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.