BOOK VI.

FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.
 

CHAPTER II.

GREGORY VII.

 

HILDEBRAND was now to assume in his own person the majesty and the responsibility of the power which he had so long directed.

At the, death of Alexander II, Rome, by a fortune rare on such occasions, was undisturbed by the rage of its factions. Hildebrand, as chancellor of the see, ordered a fast of three days, with a view to obtaining the Divine guidance in the choice of a pope. But next day, while the funeral rites of Alexander were in progress, a loud outcry arose from the clergy and the people, demanding Hildebrand as his successor. The chancellor ascended the pulpit, and attempted to allay the uproar by representing that the time for an election was not yet come; but the cries still continued. Hugh the White then stood forth as spokesman of the cardinals, and, after a warm panegyric on Hildebrand’s services to the church, declared that on him the election would fall, if no worthier could be found. The cardinals retired for a short time, and, on their reappearance, presented Hildebrand to the mul­titude, by whom he was hailed with acclamations.

The name which the new pope assumed—Gregory the Seventh—naturally carried back men’s thoughts to the last Gregory who had occupied St. Peter’s chairs By choosing this name, Hildebrand did not merely testify his personal attachment to the memory of his master and patron; it was a declaration that he regarded him as a legitimate pope, and was resolved to vindicate the principles of which Gregory VI had been the repre­sentative and the confessor against the imperial power by which he had been deposed.

At the outset, however, Hildebrand did not wish pre­maturely to provoke that power. The proceedings which Alexander had commenced against Henry were allowed to drop; and, although the pope at once took on himself the full administration of his office, he sent notice of his election to the king, and waited for the royal confirmation of it. The German bishops, who knew that his influence had long governed the papacy, and dreaded his imperious character and his reforming tendencies, represented the dangers which might be expected from him; and, in consequence of their representations, two commissioners were despatched to Rome, with orders to compel Hildebrand to resign, if any irregularity could be found in his election. The pope received them with honour; he stated that the papacy had been forced on him by a tumult, against his own desire, and that he had deferred his consecration until the choice should be approved by the king and princes of Germany. The commissioners reported to Henry that no informality could be discovered, and on St. Peter’s day 1073 Hildebrand was consecrated as the successor of the apostle. It was the last time that the imperial confirmation was sought for an election to the papacy.

In the letters which he wrote on his elevation, Hilde­brand expresses a strong reluctance to undertake the burden of the dignity which had been thrust on him; and his professions have been often regarded as insincere. But this seems to be an injustice. Passionately devoted as he was to the cause which he had espoused, he may yet have preferred that his exertions for it should be carried on under the names of other men; he had so long wielded in reality the power which was nominally exer­cised by Leo, Victor, Stephen, Nicolas, and Alexander, that he may have wished to keep up the same system to the end. If he had desired to be pope, why did he not take means to secure his election on some earlier vacancy? Why should we suppose that his promotion as the suc­cessor of Alexander was contrived by himself, rather than that it was the natural effect of the impression which his character and his labours had produced on the minds of the Roman clergy and people? And even if he thought that matters had reached a condition in which no one but himself, acting with the title as well as with the power of pope, could fitly guide the policy of the church, why should we not believe that he felt a real unwillingness to undertake an office so onerous and so full of peril? His letters to princes and other great personages might indeed be suspected; but one which he addressed in January 1075 to his ancient friend and superior, Hugh of Cluny, seems to breathe the unfeigned feeling of his heart. Like the first pope of his name, and in terms partly borrowed from him, he laments the unhappy state of ecclesiastical affairs. The eastern church is failing from the faith, and is a prey to the Saracens. Westward, southward, northward, there is hardly a bishop to be seen, but such as have got their office by unlawful means, or are blameable in their lives, and devoted to worldly ambition; while among secular princes there is no one who prefers God’s honour and righteousness to the advantages of this world. Those among whom he lives—Romans, Lombards, and Normans—are worse than Jews or pagans. He had often prayed God either to take him from the world or to make him the means of benefit to His church; the hope that he may be the instrument of gracious designs is all that keeps him at Rome or in life.

But, whatever his private feelings may have been, Hildebrand, when raised to the papacy, entered on the prosecution of his schemes with increased energy. The corruptions of the church, which he traced to its connection with the state, had led him to desire its independence; and it now appeared that under the name of independence he understood sovereign domination. In the beginning of his pontificate, he spoke of the spiritual and the secular powers as being like the two eyes in the human body, and therefore apparently on an equality; but afterwards they are compared to the sun and the moon respectively—a comparison more distinctly insisted on by Innocent III, and which gives a great superiority to the priesthood, so that Gregory founds on it a claim to control “after God” the actions of kings; and still later (as we shall see hereafter), his statements as to the power of temporal sovereigns became of a far more depreciatory character. And, as he brought out with a new boldness the claims of the church against the state, it was equally his policy to assert a despotic power for the papacy against the rest of the church, while all his aggressive acts or claims were grounded on pretexts of ancient and established rights. The principles of his system are embodied in a set of propositions known as his “Dictate”, which, although probably not drawn up by himself, contains nothing but what may be paralleled either from his writings or from his actions. These maxims are far in advance of the forged decretals. It is laid down that the Roman pontiff alone is universal bishop; that his name is the only one of its kind in the world. To him alone it belongs to depose or to reconcile bishops; and he may depose them in their absence, and without the concurrence of a synod. He alone is entitled to frame new laws for the church—to divide, unite, or translate bishoprics. He alone may use the ensigns of empire; all princes are bound to kiss his feet; he has the right to depose emperors, and to absolve subjects from their allegiance. His power supersedes the diocesan authority of bishops. He may revise all judgments, and from his sentence there is no appeals All appeals to him must be respected, and to him the greater causes of every church must be referred. With his leave, inferiors may accuse their superiors. No council may be styled general without his command. The Roman church never has erred, and, as Scripture testifies, never will err. The pope is above all judgment, and by the merits of St. Peter is undoubtedly rendered holy. The church, according to Gregory, was not to be the handmaid of princes, but their mistress; if she had received from God power to bind and to loose in heaven, much more must she have a like power over earthly things. His idea of the papacy combined something of the ancient Jewish theocracy with the imperial traditions of Rome.

Gregory boldly asserted that kingdoms were held as fiefs under St. Peter. From France he claims tribute as an ancient right; he says that Charlemagne acted as the pope’s collector, and bestowed Saxony on the apostle. He declares that Spain had of old belonged to St. Peter, although the memory of the connection had been obscured during the Mahometan occupation; and on this ground he grants to the count of Roucy (near Reims) all that he may be able to regain from the Arabs, to be held under the apostolic see. To Solomon, king of Hungary he writes that that kingdom had been given by the holy Stephen to St. Peter; he rebukes him for taking investiture from the king of Germany, tells him that therefore his reign will not be long, and in writing to the next king, Geisa, he traces Solomon’s fall to this unworthy submission. He makes similar claims to Bohemia, to Denmark, to Poland, to Provence, Corsica, Sardinia, England, and Ireland. By conferring the title of king on the duke of Dalmatia, he binds him to be the vassal of the holy see; where he does not pretend an ancient right, he offers to princes—even to the sovereign of Russia among them—a new and better title from St. Peter; and in the event it was found that the hope of a title which professed to consecrate possession, to heal all irregularities, and to silence all questions as to the mode of acquisition, was the most powerful means of inducing princes to submit to the pretensions of Rome. The sternness of Gregory’s resolution to carry out his principles was expressed by the frequent citation of a text from Jeremiah—“Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood”. But in his dealings with princes he showed nothing of that fanaticism which disregards persons and circumstances. He could temporize with the strong, while he bent all his force against the weak. He was careful to strike where his blows might be most effective.

Philip I of France had succeeded his father at the age of seven, and, with a natural character far inferior to that of Henry IV, had grown up in a like freedom from wholesome restraint, and in a like want of moral training. Gregory, soon after his election, addressed a letter to the king, censuring the disorders of his government and Philip answered by promising amendment, but took little pains to fullfill his promise. On this the pope wrote to some French bishops and nobles, in terms of the severest denunciation against their sovereign. Philip, he said, was not a king but a tyrant—a greedy wolf, an enemy of God and man. By the persuasion of the devil he had reached the height of iniquity in the sale of ecclesiastical preferments; he paid no regard to either divine or human laws; a loose was given to perjury, adultery, sacrilege, and all manner of vices, and the king not only encouraged these but set the example of them. Nay, not content with this, he even robbed foreign merchants who visited his dominions—an outrage unheard of among the very pagans. The bishops were charged to remonstrate, and were assured that their obligations of fealty bound them not to overlook the sovereign's misdeeds, but to reprove them; the kingdom must not be ruined by “one most abandoned man”. Gregory told Philip himself that France had sunk into degradation and contempt; he threatened to excommunicate and interdict him, to withdraw the obedience of his subjects, to leave nothing undone in order to wrest the kingdom from him, unless he repented.

Yet all this led to no result. Philip was too indolent to enter into a direct conflict with the pope; he allowed the Roman legates to hold synods and to exercise discipline in his dominions; but he grudged the diminution of his revenues by their proceedings, and, when he found that they especially interfered with his patronage or profit in the appointment or deposition of bishops and abbots, he opposed them with a sullen and dogged resistances. Gregory repeatedly wrote to him, admonished him, and expressed hopes of his amendment. No amendment followed; but the pope was too deeply engaged in other business, and too much dreaded the spirit of the French nation—in which the nobles were gradually rallying round the throne, while the church was more united than that of Germany—to take any steps for the correction of the king.

