T^ iAikk

l»G&

THE LIFE

GREGORY THE SEVENTH.

LONDON :
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ET. JOHN'S SQUARE.

THE

LIFE AND PONTIFICATE

GREGORY THE SEVENTH.

BY

JOHN WILLIAM BOWDEN, M.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. L

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD,
AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.
1840.

TO THE
PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS
OF
TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD,
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
OP THE YEARS WHICH HE SPENT THERE,
AND OF THE BENEFITS
THENCE RESULTING TO HIM IN AFTER-LIFE,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES
ARE, WITH ALL FEELINGS OP RESPECT AND REGARD,
INSCRIBED, BY
THE AUTHOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In the introductory chapter of the following work, will
be found a short list of the principal authorities from
which the statements in the subsequent narrative have
been taken. But, — as it has been thought desirable
to furnish the reader with a fuller catalogue, in ex
planation of the references, — such a catalogue, con
taining the names of all the principal authors and
compilers referred to, — except those whose names are
familiar to every one, — has been given in No. I. of the
Appendix at the end of the Second Volume.
No. II. of that Appendix contains a table showing
the dates of Easter, and other moveable periods of
solemn observance in the Church, during the pontifi-

viii ADVERTISEMENT.
cates of Gregory VII. and his immediate predecessor.
Information on this point may, it is thought, some
times aid the reader in forming an accurate idea of the
chronology of the events recorded.
It may be as well to allude here to the apology made
in a subsequent note (Vol. I. p. 89) for some apparent
inconsistency with regard to the forms of proper names,
— whether of persons or of places, — such as the use,
in some appellatives, of their Latin or ancient form, and
in others, of an Italian or modern one. Such an in
consistency, in treating of an epoch which holds a
middle place between ancient and modern times, the
author has found it impossible entirely to avoid.
To allude to another matter of detail. It should have
been explained in a note to p. 57 of Vol. I., that the
spurious "Decretals of Isidore" there spoken of, cannot
in strictness be said to have been published by their
forger under the name of Isidore of Seville, as they
were simply headed with the name " Isidorus Mer-
cator," the latter word being, probably, an erratum for
" Peccator." But it was on the supposed authority of
the Spanish Prelate that they obtained their general
acceptation in the Church.
The author cannot conclude this advertisement with
out availing himself of the opportunity of recording his

ADVERTISEMENT. IX
obligation to his friend, the Rev. David Lewis, Fellow
of Jesus College, Oxford, for his kind assistance in the
work of superintending the passage of these sheets
through the press : a task, which, without that assistance,
the author, from the state of his health, could scarcely,
at the present moment, have undertaken.
Feast of All Saints, 1840.

CONTENTS

VOL. I.

PAGE
Introduction . .  , . i

BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Testimony of Christian antiquity to the equaUty of the Apostles in
spiritual rank and authority — Circumstances which in early times
tended to invest the see of Rome with a pre-eminence of honour —
Important service performed hy the bishops of that see in main
taining and extending the faith — Their position after the removal
of the seat of empire to Constantinople — Gradual increase of cor
ruptions — Contests caused by the practice of image-worship — Con
tention on this point between the popes and the Grecian Emperors
— Commencement and progress of the connection between the
former and the Carlovingian princes — Coronation of Charlemagne
— Influence of that monarch's system upon the hierarchy — Spurious
decretals of Isidore — Causes of their general reception — Their effect
in consoUdating the papal power — Donatio Constantini — Pontificate
of Nicholas I. — General remarks  . . 21
CHAPTER II.
Extinction of the Carlovingian line-f Corruption of the times follow
ing that event — Disgraceful histo)^of the Roman see — Otho the
Great — Events which led to his interference with the affairs of Italy
— His revival of the western empire — Position assumed by him with
reference to the papacy — His death — Connexions of Otho II. and
Otho III. with Rome— Extinction of the Saxon Imperial line —

Xn CONTENTS. PAGE
Continued depravity ofthe times — Moral degradation of the papacy
— Causes of its continued influence over the general Church — Illus
trations of this influence — Henry XL chosen emperor — His inter
course with Rome — His death — Election of Conrad the SaUc, first
emperor of the Franconian line — His character and poUcy instru- j
mental in preparing the way for the great struggle of the eleventh!
century between the Church and the state .  * 73
CHAPTER III.

.« 73

Consecration of Benedict IX. — His profligacy — His sale of the papacy
to Gregory VI. — Election, by an opposite party, of a prelate who
assumes the name of Sylvester III. — Benedict renews his claims —
General scandal excited by these proceedings — Henry III. marches
into Itjily, deposes or expels the rival pretenders, and nominates
Clement II. to the papal chair — Coronation of Henry, as emperor,
by the pontiff thus chosen — Council of Clement II. against simony
— Henry returns to Germany  107

BOOK IL
CHAPTER I.
A. D. CIRC 1020 TO A. D. 1052.
Origin and early years of HUdebrand — His residence at Cluni —
Appearance at the court of Henry III. and return to Rome — His
attachment to Gregory VI., and journey with that pontiff, when
deposed, into Germany — Henry's council in that country — Death
of Clement IL— Intrusion of Benedict — Appointment and death
of Damasus II. — Election of Leo IX. — His interview with Hilde-
brand, journey to Rome, and re-election there^ystematic com
mencement of the reformationJ-Contest between Henry III. and
Godfrey of Lorraine — Submission of the latter — Council of Rheims
—Of Siponto— Of Mantua — Personal habits of Leo  125
CHAPTER II.
A. D. CIRC 900 TO A. D. 1054.
Settlement of the Normans in Neustria— Position of Southern Italy
at the commencement of the eleventh century — Defence of Salerno,
by Norman Pilgrims, against the Saracens— Normans invited, by

CONTENTS. XUl
PAGE
Guaimar, prince of that place, into Italy— -Growth of their power
there — their violence and cruelty — Leo's journey into Germany to
soUcit aid agdnst them — His return and military expedition against
them — Battle of CiviteUa — His capture — His treaty with them —
His death . .  1.53

CHAPTER III.
A. D. 1054 TO A. D. 1056..
Papal mission to Constantinople — Marriage of Godfrey of Lorraine
with Beatrice of Tuscany — Proceedings at Rome in consequence of
Leo's death — Election of Victor II. — March of Henry III. into
Italy — Conduct of Beatrice — Flight of Godfrey — Henry's return
to Germany — Hildebrand's legation to France — Arrangement there
of the dispute between Henry and the king of Castile — Henry's
interview with the French king — Victor's visit to Germany —
Henry's troubles, decline, and death ....  168
CHAPTER IV.
A. D. 1056 TO A. D. 1059.
Adjustment, by Victor II., of the affairs of Germany — Appointment
of Frederic of Lorraine, as abbot of Monte Cassino — Death of
Victor — Election of Frederic as Stephen IX.— Nomination of
Damiani to the bishopric of Ostia — Schemes of Godfrey of Lor
raine — Death of Stephen — Irregular election of John, bishop of
VeUetri — Position of the Imperial court — Troubles in Germany —
Election of Nicholas II  182

CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1059 TO A.D. 1061.
Critical situation of the papacy— Council of the Lateran, and decree
of Nicholas II. relative to pontifical elections — Accommodation with
the Normans— Overthrow of the Roman nobles — Affairs of Milan
—Mission to that city of Damiani and Anselm da Badagio— Mis
sion of Aldred, Archbishop of York, and other prelates to Rome-
Dissatisfaction of the Imperial court with the decree of elections —
Death of Nicholas IL  197

xiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VL
A. D. 1061 TO A. D. 1062. PAGE
Views of opposite parties— Title of patrician offered to Henry IV. by
the Roman nobles— Mission of the Cardinal Stephen to the em
press—His treatment— Election, at Rome, of Alexander IL, and at
Basil, of the antipope Cadalous— Epistle of Damiani to the latter
— March of Cadalous toward Rome— Benzo's mission thither —
Battle near that city— Interference of Godfrey of Lorraine— Retire
ment of both competitors to their respective dioceses — Discontents
of the German nobles— Abduction of Henry IV. from his mother
— Administration of Archbishop Hanno — Decree of the Council
of Osbor against the pretensions of Cadalous  213
CHAPTER VII.
A. D. 1062 TO A. D. 1067.
Henry's bad education — Contest between the bishop of Hildesheim
and the abbot of Fulda — Return of Alexander II. to Rome — Rise
to power of Adelbert Archbishop of Bremen — His inclination to
favour Cadalous — Melancholy consequences of the continued
struggle — Retirement of Damiani from his bishopric — Fall of
Adelbert — Flight of Cadalous from St. Angelo — Disturbances at
Treves — Henry's illness and marriage — Hanno's visit to Italy —
Council of Mantua— Retirement of Agnes into a convent . . . 234
CHAPTER VIII.
A. D. 1066 TO A. D. 1073.
Conquest of England — Invasion of Roman territories by Richard of
Capua — Godfrey's march against him — Battle at Aquino, and
treaty — Events in the convent of Tremiti — Agitation in Milan —
Murder of Ariald — Election of Atto as archbishop — Ecclesiastical
dissensions at Florence — King Henry's attempted separation from
his queen — His quarrel with the Saxons — Damiani's mission to
Mentz — Adelbert's return to power — Otho of Nordheim deprived
of the duchy of Bavaria — Death of Adelbert — General complaints
of the German people — Re-call of Hanno to power — Visit of Agnes
to Germany — Hanno's Retirement— Henry's rash and tyrannical
conduct toward his nobles and people  258

CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER IX,
A. D. 1070 TO A. D. 1073.
1 FAGE
/^Traffic in ecclesiastical Benefices/-Rapacity of Hanno— Triumph of
St. Remaclus-tEosition, in relation to each other, of the imperial
and papal powert^Hanno, and other prelates, summoned to Rome
—Vacillating conduct of Siegfried of Mentz— Visit of English Arch
bishops to Rome— Death of Godfrey— Marriage of Godfrey, his
son, to Matilda— Character of " the great Countess"— Death of
Danuani— Henry summoned by Alexander to Rome — Death of
Alexander II  283

BOOK IIL
CHAPTER I.
A. D. 1073.
different views of the papal and Imperial parti^— Election of Gregory
VII. — His reported message to Henry IV. — His epistle to Lan-
franc — Count Eberhard's embassy to Rome — Henry's approval of
the election-fSentiments of churchmen on the subject of Investi-
tury-Mission of Hugo Candidus to Spain — Gregory's epistle to
the grandees of that country — to Godfrey the Younger of Tuscany
— To Beatrice and Matilda — Henry's epistle to Gregory . . . 310
CHAPTER II.
A. D. 1073.
Henry's cruelty toward the Saxons — their deputation to him at Gos-
lar — Their secret meeting at Nockmeslau — Henry besieged in
Harzburg — His escape, and meeting with his nobles near Hersfeld
— Interview between Siegfried and the Saxon delegates at Corvey
— Diet at Gerstungen — Accusation brought against Henry by
Reginger — Henry's illness and recovery — His triumphant entry
into Worms— Reginger's death  344

XVI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER in.
A. D. 1073. PAGE
Gregory's excursion toward the south — his relations with Guiscard
— Epistle to Wratislav— to the Emperor Michael— treaty with the
Prince of Benevento— With Richard of Capua— Epistle to Rudolf
of Swabia — ^To Rainald Bishop of Cumse — ^To Anselm Bishop of
Lucca — To the Carthaginians, and to their Bishop Cjrriac — Con
secration of Sardinian Archbishops — Epistle to the Lombards —
To Herlembald — To the same — To the Bishops of Aqui and Pavia
— To Gebhard Bishop of Salzburg — To Lanfranc — ^To Remigius
Bishop of Lincoln — To Roderic Bishop of Chalons — To Humbert
Archbishop of Lyons — Gregory's return to Rome, and epistle to
the prelates of Germany  358

ERRATA IN VOL. I.
Page 10, line 33, 8i,for coruption read corruption.
— 17, Note 1, for Scafnaburgensis read Schafnaburgensis ; and in several references at
the foot of the pages, for Scafnab read Schafnab.
— 52, lino 18, for Diony ius read Dionysius.
— 62, — 6, after dignity ; insert and.
— 90, — n , /or ante-imperial reod anti-imperial.
— 93, — 23, for legantine read legatine.
— 114, — 21, /or inherited to refflrf inherited.
— 120, — 8, for dentified read identified.
— 207, — 21, /or Fontaeto read Fontaneto.
— 370, — 11, /or the proper read a proper.
— 372, — 22, for Wezelin, Archbishop, read Wezelin, or Werner, Archbishop.

LIFE

GREGORY VII.

INTRODUCTION.
The Reformation of the Anglican Church in the six
teenth century, however necessary, however beneficial,
was a sudden and convulsive change ; nor is it any dis
paragement to its leading principles or essential cha
racter to say, that, as such a change, it could not fail to
be attended by a variety of incidental evils. One,
and that perhaps not the least important, of these, its
undesirable but unavoidable consequences, has been the
disposition which it has induced among us to disregard
our connection, as churchmen, with the past. Though
old truths were, during the era of the Reformation,
preserved, old associations and habits received a violent
shock from the rapidity of its progress; aud it has,
in consequence, come to bear to our eyes the appear
ance of a much more fundamental change than, in
itself, it really was. With the times antecedent to
that great event, we now seem practically to imagine
that we have little or no religious concern: our inter-
VOL. I. B

2 INTRODUCTION.
est in the annals of our Church commences with the
reign of Henry VIII. ; and the notion generally enter
tained of her character and position during many cen
turies before that monarch's accession, is compounded
of a broad and general impression of the errors and
corruptions of modern Rome, and of a vague belief that
all these evils, in all their fulness, were dominant in
our island from an epoch virtually immemorial. Though
we still speak of Cranmer, of Ridley, of Latimer, as
Reformers of our Church, the general tone which we
use with respect to them rather accords Avith the
supposition that they were her founders : we conceive
them to have composed, rather than to have remodelled,
our ritual and liturgy ; to have discovered, rather than
to have purified, the Faith which we profess. And
hence it has come to pass, that of all departments of
historical inquiry, none has been of late more generaUy
disregarded by us, than that which would lead to an
acquaintance with the varying fortunes of the Church
Catholic and her defenders, in England or elsewhere,
during the long lapse of time between the age of
the primitive Church and that of the divines of
Edward and Elizabeth. That this interval was one
of perpetual struggle, difl&culty, and anxiety to the
Church, even the most superficial acquaintance with
the secular annals of Christendom would suffice to
inform us. But, accustomed as we are to the unfounded
notion of our English Church's recent origin, we omit
to keep in mind the fact, that she, as a branch of the
Church universal, is in some degree involved in the
fortunes of that divinely founded institution throughout
the world ; and that it was our cause, no less than
their own, which the champions of the Church have
in all successive ages defended against the ever-renewed
3

INTRODUCTION. 3
and ever-varying assaults of her adversaries. We
therefore feel but little interest in contests with which,
as we imagine, we have no personal concern ; and can
not realize to ourselves the fact that the Reformation,
as far as it may be regarded as a struggle between
ancient truth and modern error, was itself but the fruit
of those earlier struggles which we slight, and of those
labours which we depreciate ; inasmuch as our Anglican
Fathers could never have been called to the high office
of defending the Faith and purifying the Church, had
not both the one and the other been preserved and
handed down to them by the successful efforts of those
who, in various times and under various circumstances,
had fought the great battle before them.
It is an undeniable, though melancholy, fact, that
in the case of some of these, the Church's earlier
champions, the faith revealed was overlaid with tenets
of human invention. These tenets, however, will upon
examination be found to have been all additions to
the Christian Creed ; not one of the great verities
of which was positively lost during even the darkest
periods which the Church has been permitted to expe
rience. Those verities therefore might be, and indeed
were, continually asserted and maintained against the
influence of that evil heart of unbelief which has in all
ages supplied men with a temptation to deny them.
And if, more favoured in this respect than our distant
ancestors, we be permitted to contemplate such truths
free from their once prevalent admixture of degrading
error, we are not on that account released from a
heavy debt of gratitude to those who, under circum
stances less propitious than ours, stood forth in the
protection of our highest interests, ages before it was
given to us to see the light.
b2

