Boniface VIII proclaims the first Jubilee

February 1300

Rome filled with pilgrims shuffling between the apostles' tombs, promised plenary indulgence by a pope already picking fights with kings. Boniface imagined the Jubilee as a showpiece of papal supremacy, and an estimated two hundred thousand faithful poured through the city gates that year. Within three years he would be slapped at Anagni and the papacy uprooted to Avignon.