The idea of a national representation, with fixed conditions and attributes, is a modern one, and was almost unknown in the Middle Ages. There were no written constitutions in existence, except civic charters, which had a purely local character. The government on its part, without being absolute, admitted of no binding control. In the meantime, public opinion was being consulted, as it became necessary to reckon with it, and the independence which asserted itself everywhere. In the thirteenth century deputies from the cities were convoked and consulted separately; in the fourteenth they were combined with those of the clergy or the nobility of the provincial estates or the states-general. But no fixed rule was followed. It was the king and his officers who determined each time the conditions and the forms of the election.[k] [Illustration] FOOTNOTES [13] [Boutaric,[d] who has made a special study of the reign of Philip the Fair, bases his account of the remarkable events at Anagni on the narratives of Rinaldo de Supino and of Nogaret[l] himself rather than on those of Giovanni Villani[m] and Walsingham,[n] the source of most modern historians. Nogaret’s alleged speech is from the chronicle of St. Denis.[o] Nogaret says that Philip had sent him to Rome to demand the summoning of a council, but Boniface in fear of the hostile population had retired to his native Anagni. Nogaret learned of the impending excommunication of his master and determined to prevent it at all costs. The Ghibellines of Romagna listened to his plan, and Rinaldo de Supino, their leader and his friend, agreed to accompany Nogaret to Anagni and bring Boniface to terms. But Nogaret was compelled to take full leadership and promise the protection of France, from all consequences, temporal or spiritual, to his allies. Sciarra Colonna, the pope’s mortal enemy, now joined the scheme. All of this would indicate that Nogaret acted on his own responsibility in the matter of the descent on Anagni, wishing only to protect the king of France from the curse of excommunication, and that the latter was in no way connected with the conception of the affair. As to the events at Anagni, Boutaric says: “There are fables that Colonna struck the pope in the face with his gauntlet; that he was tied to a donkey with his face toward its tail and paraded through Anagni in the midst of insults; but all these stories should be rejected. It seems certain that the person of Boniface was respected. Nogaret contented himself with holding him captive and pestering him to consent to the convoking of the council. Boniface was immovable; Nogaret was at his wits’ end. After a lapse of three days the people, ashamed of their treachery, came to demand Boniface. Nogaret was obliged to flee.” Dareste[k] holds Colonna guiltless of violence but thinks that others might have injured the pope but for Nogaret.]