§ 6. THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPACY TO AVIGNON. 49
Clement^s coronation was celebrated at Lyons, Philip and his brother Charles of Valois, the Duke of Bretagne and representatives of the king of England being present. Philip and the duke walked at the side of the pope's palfrey. By the fall of an old wall during the procession, the duke, a brother of the pope, and ten other persons lost their lives. The pope himself was thrown from his horse, his tiara rolled in the dust, and a large carbuncle, which adorned it, was lost. Scarcely ever was a papal ruler put in a more compromising position than the new pontiff. His subjection to a sovereign who had defied the papacy was a strange spectacle. He owed his tiara indirectly, if not immediately, to Philip the Fajr. He was the man Philip wanted. ^ It was his task to appease the king's anger against the memory of Boniface, and to meet his brutal demands concerning the Knights Templars. These, with the Council of Vienne, which he called, were the chief historic concerns of his pontificate.
The terms on which the new pope received the tia^ were imposed by Philip himself, and, according to Villani, the price he made the Gascon pay included six pronyses. Five of them concerned the total undoing of what Boniface had done in his conflict with Philip. The sixth article, which was kept secret, was supposed to be the destruction of the order of the Temglars. It is true that the authenticity of these six articles has been disputed, but there can be no doubt that from the very outset of Clement's pontificate, the French king pressed their execution upon the pope's attention. ^ Clement, in poor position to resist, confirmed what Benedict had done and went
1 Dollinger says Clement passed completely into the service of the king, er trat ganz in den Dienst des Konigs. Akad. Vortrdge, III. 254.
2 Mansi was the first to express doubts concerning these articles, reported by Villani, VIII. 80. Dollinger : Akad. Vortrdge, III. 254, and Hefele, following Bouteric, deny them altogether. Hefele, in a long and careful statement, VI. 394-40.3, gives reasons for regarding them as an Italian invention. Clement distinctly said that he knew nothing of the charges against the Templars till the day of his coronation. On the other hand, Villani's testimony is clear and positive, and at any rate shows the feeling which prevailed in the early part of the fourteenth century. Archer is inclined to hold on to Villani's testimony, Enc. Brit., XXIII. 164. The character of pope and king, and the circumstances under which Clement was elected, make a compact altogether probable.
60 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
farther. He absolved the kingj recalled. Feb. 1, 1306^ the offensive bulls Clericis laicos and Unam sanctam, so far as they implied anything offensive to France or any subjection on the part of the king to the papal chair, not customary before their issue, and fully restored the cardinals of the Colonna family to the dignities of their office.
The proceedings touching the character of Boniface VIII. and his right to a place among the popes dragged along for fully six years. Philip had offered, among others, his brother. Count Louis of Evreux, as a witness for the charge that Boniface had died a heretic. There was a division of sentiment among the cardinals. The Colonna were as hostile to the memory of Boniface as they were zealous in their writings for the memory of Coelestine V. They pronounced it to be contrary to the divine ordinance for a pope to abdicate. His spiritual marriage with the Church cannot be dissolved. And as for there being two popes at the same time, God was himself not able to constitute such a monstrosity. On the other hand, writers like Augustinus Triumphus defended Boniface and pronounced him a martyr to the interests of the Church and worthy of canonization. ^ In his zeal against his old enemy Philip had called, probably as early as 1305, for the canonization of Coelestine V.^ A second time, in 1307, Boniface's cqiidemnation was pressed upon__Clement by the king in persQjj. But the pope knew how to prolong the prosecution on all sorts of pretexts. Philip represented himself as concerned for the interests of religion, and Nogaret and the other conspirators insisted that the assault at Avignon was a religious acUnegotium fidei. Nogaret sent forth no less than twelve apologies defending himself for his part in the assault.^ ^In 1310 the . formal
1 Dupuy, pp. 448-465. See Finke and Scholz, pp. 108-207. Among thoi^e who took side.s against the pope was Peter Dubois. In his Deliberatio super agendis a Philippo IV. (Dupuy, pp. 44-47), he pronounced Boniface a heretic. This tract was probably written during the sessions of the National Assembly in Paris, April, 1302. See Scholz, p. 38G. In another tract Dubois (Dupuy, pp. 214-19) called upon the French king to condemn Boniface as a heretic.
2 This is upon the basis of a tractate found and published by Finke, Aus den Tagen Bon. VIIL, pp. Ixix-c, and which he puts in the year 1.308. See pp. Ixxxv, xcviii. Scholz, p. 174, ascribes this tract to Augustinus Triumphus.
8 Holtzmann : W. von Nogaret, p. 202 scjq.