Angevins had expected. A crusade against the rebellious cardinals of his rivals the Colonna family, and intrigues within the Guelph party culminating in a split, soon alienated or embarrassed his natural allies. But it was in his relations with the French king, Philip the Fair, that Boniface was to meet his match; and it was the matter of taxation which initially sparked off their dispute. The conflict between Philip and Boniface is discussed in the next chapter. Here it must suffice to note that its consequences for the papacy were dramatic, and led directly to the abandonment of Rome for Avignon.
Italy had proved too unstable a home for the papacy. The next seventy years saw attempts by the popes to achieve pacification, and control of the papal states, from a distance, away from the political quagmire that had so vitiated its record in the thirteenth century. Yet it would be wrong to assume that politicking was the only feature of that period. The papacy had placed itself at the helm of the most invigorating revival of the period, with the arrival of the friars. The ideals of St Francis-and in a less charismatic but equally profound way those of St Dominic--were harnessed, with the encouragement of Innocent III and his successors, to provide powerful 'storm troops' of reform and revitalization. An energetic programme to combat heresy was pursued, concentrating, in Italy at any rate, on the towns--another reason why papal control in Italy was seen to be essential. In this sense the distinction between the political and religious activities of the papacy is artificial. The political authority of the papacy was necessary if the authority of the pope in administrative and hence pastoral terms--control over bishops and clergy who administered religion to these urban populations--was to be preserved. Judged in that light, the thirteenth century was by no means as disastrous for the papacy as the dramatic resolution of the conflict of 1302-3 might suggest.
That great revolutionary, St Francis, son of a well-to-do merchant of Assisi, underwent his formative experiences in an urban environment. His espousal of poverty was a reaction to
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