special legate) to that point only; and denying that laymen had received any power over the clergy, he enjoined the king to dismiss the prisoner freely to the pontifical presence, with full restitution of all his property, at the same time reminding him that he had himself incurred canonical punishment for having rashly laid his hand on the person of a bishop. On the same day, or very soon afterwards, he published a Bull, addressed also to Philip, in which, after exhorting his son to listen* with docility to his instructions, he proceeded in the following terms :- God has set me over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant †, in his name, and by his doctrine. Let no one persuade you, then, that you have no superior, or that you are not subject to the chief of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. He that holds that opinion is senseless, and he that obstinately maintains it is an infidel, separate from the flock of the good Shepherd.' He then continued, still out of his affection for Philip, to charge him with many general violations of the ecclesiastical privileges, or, as they were then more commonly called, Liberties; and concluded by informing him, that he had summoned all the superior clergy of France to an assembly at Rome, on the 1st of the November following (1302), in order to deliberate on the remedies for such abuses. Philip was astonished by this measure, but not so confounded as to deviate either into timidity or rashness. He convoked a full and early assembly or parliament of his nobles and clergy. In the meantime, he burnt the Bull of the Pope as publicly as possible, and caused that act to be proclaimed with trumpets throughout the whole of Paris. In his subsequent address to his parliament, he mentioned the proceedings of Boniface, disclaimed with scorn any temporal allegiance to him, retorted the charges of corruption and mal-administration, declared his readiness to risk any loss or suffering in defence of the common interests, and referred the decision of the question to the assembly. The barons and lay members pronounced their opinions loudly and unhesitatingly in favour of the king. With them the question was, in a great degree, national. They were jealous of the honour of the crown, and eager to protect it from any foreign insult. And though a calmer judgment would, perhaps, have taught them, that such a restraint upon the monarchy might, in its effects, be beneficial to all classes of the people, they sacrificed every consideration of policy to the passion of the moment. The situation of the clergy was exceedingly difficult, since they had two duties to reconcile, which, even in ordinary times, were not always in strict ac

Philip burns the
Pope's Bull.

Ausculta, fili-the two first words of this Bull-have affixed to it its historical name. It was published in December, 1301, and was preceded only two days by another constitution of Boniface, called Salvator Mundi, by which he suspended all favours and privileges which had been accorded by his predecessors to the kings of France, and to all their subjects, whether lay or clerical, who abetted Philip. Pagi, Bonif. VIII., sec. lvii.

Jerem. i. 10. The words are addressed to Jeremiah, in respect to his prophetic mission; but they had been perverted to the support of the papal pretensions long before the time of Boniface. See, for instance, the letter of Honorius III., written in 1225, to Louis of France. The plenitude of power which the Holy See has received from God' is there placed chiefly on that foundation.

Another reason, by which he justified his interference, was his own responsibility to God for the soul of King Philip.

cordance, and which were then in direct opposition. Their first attempt was to explain and justify the intentions of the Pope; but that was repelled with general contempt and indignation. Then they expressed a dutiful anxiety to assist the king, and maintain the liberties of the kingdom; but at the same time they pleaded the obedience due from them to the Pope, and prayed for permission to attend his summons to Rome. This permission was clamorously refused by the king and his barons.

The clergy then addressed a letter to the Pope, in which they expressed an apprehension lest the violent and universal hostility, not of the king and his barons only, but of the body of the laity, should lead to an entire rupture between France and Rome, and even between the clergy and the people; and they prayed that he would release them from the summons to Rome. At the same time the barons also wrote-not, indeed, to the Pope, but to the College of Cardinals-in severe censure of the new and senseless pretensions of Boniface, on whom personally they cast the entire blame of the difference. In reply, the cardinals disavowed, on the part of Boniface, any assertion that the king of France held his temporalities of the Pope; while, in defence of his ghostly authority, they maintained, that no man in his senses can doubt, that the Pope, as chief of the spiritual hierarchy, can dispense with the sin of every man living.' In his reply to the dutiful supplication of the prelates, the Pope rebuked them for their want of courage and attachment, enforced on them the indisputable subjection of things temporal to things spiritual, and persisted in commanding their attendance at Rome.

