The Jubilee Pope

Boniface VIII, born Benedetto Caetani into an established Roman noble family, trained as a canon lawyer before his election as pope in 1294, succeeding the reluctant hermit pope Celestine V, whose surprise resignation Boniface is recorded as having actively encouraged and whom he subsequently kept under guard for the remainder of his life. Learned in canon law and confident in the temporal reach of the papal office, Boniface used its authority more assertively than most of his predecessors, both in doctrine and in the ceremonial life of the church. In 1300 he proclaimed the church's first Holy Year, later called a Jubilee, promising a plenary indulgence to pilgrims who visited Rome's major basilicas within the year, a rite so successful in drawing crowds and revenue that the papacy has repeated it on a fixed cycle, later set at twenty five years, ever since. He also pressed papal authority over rival claims of national churches, most sharply against King Philip IV of France, who taxed French clergy without papal consent and later arrested a French bishop Boniface had specifically placed under the church's own jurisdiction, a direct challenge to the immunity Boniface considered essential to the office.