Pope Boniface VIII

Benedetto Caetani, born around 1230 to a baronial family, ascended to the papacy on 24 December 1294 after Celestine V's abdication. He spent his early years in diplomatic missions abroad, then turned his office into a launching pad for some of the most aggressive assertions of papal supremacy ever made - insisting the pope held authority over temporal rulers as well as spiritual matters. He systematized canon law in the Liber Sextus in 1298 and established the first Catholic jubilee year in Rome, but his chronic meddling in the affairs of France, Sicily, Italy, and Scotland made him enemies. The breaking point came in 1296 when Philip IV of France imposed taxes on clergy; Boniface excommunicated him, and Philip responded by sending troops to Anagni on 7 September 1303, seizing the pope and holding him three days. Boniface died a month later on 11 October. Philip later pressured the Avignon papacy into a posthumous heresy trial, though no verdict was delivered.