Some days later he absolved all the French priests and laymen who had been excommunicated by Boniface, or by any previous Pope, on account of having put difficulties in the way of communication with the Holy See, and likewise all those who had taken part, either by word or deed, in the imprisonment of his predecessor or of his legates, Nogaret alone being excepted, his absolution being specially reserved.3 Further, he pardoned the disobedience of all the prelates, abbots, and doctors who had not obeyed the summons to the Roman Synod of 1302 ;* then he cancelled the enactments of his predecessor by which the privileges bestowed on France were recalled or granted to others to the prejudice of the former, or by which any one had been exempted from his obligations towards the king; everything was to return to the same order as before the dispute, with the exception of anything which Boniface VIII. had ordained against Nogaret.5 Benedict not only secured the old favours to the king, but even added new ones, such as the grant of a halfyearly tithe from ecclesiastical possessions, and the exemption of the court chaplains from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Paris and the Metropolitan of Sens; he also promised to help the plans of Charles of Valois on Constantinople, which he claimed as the husband of Katharine Courtenay, heiress of the Latin emperor of that place. It appears as if the Pope by these measures hoped to dispose King Philip to accept patiently the energetic blow which he was preparing to deal against the leaders of the attempt at Anagni. At Perugia, where Benedict thought himself sufficiently safe, he ordered the Bull 'Flagitiosum scelus' to be published. After narrating the acts of violence committed by Nogaret, Sciarra, Reginald da Supino, and their accomplices, of which he himself had been a witness, Benedict continued: Who is so hard-hearted as not to be able to shed tears over this? Where the opponent who would feel no pity? Where the judge, however weak he might be, who would not rise up to condemn that by which security has been violated, the inviolable assailed, the Papal dignity dishonoured, the Church and her Bridegroom degraded? O crime never to be atoned for! O unheard-of violence! O unhappy town of Anagni, which

suffered it patiently without averting it! After this complaint the Pope declared all participators, abettors, and assistants in this attempt to be excommunicated, and summoned them to appear before the Apostolic See before June 29th, to receive judgment. If they did not appear they would incur severe anathemas. In the mean time, Benedict XI. died at Viterbo, and so suddenly as to cause a belief that he was poisoned." Some accused the Colonnas of being the perpetrators of this crime, others accused the Gaetanis, others the Florentines, again others a party amongst the cardinals, and others Nogaret's accomplices Ferreta of Vicenza, 10 Philip the Fair himself, the Franciscan monk Bernard Delitiosi and some of the clergy, as to whom John XXII. afterwards (1319) caused investigations to be made. The prelates deputed by the Pope did not find quite sufficient proof of the murder, but condemned the Franciscan monk to perpetual and severe imprisonment; and John, in spite of the objection raised by the royal procurator that the sentence was too light, confirmed the judgment.11

1 Dupuy, l.c. p. 209. Const. Ut eo magis, p. 229.

2 C. un. Quod olim, de Immunit. Eccl. iii. 13, in Xvagg. Com. Cf. Raynald. a. 1304, n. 12; Bzov. h.a. n. 4; Phillips, K.R. iii. § 131, p. 261 seq. Const. Sanctae matris Ecclesiae.

3 Dupuy, p. 208.

Dupuy, p. 229.

Const. Dudum Bonifacius.

Ib. p. 230, Ad statum tuum. In the constitution Sanctae matris, Benedict gives as reasons for his leniency: (1) utilitates et commoda, quae ex eodem regno (Franciae), dum in ipsius Ecclesiae devotione persistit, Ecclesiae praedictae proveniunt; (2) quod propter evitandum scandalum, praesertim ubi multitudo delinquit, severitati est aliquid detrahendum.' Hefele, p. 353.

7 Dupuy, p. 232. Raynald. a. 1304, n. 13-15. Tosti, vol. ii. doc. S. p. 313. Christophe, p. 141.

Spondan. a. 1303, n. 21. Bzov. a. 1304.

• Drumann, ii. p. 164.

10 Ferret. Vicent. (Murat. R. It. Scr. ix. 1018).

11 Natalis Alexander (1.c. art. 6, n. 2, 3, pp. 345-347) gives, from the Inquisition archives of Carcassone, the Papal decree concerning the preliminary arrangements of the inquiry and then the result in short. Cf. Baluz. Vita Pap. Aven. t. ii. p. 341.

§ 13.

The Frenchman Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was chosen Pope, under the name of Clement V., by the conclave

at Perugia, after a long contest between the French and Italian parties; he was crowned at Lyons on November 14, 1305, and took his seat in France, so that the Papal See then fell into an irksome dependence on the Parisian court. As soon as the coronation festivities were concluded, King Philip wished that the new Pope might listen to the proofs of the heresy of Boniface, and then condemn his memory. Clement V. endeavoured to gain time, and in the mean while to content the king in some other way. He not only renewed the absolution pronounced by Benedict XI., not only chose nine of the new cardinals from among Frenchmen, and restored all their rights to the two Colonna cardinals, not only granted an ecclesiastical tithe to the king for five years,3 but he even went much further than Benedict in recalling and modifying the decrees of Boniface VIII., and appeared to make all the interests of the French sovereign his own. He entirely cancelled the Bull 'Clericis laicos' by a new decree, retaining, however, the old decrees, specially those of the Lateran Council; on February 1, 1306,5 he declared with regard to the dogmatic Bull Unam sanctam,' that it should in no way prejudice Philip or his kingdom, nor alter his relations with the Holy See concerning the obedience which he owed to it. By this, Philip's grievance only was removed, or rather the decretal was cleared of the false meaning which had been imputed to it by the French.6 Besides this, Clement granted a Church tithe for two years to Charles of Valois, to help to carry out his plan on Constantinople, by which it was hoped that the Holy Land might the more easily be conquered, and asked for contributions from the Italian States for this expedition so ardently desired by him.7

