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.…