Excerpt from A Manual of Church History, Vol. 2: Second Impression of the Authorized Translation From the 5th German Edition Boniface VIII and his Quarrel with Philp IV of France-Fifteenth General Council When Celestine V resigned the papal crown, a successor was found in the person of cardinal Benedetto Gaetani, henceforth to be known as Boniface VIII (1294-1303). Though an adept in Canon Law, his hastiness and forceful measures led to his being repeatedly humiliated at the hand of secular princes. From his pontificate dates the decline of the political power of the papacy. He found himself faced by a stupendous task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.