The great majority disregarded the summons; but some few were found who considered their first obedience as due to

their ecclesiastical sovereign. These proceeded Bull Unam Sanctam. to Rome; and, in spite of their small number,

Boniface availed himself of the name of this Council to publish the Decretal, commonly known as the Bull Unam Sanctam. The propositions asserted in this celebrated constitution are, first, the Unity of the Holy Catholic Church, without which there is no salvation; wherein is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Hence it follows, that of this one and only Church there is one body and one head, (not two heads, which would be monstrous,) namely, Christ, and Christ's vicar, St. Peter, and the successor of St. Peter. The second position is, that in the power of this Chief are two swords, the one spiritual, and the other material; but that the former of these is to be used by the Church, the latter for the Church; the former is in the hand of the priest, the latter in the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the nod and sufferance of the priest. It is next asserted, that one of these swords must be subject to the other sword, otherwise we must suppose two opposite principles, which would be Manichæan and heretical. Thence it is an easy inference, that the spiritual is that which has rule over the other, while itself is liable to no other judgment or authority than that of God. The general conclusion is contained in one short sentence,- Wherefore we declare, define, and pronounce, that it is absolutely essential to the salvation of every human being, that he be subject unto the Roman pontiff †.'

*The laity absolutely fly from our society, and repel us from their conferences and councils, as if we were guilty of treason against them. They despise ecclesiastic censures, from whatsoever quarter they may come, and are preparing and taking precautions to ren der them useless. Fleury, Hist. Eccles., liv. xc., sec. ix.

The texts on which these propositions were chiefly founded are John x. 16; Romans xii. 1; Jeremiah i. 10; 1 Corinthians ii. 15.

But Boniface did not content himself with mere assertions. On the very same day he also published a Bull of excommunication against all persons, of whatsoever rank, even kings or emperors, who should interfere in any way to prevent or impede those, who might desire to present themselves before the Roman See. This edict was, of course, understood to be directly levelled against Philip. Soon afterwards he sent a legate into France, the bearer of twelve articles, which boldly expressed such papal pretensions, as were in opposition to those of the king; and concluded with a menace of temporal as well as spiritual proceedings. The claims contained in these articles have been already mentioned, and do not require enumeration. But what may raise our surprise is, that the answer of Philip was extremely inoderate; that he condescended to explain away much that seemed objectionable in his conduct; that he promised to remedy any abuses which his officers might have committed, and expressed his strong desire for concord with the Roman Church.

His moderation may have been affected, and his explanations frivolous, and the abuses in question he may not have seriously intended to alleviate. But at least it is true that he had never sought the enmity of Rome; and had Boniface availed himself of that occasion to close the breach, when he might have closed it with profit and dignity, his last days might have been passed in lofty tranquillity; he would have been respected and feared, even by those who hated him; and posterity would still have admired the courage and the policy which had contended against the most powerful prince in Europe, in no very blind or superstitious age, without disadvantage or dishonour. But the Pope did not perceive this crisis in his destiny. He proceeded in his former course-he proclaimed his dissatisfaction at the answers of the king, and repeated and redoubled his menaces.

Outrage

on Boniface.

Philip had then recourse to that public measure which so deeply influenced the future history of papacy-the convocation of a General Council, to pronounce on the proceedings of the Pope. But while he was engaged in preparations for this great contest, and for the establishment of a principle to which his clergy were not yet prepared to listen*, a latent and much shorter path was opened to the termination of his perplexities. William of Nogaret, a celebrated French civilian, in conjunction with certain Romans of the Colonna family, who had fled for refuge to Paris from the oppression of Boniface, passed secretly into Italy, and tampered successfully with the personal attendants of the Pope. The usual residence of the latter was Anagni, a city some forty or fifty miles to the south-east of Rome, and his birth-place. There, in the year 1303, he had composed another Bull, in which he maintained, that, as vicar of Jesus Christ, he had the power to govern kings with a rod of iron, and to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel t;' and he had destined the 8th of September, the anniversary of the nativity of the Virgin, for its promulgation. A rude interruption disturbed his dreams of omnipotence, and discovered the secret of his real weakness. On the very day preceding the intended publication of the Bull, Nogaret, with Sciarra Colonna, and some other nobles, escorted by about three hundred horsemen, and a larger number of partizans on foot, hearing the banners of France, rushed into Anagui, with shouts of

