THE DECLINE AND FALL

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chap, who attended the court. 8 After a short interval°f P e ace, and perhaps of authority, they wereagain banished by new tumults, and again sum-moned by the imperious or respectful invitationof the senate. In these occasional retreats, theexiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldomlong, or far distant from the metropolis ; but inthe beginning of the fourteenth century the apos-tolic throne was transported, as it might seem forever, from the Tyber to the Rh6ne; and thecause of the transmigration may be deducedfrom the furious contest between Boniface theBoniface eighth and the king of France. 11 The spiritualarms of excommunication and interdict were re-i3os. pulsed by the union of the three estates, and theprivileges of the Gallican church; but the popewas not against the carnal weapons which Philipthe fair had courage to employ. As the pope re-sided at Anagni, without the suspicion of dan-ger, his palace and person were assaulted bythree hundred horse, who had been secretly le-vied by William of Nogaret, a French minister,

* Romani autera non valentes nec volentes ultra suam celare cupi*ditatem gravissimam contra papara movere cceperunt questionem, cxi-gentes ab eo urgentissime omnia qus subierant per ejus absentiamdamua et jacturas, videlicet in hospitis locandis, in mercitnoniis, inusuris, in redittibus, in provisionibus, et in aliis modis innumerabili-bua. Quod cum audisset papa, praecordialiter ingemuit et se conipe*riens muscipulatum, &c. Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary his-tory of the popes, their life and death, their residence and absence, itis enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanns andFleiiry.

* Besides the general historians of the church of Italy and of France,we possess a valuable treatise composed by a learned friend of Tfcuanus,which his last and best editors have published in the appendix (His-toire pai ticnliere du grand Differend entre Boniface VIII. et Philippele Bel, par Pierre du Puis, tom. vii, p. xi, p. 61-82),