The attempted trial of Boniface VIII for heresy

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Jeffrey H. Denton

Published:

2018

Publisher:

Winchester University Press

Despite strenuous efforts by the French Crown and its allies over a period of eight years, Boniface VIII was not ultimately tried. Legal procedures for a trial were put in motion in 1303, in an attempt to summon the pope before a General Council of the Church. This chapter focuses on the evidence of 1303: specifically, the sets of complaints against the pope of March and June 1303 which constituted the first stages in the planned legal process and from which the later accusations very largely stemmed. The attack upon Boniface VIII by the French king and court was, there is no question, a political attack, concerning the nature and the exercise of papal authority in relation to royal authority. The very accusation of heresy was, of course, charged with deep political significance. The heresy charge was an echo of imperial accusations against Gregory VII in the late eleventh century.

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