While Gregory spared Philip, and while (as we shall see hereafter) he dreaded William of England and Normandy, his most vigorous efforts were employed against the king of Germany, the heir of the imperial dignity. If he could humble the highest and proudest of crowns, the victory would tell on all other sovereigns; and the papacy, in such strength as it had never before possessed, was measured against the empire in its weakness.

Germany was now in a miserable state of distraction. The young king had given much just cause of discontent, while his subjects were not disposed to limit their demands within the bounds of reason. The garrisons of the Saxon and Thuringian fortresses excited by their outrages the violent indignation of the people, and the complaints which were addressed to Henry against them were received with scorn and mockery. Sometimes he refused to see the deputies who were sent to him; it is said that on one occasion, when some envoys waited on him at Goslar by his own appointment, they were detained in his ante-chamber all day, while he amused himself by playing at dice, and at length were told that he had retired by another way. It was believed that the king intended to reduce the Saxons to slavery, and to seize on their country for his own domain. The whole population rose in frenzy; a confederacy was formed which included the primate Siegfried, with the abbots of Fulda and Hersfeld; and a leader was found in Otho of Nordheim. Both among princes and among prelates many were ready to disguise their selfish ambition under the cloak of patriotism and religion; and loud cries were raised for a new king. The exasperation of the Saxons was yet further increased when Henry endeavoured to engage the barbarians of the north—Poles, Luticians, and Danes—to take up arms against them.

Gregory in the beginning of his pontificate wrote to Godfrey of Tuscany and to other relations of Henry, entreating them to use their influence for the king’s amendment. Henry, feeling the difficulties of his position, and not suspecting the extent of the great scheme for the exaltation of the papacy at the cost of the empire, addressed the pope in a tone of deference; he regretted his own past misconduct—his encouragement of simony, his negligence in punishing offenders; he owned himself unworthy to be called the son of the church, and requested Gregory to aid him in appeasing the distractions of Milan, where a new claimant, Tedald, nominated by the king at the request of the citizens, who disowned both Godfrey and Atto, was now engaged in a contest for the archbishopric with Atto and the faction of Herlembald.

The troubles of Germany increased. In March 1074 an agreement was extorted from Henry that the hated fortresses should be destroyed. The great castle of the Harz was at once that in which the king took an especial pride, and which was most obnoxious to his people. It included a church, which, although built of wood, was splendidly adorned; a college of monks was attached to the church, and in its vaults reposed the bodies of the king’s brother and infant son. Henry dismantled the fortifications, in the hope of saving the rest; but the infuriated peasantry destroyed the church, scattered the royal bones and the sacred relics, carried off the costly vessels, and proceeded to demolish other fortresses in the same riotous manner. The Saxon princes endeavoured to appease the king’s indignation by representing to him that these outrages were committed without their sanction, and by promising to punish the ringleaders; but he refused to listen to their apologies, inveighed against the Saxons as traitors whom no treaties could bind, and complained to the pope of the sacrileges which had been committed at the Harzburg. About the same time the tumultuary spirit of the Germans showed itself in out­breaks in various quarters. The citizens of Cologne expelled their archbishop, Hanno, but he soon reduced them to submission, and punished them with characteristic severity.

In April 1074 Gregory sent the empress-mother Agnes, with four bishops, on an embassy into Germany. They were received at Nuremberg by Henry, but refused to hold any communication with him until he should have done penance for his offences against the church. Out of deference to his mother, the king submitted to this condition; in the rough garb of a penitent, and with his feet bare, he sued for and received absolution; and his excommunicated courtiers were also absolved, on swearing that they would restore the church property which they had taken. Henry was disposed to accede to the pope’s intended measures against simoniacs, as he hoped by such means to get rid of some bishops who had opposed him in the Saxon troubles. It was proposed that a council should be held in Germany, under a legate, with a view to investigating the cases of bishops suspected of having obtained their promotion by unlawful means. The primate Siegfried—a mean, selfish, and pusillanimous prelate—made no objection to the proposal. But Liemar, archbishop of Bremen, a man of very high character for piety, learning, and integrity, declared that it was an infringement on the rights of the national church; that, in the absence of the pope, the archbishop of Mainz alone was entitled to preside over German councils, as perpetual legate of the holy see. In consequence of his opposition, Liemar was suspended by the envoys, was cited to Rome, and, as he did not appear, was excommunicated by Gregory, who wrote to him a letter of severe rebuke; and other prelates who took part with him were suspended until they should clear themselves before the pope. Agnes and her companions were dismissed by the king with gifts, and were assured that he would aid the pope in his endeavours to suppress simony.

Gregory still had hopes of using Henry as an ally. In December 1074 he addressed to him two letters—the one, thanking him for his promise of cooperation; the other, remarkable as announcing the project of a crusade. The pope states that fifty thousand men, from both sides of the Alps, were ready to march against the infidels of the east, if he would be their leader; that he earnestly wishes to undertake the expedition, more especially as it holds out a hope of reconciliation with the Greek church; and that, if he should go, Henry must in his absence guard the church as a mother, and defend her honour. Even so late as July 1075, he commended the king for his cooperation in discountenancing simony, and for his desire to enforce chastity on the clergy, while he expressed a hope that this might be regarded as a pledge for yet more excellent things.

In the meantime the pope’s measures of reform were producing a violent commotion. Gregory was resolved to proceed with vigour in the suppression of simony and of marriage among the clergy. Like Peter Damiani, he included under the name of simony all lay patronage of benefices; that which is given to God (it was said) is given for ever, so that the donor can thenceforth have no further share in the disposal of it. In enforcing celibacy on the clergy, he was probably influenced in part by his strict monastic ideas, and in part by considerations of policy. By binding the clergy to single life, he might hope to detach them from their kindred and from society, to destroy in them the feeling of nationality, to consolidate them into a body devoted to the papacy, and owning allegiance to it rather than to the temporal sovereigns under whom they enjoyed the benefits of law and government, to preserve in the hierarchy wealth which might have readily escaped from its hands through the channels of family and social connections.

At his first synod, in Lent 1074, canons were passed against simony and clerical marriage. The clergy who were guilty of such practices were to be debarred from all functions in the church; the laity were charged to refuse their ministrations; it was declared that their blessing was turned into a curse, and their prayer into sin—that disobedience to this mandate was idolatry and paganism. Even if such enactments did not directly contradict the long acknowledged principle of the church, that the validity of sacraments does not depend on the character of the minister, their effect was practically the same; for it mattered not whether the sacraments were annulled, or whether the laity were told that attendance on them was sinful. The charge to the laity had, indeed, already been given by Nicolas and by Alexander; but the decrees of those popes appear to have been little known or enforced beyond the bounds of Italy, and north of the Alps the canon against the marriage of the clergy was received as something wholly new. In Germany it aroused a general feeling of indignation among the clergy. They declared that it was unwarranted by Scripture or by the ancient church; that the pope was heretical and insane for issuing such an order, in contradiction to the Saviour and to St. Paul; that he required the clergy to live like angels rather than men, while at the same time he opened the door to all impurity; that they would rather renounce their priesthood than their wives. Some bishops openly defied the pope—not from any personal interest, but because they felt for the misery which his measures would inflict on the clergy, their wives, and their families. Otho of Constance, one of Henry’s excommunicated counsellors, who had before tolerated the marriage of his clergy, now put forth a formal sanction of it. Altmann of Passau, in publishing the decree, was nearly killed. The primate, Siegfried, on being required to promulgate it, desired his clergy to put away their wives within six months. As the order was ineffectual, he held a synod at Erfurt, in October 1074, where he required them to renounce either their wives or their ministry, and at the same time he revived his ancient claim to tithes, which the Thuringians supposed to have been relinquished. A band of armed Thuringians broke in, and the council was dissolved in confusion. Siegfried requested that the pope would modify his orders, but received in answer a rebuke for his want of courage, and a command to enforce them all. A second council was held at Mainz, in October 1075; but, notwithstanding the presence of a Roman legate, the clergy were so furious in their language, their looks, and their gestures, that Siegfried was glad to escape alive. Having no inclination to sacrifice himself for another man’s views, he declared that the pope must carry out his schemes for himself and was content with ordering that in future no married man should be promoted to ecclesiastical office, and with exacting a promise of celibacy from those whom he ordained. In France, the excitement was no less than in Germany. A council at Paris, in 1074, cried out that the new decrees were intolerable and irrational; Walter, abbot of Pontoise, who attempted to defend them, was beaten, spitted on, and imprisoned; and John, archbishop of Rouen, while endeavouring to enforce them at a provincial synod, was attacked with stones and driven to flight. Gregory in one of his letters mentions a report (for which, however, there is no other authority) that a monk had even been burnt at Cambray for publishing the prohibition of marriage.

