§ 6. THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPACY TO AVIGNON. 51
trial began. jNIany witnesses appeared to testify against Boniface,— laymen, priests and bishops. The accusatioi^p were that the pope had declared all three religions false, Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity, pronounced the virgin birth a tale, denied transubstantiation and the existence of hell and heaven and that he had played games of chance.
Clement issued one bull after another protesting the innocency of the offending parties concerned in the violent measures against Boniface. Philip and Nogaret were declared innocent of all guilt and to have only pure motives in preferring charges against the dead pope.^ The bull. Rex glorice, 1311, addressed to Philip, stated that the secular kingdom was founded by God and that France in the new dispensation occupied about the same place as Israel, the elect people, occupied under the old dispensation. Nogaret's purpose in entering into the agreement which resulted in the affair at Anagni was to save the Church from destruction at the hands of Boniface, and the plundering of the papal palace and church was done against the wishes of the French chancellor. In several bulls Clement recalled all punishments^ .statements, suspensions and declarations made against Philip and his kiiicrdpm, or supposed to have been mach^. And to fully placate the king, he ordered all Boniface's pronouncements of this cliaracter effaced from the books of the Roman Church. Thus ijj the most solemii_j^ULl2iil form did Boniface's successor undo all that Boniface had clone.^ When the CEcumenical Council of Vienne met, the case of Boniface was so notorious a matter that it hj.djb^l5e^ken jip . After a forn2al trial, in which the accused pontifL-W-as-d^fendad-by three cardinalviie- w.as j4~ judged not guilty^ To gain this point, and to save his predecessor from formal condemnation, it is probable Clement
1 The tract of 1308 attempts to prove some of the charges against Boniface untrue, or that true sayings attributed to him did not make him a heretic. For example, it takes up the charges that Boniface had called the Gauls dogs, and had said he would rather be a dog than a Gaul. The argument begins byquoting Eccles. 3 : 19, p. Ixx. sqq.
2 The condemned clauses were in some cases erased, but Boniface's friends succeeded in keeping some perfect copies of the originals. See Hefele- Knopfler, VI. 460.
52 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
had to surrender to Philip unqualifiedly in the matter of the Knights of the Temple.
After long and wearisome proceedings, this orde_^r was formally legislated out of existence by Clement iii^J Sl^. Founded in 1119 toprotectpilgrims and to defend the Holy Land against the Moslems, it had outlived its mission. Sapped of its energy by riches and indulgence, its once famous knights might well have disbanded and no interest been the worse for it. The story, however, of their forcible suppression awakens universal sympathy and forms one of the most thrilling and mysterious chapters of the age. Dollinger has called it " a unique drama in history." ^
The destruction of the Templar order was relentlessly insisted upon by Philip the Fair, and accomplished with the reluctant co-operation of Clement V. In vain did the king strive to hide the sordidness of his purpose under the thin mask of religious zeal. At Clement's coronation, if not before, Philip brought charges against it. About the same time, in the insurrection called forth by his debasement of the coin, the king took refuge in the Templars' building at Paris. In 1307 he renewed the charges before the pope. When Clement hesitated, he proceeded to violence, and on the night of Oct. 13, 1307, he had all the members of the order in France arrested and thrown into prison, including Jacques de Molay, tliQ, grand-master. Dollinger applies to this deed the strong language that, if he were asked to pick out from the whole history of the world the accursed day, — dies nefastns, — he would be able to name none other than Oct. 13, 1307. Three days later, Philip announced he had taken this action as the defender of the faith and called upon Christian princes to follow his example. Little as the business was to Clement's taste, he was not man enough to set himself in opposition to the king, and he gradually became complai-
1 DoUinger's treatment, Akad. Vortragr, III. 244-274, was the last address that distinguished historian made before the Munich Academy of the Sciences. In his zeal to present a good case for the Templars, he suggests that if they had been let alone they might have done good service by policing the Mediterranean, with Cyprus as a base.