A.D. 1300
FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS
Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni, Italy, about 1228—whom contemporary poets and historians also consigned to infamy—occupied the pontifical throne but ten years, 1294-1303, but those were years of almost continual strife. It is indeed likely that partisanship painted him, in some respects, with colors too black, attributing to him crimes of which he was not guilty. But even these exaggerations of dispraise were due to the unquestioned facts of his character and career. When at length Boniface was worsted in his quarrel with Philip the Fair, a widespread reaction began on the part of the laity against ecclesiastical assumptions, and the great dramatic act by which, under Hildebrand, the papacy first displayed its power had its counterpart in the manner of its decline. "The drama of Anagni is to be set against the drama of Canossa."
But Boniface enjoyed one year of triumph scarcely paralleled in all the experience of his fellow-pontiffs. This was the closing year of the thirteenth century. Taking advantage of a fresh wave of religious enthusiasm which then swept over Europe, the Pope called upon the Christian world—almost at peace from long warfare—to celebrate a jubilee. The institution of the Catholic jubilee is generally considered as dating from this celebration, though some writers refer its establishment to the pontificate of Innocent III, a century earlier.
Boniface VIII inaugurated the fourteenth century with a pilgrimage festival which has become renowned. The centennial jubilee had been celebrated in ancient Rome by magnificent games; the recollections of these games, however, had expired, and no tidings inform us whether the close or beginning of a century was marked in Christian Rome by any ecclesiastical festival. The immense processions of pilgrims to St. Peter's had ceased during the crusades; the crusades ended, the old longing reawoke among the people and drew them again to the graves of the apostles. The pious impulse was fostered in no small degree by the shrewdness of the Roman priests.
About the Christmas of 1299—and with Christmas, according to the style of the Roman curia, the year ended—crowds flocked both from the city and country to St. Peter's. A cry, promising remission of sins to those who made the pilgrimage to Rome, resounded throughout the world and forced it into movement. Boniface gave form and sanction to the growing impulse by promulgating the bull of jubilee of February 22, 1300, which promised remission of sins to all who should visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul during the year. The pilgrimage of Italians was to last for thirty days, that of foreigners for fifteen. The enemies of the Church were alone excluded. As such the Pope designated Frederick of Sicily, the Colonnas and their adherents, and, curiously enough, all Christians who held traffic with Saracens. Boniface consequently made use of the jubilee to brand his enemies and to exclude them from the privileges of Christian grace.
The pressure toward Rome was unexampled. The city presented the aspect of a camp where crowds of pilgrims, that resembled armies, thronged incessantly in and out. A spectator standing on one of the heights of the city might have seen swarms like wandering tribes approach along the ancient Roman roads from north, south, east, and west; and, had he mixed among them, might have had difficulty in discovering their home. Italians, Provençals, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slavs, Germans, Spaniards, even Englishmen came.
Italy gave free passage to pilgrims and kept the Truce of God. The crowds arrived, wearing the pilgrim's mantle or clad in their national dress, on foot, on horseback, or on cars, leading the ill and weary, and laden with their luggage. Veterans of a hundred were led by their grandsons; and youths bore, like Æneas, father or mother on their shoulders. They spoke in many dialects, but they all sang in the same language the litanies of the Church, and their longing dreams had but one and the same object.
On beholding in the sunny distance the dark forest of towers of the holy city they raised the exultant shout, "Rome, Rome!" like sailors who after a tedious voyage catch their first glimpse of land. They threw themselves down in prayer and rose again with the fervent cry, "St. Peter and St. Paul, have mercy." They were received at the gates by their countrymen and by guardians appointed by the city to show them their quarters; nevertheless, they first made their way to St. Peter's, ascended the steps of the vestibule on their knees, and then threw themselves in ecstasies on the grave of the apostle.
During an entire year Rome swarmed with pilgrims and was filled with a perfect babel of tongues. It was said that thirty thousand pilgrims entered and left the city daily, and that daily two hundred thousand pilgrims might have been found within it. An exemplary administration provided for order and for moderate prices. The year was fruitful, the Campagna and the neighboring provinces sent supplies in abundance. One of the pilgrims who was a chronicler relates that "bread, wine, meat, fish, and oats were plentiful and cheap in the market; the hay, however, was very dear; the inns so expensive that I was obliged to pay for my bed and the stabling of my horse (beyond the hay and oats) a Tornese groat a day. As I left Rome on Christmas eve, I saw so large a party of pilgrims depart that no one could count the number. The Romans reckon that altogether they have had two millions of men and women. I frequently saw both sexes trodden under foot, and it was sometimes with difficulty that I escaped the same fate myself."