Gregory was undaunted by the agitation which had arisen. Finding that little assistance could be expected from synods, he sent legates into all quarters with orders to enforce the decrees. To these legates he applied the text—“He that heareth you, heareth me”; wherever they appeared, they were for the time the highest ecclesiastical authorities; and bishops trembled before the deacons and subdeacons who were invested with the pope’s commission to overrule, to judge, and to depose them. The monks, his sure allies in such a cause, were active in spreading the knowledge of the decrees among the people, and in stirring them up by their invectives against the clergy. If bishops opposed his measures, he absolved their flocks from the obligation of obedience;  he avowed the intention of bringing public opinion to bear on such clergymen as should be impenetrable to his views of their duty to God and to religion;  he charged his lay supporters to prevent their ministrations, “even by force, if necessary”. The effects of thus setting the people against their pastors were fearful. In some cases the laity took part with the denounced clergy; but more commonly they rose against them, and with violence and insult drove them, with their wives and children, from their homes. A general confusion followed; the ordinances of religion were deserted, or were profaned and invaded by laymen and the contempt of the clergy thus generated was very effectual in contributing to the increase of anti-hierarchical and heretical sects.

The pope could the better afford to be calm, because the troubles excited by his decree as to celibacy distracted the general attention from a yet more important part of his designs, and weakened the influence of a large party among the clergy whose opposition he had reason to expect. At the outset of his pontificate he had not attacked the practice of investiture. When Anselm, the favourite chaplain and adviser of the countess Matilda, on being nominated to the see of Lucca, consulted him on the subject, Gregory advised him not to take investiture from Henry until the king should have dismissed his excommunicated counsellors and should have been reconciled to the Roman churchy he did not, however, object to the ceremony of investiture in itself and, at Henry’s request, he deferred the consecration of Anselm, and that of Hugh, who had been elected to the bishopric of Die, in Burgundy, until they should have been invested by the king. But at the Lent synod of 1075 (where the censures of the church were pronounced against many of Henry’s partisans, who were charged with a breach of the conditions on which they had obtained absolution at Nuremberg), Gregory issued a decree that no ecclesias­tic should take investiture from lay hands, and that no lay potentate should confer investiture. Investiture, as we have seen, although it originated before the feudal system, had long been interpreted according to the principles of feudalism. By its defenders it was maintained on the ground that it related to the temporalities only; that, if bishops and abbots were to enjoy these, they ought, like other holders of property, to acknowledge the superiority of the liege-lord, and to be subject to the usual feudal obligations. The opposite party replied that the temporalities were annexed to the spiritual office, as the body to the soul; that, if laymen could not confer the spiritualities, they ought not to meddle with the disposal of their appendages, but that these also should be conferred by the pope or the metropolitan, as an assurance to the receivers that their temporalities were given by God. The abolition of investiture was a means to prevent effectually the sale of preferments by princes; but this was not all. On investiture depended the power of sovereigns over prelates, and the right to expect feudal service from them; if there were no fealty, there could be no treason. The patronage which was taken from sovereigns would pass into other hands; the prelates would transfer their allegiance from the crown to the pope; and if Gregory was sincere when, in September 1077, he told the people of Aquileia that he had no wish, to interfere with the duty of bishops towards sovereigns, he had at least discovered the real bearing of his pretensions when, in February 1079, he exacted from the new patriarch of Aquileia an oath of absolute fealty to himself including the obligation of military service.

Gregory knew that his decree was sure to be opposed by all the clergy who depended on the patronage of lay­men—from the prelates of the imperial court to the chaplain of the most inconsiderable noble—and that, in addition to these, there were many who would oppose him, not from any selfish motive, but from the belief that the measure was an invasion of the lawful rights of princes. For a time he hardly mentioned the new canon in his letters; the publication of it was chiefly left to his legates; and sovereigns, as if in a contemptuous affectation of ignorance as to the new pretensions of Rome, continued to invest bishops and abbots as be­fore.

At Christmas 1075 an extraordinary outrage was perpetrated by Cencius, who has been already mentioned. This man, after having been anathematized by Alexander II on account of his connection with Cadalous, effected a reconciliation with Alexander, and continued to reside at Rome. The city was scandalized and disquieted by his irregularities, which had often brought him into collision with the government; he had even been condemned to death, and had been pardoned only through the intercession of the countess Matilda; but he possessed great wealth and influence, and was master of several fortified houses, which were garrisoned by a force of desperate ruffians. On Christmas eve, Gregory proceeded to the church of St. Mary Major (where the holy cradle was then, as now, supposed to be preserved) for the midnight mass which ushers in the celebration of the Saviour’s birth. In consequence of tempestuous weather, the congregation was small. The pope was in the act of administering the sacrament when the church was suddenly invaded by Cencius with a party of his retainers. The worshippers were borne down; some of them were stabbed with daggers. Gregory was rudely seized, was dragged by the hair, and beaten; a sword, aimed at him with the intention of despatching him, wounded him in the forehead; he was stripped of a part of his robes, and was carried off on the back of one of the villains to a tower belonging to Cencius. All this he bore with perfect composure, neither struggling to escape, nor asking for mercy. During the night he was exposed to the insults of the gang into whose hands he had fallen, among whom a sister of Cencius was conspicuous by the bitter­ness of her reproaches; and Cencius himself holding a drawn sword at his throat, endeavoured by the most savage demeanour and threats to extort the cession of papal treasures, or of castles belonging to the apostolic see, to be held as benefices under it. But even in this den of ruffians, Gregory found sympathy from a man who endeavoured to protect him with furs against the piercing cold, and from a woman who bathed his wound. It was intended to send him privately out of the city; but in the course of the night the report of his captivity was spread by the clergy who had been with him at the time of the assault. The people of Rome were roused by the sound of bells and trumpets, the gates were watched so that no one could leave the city, and a vast multitude gathered around the tower of Cencius, demanding the release of their pastor. A breach was made in the wall, and the besiegers were preparing to set the place on fire, when Cencius, in abject terror, threw himself at the feet of his prisoner, and entreated forgiveness. “I pardon what thou hast done against myself”, Gregory calmly replied; “as for thy offences against God, His Mother, and the church, I enjoin on thee a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and that, if thou return alive, thou be guided in future by my counsels”. The pope, covered with blood, was received with exultation by the crowd, and was carried back to the church, to resume the interrupted rites, and to pour forth a thanksgiving for his deliverance. Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, formerly chancellor of Italy, and still Henry’s ablest and most active partisan in that country, was suspected of having instigated the attempt of Cencius, and was ordered to leave Rome. Cencius, forgetting his promises of amendment, soon incurred a fresh excommunication, and fled to Henry, who was then in Italy. The king refused to admit him to his presence openly, as being excommunicate, although it is asserted by the opposite party that he held secret conferences with him by night; and Cencius died at Pavia, where he was buried by Guibert with a pomp which gave countenance to the suspicions against the archbishop.

The divisions of Germany had become more desperate. The king and the Saxons had each invoked the pope. Henry demanded the deposition of the prelates who had opposed him; the Saxons declared that such a king was unworthy to reign, and entreated Gregory to sanction the election of another in his room. Henry had been greatly strengthened and elated by a victory over the Saxons at Hohenberg, on the Unstrut, in June 1075. The pope, on that occasion, wrote to him, “As to the pride of the Saxons, who wrongfully opposed you, which, by God’s judgment, has been crushed before your face, we must both rejoice for the peace of the church, and grieve because much Christian blood has been spilt”. He expressed a willingness to receive him as his lord, brother, and son, and exhorted him to employ his success rather with a view to God’s honour than to his own; but the advice was disregarded, and the king, by the abuse of his triumph, had added to the miseries and grievances of the conquered peopled

A short time before the outrage of Cencius, ambassadors from Henry arrived at Rome; and on their return they were accompanied by envoys charged with a letter from Gregory to the king. The address was conditional: “Health and apostolical benediction—if, however, he obey the apostolic see as a Christian king ought”. The letter explained that Henry’s conduct had given cause for this doubtful form; he was censured for intercourse with excommunicate persons, for nominating and investing bishops to several sees—among them, Tedald to Milan. But as to investiture, the pope offers to meet the king’s wishes if any tolerable way of accommodation can be pointed out. The bearers of the letter were instructed to proceed according as it should be received; if Henry were contumacious, they were to cite him, under pain of excommunication, to answer for his misdeeds at a synod which was to be held at Rome in the following Lent. He had already been warned by a private mission that, unless he should reform, he would be excommunicated. The reception of the pope’s letter was such that the envoys felt themselves bound to deliver the citation. The king was in great indignation; he sent them away with contempt, and summoned the bishops and abbots of Germany to a council at Worms, where all but a few Saxon bishops attended, and the feeling of the assembly was highly excited. One course only appeared to be open to Henry, unless he were disposed to absolute submission; as obedience to the pope had from the days of St. Boniface been a part of German Christianity, the only means of setting aside the authority of Gregory was by repudiating his claim to the apostolic see. An ally was found in Cardinal Hugh the White—the same who had taken so conspicuous a part in the elevation of Hildebrand to the pontificate. Hugh, a man of great ability and skillfull in business, but versatile and utterly unprincipled, had lately been deprived by Gregory for conniving at simony, and for the third time laid under anathema. He now produced letters which are said to have been forged in the name of the Roman cardinals, charging the pope with a multitude of offences, and demanding his deposition; and to these Hugh added a virulent invective of his own. Gregory was reproached with the lowness of his birth; he was accused of having obtained the papacy by bribery and violence—of simony, magic, praying to the devil. Although the charges were for the most part so monstrous as to be utterly incredible, the German prelates were in no mood to criticize them, and, headed by Siegfried, they pronounced the deposition of Hildebrand. Two bishops only, Adalbero of Wurzburg and Herman of Metz, objected that, as no bishop could be condemned without a regular trial, much less could a pope, against whom not even a bishop or an archbishop could be admitted as accuser. But William of Utrecht, one of the ablest of Henry’s party, told them that they must either subscribe the condemnation of Gregory or renounce their allegiance to the king; and they submitted.