*Not only did the bishops and the whole clergy decline any active part in the proceedings against the Pope, but they refused any share in them, and only consented to the convocation of the council through the necessity of seeking some remedy for the disor

ders of the Church.

+ Psalms ii. 9.

'Success to the king of France!-Death to Pope Boniface!' After a feeble resistance, they became masters of the pontifical palace. The cardinals dispersed and fled-through treachery, as some assert, or, more probably, through mere timidity. The greater part of the Pope's personal attendants fled also.

Boniface, when he perceived that he was surprised and abandoned, prepared himself with uncommon resolution for the last outrage. • Since

I am betrayed (he cried) as Jesus Christ was betrayed, I will at least die like a Pope.' He then clothed himself in his official vestments, and placed the crown of Constantine on his head, and grasped the keys and the cross in his hands, and seated himself in the pontifical chair. He was now eighty-six years of age. And when Sciarra Colonna, who first penetrated into his presence, beheld the venerable form and dignified composure of his enemy, his purpose, which doubtless was sanguinary, seemed suddenly to have deserted him, and his revenge did not proceed beyond verbal insult *. Nogaret followed. He approached the Pope with some respect, but at the same time imperiously informed him, that he must prepare to be present at the council forthwith to be assembled on the subject of his misconduct, and to submit to its decision. The Pope addressed him—' William of Nogaret, descended from a race of heretics, it is from thee, and such as thee, that I can patiently endure indignity.' The ancestors of Nogaret had atoned for their errors in the flames. But the expression of the pontiff was not prompted by any offence he felt at that barbarity; not by any consciousness of the iniquity of his own oppression †, or any sense of the justice of the retribution; it proceeded simply from the sectarian hatred which swelled his own breast, which he felt to be implacable, and which he believed to be mutual.

While their leaders were thus employed, the body of the conspirators dispersed themselves throughout the splendid apartments in eager pursuit of plunder. Any deliberate plan which might have been formed against the person of the Pope, was disappointed by their avarice. During the day of the attack, and that which followed, the French appear to have been wholly occupied in the ransack. But in the meantime the people of Anagni were recovered from their panic; and perhaps they were more easily awakened to the shame of deserting their Pope and their citizen, when they discovered the weakness of the aggressors, and the snare into which their license had led them. They took up arms, assaulted the French, and having expelled or massacred them, restored to the pontiff his freedom and authority.

But they were unable to restore his insulted honour and the spirit which had been broken by indignity. Infuriated by the disgrace

of his captivity, he hurried from Anagni to Rome, burning His Death. for revenge. But the violence of his passion presently over

* Some modern French historians assert that Boniface was severely wounded by the assailants-a story which is idly repeated by Mosheim, and re-echoed even by Gibbon." It is the unanimous affirmation of contemporary writers, that no hand was raised against him. See Sismondi, chap. xxiv. The words of S. Antoninus (part 3., tit. xx., cap. 8. sec. xxi.) are express. Domino autem disponente, ob dignitatem Apostolicæ Sedis, nemo, ex inimicis ejus ausus fuit mittere in eum manus; sed indutum sacris vestibus dimiserunt sub honesta custodia, et ipsi insistebant prædæ, &c.' See Pagi, Bonif. VIII., sec. lxx.

Boniface VIII. was a very faithful patron of the Inquisition; and if his name is not distinguished in the list of persecuting popes, it is rather from the want of opportunity, than of inclination. Persecution being now systematized by the regular machinery of the Inquisition, there were fewer occasions for individual distinction. See Whately on 'The Errors of Romanism,' ch. v., sec. iii., vi., p. 241–244.)