Holy Jubilees: Papal Use of the Church’s Treasury of Merits for Uniting Ecclesia and Christianitas in Tmes of Hardship

Holy Jubilees: papal use of the Church’s Treasury of Merits for uniting Ecclesia and Christianitas in times of hardship
In 1300 pope Boniface VIII held the first proved Holy Jubilee in Rome, fully pardoning the faithful for their sins and the punishment for such sins if they came to the city and fulfilled a number of obligations, as laid down in Antiquorum habet fida and other subsequent bulls that extended the original scope of the indulgence. Holy Jubilees, rooted in the Jewish and Christian tradition, would thenceforth be regularly used by papacy as a means to muster popular support to the Church by the power of pardon.  Symbolically the narrow Tarpeian Door would open for a brief lapse of time, paving the way to Paradise for those who were lucky enough to live a Jubilee to achieve Salvation, after confessing their sins and repenting.
In this paper we propose to review the existing literature, namely regarding the Iberian kingdoms, trying to find out whether the plenary indulgence granted on occasion of Jubilees could be used by the Papacy as a weapon to bar the enemies of the Church at the time of each commemoration from this extraordinary opportunity of redemption – thus singling them out in the eyes of Christianity.  Judging from results, the 1300 Jubilee proved useless to Pope Boniface VIII’s formidable combat against King Philip the Fair of France. Still the papacy continued to hold Jubilees. We would like to establish if they served a purpose in the complex political chessboard of Western Christendom, with particular reference to Iberia.