On the breaking up of the council, Henry wrote to the Romans a letter in which was embodied the substance of one addressed to Gregory. He begs them to reckon his enemies as their own enemies, and especially the monk Hildebrand, whom he charges with attempting to rob him of his Italian kingdom, and of his hereditary rights in the appointment to the papacy—with having declared himself resolved either to die or to deprive Henry both of his crown and of his life. The Romans are desired not to kill the pope, since life after degradation would be the severest punishment for him; but if he should make any resistance to the decree of deposition, they are to thrust him out by force, and are to receive from the king a new pope, able and willing to heal the wounds which Hildebrand had caused. Henry’s letter to the pope was addressed, “To Hildebrand, now not apostolic pontiff, but a false monk”. It taxed him in violent terms with an accumulation of offences and enormities. “We bore with these things”, said the king, “out of respect for the apostolic see. But you mistook our humility for fear, and rose against the royal power itself which God had granted to us—as if we had received the kingdom from you, and as if it were in your hand, not in God’s”· And he peremptorily charged Hildebrand to descend from the chair of which he was unworthy. The bishops also wrote a letter to “brother Hildebrand” in which they charged him with throwing the church into confusion. His beginning had been bad, his progress worse; he had been guilty of cruelty and pride; he had attempted to deprive bishops of the power committed to them by God, and had given up everything to the fury of the multitude. He had obtained the papacy by the breach of an oath to the late emperor; his intimacy with the countess Matilda is censured as improper; and the bishops conclude by solemnly renouncing him. The prelates of Lombardy, in a council at Piacenza, confirmed the proceedings of their brethren at Worms, and swore never to acknowledge Hildebrand as pope.

In February, the customary Lenten synod met at Rome. It is said that the members were pondering on the appearance of an extraordinary egg which had lately been produced—displaying on its shell the figures of a serpent and a shield—when Roland, a canon of Parma, who had been despatched from the council of Piacenza, entered the assembly, and delivered the king’s letter to Gregory. “My lord the king”, he said, “and all the bishops, both beyond the mountains and in Italy, charge thee forthwith to quit St. Peter’s seat which thou hast invaded; for it is not fit that any one should ascend to such an honour unless by their command and by the imperial gift”. Then, turning to the assembled prelates, he summoned them to appear before the king at Whitsuntide, that they might receive from his hands a new pope instead of the ravening wolf who had usurped the apostolic chair. The synod was thrown into confusion. “Seize him!” cried the bishop of Porto; and Roland might have paid for his audacity with his life, had not the pope warded off the swords of his soldiery by interposing his own body. Gregory stilled the tempest, and calmly desired that the king’s letter should be read. The bishops entreated him to pronounce the judgment which Henry had deserved, and on the following day the excommunication was uttered. The pope ordered that the canons against despisers of the apostolic see should be recited; he alluded to the portentous egg, of which the late scene now suggested an explanation; he recounted Henry’s misdeeds, and the failure of all attempts to reclaim him. Now that the king had attacked the foundations of the church, it was time to draw forth the sword of vengeance, and to strike down the enemy of God and of His church; and, in accordance with the desire of the assembled fathers, he pronounced sentence on Henry in the form of an address to St. Peter. The pope called the apostle to witness that he had not sought the papacy, or obtained it by any unlawful means; and, by the power of binding and loosing committed to him, he declared Henry to be deprived of the government of Germany and Italy, released all Christians from their oaths of fealty to him, and denounced him with the curse of the church. The rebellious bishops of Lombardy were suspended and excommunicated; those who had taken part in the proceedings at Worms were placed under a like sentence, unless within a certain time they should prove that their concurrence had been unwilling. The empress Agnes was present, and heard the condemnation of her son.

Gregory announced the excommunication and deposition of Henry in letters to the people of Germany and to all Christians. The report of the sentence reached the king at Utrecht, where he was keeping the season of Easter. At first he was greatly agitated; but the bishop, William, succeeded in persuading him to put on an appearance of indifference, and he resolved to meet his condemnation by a counter-anathema on the pope. Two bishops, Pibo of Toul and Dietrich of Verdun, although strong partisans of the king, were afraid to share in such a step, and left Utrecht by night. But on Easter-day, at high mass, William ascended the pulpit of his cathedral, and, after a fiery invective, pronounced a ban against Hildebrand. The Lombard bishops, on being informed of Gregory’s sentence against them, held another synod, under the presidency of Guibert, and renewed their condemnation of the pope.

The unexampled measure on which Gregory had ventured rent all Germany into two hostile parties. No middle course was possible between holding with the pope against the king and holding with the king against the pope. Herman of Metz ventured to report to Gregory that his right to excommunicate a king was questioned; to which he replied that the charge given by our Lord to St. Peter—Feed my sheep—made no distinction between kings and other men. He cited examples from history—the behaviour of St. Ambrose to Theodosius, and the pretended deposition of Childeric by Zacharias in answer to the opinion that the royal power was superior to the episcopal, he alleged, as if from Ambrose, a saying that the difference between lead and shining gold is nothing in comparison of that between secular and episcopal dignity and he declared that royalty was invented by human pride, whereas priesthood was instituted by the Divine mercy.

Henry soon felt that his power was ebbing from him. Destitute as Gregory was of any material force, he had left his decree to find for itself the means of its execution; yet in this he did not rely wholly on the belief of his spiritual power. The sentence of deposition against Henry was addressed to subjects among whom a disloyal and rebellious spirit had long prevailed. The pope was sure to find an ally in every one who had been offended by the king himself by his guardians, or by his father; all were glad to welcome the religious sanction which was thus given to their patriotism, their vindictiveness, or their ambition. The wrath of heaven was believed to have been visibly declared against Henry’s cause. Godfrey the Hunchbacked, duke of Lorraine, who had undertaken to seat an imperialist antipope in St. Peter's chair, had been assassinated at Antwerp in the beginning of the year. The bishop of Utrecht, soon after his display of vehemence against Gregory on Easter-day, fell sick; it was rumoured that he saw devils in his frenzy—that he died unhouselled and in raving despair. Others of the king’s partisans were also carried off about the same time, and their deaths were interpreted as judgments. A spirit of disaffection became general. Henry summoned diets, but few appeared at them; some of the princes, whose policy had hitherto been doubtful, now openly declared themselves against him, and bishops in alarm retracted their adhesion to the measures which had been taken at Worms. Among these prelates was Udo, archbishop of Treves, who went to Italy, made his peace with the pope, and on his return avoided all intercourse with the excommunicated bishops and counsellors; nor, although specially permitted by Gregory to confer with the king, in the hope of bringing him to submission, could he be persuaded to eat or to pray with him. The example was contagious; Henry found himself deserted and shunned, and his attempts to conciliate his opponents by lenient measures were ineffectual. The pope, in answer to a letter from the Saxons, told them that, if the king should refuse to amend, they ought to choose a successor, who should be confirmed in the kingdom by the apostolic authority.

In October a great assembly of German dignitaries met at Tribur. The leaders of the princes and nobles were Rudolf of Swabia, Welf of Bavaria, Berthold of Zahringen, and Otho of Nordheim; at the head of the prelates was the primate Siegfried. The patriarch of Aquileia and bishop Altmann of Passau appeared as legates from the pope, and made a strong impression by declaring that they must avoid all intercourse with such bishops as had not obtained formal absolution for their concurrence in the acts of the council of Worms. The sessions lasted seven days. All the errors, the misdeeds, the calamities of Henry’s life were exposed and dwelt on; a determination to depose him was loudly avowed. The king, who was at Oppenheim, on the opposite side of the Rhine, sent messages to the assembly day after day. His tone became even abject; he entreated the members to spare him; he promised amendment; he offered to bind himself by the most solemn pledges, and to resign into their hands all the powers of government, if they would but suffer him to enjoy the name and the ensigns of royalty, which, as they had been conferred by all, could not (he said) be resigned without discredit to all. His promises were rejected with contemptuous references to his former breaches of faith, and the confederates declared an intention of immediately choosing another king. Each party entertained projects of crossing the river and attacking the other by force; but at length it was proposed that the matters in dispute should be referred to the pope, who was to be invited to attend a diet at Augsburg at the feast of Candlemas ensuing. If Henry could obtain absolution within a year from the time of his excommunication, he was to be acknowledged as king; the princes would accompany him to Italy, where he should be crowned as emperor, and would aid him in driving out the Normans; but if unabsolved, he was to forfeit his kingdom for ever. In the meantime he was to forego the symbols and the pomp of royalty, to refrain from entering a church until he should be absolved, to dismiss his ex­communicated advisers, and to live as a private man at Spires, restricting himself to the company of Dietrich, bishop of Verdun, and a few other persons. If he should fail in the performance of any condition, the princes wore to be free from their engagements to him. Hard as these terms were, Henry saw no alternative but the acceptance of them; he disbanded his troops, dismissed his counsellors, and, with his queen and her infant child Conrad, withdrew to the city which had been assigned for his residence.

