Pope Boniface VIII (, ; born Benedetto Caetani; – 11 October 1303) was head of the Catholic Church and leader of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 until his death in 1303. The Caetani family was of baronial origin with connections to the papacy. He succeeded Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated from the papal throne. Boniface spent his early pontificate abroad in diplomatic roles.
Boniface VIII put forward some of the strongest claims of any pope to temporal as well as spiritual power. He involved himself often with foreign affairs, including in France, Sicily, Italy, and the First War of Scottish Independence. These views, and his chronic intervention in temporal affairs, led to many bitter quarrels with Albert I of Germany, Philip IV of France, and later Dante Alighieri, who expected the pope to soon arrive at the eighth circle of Hell in his Divine Comedy, among the simoniacs.
Boniface systematized canon law by collecting it in a new volume, the Liber Sextus (1298), which continues to be important source material for canon lawyers. He established the first Catholic jubilee year to take place in Rome. Boniface had first entered into conflict with King Philip IV in 1296 when the latter sought to reinforce the nascent nation state by imposing taxes on the clergy and barring them from administration of the law. Boniface excommunicated Philip and all others who prevented French clergy from traveling to the Holy See, after which the king sent his troops to attack the pope's residence in Anagni on 7 September 1303 and capture him. Boniface was held for three days. He died a month afterwards.
King Philip IV pressured Pope Clement V of the Avignon Papacy into staging a posthumous trial of Boniface. He was accused of heresy, but no verdict against him was delivered.
Life and career Family Benedetto Caetani was born in Anagni, some southeast of Rome. He was a younger son of Roffredo Caetani (Podestà of Todi in 1274–1275), a member of a baronial family of the Papal States, the Caetani or Gaetani dell'Aquila.His elder brother, Roffredo or Goffredo, was the first Conte di Caserta from 1288, Signore di Calvi, Vairano e Norma in 1282, Senator of Rome 1290–1292, Signore di Vairano by decree of the King of Sicily on 1 April 1291, Podestà of Todi (1282/5–1283), Signore di Caserta (1290). He had a younger brother, Giovanni, and three sisters. Through his mother, Emilia Patrasso di Guarcino, a niece of Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo dei Conti di Segni—who was himself a nephew of Pope Gregory IX), he was not far distant from the seat of ecclesiastical power and patronage. His father's younger brother, Atenolfo, was Podestà di Orvieto.Finke, p. 9. Tosti, p. 37.
Early career Benedetto took his first steps into religious life when he was sent to the monastery of the Friars Minor in Velletri, where he was put under the care of his maternal uncle Fra Leonardo Patrasso.Tosti, p. 37, citing Teuli, History of Velletri, Book 2, chapter 5. He was granted a canonry at the cathedral in the family's stronghold of Anagni, with the permission of Pope Alexander IV. The earliest record of him is as a witness to an act of Bishop Pandulf of Anagni on 16 October 1250., at 345–346. In 1252, when his paternal uncle Pietro Caetani became Bishop of Todi, in Umbria, Benedetto followed him to Todi and began his legal studies there.
His uncle Pietro granted him a canonry in the Cathedral of Todi in 1260. He also came into possession of the small nearby castello of Sismano, a place with twenty-one fires (hearths, families). In later years Father Vitalis, the Prior of S. Egidio de S. Gemino in Narni testified that he knew him and conversed with him in Todi and that Benedetto was in a school run by Rouchetus, a Doctor of Laws, from that city.Pierre Dupuy, Histoire du differend d'entre le Pape Boniface VIII. et Philippes le Bel, Roy de France (Paris 1655), pp. 527–528.
Benedetto never forgot his roots in Todi, later describing the city as "the dwelling place of his early youth", the city which "nourished him while still of tender years", and as a place where he "held lasting memories." Later in life he repeatedly expressed his gratitude to Anagni, Todi, and his family.
In 1264, Benedetto entered the Roman Curia, perhaps with the office of Advocatus.Ptolemaeus of Lucca Historia ecclesiastica XXIII. 26 (Muratori Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XI, p. 203). Tosti (p. 37) believed that Caetani held the office of Advocatus before he set out with Cardinal Ottoboni on the English legation. He served as secretary to Cardinal Simon de Brion, the future Pope Martin IV, on a mission to France. Cardinal Simon had been appointed by Pope Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon), between 25 and 27 April 1264, to engage in negotiations with Charles of Anjou, Comte de Provence, over the Crown of Naples and Sicily. On 1 May 1264 he was given permission to appoint two or three tabelliones (secretaries) for his mission, one of whom was Benedetto.August Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum II (Berlin 1875), p. 1543, nos. 18858, 18859, 18867. Pope Urban IV had held a Consistory on 25 April, at which the matter of naming Charles of Anjou as Senator of Rome was discussed. It was after this meeting that Cardinal Simon was given his Legation.
