Jump to content

Guillaume de Nogaret

From Catholicism Wiki
Monsieur
Guillaume de Nogaret
Bust by Marc Arcis
Bust by Marc Arcis
Chancellor of France;
Keeper of the Seals
In office
1311–1313
Monarch Philip IV
Preceded by Gilles I Aycelin de Montaigu
Succeeded by Pierre de Latilly
In office
1307–1310
Preceded by Pierre de Belleperche
Succeeded by Gilles I Aycelin de Montaigu
Personal details
Born c. 1260
Saint-Félix-Lauragais, Languedoc, France
Died 13 April 1313 (aged 52–53)
Paris, Île-de-France, France
Children 1 son
Alma mater University of Montpellier
Profession Jurist
Judge

Guillaume de Nogaret (c. 1260 – April 1313)[1] was a French statesman, councilor and keeper of the seal to Philip IV of France.

Early life

Nogaret was born in Saint-Félix-Lauragais, Haute-Garonne. The family held a small ancestral property of servile origin at Nogaret, near Saint-Félix-de-Caraman (today's Saint-Félix-Lauragais), from which it took its name. In 1291 Guillaume was professor of jurisprudence at the university of Montpellier, and in 1296 he became a member of the Curia Regis at Paris.[2] From 1306, he was a seigneur of Marsillargues, Calvisson, Aujargues and Congénies in Languedoc.

Councilor to Philip IV

His name is mainly connected with the quarrel between Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII. In 1300 he was sent with an embassy to Boniface, of which he left a picturesque and highly coloured account. His influence over the king dates from February 1303, when he persuaded Philip to consent to the bold plan of seizing Boniface and bringing him forcibly from Italy to a council in France meant to depose him. On 7 March he received, with three others, a secret commission from the royal chancery to "go to certain places... and make such treaties with such persons as seemed good to them." On 12 March a solemn royal assembly was held in the Louvre, at which Guillaume de Nogaret read a long series of accusations against Boniface and demanded the calling of a general council to try him.[2]

Attack on the Pope

Soon afterwards he went to Italy. By the aid of a Florentine spy, Nogaret gathered a band of adventurers and of enemies of the Caetani (Boniface's family) in the Apennines. The great Colonna house, in a bitter feud with the Caetani, was his strongest ally, and Sciarra Colonna accompanied Nogaret to Anagni, Boniface's birthplace. On 7 September, with their band of some sixteen hundred men, Nogaret and Colonna surprised the little town.[2] The army attacked Boniface at his Palace in Anagni next to the cathedral. The Pope responded with a bull dated 8 September 1303, in which Philip and Nogaret were excommunicated.[3] Boniface was taken prisoner. Sciarra wished to kill him, but Nogaret's policy was to take him to France and compel him to summon a general council.[2] The French Chancellor and the Colonnas demanded the Pope's resignation; Boniface VIII responded that he would "sooner die". In response, Colonna allegedly slapped Boniface, a "slap" historically remembered as the schiaffo di Anagni ("Anagni slap").

The tide soon turned, however. On the 9th a concerted rising of the townsmen in support of Boniface put Nogaret and his allies to flight, and the pope was free. His death at Rome on 11 October saved Nogaret. The election of the timid Benedict XI was the beginning of the triumph of France that lasted through the Avignon captivity. Early in 1304 Nogaret went to Languedoc to report to Philip IV, and was rewarded by gifts of land and money. Then he was sent back with an embassy to Benedict XI to demand absolution for all concerned in the struggle with Boniface VIII. Benedict refused to meet Nogaret, excepted him from the general absolution he granted on 12 May 1304, and on 7 June issued against him and his associates at Anagni the bull Flagitiosum scelus. Nogaret replied with apologies for his conduct, and when Benedict died on 7 July 1304 Nogaret pointed to his death as a witness to the justice of his cause.[2]

French influence led to a Frenchman, Bertrand de Got (Clement V), being elected as Benedict's successor. The threat of proceedings against the memory of Boniface was renewed to force Clement to absolve Nogaret, and Clement had given way on this point when the further question of an inquiry into the condition of the Knights Templar was brought forward by Philip as a preliminary to their arrest and the seizure of their property in October 1307. Nogaret was active in getting the renegade members of the order to give evidence against their fellows, and the proceedings against them bear traces of his unscrupulous and merciless pen. Clement's weak and ineffective resistance to this still further delayed the agreement between him and Philip. Nogaret had become keeper of the seal that year in succession to Pierre de Belleperche.[2]

His talents as an advocatus diaboli were given still further employment in the trial of Guichard, bishop of Troyes, charged with various crimes, including witchcraft and unchastity. The trial, which began in 1308 and lasted until 1313, was a hint to Clement as to what might happen if the oft-repeated threat of a trial of Boniface were carried out. Absolution was obtained from Clement on 27 April 1311. Guillaume de Nogaret was to go on the next crusade and visit certain places of pilgrimage in France and Spain as a penance, but never did so. He died in April 1313. He retained the seals until his death and was occupied with the king's affairs concerning Flanders as late as the end of March 1313.[2]