The prospect of meeting the pope in Germany—of appearing before him as a deposed king, in the presence of the exasperated and triumphant princes—was alarming, and Henry, by an embassy to Rome, requested that he might be allowed to make his submission in Italy. But Gregory refused the request, and announced to the Germans his compliance with the invitation to Augsburg. The year within which it was necessary for the king to obtain absolution was already drawing towards an end, and in desperation he resolved to cross the Alps and to present himself before the pope. With much difficulty he raised the funds necessary for the journey; for those who had fed on him in his prosperity were now deaf to his applications. He left Speris with Bertha and her child; among their train was only one man of free birth, and he a person of humble station. As the passes of the Alps were in the hands of the opposite party, the king, instead of proceeding by the nearest road, took his way through Burgundy, where he spent Christmas at Besançon with his maternal great uncle Duke William. At the foot of Mont Cenis, he was honourably received by his mother-in-law Adelaide, and her son Amadeus, marquis of Susa: but, says Lambert of Hersfeld, the anger of the Lord had turned from him not only those who were bound by fealty and gratitude, but even his friends and nearest kindred; and Adelaide refused him a passage, except on condition of his giving up to her the disposal of five bishoprics situated within her territory. With such a proposal, which seemed as if intended to embroil him further with the pope, it was impossible to comply; but Henry was fain to purchase the passage by ceding to her a valuable territory in Burgundy.

The winter was of extraordinary severity. The Rhine and the Po were thickly frozen over from Martinmas until the end of March; in many places the vines were killed by the frost; the snow which covered the Alps was as hard and as slippery as ice. By the help of guides, the royal party with difficulty reached the summit of the pass; but the descent was yet more hazardous. The men crept on their hands and knees, often slipping and rolling down the glassy declivities. The queen, her child, and her female attendants, were wrapped in cow-hides, and in this kind of sledge were dragged down by then guides. The horses were led, with their feet tied together; many dropped dead through exhaustion, some fell from precipices and perished, and almost all the rest were rendered unserviceable.

Having achieved this perilous passage, the king arrived at Turin, where he met with a reception which contrasted strongly with the behaviour of his northern subjects. The Italians remembered the effects produced by former visits of German emperors; they looked to Henry for a redress of their grievances, for a pacification of their discords; the Lombards were roused to enthusiasm by a belief that he was come to depose the detested Gregory. Bishops, nobles, and a host of inferior partisans flocked around him, and, as he moved onwards, the number of his followers continually increased.

The proceedings at Tribur had opened a magnificent prospect to Gregory; he might hope to extinguish the imperial power, and to create it anew in accordance with his own principles. Contrary to the advice and entreaties of his Roman counsellors, he set out for Germany under the guidance of the countess (or marchioness) Matilda, who, by the murder of her husband, the younger Godfrey of Lorraine, and by the death of her mother, had lately become sole mistress of her rich inheritance. The Great Countess was not more remarkable for power and influence than for character. Her talents and accomplishments were extraordinary; no sovereign of the age was more skillfull in the art of government; and with a masculine resolution and energy she united the warmth of a woman’s enthusiastic devotion. Her marriage with the imperialist Godfrey, the son of her stepfather, had been disturbed by differences of feeling and opinion, and after a short union the pair had lived apart in their respective hereditary dominions. The attachment with which she devoted herself to the pope was a mark for the slander of Gregory’s enemies, but needs no other explanation than that acquaintance with her from her early years which had given him an opportunity of imbuing her mind with his lofty ecclesiastical principles, and of gaining over her the influence of a spiritual father. In company with Matilda the pope was advancing northwards, when, on hearing that Henry had reached Vercelli, and finding himself disappointed in his expectation of an escort from the princes of Germany, he was persuaded by her to withdraw to Canossa, a strong Apennine fortress belonging to the countess. There they were joined by the marchioness Adelaide of Susa and her son, who seem to have accompanied the king across the Alps, by Hugh abbot of Cluny, the godfather of Henry and the ancient superior of Gregory, and by other persons of eminent dignity.

The bishops and others of the king’s party who de­sired reconciliation with the pope appeared gradually at Canossa. Some of them had eluded the sentinels who guarded the Alpine passes; some had fallen into the hands of Henry’s enemies, and had been obliged to pay heavily for leave to pursue their journey. On their arrival Gregory ordered them to be confined in solitary cells, with scanty fare; but after a few days he summoned them into his presence, and absolved them on condition that, until the king should be reconciled, they should hold no intercourse with him, except for the purpose of persuading him to submission. For Henry himself a severer treatment was reserved.

On arriving before Canossa, the king obtained an interview with Matilda, and prevailed on her, with Adelaide, Hugh of Cluny, and other influential persons, to entreat that the pope would not rashly believe the slanders of his enemies, and would grant him absolution. Gregory answered that, if the king believed himself innocent, he ought to wait for the council which had been appointed, and there to submit himself to the pope’s impartial judgment. The mediators represented the urgency of the time—that the year of grace was nearly expired; that the hostile princes were eagerly waiting to catch at the expected forfeiture of the kingdom; that, if the king might for the present receive absolution, he was willing to consent to any terms or to any inquiry. At length the pope, as if relenting, proposed that Henry, in proof of his penitence, should surrender to him the ensigns of royalty, and should acknowledge that by his offences he had rendered himself unworthy of the kingdom. The envoys, shocked at the hardness of these conditions, entreated Gregory not to "break the bruised reed; and in condescension to their importunities he promised to grant the king an interview.

But before this interview a deeper humiliation was to be endured. Henry was admitted, alone an unattended, within the second of the three walls which surrounded the castle. He was dressed in the coarse woollen garb of a penitent; his feet were bare; and in this state, without food, he remained from morning till evening exposed to the piercing cold of that fearful winter. A second and a third day were spent in the same manner; Gregory himself tells us that all within the castle cried out against his harshness, as being not the severity of an apostle, but barbarous and tyrannical cruelty. At last Henry, almost beside himself with the intensity of bodily and mental suffering, sought a meeting with Matilda and the abbot of Cluny in a chapel of the castle, and persuaded them to become sureties for him to the pope; and on the fourth day he was admitted to Gregory’s presence. Numb with cold, bareheaded and barefooted, the king, a man of tall and remarkably noble person, prostrated himself with a profusion of tears, and then stood submissive before the pope, whose small and slight form was now withered with austerities and bent with age. Even Gregory’s sternness was moved, and he too shed tears. After many words, the terms of absolution were stated. Henry was to appear before a diet of the German princes, at which the pope intended to preside. He was to submit to an investigation of his conduct, and, if found guilty by the laws of the church, was to forfeit his kingdom. In the meantime, he was to refrain from all use of the royal insignia, and from all exercise of the royal authority; his subjects were to be free from their allegiance to him; he was to hold no intercourse with his excommunicated counsellors; he was to yield implicit obedience to the pope in future, and, if in any respect he should violate the prescribed conditions, he was to lose all further hope of grace. The king was brought so low that even these terms were thankfully accepted; but Gregory would not trust him unless the abbot of Cluny, with other persons of high ecclesiastical and secular dignity, undertook to be sureties for his observance of them.

The pope then proceeded to the celebration of mass, and, after the consecration, desired Henry to draw near. “I”, he said, “have been charged by you and your adherents with simony in obtaining my office, and with offences which would render me unworthy of it. It would be easy to disprove these charges by the evidence of many who have known me throughout my life; but I prefer to rely on the witness of God. Here is the Lord’s body; may this either clear me from all suspicion if I am innocent, or, if guilty, may God strike me with sudden death!”. A thrill of anxiety ran throughout the spectators; the pope amidst their breathless silence underwent the awful ordeal, and they burst into loud applause. Then he again addressed the king—“Do, my son, as you have seen me do. The princes of Germany daily beset me with accusations against you, so many and so heinous that they would render you unfit not only for empire, but for the communion of the church, and even for the common intercourse of life; and for these they pray that you may be brought to trial. But human judgment is fallible, and falsehood and truth are often confounded. If therefore, you know yourself to be guiltless, take this remaining portion of the Lord’s body, that so God's judgment may approve your innocence”.

The ordeal was unequal. The charges from which the pope had purged himself were distinct and palpable; those against the king were unnamed, infinite in variety, extending over his whole life, many of them such as he would have met, not with a denial but with explanation and apology. He shuddered at the sudden proposal, and, after a brief consultation with his friends, told the pope that such a trial, in the absence of his accusers, would not be convincing; he therefore prayed that the matter might be deferred until a diet should meet for the consideration of his case. Gregory assented, and, on leaving the chapel, invited the king to his table, where he conversed with him in a friendly tone, and gave him advice as to his future conduct.

While the king remained in the castle, the bishop of Zeitz was sent out to absolve, in the pope’s name, those who had held intercourse with Henry during his excommunication. His message was received with derision. The Italians cried out that they cared nothing for the excommunication of a man who had been justly excommunicated by all the bishops of Italy—a simoniac, a murderer, an adulterer. They charged Henry with having humbled them all by his abasement; he had thought only of himself, he had made peace with the public enemy, and had deserted those who, for his sake, had exposed themselves to hostility and danger. They spoke of setting up his son, the young Conrad, as king—of carrying the prince to Rome for coronation, and choosing another pope. Henry, on joining his partisans, found that a change had come over their dispositions towards him. The chiefs returned to their homes without asking his permission; and as he marched along, the general dissatisfaction was apparent. No cheers or marks of honour greeted him; the provisions which were supplied to him were scanty and coarse; and at night he was obliged to lodge in the suburbs of towns, as the inhabitants would not admit him within their walls. The bishops, who were especially indignant, held a meeting at Reggio, and combined to excite their flocks against him.

It is said that, when some Saxon envoys expressed their alarm in consequence of Henry’s absolution, the pope endeavoured to reassure them in these words—“Be not uneasy, for I will send him back to you more culpable than ever”. The story is generally discredited, on the ground that, even if Gregory had been capable of the profound wickedness which it implies, he would not have been so indiscreet as to avow his crafts. Yet it is hardly conceivable that he should have expected the king to fullfill the engagements which had been so sternly exacted from him in his distress. While the abasement to which Henry had been forced to stoop greatly exceeded all that could have been anticipated, the grace which had been granted to him was far short of his expectations. He was still at the mercy of the offended princes of Germany; his royalty, instead of being restored, seemed to be placed hopelessly beyond his reach. And the temper of the Italians—the enthusiasm with which they had received him, their burning animosity against his great enemy—proved to him that his humiliation had been needless. Although for a time he behaved with an appearance of submission to the pope—partly out of deference to his mother, who visited him at Piacenza — he wished to find some pretext for breaking with Gregory, and assured the Italians that he had submitted to him only for reasons of temporary necessity, but that he was now resolved to take vengeance for the indignities to which he had been subjected. They flocked again to his standard; he resumed the insignia of royalty; Liemar of Bremen, with his excommunicated advisers, again appeared at his side, and with them were many who had avoided him during his excommunication. Large contributions of money poured in from his adherents, and he again felt himself strong. He asked the pope to allow him to be crowned at Monza, as if his absolution had restored him to the kingdom of Italy; but the request was refused. He then invited Gregory to a conference at Mantua; but Matilda, acting either on information or on suspicion of some treacherous design, persuaded the pope to avoid the risk of danger.

Gregory remained at Canossa, or in its neighbourhood, until the month of August; and during his residence there, the countess bequeathed her inheritance to the Roman see—a donation which was afterwards renewed, and which, although it never fully took effect, contributed much in the sequel to the temporal power of the popes.

The princes of Germany considered that Henry, by going into Italy, had broken the engagements which he had made with them at Tribur, and they resolved to proceed to further measures. A diet was summoned to meet at Forchheim, in Franconia, in March 1077. The king excused himself from attending it, on the ground that, being on his first visit to Italy, he was occupied with the affairs of that country, and was unwilling to offend his Italian subjects by hastily leaving them. The pope declined the invitation, on the plea that Henry refused to grant him a safe-conduct; but he was represented at the meeting by legates. It was his wish to keep matters in suspense until the king, by some breach of the conditions on which he had been absolved, should give a clear pretext for deposing him; and the legates were instructed accordingly. They were to endeavour that, if the state of the country would permit, the election of a new king should be deferred until their master could himself go into Germany; but if the princes were bent on taking it in hand at once, they were not to oppose them. To the princes he wrote that they should carry on the government of the country, but should refrain from any more decided step until the case of Henry should be fully examined in his own presence.

But the Germans were furious against Henry, and would endure no delay. The legates, after expressing the pope’s feeling, said that it was for the princes to decide what would be best for their country, and were silent; and Rudolf, duke of Swabia, formerly one of Henry’s chief supporters, and connected both with him and with Bertha by having married a sister of each, was chosen as king. The first to vote for him was the pri­mate Siegfried, whose eagerness to secure the tithes of Thuringia had contributed so largely to Henry’s errors and unpopularity. The legates confirmed the choice, and proposed conditions for the new sovereign. He was to discourage simony and was to grant freedom of election to sees; and the kingdom was not to be hereditary, but elective—a provision intended to make its possessors feel the necessity of keeping well both with the pope and with the princes. Rudolf was crowned at Mayence on the 26th of March by Siegfried and the archbishop of Magdeburg. On the day of the coronation a bloody affray took place between the populace and Rudolf’s soldiers; and this inauguration of the new reign was too truly ominous of its sequel. Siegfried was driven from his city, never to return to it.

By the violent measure of setting up a rival king the feeling of loyalty was reawakened in many who had long been discontented with Henry’s government, and, when he returned into Germany, his force increased as he went on. He enriched himself, and found means of rewarding his adherents, by confiscating the estates of his chief opponents. With Rudolf were the mass of the Swabians, Saxons, and Thuringians; with Henry were Franconia and Bavaria. Yet in countries where the majority favoured one of the rivals, the other also had adherents, so that the division penetrated even into the bosom of families. The bishops were for the most part on Henry’s side; many abbeys sent their contingents to swell his army, and the populations of the towns were generally with him, out of gratitude for the privileges which they had received from him, and for the protection which he had afforded them against the tyranny of princes and nobles. For three years the contest was carried on; the land was desolated by the ravages of war, especially by the outrages of the barbarous and half-heathen Bohemians, whom Henry had called to his aid, and who revelled in acts of profanity and sacrilege, of lust and cruelty. Three great battles were fought; at Melrichstadt, in August 1078, and at Fladenheim (or Flarchheim) in January 1080, Rudolf was declared the victor; but so slight was his superiority and so severe was his loss that the victories were little more than nominal. In the meantime the anarchy of Germany was frightful. Neither Henry nor Rudolf dared to execute justice from fear of alienating their followers. Violence met with no check, nobles and knights built castles and lived by robbery, and the wretched people were ground to the dust by oppres­sion of every kind.

The north of Italy too was in a state of continual agitation. Guibert of Ravenna and Tedald of Milan were indefatigable in their exertions against Gregory. Imperialist and papalist bishops fought for the possession of sees, and strove to outbid each other by grants of privileges to their people.

Gregory found that he had gone too far—that Henry possessed a strength which the pope had not suspected when at Canossa he subjected him to such humiliation as could never be forgiven; and he was displeased that the princes, by electing Rudolf, had taken into their own hands the determination which he had wished to reserve for himself. During the war he refrained from showing any decided favour to either party. It was in vain that Rudolf entreated his recognition, and that Henry urged him to excommunicate the rebel leader, although Gregory said that he would do so unless Rudolf should be able to justify his conduct. He gave to each of them alike the title of king; he assured the envoys of each that he was anxious to do justice—that he would go into Germany and decide between them; and he asked both to grant him a safe-conduct. His legates went from Henry to Rudolf and from Rudolf to Henry; they took money from each, and spoke to each in terms of encouragement, while they were instructed by their master, if either of the rivals should be contumacious, to anathematize him, and to adjudge the kingdom to his more submissive opponents

The Saxons were indignant at this wavering conduct, so widely different from their expectations. In five letters, written in a plain and downright tone of remonstrance and with a scanty observance of the usual forms, they represent to Gregory the sufferings which they had brought on themselves by what they had supposed to be an obedience to his instructions. They tell him that they had relied on the firmness of Rome; that, after having urged them into danger, he had deserted them; that they are too simple to understand the subtle and equivocal policy by which he acknowledged two kings at once, and seemed to pay greater honour to him whom he bad deposed than to the king whose election they had believed to be warranted by the papal sanction.

Gregory in reply endeavoured to justify himself by dwelling on the exigencies of the time, and on his wish to do impartial justice. He denied that he had insti­gated the election of Rudolf; he disowned the acts of his legates who had confirmed that election and had pronounced a fresh excommunication against Henry at Goslar in November 1077. But the Germans treated his excuses as subterfuges; they told him that he ought either to have refrained from proceeding against Henry or to follow up his acts by openly aiding them. They beseech him to have regard to his own reputation, and to the effusion of blood which must lie at his door if he should continue his course of indecision.

At length the tidings of the battle of Fladenheim (Jan. 27, 1080) roused the pope to a bolder proceeding. At the council which was held in the following Lent, and which was the most fully attended of all his councils, he refused to allow Henry’s envoys a hearing in answer to the charges which Rudolf’s envoys had advanced; he repeated his threats against all who should give or should receive investiture; and he renewed the excommunication and deposition of the king in very remarkable terms. The sentence, as before, is addressed to St. Peter and St. Paul. Gregory calls the apostles to witness as to the means by which he had attained his office, and as to his conduct in the administration of it. He recounts the course of his dealings with Henry—the king’s offences, his excommunication, his absolution, his breach of the promises which he had made at Canossa; the election of Rudolf, which, the pope solemnly protests, was not undertaken by his advice; the calamities which had followed in Germany, and of which he charges the guilt on Henry. He then again declared the king to be deposed, forbade all Christians to obey him, and anathematized him with his abettors. He prayed that Henry might never prosper in war; in the name and with the blessing of the apostles, he bestowed the kingdom of Germany on Rudolf, and promised to all who should faithfully adhere to the new king absolution for all their sins; and he prayed them that, as they had power to bind and to loose in heaven—as they judged angels—so they would now show to kings, princes, and all the world, that the dignities of this life also were in their disposal. “Do you”, the form concluded, “so exercise your judgment on the aforesaid Henry, as that all may know that he shall fall, not by chance, but by your power. May he be confounded unto repentance, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord!”. Gregory even ventured to assume the character of a prophet; he foretold (and he staked his credibility on the result) that within a year Henry would either be dead, or deposed and utterly powerless. And it is said that he sent into Germany a crown with an inscription signifying that it was the gift of the Saviour to St. Peter and of St. Peter to Rudolf.

