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Updated: June 4, 2025
He repaired in haste to Florence, to the king's banker, got a plentiful supply of money, established communications in Anagni, and secured, above all, the co-operation of Sciarra Colonna, who was passionately hostile to the pope, had been formerly proscribed by him, and, having fallen into the hands of corsairs, had worked at the oar for them during many a year rather than reveal his name and be sold to Boniface Gaetani.
They set a guard outside the room and proceeded to loot the palace. For three days the grand old pope he was eighty-six years of age remained a prisoner, until the people of Anagni rallied and rescued him, and he returned to Rome.
To a contemporary, Boniface was "magnanimus peccator," the great-hearted sinner; while a modern historian describes him as "devoid of every spiritual virtue." If Canossa was the humiliation for the Empire which the ecclesiastical annalists describe, in the pettiness of the stage and the insignificance of the actors Anagni was an ample revenge of the lay spirit.
Thus began the famous difference that went on with ever-increasing fury until the outrage at Anagni, on September 7, 1303, brought about the fall of Boniface and the overthrow of the Hildebrandine papacy. Meanwhile Philip was devoting his best energies to constant, and not altogether vain, attempts to avenge the defeat of Courtrai, and re-establish his hold on Flanders.
They, in the mean time, treated with Moncada, Regent of Naples for the Emperor, and at once seized Anagni, put several thousand men in the field, marched upon Rome with incredible speed, seized three gates in the night, and entered the city in triumph on the following morning. The Pope and the Orsini, completely taken by surprise, offered little or no resistance.
Nogaret and the direct authors of the assault at Anagni were alone excepted from this amnesty. The pope reserved for a future occasion the announcement of their absolution, when he should consider it expedient.
The chroniclers of the time impute this crime to William of Nogaret, to the Colonnas, and to their associates at Anagni; a single one names King Philip. Popular credulity is great in matters of poisoning; but one thing is certain, namely, that no prosecution was ordered.
At last the great houses made a truce and a compromise, by which they attempted to govern Rome jointly, and chose Sciarra the same who had taken Pope Boniface prisoner in Anagni and Matteo Orsini of Monte Giordano, to be Senators together; and there was peace between them for a time, in the year in which Rienzi was born.
But despite the manifest danger of these movements the Papacy acted with great caution. In 1255 a tribunal of three Cardinals at Anagni investigated the charges against Gerard's book. Joachim's orthodoxy remained unquestioned the Everlasting Gospel was condemned, but the Bishop of Paris was told not to annoy the Franciscans.
Notification of the appeal had to be made to the pope at Anagni, his native town, whither he had gone for refuge, and the people of which, being zealous in his favor, had already dragged in the mud the lilies and the banner of France. Nogaret was bold, ruffianly, and clever.
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