The Transfer of the Papacy to Avignon

As was seen, king Philip IV of France was the first ruler to defy the pope without either being destroyed or even once humiliated. It shows, as was said, that the peoples of Europe and in particular the people of France were losing much of their dread for the pope's thunderings. His spiritual weapons no longer availed. The people of France therefore dared to support their king in his warfare with the pope. Nothing more is indicative of this change of attitude than the literary attacks upon the...