On hearing of the pope’s proceedings, Henry resolved to meet them by a measure no less decided. At Whitsuntide he assembled a council of his bishops at Mainz for the choice of a new pope. With a view of obtaining the concurrence of the Lombards, the election was adjourned to a council which was to be held at Brixen, and the German prelates engaged themselves to accept the decision of their brethren. At Brixen, Gregory was condemned as a disturber of the church and of the empire—as a patron of murder, perjury, and sacrilege, a Berengarian heretic, a necromancer, and a demoniac; and Guibert of Ravenna was elected pope, under the name of Clement III.

The armies of Henry and his rival met once more, on the bank of the Elster. The contest was long and obstinate; each side prevailed by turns; and, although at last the victory was with the Saxons, the death of their leader converted it into a virtual defeat. The fatal wound is said to have been given by Godfrey of Bouillon—afterwards the hero of the first crusade. A stroke from the sword of another cut off Rudolf’s right hand, and it was reported that the dying man remorsefully acknowledged this as a just punishment, since with that hand he had sworn fealty to Henry. The pope’s prediction of Henry’s death was falsified; according to one version of the story, he had prophesied the death or ruin of the king, and Heaven had now declared that the king of Gregory’s own choice was the pretender.

Henry offered peace to the Saxons, but they answered that they could not act without the pope; and the king, in the belief that he might safely leave their intern discords to work in his interest, resolved to march on Rome.

The prospect which Gregory had before him might well have alarmed him. Henry was stronger than ever, and his alliance was sought by the emperor of the east, who wished to make common cause with him against the Normans. The pope could expect no aid from Philip of France. William of England and Normandy, although Gregory was assiduous in his civilities to him and to his queen, remained cool and uninterested. As he, alone among the sovereigns of his time, found Gregory tractable, he had no motive for taking part with the anti-pope; and he was not disposed to embroil himself in Gregory's quarrels. The countess Matilda was the only ally who could be relied on. Her devotion to the papal cause was unbounded; she placed her forces at Gregory’s disposal, she sheltered his adherents in her Alpine fortresses, and by her heroic energy, aided by the counsels, the pen, and the active exertions of Anselm of Lucca, she kept up the spirit of his party. By the sale, not only of her own precious ornaments, but of those which belonged to her churches, she repeatedly raised large sums, with which she enabled him to purchase for a time the support of the venal and fickle Romans. But her forces were altogether unequal to cope with those of Henry; and the pope was urged by his friends to make peace with the king and to bestow on him the imperial crown.

Gregory was undaunted and immoveable in his resolution; but a change had come over his object. It was no longer a question of things, but of persons. He had professed to break with Henry for the maintenance of certain abuses, and he was now willing to tolerate those very abuses in order to humble the king. All means were to be taken that men should not be driven to Henry’s side. The legates in Germany were instructed to permit the ministrations of concubinary priests, on account of the hardness of the times, and the fewness of clergy. If the bishop of Osnaburg should be disposed to abandon Henry, they were to deal easily with him in a suit as to tithes. The pope wrote to Robert, count of Flanders, in terms of great courtesy, professing, out of a wish to keep him in the unity of the church, to forgive the language which he had used against the apostolic see. The legate in France, Hugh, bishop of Die, was reproved for unseasonably enforcing the rigour of the canons. He was ordered to restore some Norman bishops whom he had deposed for refusing to attend a synod. He was to absolve certain knights who had impropriated tithes and had taken the part of simoniac and concubinary clergymen. The bishops of Paris and Chartres, against whom Hugh had proceeded in a summary manner, were treated by the pope with indulgence.  Above all, the legate was to beware of irritating the king of England, whom Gregory, although he pro­fessed himself not blind to his faults, declared to be far more worthy of approbation than other kings. To every one but Henry the pope breathed conciliation; and in this spirit he sought an alliance with the Normans of the south—selfish, faithless, profane, and sacrilegious robbers as he well knew them to be.

The power and the ambition of the Normans had been continually on the increase. Robert Guiscard had been suspected as an accomplice in the plot of Cencius, and had for some years been under excommunication for his invasions of the patrimony of St. Peter;  but Gregory, by the mediation of Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, now eagerly patched up a treaty with him. Guiscard swore to defend the pope; he was released from his excommunication without any profession of penitence; and, instead of exacting restitution from him, Gregory added to a renewal of the grants of Nicolas and Alexander the following remarkable words: —“But as for the territory which you unjustly hold, we now patiently bear with you, trusting in Almighty God and in your goodness, that hereafter your behaviour with respect to it will be such, to the honour of God and of St. Peter, as it becomes both you to show and me to accept, without peril either to your soul or to mine”. It is said that, in consideration of the expected aid, he even promised Guiscard the imperial crown.

In Germany, the partisans of Rudolf set up Count Herman of Salm or Luxemburg as his successor. Gregory instructed his legates to see that no one should be chosen who would not be obedient to the Roman see, and sent them a form of oath to be taken by the new king, which reduced the kingdom, and consequently the empire, to a fief of the church. But Herman was unable to gain any considerable strength, and Henry was safe in disregarding him.

Henry’s successes revived the disposition to ask whether the pope were justified in deposing sovereigns; and, in answer.to a renewed inquiry from Herman, bishop of Metz, Gregory laid down more fully than before his views of the papal authority. He cites the same passages of Scripture on which he had relied in his former letter. He magnifies the sacerdotal power above that of temporal sovereigns. The instances of Theodosius and Childeric are reinforced by a fabulous excommunication of Arcadius by pope Innocent, and by a forgery, apparently of recent date, in which Gregory the Great is represented as threatening to deprive of his dignity any king or other potentate who should invade the monastery of St. Medard at Autun. But the most remarkable words of the letter are those in which the pope contrasts the origin of secular with that of ecclesiastical power. “Shall not”, he asks, “the dignity invented by men of this world, who even knew not God, be subject to that dignity which the providence of Almighty God hath invented to His own honour, and hath in compassion bestowed on the world? Who can be ignorant that kings and dukes took their beginning from those who, not knowing God, by their pride, their rapine, perfidy, murders, in short by almost every sort of wickedness, under the instigation of the prince of this world, the devil, have in blind ambition and intolerable presumption aimed at domination over other men, their equals?”. The bold assertions of this letter called forth many replies from the controversialists of the opposite party, both during the lifetime of Gregory and after his death.

In the spring of 1081 Henry descended on Italy. Gregory, in a letter to Desiderius of Monte Cassino, speaks of him as being at Ravenna with a small force, and expresses a confident belief that he will not obtain either supplies or recruits in his further advance. “If we would comply with his impiety”, says the pope, “never has any one of our predecessors received such ample and devoted service as he is ready to pay us. But we will rather die than yield”.  The king’s army, however, (although he had been obliged to leave a large force behind him as a safeguard to the peace of Germany), was far stronger than Gregory represented it to be. He ravaged Matilda’s territories, and laid siege to her capital, Florence; but, finding that the capture was likely to detain him too long, he relinquished the attempt, and on Whitsuneve appeared before the walls of Rome. As he had expected the city to open its gates, he was unprovided with the means of assaulting it, and the siege lasted nearly three years — the king withdrawing during the unhealthy seasons, while such of his troops as remained on duty suffered severely from the climate. Gregory, although shut up in his city, and even there regarded with dislike by the mass of the inhabitants, who were influenced by Henry’s largesses, and ascribed to the pope all the sufferings which they endured on account of the siege, abated nothing either of his pretensions or of his activity; he held his synods as usual, he renewed his canons and his anathemas against the imperialists and their practices, he continued, by his legates and correspondence, to superintend the affairs of the church in foreign and distant countries. When Henry, in the summer of 1083, had gained possession of the Leonine city, the pope resisted all the importunities of the Roman nobles, clergy, and people, who endeavoured to persuade him to a reconciliation; he would consent to no other terms than that the king should resign his dignity and should submit to penance. All attempts at negotiation were fruitless. The pope held a last council, at which he is described as having spoken with the voice not of a man but of an angel; and, without naming Henry, he anathematized him among those who had intercepted bishops on their way to the assembly. The Romans, it is said, in order to obtain a cessation of hostilities, swore to Henry that either Gregory or another pope should crown him by a certain day. Gregory, on hearing of this, was indignant, but discovered an evasion : if Henry would submit, he would crown him as emperor; if not, he would let down a crown to him from the tower of St. Angelo, accompanied by his curse. At length the Romans, weary of the siege, made terms with the king, and ten days before Easter 1084 he became master of the greater part of the city. Guibert summoned Gregory to a council, but the invitation was disregarded. The antipope was formally enthroned in the Lateran church on Palm Sunday, and on Easter-day performed in St. Peter’s the imperial coronation of Henry and Bertha.

Gregory took refuge in the castle of St. Angelo, and a few of his partisans, chiefly nobles, held out in their fortified houses. In his distress the pope had entreated the aid which Guiscard was bound by his feudal obligations to render; but the Norman was engaged in an expedition which his daring ambition had led him to undertake against the Greek empire, and during his absence Henry, who had entered into an alliance with Alexius Comnenus and had received a subsidy from him, exerted himself to create an interest in the south of Italy.