4 INTRODUCTION.
With regard to the agents in our English Reforma
tion, it forms, of a surety, an item by no means
unimportant in the amount of our obligation to them,
that they did not that which we seem habitually to
acknowledge that they did, and even to laud them
for doing. They did not attempt to found a new
Church; — a word which should hardly be spoken.
They did not, tempted as they were to do so, remove
their countrymen from those limits of the holy Church
Catholic which the Protestants of various parts of
Europe were unhappily led, by a seeming necessity,
to overstep. The Anglican Church, as left by her
Reformers, continued in the enjoyment of her old
constitution, under the guidance of her old line of
consecrated governors ; as also, though these are minor
points, in the possession of most of her old endowments,
and in the enjoyment of her old privileges in the state.
She did not alter a single letter of the Creeds which
had ever formed the summaries of her Faith. She
disclaimed, in the strongest terms, all intention of
either separating herself from the other members of
the Church Catholic, or discarding that Church's ac
credited and authoritative teaching. She continued to
follow, as her guides in the interpretation of Scripture,
the " ancient Fathers and catholic Bishops V' honouring
in them the general voice of primitive antiquity, and
revering, as the clearest accents of that voice, those
four general Councils, which her ancient founder or
remodeller, Gregory the Great, had taught her to
consider as prq-eminently the landmarks of catholic
belief^ ' Liber Canon. Discip. Eccles. Anglic, a. d. 1571 Canon de
Concionatoribus. ' Sicut sancti Evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia

INTRODUCTION. 5
Nor did she, by any act of hers, separate herself
from the communion of the Roman patriarch, even
when she disclaimed the unauthorized domination
which he had learnt to claim over her. However
strong the language in which she expressed her sen
timents with regard to the doctrinal corruptions which
he then espoused, the actual schism between her and
the Roman Church, — their present state of outward
separation, — dates only from the bull by which, in
suscipere et venerari me fateor. Nicsenum scilicet, in quo perversum
Arii dogma destruitur: Constantinopolitanum quoque, in quo
Eunomii et Macedonii error convincitur: Ephesinum etiam primum,
in quo Nestorii impietas judicatur : Chalcedonense vero, in quo
Eutychis, Dioscorique pravitas reprobatur ; tota devotione com-
plector, integerrima approbatione custodio : quia in his, velut in
quadrato lapide, sanctsae fidei structura consurgit, et cujuslibet vitae
atque actionis existat, quisquis eorum soliditatem non tenet, etiam
si lapis esse cernitur, tamen extra asdificium jacet. — S. Gregor.
Mag. Ep. i. 25.
Such was the reverence paid to these Councils by St. Gregory.
As an evidence of the honour in which they were held by the
English Church after the Reformation, may be cited the following
passage from Hooker : " Wherefore not without good consideration
the very law itself hath provided ' that judges ecclesiastical, ap
pointed under the king's commission, shall not adjudge for heresy
any thing but that which hath been so adjudged by the authority
of the" canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general Councils, or
by some other general council wherein the same hath been declared
heresy by the express words of the said canonical Scriptures, or
such as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of par
liament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the con
vocation.' By which words of the law who doth not plainly see, how
that in one branch of proceeding by virtue of the king's supreme
authority, the credit which those four general Councils have through
out all Churches evermore had, was judged by the makers of the
foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be mentioned in that
case as a requisite part of the rule wherewith dominion was to he
limited?" — Hooker, Eccl. Pol. book viii. ch ii, § 17.

6 INTRODUCTION.
the year 1569, Pope Pius V. declared our Queen
Elizabeth excommunicated and deposed.
Then it was that, as though the Englisb prelates
thus denounced had lost their spiritual prerogatives,
the agents of Rome called into being that party or
sect among ourselves whom she now admits to her
communion because she has taught them to throw
off the authority of their legitimate pastors, the gover
nors, by succession, of our ancient Church '.
To that party we, in oblivion of these things, are in
the habit of ascribing an antiquity above that of our
communion; as though they, and not we, were the
spiritual descendants of the time-honoured Catholic
Church of elder England ; as though they, and not we,
were to be considered as included in the glorious fel
lowship of the wise and good, the heroic and the
saintly, whose names adorned that Church's annals in
her Saxon or her Norman day ; or as though it were
their high privilege, rather than ours, to sympathize
with the general fortunes, in all times and countries, of
the Church universal.
With regard to our Western, or Latin, branch of
that Catholic institution, the Roman bishops, and the
churchmen connected with their see, occupying, as they
have ever done, a most prominent position of eccle-
' It is certain that during the reigns of Henry VIII. and his
successors, until the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth's reign,
there were not two separate communions and worships in England.
All the people were subject to the same pastors, attended the
same churches, and received the same sacraments. It was only
about 1570 that the Romish party, at the instigation of foreign emis
saries, separated itself and fell off from the Catholic Church of
England. — Vid. Palmer's Treatise on the Church, t. ii. p. 455, and
the authorities there quoted.

INTRODUCTION. 7
siastical influence, fill a proportionably important place
in the record of ecclesiastical conflicts. Under their
conduct it was that some of the most momentous
contests between the Church and the world have-
been fought and gained. We, however, have so long
accustomed ourselves to contemplate these pontiffs
and their school through the single medium of the
Reformation, that it is with some difficulty we can.
imagine them to have occupied, at any former period,
a position different from that which they held at that
eventful moment. But it should be recollected that
the popery of the sixteenth century was, in the guise
which it then assumed, an innovation. Many of its
component corruptions had, it is true, by that time long
flourished at Rome, as at other places within the
Church's pale : but it was only at Trent, in the latter
part of the sixteenth century, that they were incor
porated by Rome into a Creed, or made articles of
Faith, in such a sense as that the reception of them
became an indispensable requisite for admission into
the privileges of Church communion. Such corruptions,
however prevalent they may have been during pre
ceding ages, were in those ages progressive, and not
fixed evils ; and the common notion is therefore most
unfair, which carries back, so to say, and applies the
character of the papacy as it developed itself at the
Reformation, to the papacy as it existed centuries before
that event.
The subjects of our Reformers' censure, be it recol
lected, were protested against by them, as innovations
as well as corruptions. " I am accused," said Archbishop
Cranmer, " for a heretic, because I allow not the doc
trine lately brought in of the Sacrament, and because
I consent not to words not accustomed in Scripture,

8 INTRODUCTION.
and unknown to the ancient Fathers, but newly
invented and brought in by men, and belonging to the
destruction of souls, and overthrowing of the pure and
old religion '." And with regard to one of the princi
pal features of the system against which that prelate
protested, the withholding of the Scriptures in the
vulgar tongue from the laity; such a practice, we
have it upon his own authority, was opposed to what
had been the uniform usage of the Anglican Church
down to about a century before his own time ^.
It must be admitted, that of the erroneous doctrines
then prevalent, some might claim a far earlier origin ;
but, before the sixteenth century, these for the most
part existed rather as opinions current in the Church,
than as articles formally adopted under her sanction.
And, even with regard to those which had become
the most intimately incorporated into the then existing
system of things, the reception of them vaguely, and
as matters unquestioned and uninquired into, betokened
a very different feeling, and must have had a very

' Jenhyns' Cranmer, vol. iv. pp. 126, 7.
' " If the matter should be tried by custom, we might also
allege custom for the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar tongue,
and prescribe the more ancient custom. For it is not much above
one hundred years ago" (i. e. before a. d. 1540) "since the
Scripture hath not been accustomed to be read in the vulgar tongue
in this realm ; and many hundred years before that, it was translated
and read in the Saxon's tongue, which at that time was our mother's
tongue, whereof there remaineth yet diverse copies found lately in
old abbeys, of such antique manners of writing and speaking, that few
men now be able to read and understand them. And when this
language waxed old, and out of common usage, by cause folk should
not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the newer
language, whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found."
— Jcnkyns' Cranmer, vol. ii. p. 105.