1 Hefele, pp. 357-369.

2 Dupuy, pp. 298, 368.

3 Raynald. a. 1305, n. 14. Christophe, p. 155. Hefele, p. 370.

C. un. Quoniam ex constitutione, iii. 17, de Immunit. Eccl. in Clem.

Dupuy, Preuves, p. 287.

C. 2, Meruit, v. 7, de Privil. in Extravagg. Com. Dupuy, p. 288. Bianchi, t. i. 1. i. § 10, pp. 97, 98, against Bossuet, l.c. c. xxiv. p. 327. Phillips, iii. p. 266.

'Raynald. a. 1306, n. 2-5. Hefele, p. 370.

$14.

Clement V. remained a whole year from February 1306 at Bordeaux, where he was ill for a long time.1 In May 1307 he met King Philip at Poitiers, when the latter repeated his proposal for the trial of the memory of Boniface VIII. At last the Pope obtained a promise that he would leave it to him to see what should be done against Boniface; notwithstanding this, Philip still urgently and frequently renewed his request. The strongest measures of intimidation were employed by means of the suppression of the order of the Templars.3 Clement was ready to make the greatest sacrifices, because of his helpless condition and the violence of the king. The Pope was obliged to begin with the least possible delay legal investigations, and to listen to the accusers of the deceased Boniface. In the edict of citation of September 13, 1309, the Pope declared his personal conviction of the innocence of Boniface, but nevertheless promised to listen to his accusers.5 The trial began with a public consistory held at Avignon, 16th March 1310. The accusers made very extreme charges. They asserted the invalidity of the resignation of Celestine V., from which followed the illegitimacy of Boniface; and they accused him of heresy, simony, and immorality, and maintained the complete innocence of Nogaret and his comrades. There was no want of witnesses against Boniface; everything had been prepared for seven years. If the extant drafts of the proceedings were not arbitrarily falsicated, not a few of the witnesses, both lay and clerical, appear to have been very abandoned men.

The defenders of Boniface desired above all things that Nogaret and his companions should be excluded from the proceedings, as they were personal enemies of the accused, and at the present time under the ban of excommunication. So far Clement agreed with them when he declared on May 13, 1310, that he was of opinion that it was erroneous that an excommunicated person was absolved by the mere fact that the Pope held conversation with him. They protested against the arrangements made with regard to the examination of witnesses; likewise

against the right to judge a Pope, which belonged only to a General Council, and when it was question of heresy. As their main effort was to contest the right of their opponents to bring an accusation at all, they cared less to refute the actual charges, and only discussed some of them; for example, the false statement that Boniface had refused the sacraments on his deathbed.7

1 Christophe, p. 160.

2 Hefele, pp. 372, 373.

3 Boutaric, Notices et Extraits, xx. 2, pp. 165 seq. 175 seq. La France sous Philippe le Bel, p. 133 seq. Hefele, p. 381.

Cf. Christophe, p. 170. In the May of 1308, Philip repeated the proposals he had made in the previous May for the commencing a process against Boniface; he consented first in 1311, that at the General Council, which on August 12, 1308, was called for October 1, 1310, at Vienne (Mansi, xxv. p. 369 seq.; Raynald. a. 1308, n. 4), both the great matters should be negotiated: De quibus Templariorum et Bonifacii negotiis poterit vestra sanctitas, interim examinata plenius veritate, in Concilio feliciter ordinare.' Ep. Philippi ap. Dupuy, Preuves, p. 299. That which is related of the advice of the Cardinal of Prato (Christophe, i. p. 171 seq. according to Villani, viii. 91) is only put in the wrong place, but really quite conceivable.

5 Raynald. a. 1309, n. 4. Dupuy, p. 368 seq.; Redemtor noster. Hefele, p. 397.

Dupuy, p. 512 seq. Only a part of the protest.

$ 15.

In December 1310, the Pope adjourned the proceedings till Mid-Lent Sunday of the following year. In February 1311, Philip at last committed the whole affair to the Pope, with the condition that reparation must be made to himself. The king was pronounced free of all guilt in the unhappy occurrences at Anagni, and all decrees disadvantageous to the king and his kingdom were cancelled. At the Council of Vienne, which was opened on the 16th October 1311, the affairs of the Templars appeared to be the most important matter; still the case of Boniface was brought to a conclusion.2 The much-abused Pope was defended by three cardinals and several learned men in France and he was also acknowledged to be a rightful Pope.

Hefele, p. 402.

2 Giov. Villani, 1. ix. c. xxii. Pipini, Chron. 1. iv. c. xli. xlix. xs. Vat. ap. Raynald. a. 1311, n. 54. Mansi, Conc. xxv. 403. Hefele, p. 472 seq.