Guiscard, on returning from the east, was occupied for a time in quelling the opposition which had been thus excited; but in Gregory’s extremity the long-desired aid arrived. Guiscard had sent before him a large sum of money, which the pope had employed in purchasing the favour of the Romans; and the Norman chief himself now appeared at the head of 6000 horse and 30,000 foot—a wild and motley host, in which were mingled adventurers of many nations, and even a large number of unbelieving Saracens. Henry, apprehending no danger, had sent away a great part of his troops, and, as the remainder were unequal to encounter these unexpected enemies, he retired at their approach, taking with him forty hostages, and assuring his Roman friends that he would soon return. The gates were closed against the Normans, but some of them found an entrance by an old  aqueduct, close to the gate of St. Laurence, and admitted the rest into the city. For three days Rome was subjected to the horrors of a sack. Butchery, plunder, lust, were uncontrolled. The inhabitants, driven to despair by these outrages, rose on their assailants, and Guiscard, to quell their resistance, ordered the city to be set on fire. The conflagration which followed raged fin and wide, and has left its permanent effects in the deso­lation which reigns over a large portion of ancient Rome. The Romans were at length subdued; multitudes were carried off by the Normans as prisoners, and many thousands were sold for slaves.

Gregory was again master of his capital. Guiscard, immediately after having effected an entrance, had carried him in triumph from the fortress of St. Angelo to the Lateran palace, and, falling at his feet, had begged his blessing. But the pope was sick of the Romans, of whose baseness and corruption he had had so much experience; he was unwilling to look on the ruins of his city; he shrank from the reproaches which were likely to be directed against him as the author of the late calamities, and felt that he could not trust himself to his people if the protection of the Normans were withdrawn. He therefore left Rome in company with his allies, and, after a visit to Monte Cassino, retired to Salerno. There, in the month of July, he held a synod, at which he renewed the anathemas against Henry and the antipope, and addressed a letter to all faithful Christians, setting forth his sufferings for the freedom of the church, complaining of their supineness in the cause, and urging them, as they would wish for forgiveness, grace, and blessing, here and hereafter, to help and succour their spiritual father and mother—St. Peter and the Roman church. During the following winter he fell sick, and, as his illness increased, he became aware that his end was near. He entreated the friends who stood around his bed to tell him if they had observed in him anything which needed correction. He declared his faith as to the Eucharist—probably with a view of clearing himself May 25, from the suspicions of Berengarianism which his enemies had industriously cast on him. He forgave and absolved all whom he had anathematized, with exception of the emperor and the antipope; but with these he charged his adherents to make no peace unless on their entire submission. A fearful tempest was raging without as his friends hung over the dying pope. Gathering himself up for a final effort, he exclaimed, in words which have been interpreted as a reproach against Providence, but which may perhaps rather imply a claim to the beatitude of the persecuted — “I have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile”.—“My lord”, a bishop is said to have replied, “in exile thou canst not die; for, as vicar of Christ and of His apostles, thou hast received from God the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession!”

The strength and towering grandeur of Gregory’s character, the loftiness of his claims, the intrepid firmness with which he asserted them through all changes of fortune, the large measure of success which crowned his efforts, in his own time and afterwards, have won for him enthusiastic admirers, not only among persons who are attached to the church of Rome by profession or by sympathy, but among those modern idolaters of energy whose reverence is ready to wait on any man of extraordinary abilities and of unrelenting determination. But we may hesitate to adopt an estimate which scorns to inquire into the righteousness either of his objects or of the means which he employed.

Gregory found the papacy in miserable degradation; he left it far advanced towards dominion over the kingdoms of the world. The progress which it had made under his administration is significantly shown by the fact that the decree of Nicolas II as to the election of popes, which had at first been resented as an invasion of the imperial rights, was now the ground on which the imperialists were fain to take their stand, while the papalists had come to disavow it as unworthy of their pretensions. The old relations of the papacy and of the empire were to be reversed; the emperor was no longer to confirm the election of popes, or to decide between rival claimants of the see, but the pope was to hold the empire at his disposal. The successor of St. Peter was to give laws to mankind.

We may reasonably believe that Gregory was sincere; we may believe that, in forming and in carrying out his great design, he was not actuated by selfish personal ambition; that he would have been content to go on to the end of his life directing the execution of his policy under the names of other men—anxious only that the policy should succeed, not that the author of it should be conspicuous, and willing that its triumph should be deferred until after he should himself have passed away from earth. But is this enough to entitle him to our approval? Are we to admire a wisdom so blind as that which would remedy the evils of secular misrule by setting up a universal spiritual despotism, and thus, by a certain consequence, plunging the spiritual power deeply into secularly? Or shall we sanction the idea of a conscientiousness so imperfect that, in pursuit of one engrossing purpose, it disregards all the ordinary laws of equity, truth, and mercy?

We read of Gregory with awe, mixed perhaps with admiration, perhaps with aversion; but in no human bosom can his character awaken a feeling of love. The ruthless sternness of his nature may be illustrated by an incident which occurred before his elevation to the papacy. Thrasimund, a monk of Monte Cassino, had been appointed by the abbot, Desiderius, to the abbacy of the dependent monastery of Tremiti. A rebellion broke out among his monks, and he suppressed it with great rigour, blinding three of them, and cutting out the tongue of a fourth. Desiderius, on hearing of this, was overwhelmed with grief; he displaced the abbot, and put him to penance for his cruelty. But Hildebrand justified the severity which had been used, and contrived that Thrasimund should be promoted to a higher dignity.

The exaltation of the papacy was Gregory’s single object. For this he sacrificed Berengar; he acted doubly with the Germans; he excited the multitude against the clergy and the empire; he occasioned an endless amount of confusion, bloodshed, and misery. He took advantage of Henry’s youth, of the weakness of his position, of the defects of his character; he used his triumph over him inhumanly, and when Henry had again become strong, Gregory, for the sake of gaining allies against this one enemy, was willing to connive at all which he had before denounced as abominable. Other popes had used the censures of the church as means of influencing princes through the discontent of their people; but Gregory was the first who assumed the power of releasing subjects Rom their obedience. He argued that Scripture made no difference between princes and other men as to the exercise of those powers of binding and loosing which the Saviour committed to His church. But it was forgotten that Scripture allows a discretion in the employment of ecclesiastical censures : that the greatest of the western fathers had strongly insisted on the inexpediency of rigidly enforcing discipline in cases where it would lead to a dangerous disturbance in the church; nor does Scripture give any countenance to the idea that the censures of the church deprive a sovereign of his right to civil obedience.

Gregory was not without enthusiasm. He instituted a new office in honour of the blessed Virgin, and relied much on her aid and on that of St. Peter he expected to obtain revelations from heaven by means of visions he even fancied himself an oracle of the Divine will, and dealt in predictions of temporal weal or woe, which, as we have seen, were in some cases signally unfortunate. Yet in many respects he rose above the superstitions and the narrow opinions of his age. He remonstrated humanely and wisely with the king of Denmark against the cruelties which in that country were practised on women accused of witchcraft. In the Eucharistic controversy raised by Berengar, while he appears himself to have held the opposite doctrine, he allowed that of Berengar to be sufficient for communion with the church.

In the controversy with the Greek church, he showed himself superior to the zealots of either side by regarding the use of leavened or of unleavened bread as indifferent. And, deeply monastic as was his own character, he was free from the indiscriminate rage for compelling all men to enter the cloister. He censures his old superior, Hugh, for having admitted a duke into the society of Cluny—thereby releasing him from the duties of his office, and leaving a hundred thousand Christians without a keeper. Such a man, he says, ought to have retained his place in the world., where, although piety is not uncommon among priests, and monks, and the poor, the instances of it among princes are rare and precious.

The plea that Gregory lived in a dark age is therefore only available in a modified degree for his defence, since it appears that in many things he was more enlightened than his contemporaries. And in admitting this plea for him, or for any other man to whom Holy Scripture was open, we must be careful never to let it cover the viola­tion of duties which Scripture unequivocally enjoins—of justice and mercy, of charity and simplicity; while, on the other hand, we must deny him the credit of any good which it may have pleased the Divine providence to bring out of his acts, if such good were beyond Gregory’s own wish and intention.

No doubt that elevation of the papacy in which he was the most effective agent was in the middle ages a great and inestimable bulwark against secular tyranny. But why should one usurpation be necessary as a safeguard against another? Why, if the investiture of bishops by princes was worse in its practical consequences than in its theory, should we be required to sympathize with one who opposed it by a system of which the very theory is intolerable? Spiritual tyranny is worse than secular tyranny, because it comes to us with higher pretensions. Against the oppressions of worldly force religion may lift up her protest; to those who suffer from them she may administer her consolations; but when tyranny takes the guise of religion, there is no remedy on earth, except in that which is represented as rebellion against God’s own authority. The power of the hierarchy, as established mainly through the labours of Gregory, served as a protection against the rude violence of princes and of nobles; but it claimed for itself an absolute dominion over the minds and souls of men, and it did not hesitate to enforce this by the most inhuman and atrocious measures. And how much of what was worst in the secular power may have arisen out of a reaction against the extravagant claims of the papacy!

While we freely and thankfully acknowledge the good which resulted from Gregory’s exertions, we may yet ask—and we may refuse to accept a theoretical assertion as an answer to the question—whether it would not have been infinitely better for mankind, and even for the hierarchy itself, that the power of the gospel should have been enforced on the world by milder and truer means?

 

 

CHAPTER III.

BERENGAR. A.D. 1045-1088.