INTRODUCTION. 9
different effect on the character, from an adoption of
them in form and system, after discussion, and in
avowed opposition to the public assertion of their
contradicting verities.
But even had this been otherwise, the fact were un
important to our present purpose. Even linked as it is
to the Tridentine creed, the papacy may, and unques
tionably does, bear, together with our Church, its wit
ness to those great articles of the Faith which are
enunciated in our common creeds ; with us it still
raises, its voice in testimony against the heresies con
demned by those four Catholic Councils above alluded
to, which the whole body of the faithful unites to
revere. Such testimony, even if it stood alone, it still
might bear ; and there would therefore be no manifest
absurdity in the notion of its having stood forth in
defence of the truth in former ages, even though it
could be proved to have been then laden with the
whole burden of its later errors. The disputant who
defends the Catholic doctrine of the blessed Trinity
against the Socinian, is unquestionably fighting the
eternal battle of truth against falsehood, in whatever
erroneous notion or heresy, other than that of Socinus,
both the disputants may be conceived to agree. Were
we indeed to recognise in the character of champions
of the truth, or of reformers of the Church, none but
teachers whose doctrine and habitual practice were in
no single point tainted with error, few indeed would be
the number of those whom, since the epoch of accre
dited inspiration, it would be open to us to dignify with
such honourable titles.
Placed as the Church is in the world, her treasures
are entrusted to earthen vessels ; and her battles here
are not carried on, like that of Michael and the Dra-

10 INTRODUCTION.
gon, between unsullied purity on the one side and un
mitigated evil on the other ; but, between those who,
sinful and erring as they may be in many points, have
the grace to hold fast the great truths which in their
time come peculiarly into question, and those by whom,
graced as they may be with some virtuous qualities, the
same important verities are unhappily assailed.
These few remarks have been thought necessary at
the outset of a narration, which, in representing a Pope
in the light in which his own writings and those of his
best-informed contemporaries represent him, will depict
him as a witness for the truth delivered to the Church's
care, and a reformer of the abuses of his time. With
out some such preface as the above, a portraiture of
him in colours like these might seem to intimate an in
tention on the part of his biographer to justify, in its
completeness, the system which he asserted, or at least
to explain away and extenuate those great errors and
perversions by which his creed, and the general creed of
his time, was corrupted and defiled. Let therefore such
an intention be here, once for all, distinctly disclaimed.
No one, indeed, can thoroughly and impartially inves
tigate the records of his age, without deeply grieving
to see how universally the foul weeds which had then
sprung up in the Church's vineyard had entwined them
selves around its proper plants, to stunt and to disfigure
them, — how in the case of Gregory VII. and of his con
temporary school of Churchmen, the assertion of the
highest principles of faith was distorted by their amal
gamation with misconceived dogmas and erroneous
inventions, — and how, in defending religion, these high-
principled men also became the defenders of a variety
of growing and formidable corruptions. But these cor
uption s, it will be seen, were far from being the direct

INTRODUCTION. 1 1
object of the great struggle which it was their lot to
carry on. Professing a corrupted theology, they defended
it, not against a purer system or a reformed creed, but
against dangers which threatened the destruction of
Christianity itself. Whatever might have been their
doctrinal errors, such errors were the tenets of their
adversaries as well as of themselves ; and were, in
effect, entirely beside the main purport or bearing of
the contest which will form the most prominent sub
ject of the following pages. In preserving and in
vigorating the Church's constitution, they undoubtedly
also preserved and cherished those seeds of evil which,
modified as it had been by human interference, that
constitution then contained ; and thus became, in a
sense, indirectly responsible for their subsequent ex
tensive and fatal germination. But, if so, it was only
as he who preserves a diseased man from a violent and
external danger may be said to be the cause of the
disease afterwards reaching a fatal termination. Of
course, such a preserver would render the patient a
more complete service if he could also eradicate the
seeds of malady ; but if he have not the power, or be
not in a position, to do this, it does not follow that his
exertions should on this account be thought of no value,
or, which would be still more absurd, censured for their
indirect, unexpected, and distant consequences ; in for-
getfulness of those which were more direct, intended,
and immediate.
Nor can it be denied that the same unhappy cause
which thus perniciously affected the permanent results
of their energetic labours, must have also exerted an
injurious effect upon their personal characters, lowering
the loftiness of Christian principle, and injuring the
delicacy of Christian feeling. Doctrinal errors ever

12 INTRODUCTION.
produce corresponding errors in habits of thinking and
acting; and the professor of a corrupted theology,
strenuous as may be his efforts and pure his desires,
in vain attempts to reach the moral exaltation of
him to whom it is permitted to make similar efforts
under the guidance of a clearer light. We shall, ac
cordingly, as we proceed in the contemplation of our
subject, be often pained by seeing the noblest senti
ments debased by their intermixture with motives of
conduct of a very opposite character ; the exertions of
the most expansive benevolence contaminated by an
alloy of low ambition; the most heavenward aspira
tions mingled with aims of a more base and earthly
kind. In the papal schools of the middle ages we may
find devotion, zeal, charity ; but we should not look to
them for that completeness, that holy consistency, of
character which was the ornament of earlier and purer
times. If their records bear, as they do, the unques
tionable impress of Christian principle, they often, alas!
as clearly indicate a prevalence of corruption ins^ara-
ble from a degraded theology.
To some persons, the very notion of a combination,
in the same schools, of high Christian principle, and
of corruptions so gross as were those of Rome, even in
their nascent state, may appear absurd ; we have how
ever, it should be recollected, as much evidence for the
existence of the one, as for the influence of the others,
during the period in question ; and if, therefore, this
circumstance appear to present us with an incredible
inconsistency, it were quite as just, and far more charit
able, to believe in the good which is borne witness to,
and to doubt of the asserted evil. But, in truth, the
impressions of persons thus imagining may perhaps be
found, on consideration, to arise from a disposition.

INTRODUCTION. ] 3
natural to us all, to view the errors of a remote age
with a horror relatively, though not absolutely, ex
aggerated, because those errors not only find no
countenance from the peculiar tendencies and habits
of thought of our own time, but are, on the contrary, in
many cases, diametrically opposed to them ; while the
errors of our own time and society, being, as they must
needs be, but exaggerations of prevalent views and
imaginations, and harmonizing in some measure with
the general tone and character of religious feeling
around us, would fail to strike us with any thing like
a similar abhorrence, even though they should in them
selves be to the full as inconsistent with the integrity
of the truth revealed. But could we suppose the high-
minded Pontiff of the eleventh century to contem
plate, with the feelings of his own time, the religious
notions and practices of ours, what might he not think
of the almost total abandonment of the Christian duty
of fasting ? What of the almost universal neglect, for
six days out of every seven, of public worship, in all
former ages recognised as a daily duty ? What of the
contempt shown to the Church's authority, as well by
the non-observance of her solemn seasons of humili
ation or rejoicing, as by the formation of a host of
irregular religious societies, half- within and half-with-
out her pale ? or what of the tenet, now notoriously
prevalent among us, that those whom the Church has
duly admitted to holy baptism may not trust that they
were therein admitted to the grace of regeneration;
but that persons who, after the reception of that holy
Sacrament, have abandoned themselves to the grossest
sin, have reason to hope for a subsequent admission to
the fulness of that spiritual blessing ?
The age of Gregory VII. cannot, assuredly, be

14 INTRODUCTION.
charged with generally sanctioning or approving any
corruptions of doctrine or of practice more opposed
than these to the teaching of the Church Catholic, or
to the testimony of Scripture. While, therefore, we
habitually admit, as we do, the notion that persons
who have fallen into these later errors may notwith
standing be animated by a sincere reverence for Chris
tianity ; by a zeal true, though it be not according to
knowledge, for the Church's cause ; by a reverential at
tachment to her Almighty founder ; and by an overflow
ing charity, thence derived, toward the world which He
redeemed ; we cannot in fairness refuse to admit that
the same hallowed dispositions might at another period
consist with the adoption of errors of an opposite kind.
All contrary as they seem, the errors of our Fathers
may sometimes, even by our limited powers of obser
vation, be traced to the same source with our own. It
may, for instance, have been the same imperfection
of belief, the same inadequate conception of the real
nature and fulness of Christian privileges, which made
men in the middle ages receive with unhesitating cre
dence a host of miraculous narrations of the most child
ish kind, and which, at a later epoch, has taught them
to yearn for palpable impressions of Regeneration, or
for positive demonstrable tokens of the Almighty's
operation on their souls \
'¦ Of course it is not meant to be asserted that during the middle
ages the arm of the Almighty was never visibly outstretched in
miracle. I will frankly avow my belief that the contrary is the
truth. And still less, I should hope, will the above sentence be
construed into a presumptuous limitation of the unseen ways of
God's Providence in His present dealings with the soul. But to
look habitually, and by system, for such manifestations of His
power, of either kind, seems to betoken an imperfect comprehension

INTRODUCTION. 15
Gregory VII., then, and the Churchmen of his school,
will in the following pages be generally represented in
the light, which a careful study of all the contemporary
sources of information accessible to me has induced me
to believe the true one ; in the light, that is, of sincere
though imperfect Christians ; of men who, trained in a
corrupt school of theology, could not acquire that purity
of motive or consistency of practice which they might
under more favourable circumstances have attained ;
but who, at the same time, devoted themselves, through
life, to the service of God and to what they considered
the best interests of mankind ; and who, while thus
acting, became the favoured instruments of Heaven
in reforming the Church and in warding off from Chris
tianity one of the most fearful dangers to which she
has ever been permitted to be exposed.
The following chapters will however put the reader in
a condition to form, on these points, his opinions for
himself; nor will it be necessary to trouble him with
any further observations of a prefatory kind, except for
the purpose of briefly explaining to him the arrange
ment of the work, and the reasons for which that
arrangement has been adopted.
To furnish him with an adequate idea of the position
of the papacy, and of the condition of the Western
Church in general at the period of Gregory's appear
ance on the scene, it was needful to give, in the first
place, a comprehensive sketch of the early fortunes of
the Roman see, and of the rise of its primates to their
monarchical supremacy. And to this is devoted the
of the truth " The just shall live by faith." And, in point of fact, a
considerable proportion of the legends of the middle ages, like the
" experiences" of our own time, do unquestionably seem to merit
the designation of childish narrations.

