The Law of Civilization and Decay

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 Præneste, 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.

Nevertheless, the issue had to be met. The Church had weakened as terror of the unknown had waned, and could no longer defend its wealth, which was destined to pass more and more completely into the hands of the laity.

Philip continued his aggressions, and, when peace had been established in Italy, the rupture came. Not realizing his impotence, and exasperated at the royal policy, Boniface sent Bernard de Saisset, Bishop of Pamiers, to Paris as his ambassador. Bernard had recently been consecrated in defiance of Philip, and they were bitter enemies. He was soon dismissed from court, but he continued his provocations, calling the king a false coiner and a blockhead, and when he returned to Pamiers he plotted an insurrection. He was arrested and prosecuted by the Chancellor Flotte, but when delivered to the Archbishop of Narbonne for degradation, action was suspended to await the sanction of Rome. Then Flotte was sent to Italy to demand the surrender “of the child of perdition,” that Philip might make of him “an excellent sacrifice to God.” The mission necessarily failed, for it was a struggle for supremacy, and the issue was well summed up in the final words of the stormy interview which brought it to a close. “My power, the spiritual power,” cried Boniface, “embraces and encloses the temporal.” “True,” retorted Flotte, “but yours is verbal, the king’s is real.”

An ecclesiastical council was convoked for October, 1302, and Philip was summoned to appear before the greatest prelates of Christendom. But, not waiting the meeting of this august assembly, Boniface, on December 5, 1301, launched his famous bull, “Ausculta, fili,” which was his declaration of war.168

Listen, my son: do not persuade yourself that you have no superior, and are not in subjection to the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy: he who says this is mad, he who sustains it is an infidel. You devour the revenues of the vacant bishoprics, you pillage churches. I do not speak now of the alterations in the coinage, and of the other complaints which arise on all sides, and which cry to us against you, but not to make myself accountable to God for your soul, I summon you to appear before me, and in case of your refusal shall render judgment in your absence.169

A century before, the barons of France had abandoned Philip Augustus, through fear of the incantations of Innocent, but, in the third generation of the commercial type, such fears had been discarded. 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; that collations which have been made, or are to be made by us, are valid for the past and for the future, and that we will manfully protect their possessors against all comers. Those who think otherwise we hold fools or madmen.”170

The accepted theory long was that the bourgeoisie were neutral in this quarrel; that they were an insignificant factor in the state, and obeyed passively because they were without the power to oppose. In reality, consolidation had already gone so far that money had become the prevailing form of force in the kingdom of France; therefore the monied class was on the whole the strongest class, and Flotte was their mouthpiece. They accepted the papers drawn by the chancellor, because the chancellor was their representative.171

In July, 1302, Philip met with the defeat of Courtray, and the tone of the ecclesiastical council, convened in October, shows that the clergy thought his power broken. A priest relies upon the miracle, and, if defied, he must either conquer by supernatural aid, or submit to secular coercion. Boniface boldly faced the issue, and planted himself by Hildebrand. In his bull, Unam Sanctam, he defined his claim to the implicit obedience of laymen.

“We are provided, under his authority, with two swords, the temporal and the spiritual; … both, therefore, are in the power of the Church; to wit, the spiritual and the material sword: … the one is to be used by the priest, the other by kings and soldiers; sed ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis.”172

A sentence of excommunication had also been prepared and sent to France, which was to have been followed by deposition; but when it arrived, Philip convened an assembly of prelates and barons at the Louvre, and presented an indictment against Boniface, probably without a parallel in modern history. The pope was accused of every crime. He was an infidel, a denier of the immortality of the soul, a scoffer at the eucharist, a murderer, and a sorcerer. He was guilty of unnatural crimes and of robbery.173

The bearer of the bull was arrested, the property of the bishops who had attended the council sequestered, and Philip prepared to seize Boniface in his own palace. Boniface, too, felt the decisive hour at hand. He tried to reconcile himself with his enemies, drew the bull of deposition, and prepared to affix it to the church door at Anagni on September 8, 1303. Before the day came he was a prisoner, and face to face with death.

