He found the condemnation of Boniface VIII. rather an embarrassment than a danger.  He shrank, on becoming pope, from condemning the pope his predecessor, who had appointed him archbishop and cardinal.  Instead of an official condemnation, he offered the king satisfaction in various ways.  It was only from headstrong pride and to cloak himself in the eyes of his subjects that Philip clung to the condemnation of the memory of Boniface; and, after a long period of mutual tergiversation, it was agreed in the end to let bygones be bygones.  The principal promoter of the assault at Anagni, William of Nogaret, was the sole exception to the amnesty; and the pope imposed upon him, by way of penance, merely the obligation of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he never fulfilled.  On the contrary he remained, in great favor, about the person of King Philip, who made him his chancellor, and gave him, in Languedoc, some rich lands, amongst others those of Calvisson, Massillargues, and Manduel.  For Philip knew how to liberally reward and faithfully support his servants.

And he knew still better how to persecute and ruin his foes.  He had no reason, of a public kind, to consider the Templars his enemies.  It is true that they had given him a merely qualified support on his appeal to the council against Boniface VIII.; but, both before and after that occurrence, Philip had shown them marks of the most friendly regard.  He had asked to be affiliated to their order; and he had borrowed their money.  During a violent outbreak of the populace at Paris, in 1306, on the occasion of a fresh tax, he had sought and found a refuge in the very palace of the Temple, where the chapters-general were held and where its treasures were kept.  It is said that the sight of these treasures kindled the longings of Philip, and his ardent desire to get hold of them.  At the time of the formation of the order, in 1119, after the first crusade, the Templars were far from being rich.  Nine knights had joined together to protect the arrival and sojourning of pilgrims in Palestine; and Baldwin II., the third Christian King of Jerusalem, had given them a lodging in his own palace, to the east of Solomon’s temple, whence they had assumed the name of “Poor United Champions of Christ and the Temple.”  Their valor and pious devotion had soon rendered them famous in the West as well as the East; and St. Bernard had commended them to the Christian world.  At the council of Troyes, in 1123, Pope Honorius II. had recognized their order, and regulated their dress, a white mantle, on which Pope Eugenius III. placed a red cross.  In 1172 the rules of the order were drawn up in seventy-two articles, and the Templars began to exempt themselves from the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Jerusalem, recognizing that of the pope only.  Their number and their importance rapidly increased.  In 1130 the Emperor Lothaire II. gave them lands in the Duchy of Brunswick.