Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 2 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
heretical it was for him not to be subject to the pope. The
bull torn from the messenger’s hands was publicly burnt, and
a version of it probably falsified published throughout the
kingdom along with the king’s reply. All France rose in revolt
against the papal pretensions, and a parliament at Notre Dame in
Paris A.D. 1302, at which the king assembled the three estates of
the empire, the nobles, the clergy, and (for the first time) the
citizens, it was unanimously resolved to support Philip and to
write in that spirit to Rome, the bishops undertaking to pacify
the pope, the nobles and citizens making their complaint to the
cardinals. The king expressly forbade his clergy taking any part
in the council that had been summoned, which, however, met in the
Lateran, in Nov., 1302. From it Boniface issued the famous bull
_Unam Sanctam_, in which, after the example of Innocent III.
and Gregory IX., he set forth the doctrine of the two swords,
the spiritual wielded _by_ the church and the temporal _for_
the church, by kings and warriors indeed, but only according
to the will and by the permission of the spiritual ruler. That
the temporal power is independent was pronounced a Manichæan
heresy; and finally it was declared that no human being could
be saved unless he were subject to the Roman pontiff. King and
parliament now accused the pope of heresy, simony, blasphemy,
sorcery, tyranny, immorality, etc., and insisted that he should
answer these charges before an œcumenical council. Meanwhile, in
A.D. 1303, Boniface was negotiating with king Albert, and got him
not only to break his league with Philip, but also to acknowledge
himself a vassal of the papal see. The pope had all his plans
laid for launching his anathema against Philip, but their
execution was anticipated by the king’s assassins. His chancellor
Nogaret and Sciarra, one of the exiled Colonnas, who, with the
help of French gold, had hatched a conspiracy among the barons,
attacked the papal palace and took the pope prisoner while he
sat in full state upon his throne. The people indeed rescued
him, but he died some weeks after in a raging fever in his
80th year. Dante assigns him a place in hell. In the mouth of
his predecessor Cœlestine V. have been put the prophetic words,
_Ascendisti ut vulpes, regnatis ut leo, morieris ut canis_.[324]
His successor =Benedict XI.=, A.D. 1303, 1304, would have
willingly avenged the wrongs of Boniface, but weak and
unsupported as he was he soon found himself obliged, not
only to withdraw all imputations against Philip, who always
maintained his innocence, but also to absolve those of the
Colonnas who were less seriously implicated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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