Boniface VIII

original name Benedict Caetano. ?1234--1303, pope (1294--1303)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Boniface VIII

named Benedetto Gaetani. Born about 1235 at Anagni; died Oct. 11,1303, in Rome; pope from 1294.

Boniface actively defended the papal theocracy. He endeavored to enlarge the circle of states directly dependent on the papacy. He intervened in the question of who should occupy the throne of the Holy Roman Empire and the thrones of Hungary and Poland, and he laid claim to Sicily. His claim to exercise supreme authority over states in temporal matters (stated in the bull of 1302 Unam Sanctam) met with the opposition of the centralized states that were developing in Europe. He suffered defeat in his conflict with Philip IV of France, which had begun with the publication of the papal bull Clericis Laicos in 1296 forbidding kings to levy taxes on the clergy without the consent of the pope. The political victory of Philip IV over the pope paved the way for the papal Avignon captivity. Boniface VIII instituted the celebration of holy (jubilee) years in 1300.

REFERENCE

Boase, T. S. R. Boniface VIII. [London] 1933.

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References in periodicals archive

When he sees the fiery hole which will one day contain His Holiness Boniface VIII he cannot stop himself from proclaiming the justice of it all.

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However meager, some biographical details about Dante go unchallenged: he was married, had children, fought in the military campaign of Campaldino against the Aretines (June 1289), enrolled in a guild (1295), began a political career, craved recognition, was notoriously litigious, and in 1302, while on an embassy to the papal court and thanks to the maneuvers of Pope Boniface VIII, was exiled from his native city.

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He was canonized by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and his work, in particular The City of God, continues to provide inspired insights into the human condition afflicted by material desires and spiritual doubts.

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Prior to Westphalia and the Protestant Reformation, a Papal Bull issued in 1302 by Boniface VIII argued that the Pope was a higher authority than any temporal ruler.

Point: the Westphalia legacy and the modern nation-state

As Celestine's successor, Boniface VIII, might well have said: 'This tiara ain't big enough for the both of us

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Pope Boniface VIII in 1294 argued with French King Philip IV over Philip's plan to tax the church to pay for the king's wars.

Of popes and power: in the middle ages, the Vatican reigned supreme

Boniface VIII (1294-1303), for instance, "had a great gift for making people hate him" (including Dante, who wrote him into Hell) and coined the antidemocratic policy that would mark papacies for centuries.

Keeping the Faith

In one circle of hell, Pope Boniface VIII and two recent Cardinals (Law and O'Connor) drool and and writhe, muttering perversions worthy of Sade as they wander among the bodies of some young new arrivals, preparing to molest their souls.

"SO LONG AGO I CAN'T REMEMBER"

Even in our day, some Christians, while recognizing the failure of Constantine, Charlemagne, Boniface VIII, and others, or dreaming of a purified theocracy such as Dante conceived it long ago and Solovyov more recently, hope to restore a new and renewed Christendom.

The Dawn of Christianness

Thus he says little about the Crusades or the Hundred Years' War, while he focuses on the rehabilitation of Queen Brunehaud with whom contemporaries compared Catherine de Medici, on the clash between Philippe le Bel and Boniface VIII, on the trial of Joan of Arc, and on the treason of the Constable of Bourbon.

Les Recherches de la France