§ 4. BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 15
offered benefits to those who had the will and not the ability to make the journey to Rome.
For the offerings accruing from the Jubilee and for other papal moneys, Boniface found easy use. They enabled him to prosecute his wars against Sicily and the Colonna and to enrich his relatives. The chief object of his favor was his nephew, Peter, the second son of his brother Loffred, the Count of Caserta. One estate after another was added to this favorite's possessions, and the vast sum of more than 85,000,000 was spent upon him in four years. ^ Nepotism was one of the offences for which Boniface was arraigned by his contemporaries.
§ 4. Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France.
The overshadowing event of Boniface's reign was his disastrous conflict with Philip IV". of France, called Philip the Fair. The grandson of Louis IX., this monarch was wholly wanting in the high spiritual qualities which had distinguished his ancestor. He was able but treacherous, and utterly unscrupulous in the use of means to secure his ends. Unattractive as his character is, it is nevertheless with him that the first chapter in the history of modern France begins. In his conflict with Boniface he gained a decisive victory. On a smaller scale the conflict was a repetition of the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry IV., but with a different ending. In both cases the pope had reached a venerable age, while the sovereign was young and wholly governed by selfish motives. Henry resorted to the election of an anti-pope. Philip depended upon his councillors and the spirit of the new French nation.
The heir of the theocracy of Hildebrand repeated Hildebrand's language without possessing his moral qualities. He glaimed for the papacy supreme authority in temporal as well
1 See Gregorovius, V, 299, 584, who gives an elaborate list of the estates which passed by Boniface's grace into the hands of the Gaetani. Adam of Usk, Chro7iicon, 1377-1421, 2d ed., London, 1904, p. 259, " the fox, though ever greedy, ever remaineth thin, so Boniface, though gorged with simony, yet to his dying day was never filled."
16 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
as spiritual matters. In his address to tlie cardinals against the Colonna he exclaimed : " How shall we assume to judge kings and princes, and not dare to proceed against a worm ! Let them perish forever, that they may understand that the name of the Roman pontiff is known in all the earth and that he alone is most high over princes." ^ The Colonna, in one of their proclamations, charged Boniface with glorying that he is exalted above all princes and kingdoms in temporal matters, and may act as he pleases in view of the fulness of his power — plenitudo potestatis. In his official recognition of the emperor, Albrecht, Boniface declared that as " the moon has no light except as she receives it from the sun, so no earthly power has anything which it does not receive from the ecclesiastical authority." These claims are asserted with most pretension in the bulls Boniface issued during his conflict with France. Members of the papal court encouraged him in these haughty assertions of prerogative. The Spaniard, Arnald of Villanova, who served Boniface as physician, called him in his writings lord of lords — deus deorum.
On the other hand, Philip the Fair stood as the embodiment of the inilf^pf^iidf^i]c,f^ ^^f fl]^ ^\sd^-- He had behind him a unified nation, and around him a body of able statesmen and publicists who defended his views. ^
The conflict between Boniface and Philip passed through three stages: (1) the brief tilt which called forth the bull Clerieis laicos ; (2) the decisive battle, 1301-1303, ending in Boniface's humiliation at Anagni; (3) the bitter controversy which was waged against the pope's memory by Philip, ending with the Council of Vienne.^
^ Quomodo presiimimns judicare regos et principes orbis terrarum et vermiculum arjgredi non audcmus, etc. ; Denifle, Aixhiv, etc., V. 521. For these and other quotations, see Finke, Atts den Tagen Bon., etc., p. 152 sqq.
2 Contemporary writers spoke of the modern or recent French nation as opposed to the nation of a preceding period. So the author of the Tractate of 1308 in defence of Boniface VIII., Finke, p. Ixxxvi. He said " the kings of the modern French people do not follow in the footsteps of their predecessors " — reges moderni gentis Francorum, etc. The same writer compared Philip to Nebuchadnezzar rebelling against the higher powers.
8 See Scholz, Publizistik, VIII. p. .3 sqq.