Outrage of Anagni (1303): Philip IV Confronts Pope Boniface

The Outrage of Anagni was the attack on Pope Boniface VIII at his family palace in Anagni, south-east of Rome, on 7 September 1303. Agents of King Philip IV of France, led by the lawyer Guillaume de Nogaret, and members of the Colonna family seized the elderly pope to stop him excommunicating the king. Boniface was freed after about three days but died a month later, and the episode marked a turning point in the balance of power between popes and kings.

Background: a quarrel over money and power

Boniface VIII, born Benedetto Caetani, became pope in December 1294. He was a learned canon lawyer with a high view of papal authority. Philip IV, called Philip the Fair, ruled France from 1285 and was building a strong, centralised monarchy that needed money for wars against England and Flanders.

The first clash came in 1296. In the bull Clericis laicos, Boniface forbade rulers to tax the clergy without papal permission. Philip responded by banning the export of gold and silver from France, which cut off papal revenues. Boniface backed down in 1297 and, as a gesture to the French crown, canonised Philip’s grandfather Louis IX.

The conflict returned in 1301 when Philip had Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, arrested and tried for treason. Boniface saw this as an attack on church rights. In December 1301 he sent Philip the letter Ausculta fili (“Listen, son”), rebuking him. Philip’s ministers circulated a distorted version to stir up opinion, and in April 1302 the king summoned representatives of the clergy, nobles and towns to Paris to support him.

Unam Sanctam

On 18 November 1302 Boniface issued the bull Unam Sanctam, one of the most famous statements of papal power. It argued that there is one Church, under one head, and that spiritual power is superior to worldly power. It ended by declaring that it is necessary for salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.

In 1303 Philip’s government went on the offensive. Nogaret and others accused Boniface of heresy, simony (selling church offices) and other crimes, and called for a general council to judge him. Boniface, staying at Anagni for the summer, prepared a bull excommunicating Philip and releasing his subjects from their obedience. It was expected to be published on 8 September.

What happened at Anagni

On the morning of 7 September 1303, Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna entered Anagni with an armed force variously reported at several hundred to more than a thousand men. The Colonna were bitter enemies of Boniface, who had stripped two Colonna cardinals of their office and destroyed the family town of Palestrina. Some citizens of Anagni joined the attackers.

The attackers broke into the papal palace and the neighbouring houses, plundered the papal treasure and confronted the pope. Boniface, then around seventy years old, refused to resign. According to the accounts, he received them in his robes and declared himself ready to die. He was held prisoner while his captors argued over what to do with him.

On 9 September the people of Anagni turned against the attackers, drove them out and freed the pope. Boniface returned to Rome under the protection of the Orsini family. He died there on 11 October 1303.

Key people

Boniface VIII (c. 1230s–1303) was pope from 1294 to 1303. He founded the University of Rome and proclaimed the first Jubilee year in 1300, but his clashes with rulers and with the Colonna made him many enemies.

Philip IV (1268–1314) used lawyers, propaganda and assemblies to defend royal power. His campaign against the pope was followed by the arrest of the Knights Templar in 1307.

Guillaume de Nogaret (c. 1260–1313) was a lawyer from southern France who became one of Philip’s chief ministers and led the attack.

Sciarra Colonna (died 1329) was a Roman nobleman whose family had been ruined by Boniface.

Myths and facts

Myth: Sciarra Colonna slapped the pope with an iron gauntlet. The “slap of Anagni” is a popular story, but it does not appear in the most reliable accounts and is probably a later legend.

Fact: the attack shocked contemporaries. Even Dante, who hated Boniface and reserved a place for him among the simoniac popes in the Inferno, condemned the attack in the Purgatorio as an assault on Christ himself in the person of his vicar.

Consequences

Boniface’s successor, Benedict XI, excommunicated Nogaret and the attackers but died in July 1304 after a short reign. The next pope, the Frenchman Clement V, elected in 1305, never went to Rome and settled at Avignon in 1309, beginning the Avignon Papacy. Under French pressure, Clement allowed a posthumous trial of Boniface to begin in 1310, and in 1311 he issued a bull that cleared Philip of wrongdoing, after which the case against Boniface was dropped.

Timeline

• 1294, 24 December: Benedetto Caetani is elected pope as Boniface VIII.
• 1296, February: Boniface issues Clericis laicos against taxation of the clergy.
• 1301, 5 December: Boniface sends Philip IV the letter Ausculta fili.
• 1302, 10 April: Philip IV’s assembly in Paris rallies support against the pope.
• 1302, 18 November: Boniface issues the bull Unam Sanctam.
• 1303, 7 September: Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna seize the pope at Anagni.
• 1303, 9 September: The townspeople free Boniface.
• 1303, 11 October: Boniface VIII dies in Rome.

Why it matters

Anagni showed that a king could defy the pope and survive. The high papal claims of Unam Sanctam were not matched by real power, and within a few years the papacy itself had moved to Avignon under strong French influence, a decline that led towards the Western Schism.