The origin of the hatred between Colonna and Orsini is unknown, for the archives of the former have as yet thrown no light upon the subject, and those of the latter were almost entirely destroyed by fire in the last century. In the year 1305, Pope Clement the Fifth was elected Pope at Perugia. He was a Frenchman, and was Archbishop of Bordeaux, the candidate of Philip the Fair, whose tutor had been a Colonna, and he was chosen by the opposing factions of two Orsini cardinals because the people of Perugia were tired of a quarrel that had lasted eleven months, and had adopted the practical and always infallible expedient of deliberately starving the conclave to a vote. Muratori calls it a scandalous and illicit election, which brought about the ruin of Italy and struck a memorable blow at the power of the Holy See. Though not a great man, Philip the Fair was one of the cleverest that ever lived. Before the election he had made his bishop swear upon the Sacred Host to accept his conditions, without expressing them all; and the most important proved to be the transference of the Papal See to France. The new Pope obeyed his master, established himself in Avignon, and the King to all intents and purposes had taken the Pontificate captive and lost no time in using it for his own ends against the Empire, his hereditary foe. Such, in a few words, is the history of that memorable transaction; and but for the previous quarrels of Colonna, Caetani and Orsini, it could never have taken place. The Orsini repented bitterly of what they had done, for one of Clement the Fifth's first acts was to 'annul altogether all sentences whatsoever pronounced against the Colonna.' But the Pope being gone, the Barons had Rome in their power and used it for a battlefield. Four years later, we find in Villani the first record of a skirmish fought between Orsini and Colonna. In the month of October, 1309, says the chronicler, certain of the Orsini and of the Colonna met outside the walls of Rome with their followers, to the number of four hundred horse, and fought together, and the Colonna won; and there died the Count of Anguillara, and six of the Orsini were taken, and Messer Riccardo degli Annibaleschi who was in their company.