§ 4. BONIFACE VIII. AND PHILIP THE FAIR. 19
which made the statements of papal prerogative still more exasperating. This supposititious document, which is supposed to have been forged by Pierre Flotte, the king's chief councillor, was thrown into the flames Feb. 11, 1302. ^ ^uch treatment of a papal brief was unprecedented. It remained for Luther to cast the genuine bull of Leo X. into the fire. The two acts had little in common.
The kin^ replied by calling a French parliaji^ent of the three estates, the nobility, clergy and representatives of the cities, which set aside the papal summons to thexaunoU, complained of the appointment of foreigners to French livings, and asserted the crown's independence of the Church. Five hundred years later a similar representative body of the three estates was to rise against French royalty and decide for the abolition of monarchy. In a letter to the pope, Philip addressed him as " your infatuated Majesty," ^ and declined all submission to any one on earth in temporal matters.
The council called by the pope convened in Rome the last~3rayj)f Octoberj_1302, and included 4 archbishops, 35 l)isliops, and 6 abbots from France. Jt issued two bulls. The first pronounced the ban on all who detained prelates-going to Rome or returning from the city. Tlie second is one of the most notable of all papal documents, the bull Unam sanetam, the name given tojt .from its first wordsj,
1 See Scholz, p. 357. The authenticity of the bull Ansculta was once called in question, but is now universally acknowledged. The copy in the Vatican bears the erasure of Clement V., who struck out the passages most offensive to Philip. Hefele gives the copy preserved in the library of St. Victor.
2 Sciat maxima tua fatuitas in temporalibus 7ios alicui non subesse, etc. Hefele, VI. 332, calls in question the authenticity of this document, at the same time recognizing that it was circulated in Rome in 1302, and that the pope himself made reference to it. The original phrase is ascribed to Pierre Flotte, Scholz, p. 357. Flotte was an uncompromising advocate of the king's sovereignty and independence of the pope. He made a deep impression by an address at the parliament called by Philip, 1302. He was probably the author of the anti-papal tract beginning Antequam essent clerici, the text of which is printed by Dupuy, pp. 21-23. Here he asserts that the Church consists of laymen as well as clerics, Scholz, p. 361, and that taxes levied upon Church property are not extortions.
20 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
" We are forced to believe in one holy Catholic Church." It marks an epoch in the history of the declarations of the p^apacy^ not because it contained anything novel, but because ij set forth with unchanged cliMnicss tlie stiffest claims of the papacy^o temporal and spiritiuil power. It begins with the assertion that there isjOuIyi-Qne true Churchy outside of whigh there is no salvation. The pope is the vicar of Chri_st, and whoever refuses to be ruled by Peter belongs not to the fold of Christ. Both s^vp^ds are_subject jtojthe Church, the spiritual and the temporal. The temporal sword is to be wielded for the Church, the spiritual hy it. The secular estate may be judged by the spiritual estate, but the spiritual estate by no human tribunal. The document closes with the startling declaration that for every human being the condition of salvation is obedience to the Roman pontifL
There was no assertion of authority contained in this bull which had not been before made by Gregory VII. and his successors, and the document leans back not only upon the deliverances of popes, but upon the definitions of theologians like Hugo de St. Victor, Bernard and Thomas Aquinas. But in the Unam sanctam the arrogance of the papacy find? its most naked and irritating expression.
One of the clauses pronounces all offering resistance to the pope's authority Manichoeans. Thus Philip was made a heretic. Sij^nonths later the pope sent a cardiiial legate, John le Moine of Amiens, to announce to the king his excommunicatiojj_for ^preventing French bishops_ irom ^Qing_to BiOfflfi* The bearer of the message was imprisongd and the legate fled. Boniface now called upon the German emperor, Allbrecht, to take Philip's throue, as Innocent III. had called upon the French king to take Jolm's crown, and Innocent IV. upon the count of Artois to take the crown of Frederick II. Albrecht had wisdom, enougji to dediiu' the empty gift. Pliilip's seizure of the papal bulls before they could be promulged in France was met by Boniface's announcement that the posting of a bull on the chureli doors of Rome was sufficient to give it force.
The jVejich pn.r1ia.mp.nt,, Jnnp., 1 >^Q3^_passedf rom the nega.-