Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/72

66 BONIFACE chosen in a popular tumult in which Benedict VI. was strangled in 974, died in 985. He was expelled from Eome shortly after his election, and went to Constantinople, but returned on the death of Benedict VII. (983), and finding John XIV. in the papal chair, had him thrown into prison and resumed the place. VIIL Bene- detto Gaetano, horn at Anagni about 1228, died in Rome in October, 1303. About 1255 he visited England; in 1280 he went to Germany as secretary of a papal legate; in 1281 he was made a cardinal by Martin IV., who allowed him to receive the revenues of twelve benefices, seven of them being in France and one in Eng- land. He was papal legate in France in 1290, and afterward in Sicily and Portugal, and was chosen to the papal chair on the abdication of Celestine V. in December, 1294. His entry into Eome was attended with extraordinary pomp. In 1296 Boniface issued his famous bull, Clerieis laicos, by which he forbade the clergy, tinder pain of excommunication, to pay without the consent of the holy see any subsidy or tax on any ecclesiastical property, and ex- tended the excommunication to the emperors, kings, or princes who should impose such sub- sidy. The vigor with which Philip the Fair resisted this bull obliged the pope to retract, and to allow the taxes to be raised in France as before. He became soon after embroiled with the Colonna family, who denied the valid- ity of his election. Two cardinals of this family were deprived of their dignities ; the entire family were excommunicated, their de- scendants were condemned to civil degradation to the fourth generation, their castles and their city, Prseneste, were totally destroyed, and Frederick of Aragon, whom they had support- ed, was ordered to renounce the title of king of Sicily, and to evacuate the island. The Colon- nas took refuge in France. Boniface inter- fered to make peace between France and Eng- land. He censured the king of Denmark and his brother ; forbade the king of Naples to treat with Frederick, elected king of Sicily; summoned to Rome Albert I., king of Ger- many, whose election as emperor he declared to be invalid without the papal sanction ; and rebuked Philip the Fair for his treatment of Guido of Flanders. In 1300 Boniface pro- claimed the first jubilee in a bull granting plenary indulgence to all who should visit the sanctuaries in Rome during that year. Soon after this his quarrel with the king of France became more violent than ever. In December, 1301, Boniface issued the bull Amculta Dei, and convoked a council of the French bishops at Rome to examine the conduct of King Philip, at the same time affirming it to be he- retical not to believe that the king was subject to the pope in secular as well as spiritual affairs. The French nation, however, opposed the pretensions of the pope, and supported their king ; and it was formally declared by the three estates that the king held his power in fief to no one, and in secular matters was subject to God alone. The bishops were for- bidden to attend the council at Rome, which therefore was never held. In 1302 the bull Unam sanctam affirmed the claims of the pope, setting forth that the church wields two swords, the spiritual and the secular, but that the secu- lar is subordinate to the spiritual, and that therefore kings, who hold the former, are sub- ject to the pope, who holds the latter. The bishops 'of France were again convoked under pain of excommunication ; but Philip ordered the sequestration of the property of every one who should be absent from his diocese, and in his turn summoned a general council at Lyons to judge the pope. To this council the univer- sity of Paris and a large number of prelates ad- hered ; the excommunication of Philip fol- lowed, April 13, 1303 ; and in June the assem- bled estates of France declared the pope a criminal and a heretic. The king sent Guil- lanme de Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna to Rome to seize the pope and bring him before the council of Lyons. They armed about 300 malcontent Italian nobles, surprised Anagni, the residence of Boniface, forced the palace, and seized the person, diamonds, and papers of the pope, and guarded him as a prisoner. After three days Boniface was rescued by the inhabitants of Anagni and taken to Rome, where he was protected in the Vatican by the Orsini ; but the violent commotion he had gone through caused his death 34 days after his captivity. Boniface incurred the bitter en- mity of Dante by his persecution of the Ghi- bellines, and is repeatedly denounced in the Divina Commedia. IX. Pletro Tomxcelli, bora in Naples, succeeded Urban VI., at Rome, Nov. 2, 1389, while the antipope Clement VII. ruled at Avignon, died in Eome, Oct. 1, 1404. He recognized Ladislas, the son of Charles of Du- razzo, asking of Naples in 1390, and celebrated two jubilees, 1390 and 1400. The annates, which had before been occasional, he made perpetual, and decreed that archbishops and bishops nominated to benefices should pay to Rome one half of their first year's revenue. He was twice expelled from Rome by the mu- nicipal authorities, and when in 1400 his pres- ence became necessary for the celebration of the jubilee, he refused to return till the Ro- mans consented to the overthrow of the mu- nicipal government, promised obedience to a senate appointed by himself, and paid him a sum of money. From that time he ruled the city absolutely. BONIFACE, a saint of the Roman Catholic church, born in Devonshire, England, about 680, died in Friesland in June, 755. His bap- tismal name was Winifrid or Winifreth. He is usually called the apostle of Germany, though he was not the first to preach Christianity in that country. He was educated in the Bene- dictine monastery of Exeter, and was at one time professor of theology, history, and rhetoric in that of Nutcell, where he became a presbyter. In 718 he went to Eome, and received from