The choice of bishops was not yet, at that time, subject to any fixed and generally recognized rule: most often it was the chapter of the diocese that elected its bishop, with a subsequent application for the approbation of the king and the pope; sometimes the king and also the pope made such appointments directly and independently.

Boniface VIII.

had quite recently created a new bishopric at Pamiers in order to immediately appoint to it Bernard de Saisset, hitherto simple Abbot of St.Antonine in that city.

Bernard, who was devoted to his patron, was, further, a passionate Languedocian and a foe to the dominion of the French kings of the North over Southern France; and he gave himself out as a personal descendant of the last Counts of Toulouse.

On arriving in Paris as the pope's legate, he made use there of violent and inconsiderate language; he even affirmed, it was said, that St.Louis had predicted the disappearance of his line in the third generation, and that King Philip was only an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne.