efused to
pay them, and addressed to the pope a protest, with a comparison between
Philip and Pharaoh. Boniface not only entertained the protest, but
addressed to the king a bull (called _Clericis laicos,_ from its first
two words), in which, led on by his zeal to set forth the generality and
absoluteness of his power, he laid down as a principle that churches and
ecclesiastics could not be taxed save with the permission of the
sovereign pontiff, and that "all emperors, kings, dukes, counts, barons,
or governors whatsoever, who should violate this principle, and all
prelates or other ecclesiastics who should through weakness lend
themselves to such violation, would by this mere fact incur
excommunication, and would be incapable of release therefrom, save in
_articulo mortis,_ unless by a special decision of the Holy See." This
was going far beyond the traditions of the French Church, and, in the
very act of protecting it, to strike a blow at its independence in its
dealings with the French State. Philip was mighty wroth, but he did not
burst out; he confined himself to letting the pope perceive his
displeasure by means of divers administrative measures, amongst others by
forbidding the exportation from the kingdom of gold, silver, and valuable
articles, which found their way chiefly to Rome. Boniface, on his side,
was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far, and that his own
interests did not permit him to give so much offence to the King of
France. A year after the bull _Clericis laicos,_ he modified it by a new
bull, which not only authorized the collection of the two tenths voted by
the French bishops, but recognized the right of the King of France to tax
the French clergy with their consent and without authorization from the
Holy See, whenever there was a pressing necessity for it. Philip, on his
side, testified to the pope his satisfaction at this concession by
himself making one at the expense of the religious liberty of his
subjects. In 1292 he had ordered the seneschal of Carcassonne to place
limits to the power of the inquisitors in Languedoc by taking from them
the right of having their sentences against heretics executed without
appeal; and in 1298 he issued an ordinance to the effect that "to further
the proceedings of the Inquisition against heretics, for the glory of God
and for the augmentation of the faith, he laid his injunctions upon all
dukes, counts, barons, seneschals, bailiffs, and provo