Boniface VIII

“ Boniface VIII. elected pope.So Benedetto Gaetani, whether by such wily procurements or not, became Pope Boniface VIII., A.D. 1294. His election was probably due to King Charles, who held twelve electoral votes, the bitter personal animosity of the Colonnas having been either neutralized or overcome. The first care of Boniface was to consolidate his power and relieve himself of a rival. In the opinion of many it was not possible for a pope to abdicate. ”

“ By embodying in the canon law the bull Unam Sanctam the Church accepted the definition of Boniface VIII. that whoever resists the power lodged by God in the Church resists God, unless, like a Manichæan, he believes in two principles, which shows him to be a heretic. If the supreme spiritual power errs, it is to be judged of God alone; there is no earthly appeal. “We say, declare, define, and pronounce that it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subjected to the Roman pontiff.” ”

“ See FRANCE: A. D. 1268. PAPACY: A. D. 1275. Ratification of the Donation of Charlemagne and the Capitulation of Otho IV. by Rodolph of Hapsburg. See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308. PAPACY: A. D. 1279. The English Statute of Mortmain. See ENGLAND: A. D. 1279. PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348. The stormy pontificate of Boniface VIII. His conflict with Philip IV. of France. The "Babylonish Captivity." Purchase of Avignon, which becomes the Papal Seat. Boniface VIII., who came to the Papal throne in 1294, "was a man of so much learning that Petrarch extols him as the wonder of the world. ”

“ Provision is made for the Safe Enclosure of Nuns, especially those who dwell without Cities.
The holy synod, renewing the constitution of Boniface VIII., which begins Periculoso, enjoins on all bishops, by the judgment of God to which it appeals, and under the threat of eternal malediction, that, by their ordinary authority, in all monasteries subject to them, and in others, by that of the Apostolic See, they take especial care that the enclosure of nuns be carefully restored, wheresoever it has been violated, and that it be preserved, wheresoever it has not been violated ”

“ If I did not deserve to be degraded from my Dignity, I did not deserve to be driven from my See. Thus he artfully turned the Mercy that had been shewn him against those who had shewn it; and, having by that means imposed upon the Primate, persuaded him to write a Letter in his Behalf to Boniface. |How received by Boniface.| With this Letter he repaired to Rome, but did not meet there with the Reception he expected: for all he could obtain of Boniface was a Letter to the Bishops of Numidia, requiring them to reinstate him in his See, provided he had represented Matters as they truly were. ”

“ Ambition. Boniface was naturally a Lover of Peace, and an Enemy to all Strife and Contention. He did not claim, nor attempt to usurp, any new Power over his Collegues; but yet he would not part with any his Predecessors enjoyed, by what means soever they had acquired it; and those who attempted to curtail the usurped Jurisdiction of the Apostolic See, met with as vigorous an Opposition from him as they could have done either from Innocent or Zosimus. ”

“ In 424 he led into Italy an army of 60,000 barbarians, mostly Huns, which he employed first to support the primicerius Joannes, who had proclaimed himself emperor, and, on the defeat of the latter, to enforce his claim to the supreme command of the army in Gaul upon Placidia, the empress-mother and regent for Valentinian III. His calumnies against his rival, Count Boniface, which were at first believed by the emperor, led Boniface to revolt and call the Vandals to Africa. Upon the discovery of the truth, Boniface, although defeated in Africa, was received into favour by Valentinian ”

“ The relation of the ancients is trustworthy, to the effect that, to those going to the famous church of the Prince of the Apostles in the City, great remissions and indulgences of their sins have been granted. ”

“ He was able to restore Roman authority in the major part of the papal states, and in 1398 put an end to the republican liberties of the city itself. Boniface won Naples, which had owed spiritual allegiance to the antipopes Clement VII. and Benedict XIII. of Avignon, to the Roman obedience. In 1403 he ventured at last to confirm the deposition of the emperor Wenceslaus and the election of Rupert. Negotiations for the healing of the Great Schism were without result. In spite of his inferior education, the contemporaries of Boniface trusted his prudence and moral character ”