16 INTRODUCTION.
first of the four books into which the work has been
divided. The second and third books contain the
annals of Gregory's life, divided into the two divi
sions which naturally suggest themselves ; the periods
anterior to and subsequent to his elevation to the papal
chair. And as his main business during his life was
the conduct of a great contest of principle, which, in
dying, he left unfinished, it has been thought expedient,
in a fourth and final book, to bring the record of that
contest summarily to its conclusion.
The authorities upon which the facts are narrated are
mostly given at the bottom of the pages. They are too
numerous to be specified here. Most important among
them are the epistles which have come down to us from
the pen of Gregory himself \ From these, copious
extracts will be found in the following pages. In trans
lating them, I have aimed rather at giving the sense
than a literal version of each sentence quoted ; and
though, as the reader will find, long passages in the
Pontiff's correspondence have been frequently abridged,
I have assuredly in no single instance intentionally sup
pressed any paragraph on the ground of its connection
with the errors of the papal school. Among other prin
cipal sources of information, I may mention, for Gre
gory's personal history, Bonizo bishop of Sutri ^, and
Paul of Bernried \ his apologists, and Benno * his assail-
' And which are to be found in the collections of Councils : for
example, in Harduin's, t. vi. pt, 1.
' Bonizonis Sutriensis Episcopi liber ad amicum. Vid. Oefelii
Scriptores rerum Boicarum, t. i.
' Pauli Bernriedensis Vita Gregorii VII. Vid. Muratori, Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores, t. iii. pt. i. ; or Mabillon, Acta SS. Ord. S.
Benedicti, Saecul. vi. pt. ii.
* Bennonis Vita Hildebrandi. Vid. Goldasti Apologia pro
Henrico IV.

INTRODUCTION. 17
ant; for the affairs of the empire during his life-time,
Lambert of Aschaffenburg \ Siegbert of Gemblours \
the Abbots of Auersberg \ the anonymous author styled
Annalista Saxo*, and the chronicler of the Saxon war,
known by the name of Bruno ' ; for the adventures of
the Normans, their own historians, William of Apulia^
and Geoffrey of Malaterra ' ; for the affairs of Milan, the
Milanese authors Landulf ' and Arnulf ^ ; and for the
general annals of the Church, the collections of Coun
cils by Harduin, Mansi, &c. I have, of course, system
atically availed myself of the assistance of more recent
historical compilers ; among whom may be named
Muratori (Annali d' Italia), Schrockh (Kirchliche Ge
schichte), Gieseler (Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte,)
and Voicht, the author of a Life of Gregory published
in Germany in 1815. But these have been only used
to lead me to sources of information of an earlier date ;
and no fact whatever is stated in the following work,
at least with reference to its principal subject, which I
have not found recorded in contemporary, or nearly con
temporary, annalists of his life and times, whose veracity
* Lambertus Scafnaburgensis, de rebus gestis Germanorum.
Vid. Pistorii Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, t. i. edit. Struvii.
^ Sigeberti Gemblacensis Coenobitse Chronographia. Ibid.
^ Chronicon Urspergense. (Argentorati, 1609. Fol.)
* Annalista Saxo, ab initio Regni Francorum usque ad annum
1139 res gestas enarrans. Vid. Eccardi Corpus Historicum medii
aevi, t. i.
* Brunonis de Bello Saxonico historia. Vid. Freheri Scriptores
rerum Germanicarum, t. i.
" Gulielmus Appulus, de rebus Normanorum. Vid. Muratori,
R, I. Script, t. V.
' Gaufridi Malaterrae historia Sicula. Ibid.
' Landulphi senioris historia Mediolanensis. Muratori, t. iv. —
Landulphi junioris hist. Med. Muratori, t. v.
° Arnulphi Mediolanensis GestaMediolanensium. Muratori, t. iv.
VOL. I. C

1 8 INTRODUCTION.
seemed liable to no suspicion. Where those annalists
have been found to differ from each other on points of
very little importance ; such, for instance, as the precise
day of the month on which a battle had been fought ; I
have sometimes adopted the statement of him who ap
peared most likely, from his position or circumstances,
to be accurately informed upon the subject, without
troubling the reader with a comparison of authorities,
or a discussion of the difference. On greater points,
where a discrepancy has appeared between the state
ments of different parties, and the truth has seemed
to be doubtful between them, I have, I believe invari
ably, while giving in the text that which appeared most
probable, acquainted the reader with the opposite ver
sion in the margin.
Though it was, of course, my wish to be as exact in
my references as possible ; yet, as many of the historians
used as authorities are, in the strict sense of the word,
annalists, — recording the events of each year by itself
in a separate period or paragraph ; it has seemed suf
ficient, in citing them, to give their names, as an in
timation that the passage referred to in each case is in
that paragraph of their works which is headed with the
date of the year treated of in the text. Where, there
fore, the date of the year, in such references, is given,
it is in many cases because the writer cited describes
an occurrence as happening in a different year from
that to which other authorities have induced me to
assign it.
On the subject of dates it may be well also to ob
serve, that, in the times of which the following pao-es
treat, various fashions of dating prevailed ; — some be
ginning the year with the Feast of the Nativity, 
some with the Incarnation, (Lady-day)— some with

INTRODUCTION. 19
the commencement of the year of the Imperial or
Constantinian Indiction' on the 24th of September,
and others on other days. But for the sake of clear
ness, the years spoken of in this narrative have always
been considered as beginning with our present New
Year's-day, the Feast of the Circumcision.
' Vid. Art de verifier les dates, vol. i, p. xiv.

LIFE

GREGORY VIL

BOOK L— CHAPTER I,
TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY TO THE EQUALITY OP THE APOSTLES IN
SPIRITUAL RANK AND AUTHORITY  CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH IN EARLY TIMES
TENDED TO INVEST THE SEE OF ROME WITH A PRE-EMINENCE OP HONOUR 
IMPORTANT SERVICE PERFORMED BY THE BISHOPS OF THAT SEE IN MAIN
TAINING AND EXTENDING THE FAITH  THEIR POSITION AFTER THE REMOVAL
OP THE SEAT OP EMPIRE TO CONSTANTINOPLE — GRADUAL INCREASE OF COR
RUPTIONS — CONTESTS CAUSED BY THE PRACTICE OF IMAGE-WORSHIP — CONTEN
TION ON THIS POINT BETWEEN THE POPES AND THE GRECIAN EMPERORS —
COMMENCEMENT AND PROGRESS OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE FORMER
AND THE CARLOTINGIAN PRINCES— CORONATION OP CHARLEMAGNE— INFLUENCE
OF THAT monarch's SYSTEM UPON THE HIERARCHY — SPURIOUS DECRETALS OF
ISIDORE  CAUSES OF THEIR GENERAL RECEPTION — THEIR EFFECT IN CONSOLID
ATING THE PAPAL POWER — DONATIO CONSTANTINI — PONTIFICATE OF NICHOLAS I.
 GENERAL REMARKS.
A MULTITUDE of witnesses, among the early Christian
writers, have borne testimony to the conviction of
the Church in their time that the sacred rank of all the
Apostles was essentially the same ; that the chosen
twelve were endowed by their Divine Master with an
equal fellowship of honour and power ' ; being all in
' Hoc erant utique et caeteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari con-
sortio prsediti honoris et potestatis. — Cyprian, de Unitat. Eedes.

