Pope
Boniface VIII, Benedict Cajetan, a man of great ability, was elected in 1294,
Celestine V having been persuaded to resign. He
meddled incessantly in foreign affairs, and put forward the strongest claims to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His
bitterest quarrels were with the emperor, with the powerful family of the
Colonnas, and with Philip the Fair of France, whom he
excommunicated in 1303. He was about to lay all France under an interdict when he was seized at Agnani by a party of horsemen under
Nogaret, an agent of Philip and Sciarra Colonna. After three days' captivity he was resued by the town's people, but the agitation he
had undergone caused his death soon after, on the 11th October 1303. In 1300 Boniface instituted the
jubilles, which
afterwards became such a source of profit and of scandal to the church.
from the 9th edition (1880s) of an unnamed encyclopedia
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