On 26 February 1265, only eleven days after his coronation, the new pope, Pope Clement IV wrote to Cardinal Simon, telling him to break off negotiations and travel immediately to Provence, where he would receive further instructions. On the same day, Clement wrote to Charles of Anjou, informing him that the pope had 35 conditions that Charles must agree to in accepting the crown; he also wrote to Henry III of England and his son Edmund Crouchback that they had never been possessors of the Kingdom of Sicily.August Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum II (Berlin 1875), p. 1543, nos. 19037–19039. He also commended to the Cardinal the Sienese bankers who had been working for Urban IV to raise funds for Charles of Anjou, and that he should transfer to them some 7,000 pounds Tournois from the decima (ten percent tax) of France. On 20 March 1265, in order to expedite the business with Charles of Anjou, Cardinal Simon was authorized to provide benefices from cathedrals or otherwise within his province to five of his clerics.Potthast, no. 19065. These were benefices which in the course of things were in the hands of the Pope. This may have been the occasion on which Benedetto Caetani acquired at least some of his French benefices. On 9 April 1265, on the petition of Cardinal Simon de Brion, the legation which had been assigned him by Pope Urban was declared not to have expired on the death of Urban IV.Potthast, 19089. There would have been no point in making such a ruling if Cardinal Simon had already ceased to be Legate.
On 4 May 1265, Cardinal Ottobono Fieschi was appointed Apostolic Legate to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland by the new Pope Clement IV.Registres de Clément IV I, nos. 40–78. In fact, he was sent as the successor of Cardinal Guy Folques, who had been elected Clement IV on 5 February 1265.Fieschi later became Pope Adrian V, in 1276. Another member of the embassy was Theobaldus of Piacenza, Archdeacon of Liège, who became a friend of Prince Edward, and went on Crusade with him; he later became Pope Gregory X in 1272. Francis Gasquet, Henry the Third and the English Church (London 1905), p. 414. On 29 August 1265, the Cardinal was received at the French Court by King Louis IX. There he learned that Simon de Montfort and his son Henry had been killed at the Battle of Evesham earlier that month. Cardinal Ottobono did not reach Boulogne until October 1265. He was accompanied by Benedetto Caetani.This derives from a statement of Pope Clement V in 1309, during the agitation for a posthumous trial of Boniface VIII: A. Theiner (ed.), Caesaris Baronii Annales Ecclesiastici Tomus 23 (Bar-le-Duc 1871), under year 1309, §4, p. 429. Rose Graham, "Letters of Cardinal Ottoboni", English Historical Review 15 (1900) 87–120. He was in England until July 1268, working to suppress the remnants of Simon de Montfort's barons who were still in arms against King Henry III of England. To finance their rebellion, the barons had imposed a 10% tax on church property, which the Pope wanted back because the tithe was uncanonical. This drawback was a major concern of Cardinal Ottobono and his entourage.Francis Gasquet, Henry the Third and the English Church (London 1905), pp. 403–416. While in England, Benedetto Caetani became rector of St. Lawrence's church in Towcester, Northamptonshire.Tosti, p. 38, n. 15
Upon Benedetto's return from England, there is an eight-year period in which nothing is known about his life. This period, however, included the long vacancy of the papal throne from 29 November 1268 to February 1272, when Pope Gregory X accepted the papal throne. It also includes the time span when Pope Gregory and his cardinals went to France in 1273 for the second Council of Lyon, as well as the Eighth Crusade, led by Louis IX, in 1270. The Pope and some of the cardinals began their return to Italy at the end of November 1275. Pope Gregory celebrated Christmas in Arezzo and died there on 10 January 1276. In 1276, however, Benedetto was sent to France to supervise the collection of a tithe, which is perhaps when he held the office of Advocatus in the Roman Curia,Tosti (p. 37) believed that Caetani held the office of Advocatus before he set out with Cardinal Ottoboni on the English legation. And yet, Ottobono Fieschi was elected Pope Adrian V on 11 July 1276 and died on 18 August 1276. and then was appointed a papal notary in the late 1270s. During this time, Benedetto accumulated seventeen benefices, which he was permitted to keep when he was promoted. Some of these are enumerated in a bull by Pope Martin IV, in which he bestowed the deaconry of S. Nicolas in Carcere on Cardinal Benedetto Caetani.Tosti, p. 38, n. 15: ... ."Tosti is wrong in calling Benedetto Caetani a canon of Lyons; he misread Lugdunensi where the text twice has Lingonensi.