22 life of [book i.
common entrusted with the spiritual charge of the
world ' : that what was said in the way of commission
to St. Peter was said in effect to the others also ^ ; and
that however the zeal and energy of the son of Jonas
may have rendered him in some sort a leader and
guide of his brethren, yet that in the naked matter of
apostolic privilege, St. James, St. John, and others,
were, like St. Paul, not a whit behind the chiefest of
the apostles '.
The bishop, therefore, who, when that "glorious com
pany" had been called to its rest, was found occupy
ing the episcopal chair in which St. Peter's last years
of labour had been spent, had no ground, from this cir
cumstance, for claiming a supremacy, as of Divine right,
over his brethren of the hierarchy, as though he were
of an order different from and higher than theirs. But
yet a variety of causes, commencing their operation
from the dawn of Christianity, and continuing during
the lapse of many centuries in activity, concurred in
vesting the Roman prelate with a certain degree of
pre-eminence in dignity over those associated with him
in the government of the universal Church. From the
first, amid the deep and general veneration for epis
copacy which pervaded primitive times, special honours
were attributed to the churches which contained the
thrones in which Apostles themselves had sat, and
which may be said to have formed the primary fulfil-
' TravTEs Koivy r^v o'lKovpevgv ipiriaTevdevreg. — Chrysost. Hom. de
Leot. Script.
' Quod Petro dicitur, cseteris apostolis dicitur  Ambros. in Ps.
xxxviii. ' Joannes et Jacobus quia plus caeteris petierunt, non impetra-
verunt ; et tamen non est dignitas eorum imminuta, quia reliquis
apostolis aequales fuerunt. — Hieronym. adv. Jovin. 1. i.
3

CHAP. I.] GREGORY Vll. 23
ment of our Lord's promise to the destined rulers of
His Church, recorded in St. Matt. xix. 28. There, from
time to time, according to Tertullian, were read aloud
the very letters which they had written, echoing the
voice and imaging the person of each of them ' ;
there, for a time, were to be found their friends and
pupils, who had habitually drunk in the sacred les
sons of truth from their lips, and whose authority,
in matters of doctrine, was therefore but one degree
removed from that of accredited inspiration; and there,
even after that generation of saints had been removed
to its rest, might be supposed to linger, in the tra
ditions which it had handed down, the most precious
relics of oral apostolic lore. The prelates, therefore, who
occupied sees thus distinguished, were regarded as being
witnesses to the faith once delivered to the saints, in an
ampler sense than their spiritual brethren, the general
members of the episcopal body. To them reference
was continually made, in cases of doubt or difficulty, by
the bishops who presided over less distinguished cities ;
and in their decisions was recognised an authority pro
portionate to the admitted superiority of their means
of information.
To such distinction Rome had, as need scarcely be
shown, a peculiar claim. " How happy," says the Father
last quoted, Tertullian, " How happy is that church
" where Apostles poured forth their whole doctrine with
" their blood; — where Peter was likened in suffering
" to his Lord ; where Paul was crowned with the martyr-
" dom of John the Baptist ; and whence John the Apos-
" tie, having been plunged without injury into boiling
* Apud quos ipsae authenticse literae eorum recitantur, sonantes
vocem, et repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque. — Tertull. de Praescr.
Haeret. c. xxxvi.

24 life of [book i.
" oil, was exiled to his island '." And while the East,
in Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, and the like,
possessed a variety of sees which had been either
originally presided over by an Apostle, or honoured by
his inspired epistolary communications, Rome stood
alone in apostolic honours amid the cities of the west
ern, or Latin, portion of the empire. The city, too,
which formed the political centre of the world, could
scarce fail, when Christianity had spread itself over
that world, to become its religious centre also. The
Church has ever adapted, and in fact could not
well do otherwise than adapt, her geographical
and statistical arrangements to those of the civil
world around her^. The size and importance of
the imperial city would of themselves invest its pas
toral superior with a certain pre-eminence over his
brethren in other places. And the character of a
metropolis, — as the general centre of communication
with outlying provinces, — as the spot through which,
if not from which, information of all kinds finds
its way to the diversified portions of a great empire,
— must have materially contributed to the same
end. As the Church extended herself through the
rude and distant regions of the west, it was in most
cases from Rome that the bishops who founded her new
sees would receive their orders and their mission ; and
to them, when these spiritual settlers in the waste
stood in need of guidance or control, the Roman
Patriarch could speak in the tone of parental as well
as of apostolical authority. They were bound to him
' Tertull. 1. c.
' The apostolic seats, indeed, were naturally fixed, for the most
part, in cities of the greatest name and consideration. Vide
Thomassiu. Vet. et Nov. Eccl. disciplin. pt. i. lib. i. c. iii. § 2, 3.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 25
by a tie similar to that which now connects our colonial
prelates with the successor of our English Austin ; at
the same time that they felt, in common with the
whole of Christendom, the abstract right to their
veneration possessed by the see which had been
founded and originally governed by St. Peter.
In the combination of causes thus tending to the ex
altation of one particular see, we may perhaps venture
to trace, as though partially manifested to us, the
generally invisible guidance of His Almighty hand who
ever directs and disposes all things to the good of His
Church below. The part assigned to Rome in the
history of the world, — her rise, progress, and duration,
— is a marvellous dispensation of Providence, to be
contemplated with reverence and awe. She was raised
up, we know, to prepare the way for that kingdom
" made without hands," which was to succeed her ; and
of which, subduing as she did all kings, and uniting all
territories into one, she became herself the mysterious
type and prefiguration. She was the earthly agent by
whose ministration, in the crucifixion of our Lord, that
better kingdom was developed. By her obliteration of
the feuds between different nations, through their
enforced submission to one common government, she
providentially smoothed the way for the feet, " beautiful
upon the mountains," of those who bore to all lands the
tidings of salvation. Why may we not then be per
mitted to imagine that she was yet further a predes
tined instrument of good in the Divine hand, in
preserving, through the pre-eminent authority which
we know to have been enjoyed by her bishop, the often
hazarded unity of the nascent Church ? The supposition
implies not the slightest approval of the errors or
usurpation to which the papacy has, in these later

26 LIFE OF [book I.
days, unhappily committed itself. He who in His
Divine teaching set forth the Apostle Peter as the type
of unity in the Episcopate, may be thought to have or
dained that Apostle's see to be the agent in preserving
such unity during the first struggles of His religion, with
out being supposed to give His high sanction to the
exaggerated pretensions or doctrinal aberrations of the
same see in subsequent ages. Nor, if a servant of the
Great Master have, alas ! been induced, while his Lord
tarried, to forget his duty towards his fellow-servants, —
to tyrannize and to domineer, — are we thence entitled
to infer that he was not called, in the first instance,
to a distinguished station of rule over the spiritual
household. To appreciate, in any degree, the services rendered in
early times to the cause of catholic unity and catholic
truth, by the see thus dignified, we should refer to the
history of the great Arian controversy in the fourth
century. The providence of God, by removing the seat
of empire, just as that controversy broke out, to a new
capital, left the ancient metropolis comparatively free
from the pressure of imperial authority ; * nd enabled
her pastor, when heresy, under the influence of the
sovereign, reigned triumphant at Constantinople, to act
with energy and independence as the assertor of the
faith, — the great bulwark of the Church, — against the
universal domination of error. Julius, who sat in the
chair of St. Peter from 337 to 352, was the friend
and host of the persecuted and banished Athanasius ' ;
and Liberius, his successor, when threatened, at Milan,
with exile by the Arian emperor Constantius, in the
event of his refusing to subscribe the decrees of an
' F. Pagi Breviarium Gestorum Pontificum Roman, t. i. p. 48.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 27
heretical council, gave this dignified reply : " I have
" already taken leave of my brethren at Rome ; the laws
" of the Church are dearer to me than is my home in
"that city'." When in exile, it is true, this latter
pontiff faltered in his constancy, and obtained his recal
by unjustifiable concessions ; but when restored to his
see, he returned to the support of the Catholic cause ; he
condemned the heretical council of Rimini^ and thus
handed on the testimony of Rome to the truth, unim
paired, to the hands of his successor, Damasus, by
whom it was unflinchingly maintained, until the time
of trial was past, the general enemy was subdued, and
the Nicene creed, ratified and enlarged at Constanti
nople ^ was recognised as the orthodox symbol of re
united Christendom.
By a line of conduct so honourable, the Roman
bishops could not fail to strengthen and consolidate the
moral authority which they had previously enjoyed; and
though the Eastern Fathers, assembled in the follow
ing century at Chalcedon*, ventured to treat the spirit
ual priority of Rome as having arisen merely from her
political supremacy ^ and to enact the recognition of
a similar dignity in their own metropolis ; yet the pro-
" ' Fratribus meis qui sunt Romae jam valedixi. Potiores mihi
" sunt leges ecclesiasticae quam domicilium Romae." — Theodoret.
Hist. Eccles. 1. ii. c. 16. Vid. F. Pagi, t. i. p. 53.
" F. Pagi, t. i. p. 54. = a. d. 381. * a. d. 451.
" Kal yap t<^ Opova r-fje Trpea^vripaQ 'Ptopgg, Sia to (iatriXeveiv
T-flv TToXiv eKeivgv, ol iraripee eiKOTioQ aTroSeSuKairi ra rrpeafiiia.
Concil. Chalced. can. xxviii. — -a canon which, as is remarked by
Thomassinus, " ut a vero non dissideat, ita sumendum est, quod
ea denique fuit ratio quae Petrum illexit Romam, ut ibi apostolicam
figeret cathedram, fontemque ccelestis doctrinae, facile inde in omnes
orbis partes dimanaturae." Thomassin. vetus et nova Eccl. discip.
pt. i. lib. i. e. x. § 13.