Literature

Nogaret is a character in Les Rois maudits (The Accursed Kings), a series of historical novels by Maurice Druon, as one of the three characters (alongside King Philip IV and Pope Clement V) denounced by Jacques de Molay and called to "the tribunal of heaven" before the end of the year at the latter's execution, in March 1314. In reality, Nogaret died the preceding year, before de Molay and any such possible condemnation. The novels were adapted into a television miniseries in 1972 and again in 2005, in which Nogaret was played by actors Jacques Goasguen and Jérôme Anger, respectively.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Guillaume de Nogaret — Born about the middle of the thirteenth century at St. Felix-en-Lauragais; died 1314; he was one of the chief counsellors of Philip the Fair, of France (1285-1314), said to be descended from an Albigensian family and was a protégé of the lawyer, Pierre Flotte. He studied law, winning a doctorate and a professorship, and was appointed, in 1294, royal judge of the seneschal's court of Beaucaire. In 1299 the title of knight was conferred on him by Philip the Fair. Imbued, from his study of Roman law, with the doctrine of the absolute supremacy of the king, no scruple restrained Nogaret when the royal power was in question, and his influence was apparent in the struggle between Philip and Boniface VIII. in 1300 Philip sent him as ambassador to the Holy See to excuse his alliance with Albert of Austria, usurper of the Empire. Nogaret, according to his own account, remonstrated with the pope, who replied in vigorous language. After the death of Pierre Flotte at the battle of Courtrai (1302), Nogaret became chief adviser and evil genius of the king. On the publication of the Bull "Unam Sanctam", he was charged with directing the conflict against the Holy See (February, 1303). At the Assembly of the Louvre (12 March, 1303), he bitterly attacked the pope, and later, allying himself with the pope's Italian enemies (the Florentine banker, Musciatto de Franzesi, and Sciarra Colonna, the head of the Ghibelline party), he surprised Boniface in his palace at Anagni and arrested him after subjecting him to outrageous treatment (7 September). But the inhabitants rescued the pope, whose death (11 October), saved Nogaret from severe retribution. Early in 1304, at Languedoc, he explained his actions to the king, and received considerable property as recompense. Philip even sent him with an embassy to the new pope, Benedict XI, who refused to absolve him from the excommunication he had incurred. Clement V, however, absolved him in 1311.

Nogaret played a decisive part in the trial of the Templars. On 22 September, 1307, at Maubuisson, Philip made him keeper of the seal and the same day the Royal Council issued a warrant for the arrest of the Templars, which was executed on 12 October; Nogaret himself arrested the Knights of the Temple in Paris and drew up the proclamation justifying the crime. It was he who directed all the measures that ended in the execution of Jacques de Molai and the principal Templars (1314). The same year Nogaret, who displayed untiring energy in drawing up the documents by which he sought to ruin his adversaries, undertook to justify the condemnation of the Templars by announcing the plans for a new crusade, the expenses of which were to be defrayed by the confiscated goods of the Order. In this Latin document, addressed to Clement V, the author attributes the failure of the crusades to the Templars and declares that Philip the Fair alone could direct them successfully, provided that he obtained the help of all the Christian princes to secure the funds required for the expedition; all the property of the Templars should be given to the king, likewise all legacies left for the crusades and all benefices in Christendom should be taxed. The other military orders, the abbeys, the churches should retain only the property necessary for their support, the surplus should be given for the Crusade. No one took this document seriously, it was probably intended as a solemn hoax. Nogaret's influence may be seen in the trial for sorcery against Guichard, bishop of Troyes (1308). A zealous but unscrupulous royal partisan, a fierce and bitter enemy, Nogaret died before Philip the Fair, at the time when the regime he had devoted himself to establishing was beginning to be attacked on all sides.

References

  1. Back to citation Holtzmann, Robert (1898). Wilhelm von Nogaret (PDF) (in German). Freiburg im Breisgau: J.C.B. Mohr. p. 211. Retrieved 24 December 2023; Théry, Julien (2012). "Le pionnier de la théocratie royale: Guillaume de Nogaret et les conflits de Philippe le Bel avec la papauté". In Moreau, Bernard (ed.). Guillaume de Nogaret. Un Languedocien au service de la monarchie capétienne (in French). Nîmes: Lucie Editions. p. 101. ISBN 9782353712939. Retrieved 24 December 2023; Brown, Elizabeth A.R. (2001). "Laity, laicisation and Philip the Fair of France". In Stafford, Pauline (ed.). Law, laity, and solidarities: essays in honour of Susan Reynolds. Manchester University Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-1-5261-4828-5. Retrieved 24 December 2023; In the first paragraph of his article, Théry states that Nogaret died a year and a half prior to Philippe le Bel, whose death is established as 29 November 1314. On page 211 of the Holtzmann book pdf, the author mentions a source indicating 1313 as the year Nogaret died. He goes on to discuss what he seems to refer to as a "poor source" being the origin of assertions that Nogaret died in 1314.
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Back to citation occurrence 2.3 Back to citation occurrence 2.4 Back to citation occurrence 2.5 Back to citation occurrence 2.6 Chisholm 1911.
  3. Back to citation A. Tomassetti, Bullarum diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Tomus IV (Augustae Taurinorum 1859), pp. 170–174. The date of September 8 has caused much scholarly controversy. Chamberlain, E.R. "The Lord of Europe". The Bad Popes. Barnes and Noble. p. 120. Ian Mortimer: "Barriers to the Truth" History Today: 60:12: December 2010: 13

Bibliography

Retrieved from "https://catholicism.wiki/index.php?title=Guillaume_de_Nogaret&oldid=203657"