Flotte had been killed at Courtray, and had been succeeded by the redoubtable Nogaret, whose grandfather was believed to have been burned as a heretic. With Nogaret Philip joined Sciarra Colonna, the bloodiest of the Italian nobles, and sent them together to Italy to deal with his foe. Boniface had made war upon the Colonnas, and Sciarra had been hunted like a wild beast. Flying disguised, he had been taken by pirates, and had preferred to toil four years as a galley-slave, rather than run the risk of ecclesiastical mercy by surrendering himself to the vicar of Christ. At last Philip heard of his misfortunes, bought him, and, at the crisis, let him slip like a mad dog at the old man’s throat. Nogaret and Colonna succeeded in corrupting the governor of Anagni, and entered the town at dead of night; but the pope’s nephews had time to barricade the streets, and it was not until the church, which communicated with the papal apartments, had been fired, that the palace was forced. There, it was said, they found the proud old priest sitting upon his throne, with his crown upon his head, and men whispered that, as he sat there, Colonna struck him in the face with his gauntlet.

Probably the story was false, but it reflected truly enough the spirit of the pope’s captors. He himself believed them capable of poisoning him, for from Saturday night till Monday morning he lay without food or drink, and when liberated was exhausted. Boniface was eighty-six, and the shock killed him. He was taken to Rome, and died there of fever, according to the rumour, blaspheming, and gnawing his hands in frenzy.174

The death of Boniface was decisive. Benedict XI., who succeeded him, did not attempt to prolong the contest; but peace without surrender was impossible. The economic classes held the emotionalists by the throat, and strangled them till they disgorged.

Vainly Benedict revoked the acts of his predecessor. Philip demanded that Boniface should be branded as a heretic, and sent Nogaret to Rome as his ambassador. The insult was more than the priesthood could yet endure. Summoning his courage, Benedict excommunicated Nogaret, Colonna, and thirteen others, whom he had seen break into the palace at Anagni. Within a month he was dead. Poison was whispered, and, for the first time since the monks captured the papacy, the hierarchy was paralyzed by fear. No complaint was made, or pursuit of the criminal attempted; the consistory met, but failed to unite on a successor.

According to the legend, when the cardinals were unable to agree, the faction opposed to Philip consented to name three candidates, from whom the king should select the pope. The prelate he chose was Bertrand de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux. Boniface had been his patron, but Philip, who knew men, knew that this man had his price. The tale goes that the king visited the bishop at an abbey near Saint-Jean-d’Angély, and began the conversation as follows: “My lord Archbishop, I have that in my hand will make you pope if I like, and it is for that I am come.” Bertrand fell on his knees, and the king imposed five conditions, reserving a sixth, to exact thereafter. The last condition was the condemnation of the Templars.175

Doubtless the picturesque old tale is as false in detail as it is true in spirit. Probably no such interview took place, and yet there seems little doubt that Clement owed his election to Philip, and gave pledges which bound him from the day of his coronation. Certainly he surrendered all liberty of action, for he established himself at Avignon, whence the battlements of Ville-Neuve can still be seen, built by Philip to overawe the town. Within an hour he could have filled the streets with his mercenaries. The victory was complete. The Church was prostrate, and spoliation began.

Clement was crowned in 1305, and after two years of slavery he began to find his compact heavy upon him. He yielded up the patronage, he consented to the taxation of the clergy, and he ordered the grand-masters of the crusading orders to return to Europe, all at Philip’s bidding. But when he was commanded to condemn Boniface as a heretic, he recoiled in terror. Indeed, to have rejected Boniface as an impostor, and a false pope, would have precipitated chaos. His bishops and cardinals would have been set aside, Clement’s own election would have been invalidated; none could foresee where the disorganization would end. To gain time, Clement pleaded for a general council, which the king morosely conceded, but only on the condition that the excommunications against his agents, even against Nogaret, should be withdrawn. Clement assented, for he was practically a prisoner at Poitiers, a council at Vienne was agreed to, and the Crown seized the Templars without opposition from the Church.

