Europe's inner demons

The consequences were to pursue Nogaret for eight of the ten years of life that remained to him. The new pope, Benedict XI, issued a bull excommunicating him and fifteen others who had taken part in the action at Agnani. The following year Benedict also died, to be succeeded by the French pope Clement V, resident at Avignon and largely dependent on the good will of the king of France. Both Philip the Fair and Nogaret had helped to secure Clement’s election, and both expected favours in return. For Philip it was important that Clement should annul the bulls that Boniface had directed against him; and that he should comply, if not actively co-operate, in the suppression of the Order of the Temple. As for Nogaret, he desperately needed to be relieved of the sentence of excommunication. Between them, they hit on an ingenious device for exerting pressure on the pope: they proposed that his predecessor Boniface should be posthumously tried as a heretic, apostate and criminal.

If the trial had been carried all the way through, the outcome would have been momentous: Boniface’s memory would have been sullied, his reign declared illegitimate, even his bones exhumed and burned; the king of France would have been justified and exalted; the institution of the papacy would have been further weakened. Yet it may be doubted whether either King Philip or Nogaret ever intended to push matters so far. Certainly they cannot have believed the charges against Boniface any more than they believed the charges against the Templars. This is proved by the outcome. By 1311 Pope Clement had yielded on all counts: the relevant bulls had been annulled, the Temple had been suppressed, and Nogaret had been absolved (subject to some rather hypothetical conditions). None of this would have made any difference to men who genuinely believed that the papal throne had been occupied by a heretic: they would have persisted. In the event, however, the charges against Boniface were quietly dropped.⁽²⁾

Some of the charges have a direct bearing on our theme.⁽³⁾

A first hint of them was given already in June 1303. While Nogaret was away in Italy, preparing to kidnap the pope, Philip held a meeting of the Estates at the Louvre. On that occasion the king, the prelates and nobles of France, and the doctors of the University of Paris listened while one of Nogaret’s assistants listed Boniface’s crimes. The Colonna certainly had a hand in that speech — it even included passages lifted from a manifesto of their own.⁽⁴⁾ And among the peculiarities attributed to the reigning pope is the following: “He has a private demon, whose counsel he takes in, and throughout, all matters. So that on one occasion he said that if all people in the world were in one region, and he in another, they would not be able to trap him, whether in law or in fact; something that would not be possible without the use of the demonic art. And this is said against him publicly.”

⁽⁵⁾

By the time of the posthumous trial the theme had undergone considerable elaboration. In 1310 Nogaret presented Pope Clement with a document which was in effect a much amplified version of the speech of 1303.⁽⁶⁾

Here too the Colonna were involved — particularly Cardinal Peter Colonna, who is specifically mentioned as a source of information. In this document Boniface’s demonic contacts bulk large.⁽⁷⁾ He had, it seems, not one but three demons — one presented by an Italian woman; another, more powerful, presented by a Hungarian; a third, called Boniface, and the most powerful of the three, presented by Boniface of Vicenza — “Boniface given to Boniface by Boniface,” the pope is supposed to have jested. In addition, he carried a “spirit” in a ring on his finger; many cardinals and clerics had observed how that ring seemed to reflect sometimes a man, sometimes an animal’s head.^**

The support given by these assorted demons was far more effective than the mere advisory service offered by the demon of 1303. After the election of Celestine V as pope, Benedict Caetani (as he then was) came home in a rage, filled the censers in his room, and locked himself in. As the room filled with clouds of incense his attendants, listening at the keyhole, heard him shouting, “Why have you deceived me?” and a treble voice reply: “It was impossible this time. Your papacy must come from us, you must not be a true, legitimate pope. It will come soon!” Often when great decisions were pending Boniface would shut himself into his room, forbidding anyone even to touch the door; and after an hour or so his companions would feel the earth shake and hear sounds of hissing and lowing, as of serpents and cattle, issuing from the room. They lived in fear that one day the demons he called up would strangle both him and them.