Christopher Duffin
London, England

Rome was the traditional home of the papacy, but tension with the French crown (Philip IV, 1268–1314) led to a move to Avignon, then in the Kingdom of Arles, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1309. The second (and longest reigning) of the seven Avignon popes was Pope John XXII, born as Jacques Duèze (1244–1334). Duèze was born into a wealthy, merchant-class family. After studying law, serving as Avignon University chancellor, and then rising through the clerical ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, he was elected Pope on August 7, 1316.

The assassination plot was conceived by Hugues Géraud (died 1317), Bishop of Cahors. He had been tried for embezzlement and sought retribution against the Pope and two of his advisors. Conspiring with other members of the papal court including Rigaud d’Assier (died 1323, Bishop of Winchester and papal chaplain), Géraud’s approach to murder was to combine poisoning with witchcraft. Wax was sourced from the stocks of a local widow and taken to Bernard Jourdain, a baptized Jew, for casting into effigies. One of these was fashioned “in the likeness of the Pope, dressed as a priest celebrating Mass,” and the other two wore cardinals’ hats.¹

At the same time, the plotters set about acquiring a series of poisons. These included toads, lizards, rat tails, and spiders. They then approached an apothecary named Durand Laurent, charging him to burn the materials and reduce them to powdered form. They also provided Laurent with a list of drugs that he was instructed to procure for addition to the powder. These included realgar (arsenic sulfide), pig’s gall, quicksilver (liquid mercury), and a series of herbal ingredients such as senna, verbena, and sage. The powders were packed into several wooden boxes and the herbs stored in bags. Wishing to supplement the poisonous ingredients even further, the gang took a ladder to the local gallows where they cut the flesh from the leg of a hanged man and collected samples of his hair and nails. To this harvest they added a section of the hangman’s rope and the tail of a dead dog, which they came across in the vicinity.

The next stage in the process was to bless the effigies and poison ingredients. The would-be assassins took the materials to the episcopal palace and pressured the somewhat suspicious bishop, Bernard Gasc, to comply with their request; he sprinkled holy water over a pewter tray containing the wax figures and pronounced an appropriate blessing. Perhaps having little confidence in the efficacy of the bishop’s ritual, the plotters sought a second blessing at the hands of Carrodymond Catalan, a chaplain to Rigaud d’Assier. Rather perturbed by the sacrilege involved, Catalan did not complete the ritual satisfactorily, prompting one of the prospective murderers to exclaim, “These priests know less than the cowherds back home!”²

The effigies and poisons were now ready for concealment and transport to Avignon, followed by delivery to the proposed victims. Three loaves of bread were purchased, sectioned, and hollowed out. A wax effigy was placed in each cavity, the toxic powder was added using goose feather pipes provided by the apothecary, and the various other ingredients (body parts of the hanged man, tail of the dead dog etc.) packed in as well; the leftover powder was stored in several boxes. A flour paste was then used to coat the loaves to give them a freshly baked appearance. The loaves were tightly bound with tow (oakum), individually wrapped in colored cloth, and placed in a carefully sealed woolen bag, which was then added to a canvas bag, all in a bid to disguise the fact that they had been tampered with.

Three messengers were employed to deliver the loaves to the Roman curia. Their bizarre behavior at the gates drew the attention of the papal guards, however, who then discovered the doctored loaves. A thorough investigation ensued, resulting in the arrest of all the perpetrators and accomplices on March 23, 1317, and interrogation at the hands of papally-commissioned inquisitors. Features of the plot were progressively revealed under questioning; the conspirators were identified and blame apportioned. The collective depositions of the participants allowed the whole sordid affair to be reconstructed in detail.

Hugues Géraud admitted everything without the necessity of applying torture; he was found guilty of sacrilege, witchcraft, and murder. Dismissed from his bishopric, he was bound over to secular authorities and burned at the stake in front of Avignon’s episcopal palace.

A further consequence of the assassination attempt was the issuing of a papal document on April 22, 1317, stating:

Not heeding that human laws judge it more atrocious to extinguish a man by poison than to slay him with the sword, they [the would-be assassins] caused deadly potions and poisons to be prepared, that by their administration they might extinguish us and some of our brethren. And lest they should fail in the execution of their evil purpose, the ability of administration being denied, they caused wax images to be made under our names and those of their brethren, so that by employing magical arts, forbidden incantations, and reprehensible invocations of demons, they might undermine the lives of the innocent by the puncture of the aforesaid images.³

The existing rights of inquisitors into cases involving witchcraft and sorcery were considerably expanded in the bull and began something of a crusade in the reigns of succeeding popes.

References

1. Edmond Albe. Autour de Jean XXII. Hugues Géraud, Évèque de Cahors. L’affair des poisons et des Envoûtements en 1317, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes littéraires, scientifiques et artistiques du Lot; 1904; 29: 1-206 (at p. 58).
2. Ibid, p. 62.
3. Odorico Raynaldi. Annales ecclesiastici: ex tomis octo ad unum pluribus auctum redacti. Romae: Varesius, 1667, unpaginated.