28 LIFE OF [book I.
test of the Roman representatives -against the measure,
seems to havp been very generally responded to by the
judgment and the feelings of mankind. In the dia
dem of Constantine, the city which that sovereign had
founded might exhibit a rival distinction to the laurel
wreath of Csesar ; but she could not exhibit the pas
toral seats in which Apostles had sat, or point to the
tombs beneath which their ashes reposed ; — she could
not claim the spiritual parentage of Christian com
munities diffused throughout the habitable world ; nor
could she, even from the recent origin of her metro
politan existence, display an unbroken line of pastors
who had borne the high character of witnesses for
the truth.
Under these circumstances, it need not surprise us to
find the writers of these early times speaking of the
Roman see in the language of unqualified veneration ;
looking to its occupants as to their natural guides and
commanders in the strife which they were ever waging
against the error and heresy around them; and express
ing themselves as though agreement in doctrine with
that central point implied agreement with Ihe wise and
good of all ages, — with the general body of Catholic
Christendom. This need not, it has been said, surprise us — far less
need it grieve us. Rome, which had once already
brought Christianity to our British shores in her train,
became, at the close of the sixth century, once more
our spiritual parent. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, in
whom our language and our English name teach us to
recognise the main stock of our mingled race, were by
the active benevolence of Pope Gregory, justly stvled
the Great, converted from the worship of their northern
idols to the service of the One true God. By that great

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 29
benefactor of our country, the Church, which had been
driven as a fugitive into the wild and mountainous parts
of our island, was made once more to cover the land,
and established here upon her present basis, under the
government of those two metropolitan sees which con
tinue to preside over her. And it is through their
spiritual descent from this Roman bishop and his pre
decessors, that our Primates and their suffragans derive
their clearest ' title to govern the Church of Christ in
England at this very day. It is not, therefore, for
us to look with jealousy or distaste upon the ancient
glories of our nursing-mother in the faith. It is not
for us to seek to pare away expressions, or to reduce
to their minimum of meaning the glowing testimonies
of antiquity to that mother's purity and honour. She,
it is true, has since abandoned us; and, because we
refuse to bow down before the idols whom she has in
these later times set up, refuses to recognise us as her
children. We, however, have not separated from her;
we have formed ourselves into no new sect or party,
but by God's blessing continue within the pale of that
catholic community to which she first admitted us.
Nor can her recent tyranny prevent our eyes from
reverting to the shining indications of her pristine
' Their clearest, not their only one. There can be little doubt
that through the intermingling of the British and Saxon Churches,
the title derived through Augustine, has long been blended with one
deduced from the earlier prelates of our island. " We stand," says
Mr. Palmer, " on the ground of prescriptive and immemorial pos-
" session, not merely from the times of Patrick and Augustine, but
" from those more remote ages when the bishops and priests that were
" our predecessors, attended the councils of Aries and of Nice, when
" Tertullian and Origen bore witness that the fame of our Christianity
"had extended to Africa and the East." — Palmer, Origines Lilur-
gicce, t. ii. p. 251.

30 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
worth; or our hearts from burning within us, as we
gaze, with emotions of exalted pleasure akin to those
with which an affectionate and duteous child delights to
survey the cherished mementos of parental excellence.
The western empire, before the time of Gregory the '
Great, had come to its termination ; and the imperial
city, after bending for sixty years under the yoke of
barbarian masters, was delivered by the arms of the
Grecian generals, Belisarius and Narses, and became
the capital of a distant appanage to the empire of
Constantinople, The political cause, therefore, of the
Roman Patriarch's dignity was no more ; or existed but
in the recollections which continued to throw a moral
majesty around the scene of ancient greatness. But
that dignity had, as we have seen, other sources of
support, other principles of permanence ; and the pas
toral seat of St. Peter was not, therefore, crushed
under the ruins of the throne of Csesar. Of the bar
barous tribes who in those confused times settled
themselves in the different kingdoms of western
Europe, some, having been already half-converted,
embraced in its completeness the religious faith which
they found in those countries, without an effort or
struggle ; and imbibed, with that faith, the generally
prevalent reverence for the first bishop of the West.
And as these rude nations fell off from the faith of
the Church, as from a system too exalted for them, into
the impieties of Arianism, the active zeal of the
Roman prelates raised up, in new proselytes to the
Catholic Creed, new subjects to their patriarchal
control. While the great heresy reigned triumphant
in many parts of Italy and Spain, Germany, like
England, was converted from idola,try to Catholicism
by missionaries directly despatched and accredited by

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 31
Rome ; Boniface becoming in the eighth century an
apostle to the Teutonic tribes of the continent, as
Austin had been to those in our own island at the
conclusion of the sixth.
But the Roman see was not, during these dark
and convulsive periods, as successful in preserving that
purity of faith which had once distinguished her, as
she was in maintaining her station of pre-eminence
among the Churches of the West. It is always ante
cedently probable that the history of the Church, if
considered with reference to a period of considerable
length, will be found to be a record of her declension.
The light which illumines her is, as it were, flung over
her from a past period, that of her nativity ; and waxes
fainter and fainter as that period fades into the dim
perspective of time. Such an image will at least
represent the gradual change which took place in
her condition during the early centuries of Christianity.
We in these latter times can scarcely image to ourselves
the fulness of spiritual knowledge enjoyed by those who
were admitted into the Church, while the Apostles
were her living governors ; who heard the mysteries
of the faith set forth in copious discourses by these
infallible instructors ; and who were taught to realize
to themselves the great events connected with our Re
demption, by personal communication with those who
had seen and handled the Word of life. And vain it
were to expect that the Church, in her transition from
a period so blessed to that in which the last of these
special advantages, preserved as they were for some time
by traditions, had disappeared, could have maintained
in their fulness the high devotion and the heavenly-
mindedness which had characterized her radiant prime.
Her external condition, too, became, as time went on.

32 LIFE OF [book I.
more favourable to her extension than to her purity.
Instead of being put apart by the world, and purified
by the fires of persecution, she was incorporated, if we
may so say, into that world, and tempted by the in
ducements which it held forth of authority and power.
Even without, therefore, adverting to the troubles
consequent on the downfall of the empire and on the
barbarian wars ; — troubles which, by investing with an
overpowering interest the affairs of this world, could
not but in some degree ¦ divert men's minds from the
contemplation of that which is to come ; we should
have no reason to expect that any portion of the
Church in the eighth century could exhibit, either in
faith or spiritual light, the undiminished splendour of
earlier times.
And the Roman bishops, while participating in the
general declension which may thus be accounted for,
were thrown, during the sixth, seventh, and eighth
centuries, into a position peculiarly unfavourable to the
maintenance of certain great principles of Christian
faith and practice. For then, tempted as they ever
were by the authority which they enjoyed, — an author
ity which could only, perhaps, be wielded by human
hands for unmixed good in ages of strong faith and
clear knowledge, — to assume the character of kingly
rulers over their spiritual brethren ; they were placed,
with relation to their temporal sovereigns, in circum
stances peculiarly adapted to deaden in their minds
those impressions of religious loyalty which had so
strongly characterized their predecessors and the primi
tive Church throughout the world. The Goths, whose
expulsion from Rome has been already adverted to,
were succeeded in Italy by the Lombards, who, pour
ing their swarms across the Alps, in the year of our

