Rome by magnificent games; the recollections of these games, however, had expired, and no tidings inform us whether the close or beginning of a century was marked in Christian Rome by any ecclesiastical festival.  The immense processions of pilgrims to St. Peter’s had ceased during the crusades; the crusades ended, the old longing reawoke among the people and drew them again to the graves of the apostles.  The pious impulse was fostered in no small degree by the shrewdness of the Roman priests.

About the Christmas of 1299—­and with Christmas, according to the style of the Roman curia, the year ended—­crowds flocked both from the city and country to St. Peter’s.  A cry, promising remission of sins to those who made the pilgrimage to Rome, resounded throughout the world and forced it into movement.  Boniface gave form and sanction to the growing impulse by promulgating the bull of jubilee of February 22, 1300, which promised remission of sins to all who should visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul during the year.  The pilgrimage of Italians was to last for thirty days, that of foreigners for fifteen.  The enemies of the Church were alone excluded.  As such the Pope designated Frederick of Sicily, the Colonnas and their adherents, and, curiously enough, all Christians who held traffic with Saracens.  Boniface consequently made use of the jubilee to brand his enemies and to exclude them from the privileges of Christian grace.

The pressure toward Rome was unexampled.  The city presented the aspect of a camp where crowds of pilgrims, that resembled armies, thronged incessantly in and out.  A spectator standing on one of the heights of the city might have seen swarms like wandering tribes approach along the ancient Roman roads from north, south, east, and west; and, had he mixed among them, might have had difficulty in discovering their home.  Italians, Provencals, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slavs, Germans, Spaniards, even Englishmen came.

Italy gave free passage to pilgrims and kept the Truce of God.  The crowds arrived, wearing the pilgrim’s mantle or clad in their national dress, on foot, on horseback, or on cars, leading the ill and weary, and laden with their luggage.  Veterans of a hundred were led by their grandsons; and youths bore, like AEneas, father or mother on their shoulders.  They spoke in many dialects, but they all sang in the same language the litanies of the Church, and their longing dreams had but one and the same object.

On beholding in the sunny distance the dark forest of towers of the holy city they raised the exultant shout, “Rome, Rome!” like sailors who after a tedious voyage catch their first glimpse of land.  They threw themselves down in prayer and rose again with the fervent cry, “St. Peter and St. Paul, have mercy.”  They were received at the gates by their countrymen and by guardians appointed by the city to show them their quarters; nevertheless, they first made their way to St. Peter’s, ascended the steps of the vestibule on their knees, and then threw themselves in ecstasies on the grave of the apostle.