Criticism has long ago dispelled the mystery which once shrouded this bloody process. No historian now suggests that the knights were really guilty of the fantastic enormities charged against them, and which they confessed under torture. Scepticism doubtless was rife among them, as it was among the cardinals, but there is nothing to show that the worst differed materially from the population about them, and the superb fortitude with which they perished, demonstrates that lack of religious enthusiasm was not the crime for which they died.

When Philip conceived the idea of first murdering and then plundering the crusaders, is uncertain. Some have thought it was in 1306, while sheltered in the Temple, when, he having suddenly raised his debased money to the standard of Saint Louis, the mob destroyed the house of his master of the mint. Probably it was much earlier, and was but the necessary result of the sharpening of economic competition, which began with the accelerated movement accompanying the crusades.

After Clement’s election, several years elapsed before the scheme ripened. Nothing could be done until one or both of the grand-masters had been enticed to France with their treasure. Under pretence of preparing for a new crusade this was finally accomplished, and, in 1306, Jacques de Molay, a chivalrous Burgundian gentleman, journeyed unsuspectingly to Paris, taking with him his chief officers and one hundred and fifty thousand florins in gold, beside silver “enough to load ten mules.”

Philip first borrowed all the money de Molay would lend, and then, at one sudden swoop, arrested in a single night all the Templars in France. On October 13, 1307, the seizure was made, and Philip’s organization was so perfect, and his agents so reliable, that the plan was executed with precision.

The object of the government was plunder, but before the goods of the order could be confiscated, legal conviction of some crime was necessary, which would entail forfeiture. Heresy was the only accusation adapted to the purpose; accordingly Philip determined to convict the knights of heresy, and the best evidence was confession. To extort confession the Inquisition had to be set in motion by the pope, and thus it came to pass that, in order to convey to the laymen the property of ecclesiastics, Christ’s soldiers were tormented to death by his own vicar.

In vain, in the midst of the work, Clement, in agonies of remorse, revoked the commissions of the inquisitors. Philip jeered when the cardinals delivered the message, saying “that God hated the lukewarm,” and the torture went on as before. When he had extorted what he needed, he set out for Poitiers; Clement fled, but was arrested and brought back a prisoner. Then his resolution gave way, and he abandoned the knights to their fate, reserving only the grand-master and a few high officials for himself. Still, though he forsook the individuals, he could not be terrified into condemning the order in its corporate capacity, and the final process was referred to the approaching council. Meanwhile, a commission, presided over by the Archbishop of Narbonne, proceeded with the trial of the knights.

For three years these miserable wretches languished in their dungeons, and the imagination recoils from picturing their torments. Finally Philip felt that an end must be made, and in March, 1310, 546 of the survivors were taken from their prisons and made to choose delegates, for their exasperation was so deep that the government feared to let them appear before the court in a body.

The precaution availed little, for the knights who conducted the common defence proved themselves as proud and bold in this last extremity of human misery, as they had ever been upon the day of battle. They denied the charges brought against them, they taunted their judges with the lies told them to induce them to confess, and they showed how life and liberty had been promised them, under the royal seal, if they would admit the allegations of the government. Then they told the story of those who had been steadfast to the end.

