Notes on the Holy Year

Extract

The establishment of a Holy Year, or year of Jubilee, is universally attributed to Pope Boniface VIII, who in the fear 1300 published a bull granting a plenary indulgence to all who, having approached the Sacraments, should visit as pilgrims the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul in their separate basilicas on the Vatican Hill, and outside the Walls. Amongst the many reasons which led Pope Boniface to publish this jubilee was a strong tradition that exactly a century previous Pope Innocent III the Great had promulgated the same indulgence. Many witnesses came forward to attest that they had heard this stated by those who had actually been present in Rome as pilgrims in 1200. Two men from Beauvais and several Italians were amongst the most aged of the witnesses, in addition to two reputed eye-witnesses. One of these latter was a Spaniard, Fernandez by name, a reputed nephew of St. Dominic, who now in his hundred and fifteenth year told the Pope that he had been present in Rome during the indulgenced year of Innocent III. The other was an Italian, aged one hundred and seven years, who related that his father (prophetic man !) had ordered him many years before to come to Rome if still alive in 1300, in order to gain at the tomb of the Apostle a plenary indulgence such as he himself had gained in 1200.

Boniface VIII published the Jubilee by the bull !‘Antiquorum, February 22nd, 1300, and so great were the crowds of pilgrims that flocked to the Eternal City to gain the indulgence that the Pope directed the Jubilee to be held for the future on the first year of each succeeding century.