the lords of France, who had supported his position. The King of France issued charges of sodomy, simony, sorcery, and heresy against the pope and summoned him before the council. The pope's response was the strongest affirmation to date of papal sovereignty. In Unam sanctam (November 18, 1302), he decreed that "it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff." He was preparing a bull that would excommunicate the King of France and put the interdict over France when in September 1303, William Nogaret, the strongest critic of the papacy in the French inner circle, led a delegation to Rome, with intentionally loose orders by the king to bring the pope, if necessary by force, before a council to rule on the charges brought against him. Nogaret coordinated with the cardinals of the Colonna family, long-standing rivals against whom the pope had even preached a crusade earlier in his papacy. In 1303 French and Italian troops attacked the pope in Anagni, his home town, and arrested him. He was freed three days later by the population of Anagni. Boniface VIII, then 68 years of age, was deeply shattered by this attack on his own person and died a few weeks later. Cooperation In reaction to the intransigence of Popes like Boniface VIII, the French tightened their influence under the papacy, eventually reducing the Popes to puppets and stacking the Papal court with French clerics. The death of Pope Boniface VIII deprived the papacy of its most able politician who could stand against the secular power of the king of France. After the conciliatory papacy of Benedict XI (1303–04), Pope Clement V (1305–1314) became the next pontiff. He was born in Gascony, in southern France, but was not directly connected to the French court. He owed his election to the French clerics. He decided against moving to Rome and established his court in Avignon. In this situation of dependency on powerful neighbours in France, three principles characterized the politics of Clement V: the suppression of heretic movements (such as the Cathars in southern France); the reorganization of the internal administration of the church; and the preservation of an untainted image of the church as the sole instrument of God's will on earth. The latter was directly challenged by Philippe IV when he demanded a posthumous trial of his former adversary, the late Boniface VIII, for