Boniface's Papacy Essay

After the death of Innocent III, the papacy was then occupied by Boniface VIII (1294–1303), a pope who had great aspirations for supreme authority in temporal affairs. Worse for the papacy was soon to follow. After the death of Boniface’s successor, the excellent Benedict XI (1303–1304), the cardinals chose a Frenchman, Bertrand de Got, who took the name Clement V (1305–1314). A man of weak character, little experience, and frail health, Clement was no match for the ruthless Philip. He eventually declared Philip innocent of the attack on Boniface VIII, canceled Boniface’s interdicts and excommunications, and modified the bull Unam sanctam to please the king.
In 1367, Pope Urban V (1362–1370) returned to Rome, but in 1370 he and his court were

Europe was pained and scandalized, while the papal abuses, especially of taxation, were augmented, not least because two courts (each with its own college of cardinals) now had to be maintained. Above all, the profound feeling that the church must be visibly one was offended. The papacy sank enormously in popular regard. In Rome, Urban VI was succeeded by Boniface IX (1389–1404), and he by Innocent VII (1404–1406), who was followed by Gregory XII (1406–1415). In Avignon, Clement VII was followed by a Spaniard, Pedro de Luna, who took the name Benedict XIII (1394–1417). The Great Schism lasted for almost forty years. It was compounded by the creation of yet a third line of popes at the ill-fated Council of Pisa in 1409; and it was not resolved until the Council of Constance (1414–1418) asserted its jurisdictional supremacy within the church and deposed, or induced to resign, the three competing popes, Gregory XII, Benedict XIII, and John XXIII. In November 1417, the cardinals, together with six representatives from each nation, elected a Roman cardinal, Oddo Colonna, as pope. He took the name Martin V (1417–1431). Roman Christendom once more had a single head. The council ended in April 1418, the new pope promising to call another in five years, in compliance with the council’s other famous decree, Frequens (October 9,1417). The first of the Renaissance popes was Nicholas V (1447–1455), who founded the Vatican library and developed ambitious schemes for rebuilding Rome. The next pope, Alfonso Borgia, a Spaniard, who took the name Calixtus III (1455–1458), was no friend of humanism and was earnestly, though fruitlessly, intent on a crusade to drive the Turks from the recently conquered Constantinople. A most remarkable occupant of the papacy was Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who ruled as Pius II (1458–1464). In early life a supporter of the conciliar movement, and active at the Council of Basel, he had won renown as a humanist writer of