“ We therefore who, as is the duty of our office, do seek and most willingly procure the salvation of individuals, considering each and all such remissions and indulgences as valid and helpful, do confirm and approve them by apostolic authority ”

“ Boniface I., bishop of Rome from 418 to 422. At the death of Pope Zosimus, the Roman clergy were divided into two factions, one of which elected the deacon Eulalius, and the other the priest Boniface. The imperial government, in the interests of public order, commanded the two competitors to leave the town, reserving the decision of the case to a council. Eulalius having broken his ban, the emperor Honorius decided to recognize Boniface, and the council was countermanded. But the faction of Eulalius long continued to foment disorders, and the secular authority was compelled to intervene. ”

“ Boniface got into serious quarrels with princes and others; but the most serious of them all was a quarrel with Philip IV. of France, who is called The Fair on account of his good looks—not that there was any fairness in his character, for it would not be easy to name any one more utterly unfair. If Boniface wished to exalt himself above princes, Philip, who was a thoroughly hard, cold, selfish man, was no less desirous to get the mastery over the clergy; and it was natural that between two such [Pg 237] persons unpleasant differences should arise. ”

“ Three bishops (including the bp. of Ostia) assisted at the consecration of Eulalius, nine at that of Boniface. Symmachus reported to the emperor Honorius in favour of Eulalius. Honorius decided accordingly, and ordered Boniface to quit the city, but ultimately pronounced in his favour. This was the third disputed election (see full account, with all the documents, in Baronius s.a. 419; Jaffé, Regesta) . Personally, Boniface is described as an old man at the time of his appointment, which he was unwilling to accept, of mild character, given to good works (Anastasius, Lib. Pont.) . ”

“ Bonifacius II., pope, successor to Felix IV., of Roman birth but Gothic parentage, son of Sigisbald or Sigismund, was elected bp. of Rome on Sept. 17, 530, and consecrated five days later in the basilica of Julius (Jaffé, Regesta Pont.) . At the same time a rival party in the basilica of Constantine elected and consecrated Dioscorus. The Roman church was saved from schism by the death of Dioscorus a few weeks afterwards; but Boniface carried his enmity beyond the grave, and anathematized his dead rival for simony (cf. Cassiodorus, Var. 9, Ep. 5) . ”

“ Boniface brought money and troops for the siege of Turin, and succeeded in procuring his brother’s release. During his absence he summoned a newly elected bishop of Ely to Belley for consecration—an unheard-of proceeding which led to a protest from the sukragaus of the province of Canterbury. In 1256 Boniface returned to England, and again behaved as though the air of England inspired him with a fictitious patriotism. He made common cause with the English bishops in withstanding the exactions of the pope and king. ”

“ Boniface, who was a man of open and generous mind, did not suspect the villany of Aëtius; and, as the only means of saving himself, he rebelled against the emperor, and invited the Vandals from Spain to invade Africa. These Vandals were a savage nation, which had overrun part of Spain about twenty years before. They now gladly accepted Boniface's invitation, and passed in great numbers into Africa, where the Moors joined them, and the Donatists eagerly seized the opportunity of avenging themselves on the Catholics, by assisting the invaders. ”

“ The French vice-chancellor Guillaume de Nogaret was sent to arrest the pope, against whom grave charges had been brought, and bring him to France to be deposed by an oecumenical council. The accusation of heresy has usually been dismissed as a slander; but recent investigations make it probable, though not quite certain, that Boniface privately held certain Averroistic tenets, such as the denial of the immortality of the soul. ”

“ Aglaë, in her lonely palace, gave herself up to prayer and penance; Boniface at once joined himself to the band of Christians who made it their business to gather up and bury the bodies of the martyrs. In no other way could he assuage the tumult of pain and repentance that filled his heart at the remembrance of his sins. Diocletian’s persecution was not confined to Rome, but was raging in many other parts of the Empire, notably in Asia Minor, and thither Boniface travelled with some devoted companions, in order to help and cheer the poor Christians in their sufferings. ”

