crown. Advised and abetted by legal experts who were no longer clerics (such as Pierre Flote, Guillaume de Nogaret, Pierre Dubois, and Guillaume de Plaisians) and who thus owed nothing to the papacy, Philip the Fair was in effect responsible for the demise of Boniface VIII and his subsequent prosecution for alleged heresy. A violent assault on the papal palace at Anagni in 1303 by French and Italian troops under Nogaret and Boniface's enemies among the cardinals--the Colonna-led directly to the pope's death a few weeks later. After a brief interregnum, the election of Clement V ( 1305-14) opened up a new era in Franco-papal relations, and some of the former harmony was restored. The price was a greater degree of dependence by the popes upon the crown of France, although it is easy to exaggerate this tendency. Yet it cannot be denied that the authority and stature of the medieval papacy had been gravely threatened and compromised by the events of Philip the Fair's reign. In his conflict with a secular ruler--the Emperor Louis IV of Wittelsbach ( 1314-46)--PopeJohn XXII ( 131634) found the legacy of Boniface VIII's pontificate difficult to overcome.
The end of the Capetian line in 1328 abruptly terminated a remarkable example of dynastic continuity. Philip VI of Valois ( 1328-50) was essentially a weak monarch, selected by his princely peers on principles not so very different from those held by the German princes of the empire, and faced rival claimants to his throne. The Anglo-French war of 1337-1453 was brought nearer by the Valois accession to the Capetian throne. Yet the French monarchy also had internal problems in
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