ABSTRACT
The death of Boniface VIII in 1303 left the Papacy in a very critical condition. The successful attack upon the Papal claims to temporal supremacy had given both an occasion and an opportunity for an open assault upon the very foundations of the Medieval Church. The Church was confronted by a crisis such as it had never up to this time been called upon to face. Upon the character and personality of the successor of Boniface VIII depended the decline or the ascendency of Papal sovereignty as outlined by Gregory VII and enforced by Innocent III and his successors in the thirteenth century. There had come to the Roman hierarchy a period of fiery trial which was to drag along in its disastrous course for 250 years before the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century was reformed and restored to something like its old power, but with a loss in territory, numbers, and prestige.