“ It gave final expression to the theory of the jurisdiction of the papacy. Intended to break down the opposition of Philip IV of France, who was asserting the independent rights of kings, it set forth in unambiguous terms the pope’s claim to supreme authority in all mundane affairs and made salvation to depend upon personal submission to him. Boniface was giving expression to no new assumption. In compact statement he gathered up the claims which his predecessors had been constantly making for more than two centuries. ”

“ He fought in battles even when a boy and was known far and wide for his bravery and skill as a leader.
About the time that Genseric became king, the governor of the Roman province in the north of Africa, on the Mediterranean coast, was a man called Count Boniface. This Count Boniface had been a Page 47 good and loyal officer of Rome; but a plot was formed against him by Aëtius, the general who had fought Attila at Châlons. The Roman emperor at the time of the plot was Valentinian III. He was then too young to act as ruler, so the affairs of government were managed by his mother Placid'i-a. ”

“ As a monk of the Order of Benedict, he belonged to the Anglo- Saxon Church which under Gregory the Great had again united itself most intimately with Rome, gradually overcoming that ancient Brit- ish individualism that had grown up during the time when England was cut off from the Empire by the Germanic invasions. Wynnfrith, for that was Boniface's original name, completed in more than thirty
SAINT BONIFACE 79
years of labour a task with which everyone is familiar. ”

“ Boniface had been elected by a coalition ' between the Colonna and the Orsini factions, but after his coronation he turned upon the Colonnas, who, in revenge, plundered his treasure. A struggle followed, which ended fatally to the pope; but at first he had the advantage, sacked their city of Praeneste, and forced them to fly to France. On the brink of this war, Boniface was in no condition to rouse so dangerous an adversary as Philip, and, in answer to Clairvaux's appeal, he confined himself to excommunicating the prince who should tax the priest and the priest who should pay the impost. ”

“ It is easier to raise a host of excursionists than a band of crusaders. Boniface came into conflict with the French king in 1302, and in 1303, as he was about to pronounce sentence of excommunication against that monarch, he was surprised and arrested in his own ancestral palace, at Anagni, by Guillaume de Nogaret. ”

“ In April, 1302, the estates of the realm sustained the "little one-eyed heretic," as Boniface called Flotte, in burning the papal bull, and in answering the admonitions of the pope with mockery.
"Philip, by the grace of God king of the French, to Boniface, who calls himself sovereign pontiff, little greeting or none. Let your very great foolishness know that we are subject to no one for the temporalty; that the collation to the vacant churches and prebends belongs to us by royal right; that their fruits are ours ”

“ The career of Boniface was now drawing to its close, and he seized the occasion of Pepin’s coronation to obtain the sanction of the new monarch to a design he had long secretly cherished. It was that of resigning his dignities, and ending his life, as he had begun it, in humble missionary labours. He accordingly wrote, entreating the king’s protection for his churches, clergy, and scholars. “I beg his highness,” he says, “in the name of Christ, to let me know, while I live, in what way he will deal with my disciples after my death. For they are, almost all of them, foreigners ”

“ Boniface might have taken advantage of such an opportunity to push his fortunes in the church of his own country; but he was imbued with the zeal of the missionary, and his whole mind was bent upon continuing the work of preaching the gospel in Frisia, the country in which the Englishman Willibrord had already been labottring since 692, and had established his see at Wittaburg, or Utrecht.
In 716 Boniface crossed the sea, accompanied by only two monks, but he found the Frisians in no condition to receive his teaching. War had broken out. ”

“ He reigned in Lucca almost in the guise of an independent monarch, and enjoyed the favour of the Othos. His successors continued to govern with much the same authority as the dukes of Benevento; and Bonifazio III. extended his State even to Northern Italy, thus giving umbrage to Henry III., whom he often outrivalled in cunning. Bonifazio being voracious for power, and of tyrannical temper, stripped many prelates, counts, and monasteries of their possessions, either to seize them in his own grasp or give them to better trusted vassals. ”