“It is not astonishing that some have borne false witness, but that any have told the truth, considering the sorrows and suffering, the threats and insults, they daily endure… What is surprising is that faith should be given to those who have testified untruly to save their bodies, rather than to those who have died in their tortures in such numbers, like martyrs of Christ, in defence of the truth, or who solely for conscience sake, have suffered and still daily suffer in their prisons, so many torments, trials, calamities, and miseries, for this cause.”176

The witnesses called confirmed their statements. Bernard Peleti, when examined, was asked if he had been put to the torture. He replied that for three months previous to his confession to the Bishop of Paris, he had lain with his hands so tightly bound behind his back that the blood started from his finger nails. He had beside been put in a pit. Then he broke out: “If I am tortured I shall deny all I have said now, and shall say all they want me to say. If the time be short, I can bear to be beheaded, or to die by boiling water, or by fire, for the honour of the order; but I can no longer withstand the torments which, for more than two years, I have endured in prison.”177

“I have been tortured three times,” said Humbert de Podio. “I was confined thirty-six weeks in a tower, on bread and water, quia non confitebatur quae volebant.”178 Bernard de Vado showed two bones which had dropped from his heels after roasting his feet.179

Such testimony was disregarded, for condemnation was necessary as a preliminary to confiscation. The suppression of the Temple was the first step in that long spoliation of the Church which has continued to the present day, and which has been agonizing to the victims in proportion to their power of resistance. The fourteenth century was still an age of faith, and the monks died hard. Philip grasped the situation with the intuition of genius, and provided himself with an instrument fit for the task before him. He forced Clement to raise Philip de Marigni to the See of Sens, and Marigni was a man who shrank from nothing.

When made archbishop, he convoked a provincial council at Paris, and condemned, as relapsed heretics, the knights who had repudiated their confessions. Fifty-nine of these knights belonged to his own diocese. He had them brought to a fenced enclosure in a field near the Abbey of Saint Antoine, and there offered them pardon if they would recant. Then they were chained to stakes, and slowly burned to ashes from the feet upward. Not one flinched, but amidst shrieks of anguish, when half consumed, they protested their innocence, and died imploring mercy of Christ and of the Virgin.180

Devotion so superb might have fired the imagination of even such a craven as Clement, but Philip was equal to the emergency. He had caused scores of witnesses to be examined to prove that Boniface was a murderer, a sorcerer, a debauchee, and a heretic. Suddenly he offered to drop the prosecution, and to restore the Temple lands to the Church, if the order might be abolished and the process closed. Clement yielded. In October, 1311, the council met at Vienne. The winter was spent in intimidation and bribery; the second meeting was not held until the following April, and then the decree of suppression was published. By this decree the corporation was dissolved, but certain of the higher officers still lived, and in an evil moment Clement bethought him of their fate. In December, 1313, he appointed a commission to try them. They were brought before a lofty scaffold at the portal of the Cathedral of Paris, and there made to reiterate the avowals which had been wrung from them in their dungeons. Then they were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. But at this supreme moment, when it seemed that all was over, de Molay, the grand-master, and the Master of Normandy, broke into a furious defence. The commissioners adjourned in a panic, but Philip, thirsting for blood, sprang upon his prey.

He gave his orders to his own officers, without consulting any prelate. On March 18, 1314, as night fell, the two crusaders were taken from the provost, who acted as their gaoler, and carried to a little island in the Seine, on which a statue of Henry of Navarre now stands. There they were burned together, without a trial and without a sentence. They watched the building of their funeral pile with “hearts so firm and resolute, and persisted with such constancy in their denials to the end, and suffered death with such composure, that they left the witnesses of their execution in admiration and stupor.”181

An ancient legend told how de Molay, as he stood upon his blazing fagots, summoned Clement to meet him before God’s judgment-seat in forty days, and Philip within a year. Neither survived the interval. Philip had promised to restore the goods of the Temple to the Church, but the plunder, for which this tremendous deed was done, was not surrendered tamely to the vanquished after their defeat. The gold and silver, and all that could be stolen, disappeared. The land was in the end ceded to the Hospital, but so wasted that, for a century, no revenue whatever accrued from what had been one of the finest conventual estates in Europe.182

Such was the opening of that social revolution which, when it reached its height, was called the Reformation.