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 33
Lord 568, soon mastered a very considerable portion
of its territory. Rome, however, escaped subjection to
their dominion. Though the powerful kingdom which
they set up extended almost to her gates, the imperial
city continued to form a portion of the eastern empire.
But the same causes which had prevented the Greek
monarchs from arresting the general progress of the
Lombard arms, operated to prevent their wielding the
powers of government with a vigorous arm in those
parts of Italy which yet acknowledged their control.
And amid the weakness aud distractions of their declin
ing empire, the care of the public safety and adminis
tration of the civil government at Rome fell in a great
measure, as though by a sort of necessity, into the hands
of the spiritual pastors of the place. It was to them,
distinguished as they often were by virtues, and ready
as was ever the appeal to them in moments of difficulty
or danger, that the people learned to look more hope
fully for counsel and protection, than to sovereigns
whom they knew but by name, and who seemed to
be alike powerless to control their subjects and to
awe their enemies. Distant as she was from the seat
of Grecian empire, and almost isolated amid the settle
ments of northern barbarians, Rome became, to a cer
tain extent, an independent state, and her bishop, in
a corresponding degree, a virtual sovereign ; his power,
as opposed to that of their nominal ruler, being en
deared to the people by the interest felt by Latins in
those questions of discipline and observance, which, now
that the intercourse between the East and West was less
constant, began to distinguish these two great divisions
of the Church from each other. Some of these ques
tions may perhaps be regarded as in themselves of little
moment ; yet even these assume a melancholy import-
VOL. I. D

34 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
ance when contemplated as the first symptoms and
manifestations of a disregard of the great truth, that the
Church's right to the full enjoyment of her privileges
is contingent upon her preservation of unity among
her members. But during the seventh and eighth cen
turies, her declension from the palmy state of her apo
stolic days had become even more strikingly displayed by
the formidable corruptions of practice in which her two
great divisions agreed, than by any of the minor points
about which they differed and disputed. From the use,
natural in the first instance, of images, and other repre
sentations of sacred persons and things in Christian
Churches, as ornaments, as helps to memory, or as
instruments of instruction, — there gradually grew up, in
the East, an idolatrous worship of these venerable sym
bols ; a worship which, though at first alien to the less
excitable imagination of the West, ultimately took
root there also ; and engrafted itself so firmly into the
habits of universal Christendom, that when a Grecian
emperor, Leo the Isaurian, in 726, attempted to put
down this unjustifiable practice, Constantinople and
Rome were both furious at his proceedings. And
though he and succeeding emperors for a while carried
their point in their own metropolis, yet with regard to
Rome their efforts were by no means equally success
ful. Gregory II. defended the cause of image- worship,
— a practice which Gregory the Great had pointedly
condemned, — with such zeal, that Leo, .provoked by
it to the utmost, decreed his deposition, and endea
voured alike by force and treachery to seize or to destroy
him '. But against the snares and conspiracies of the
emperor, Gregory's extreme watchfulness kept him in
Anastas. in vita Greg. II.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 35
security ; and against open assaults he defended him
self by methods more consonant with the character of
a sovereign than with that of a Christian prelate. The
Italians, inflamed by his addresses, rose in arms in
support of his cause. At Ravenna, the Exarch, or impe
rial governor, was slain in a tumult ^ in 728 ; and though
Gregory II. breathed his last in 730, the course of his
policy was triumphantly maintained by his successor
Gregory III. By this pontiff, in a council holden in
732, a sentence of excommunication was past, in which
the emperor was virtually involved ; all being de
clared excommunicate who should destroy, remove,
insult, or ridicule the sacred images ^. And Leo's fleet,
sent in 733 against Ravenna, was encountered in the
mouths of the Po by the flotilla of that rebellious city,
and after an obstinate conflict, was forced to retreat with
considerable loss ^ The papal cause triumphed, and
it seems to have been owing entirely to the moderation
or prudence of the pontifical counsels, that the Greek
emperors were allowed from this time forth to retain
any vestige of their power over the Roman territory.
But it was not the wish of the Roman bishop to sepa
rate entirely from the eastern empire; he therefore
repressed the ardour of his enthusiastic partizans, who
were anxious to elect a new sovereign. An Exarch was
permitted to reside, a nominal viceroy, in Ravenna;
and the shadows of Greek connexion and Greek
dominion continued to linger over the papal city till
obliterated by the closer ties established with Rome,
the more real sovereignty acquired over it, by Charle
magne, the destined resuscitator of the western empire.
' Anastas. in vit. ^ Ibid.
^ Muratori, Annali d'ltalia, ad an.
d2

36 LIFE OF [book I.
It was in 741 that, alarmed by the hostile move
ments of the Lombard king, who was naturally desirous
to take all advantage in his power of the struggle
between the emperor and his subjects, Gregory III.
sending into France the first papal envoys who had
visited the country since it had received that name,
implored the aid of the powerful Charles Martel ', who
held, as mayor of the palace, the substance of that
sovereignty which was nominally enjoyed by a Merovin
gian king. Thus was laid the foundation of an alliance,
fraught, as the event was subsequently to prove, with
consequences the most momentous to the interests of
the papacy and of the universal Church. And from
what has now been said, a general idea may be formed
ofthe position in which the papal power stood, and of
the principles by which it was animated at an epoch so
critical. It has been seen that, amid the general
declension of the Church, Rome herself had not
escaped contamination ; that the apostolic light which
had lingered for a while in the footsteps of St. Peter
and St. Paul had not sufficed to prevent her from fall
ing into one of the grossest corruptions of practice, —
image-worship, — by which the Church has at any period
been disfigured ; and that her prelates, having been
for some time in circumstances calculated to diminish
their reverence alike for the apostolical character of
their brother bishops throughout the world and for the
divinely-sanctioned claim to their obedience of their
secular sovereign, were thus already in a state of
gradual training for that systematic trampling on the
' Anastas.— Gregor. III. Ep. ad Carol. Martel. Cod. Carolin.
I. and II. — Annales Veteres Francorum, ap. Martene et Durand.
Coll. Ampliss. t. v. p. 888.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 37
just privileges of both, which formed the sum and
substance of their future usurpation. But though the
seed was thus sown, much time, much culture, and the
combination of many favouring circumstances were yet
required to bring the evil plant to its subsequent state
of portentous maturity.
Charles Martel, though he received with much
reverence the messengers of Rome, was unwilling or
unable to take any active step in consequence of their
appeal. But an intercourse between his family and the
see of St. Peter having thus begun, his son Pepin, when
desirous of taking the crown from the head of the
Merovingian Childeric, and reigning in name as well
as in reality, — a desire which the general voice of the
nation was prepared to sanction, — thought that an
additional security would accrue to his new title if an
approval of the measure could be obtained from the
first bishop of the western world. Zachary, the suc
cessor of the Gregories, was therefore consulted on the
subject ; and he, anxious to conciliate the family whose
support formed his only hope of preservation from sub
jection to the Lombards, replied in general terras, that
for the preservation of order it was fitting that the
name of king should accompany the power '. Fortified
by this decision, Pepin, in 752, procured his formal elec
tion to the throne of the Franks. Zachary died in the
same year ; but his successor, Stephen II. reduced to
the extremity of distress by the continuance of the
Lombard hostilities, and having in vain implored the
exertions of Greece to avert the impending ruin,
resolved to cross the Alps, and to appeal in person to
the gratitude of the warrior to whom Rome had just
' F. Pagi, Breviar. Gest. Pontif. Roman, t. i. p. 297.

38 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
rendered so signal a service '. The pontiff and the new
king of the Franks met, accordingly, at Pontyon, in
January 754. Pepin, who must have felt that in doing
homage to the patriarch of the West he was confirming
his own kingly title, alighted from his horse, bowed down
before his guest to the earth, and then walked some
time by his side, performing the functions of a simple
squire I But on the morrow, in a more private inter
view with the king, Stephen fell in his turn upon his
knees, and with prayers and tears ' besought Pepin to
lead his intrepid warriors across the Alps to the dis
comfiture of the Lombards, and to the deliverance of
the apostolic city. Pepin pledged himself by a solemn
oath to grant the request ; and leading his Franks into
Italy, he so far humbled the Lombard king Astolphus, as
to induce him not only to restore all the territories which
he had wrested from the Roman province, but to enlarge
that province by further cessions *, while Pepin himself,
who had during these transactions been crowned king
of the Franks by Stephen ^ at St. Denis, assumed the
office of perpetual guardian of Rome, with the title of
patrician ; a title by the subordinate character of which
the imperial supremacy of Greece was tacitly recog
nized. But when fresh movements of the Lombards,
after Pepin's death, brought his son Charlemagne into
Italy, completely to overthrow, in 774, the Lombard
' Anastas. Vid. F. Pagi, Breviar. t. i. pp. 299, 300.
^ Anastas. in vita Stephan. II.
' Intus oratorium pariter considentes mox idem beatissimus Papa
regem lacrymabiliter deprecatus est. — Anastas. — Annales Veteres
Francorum, ap. Martene et Durand. Coll. Ampliss. t. v. p. 890.
* Chron. Reginonis Monachi, ap. Struv. Rerum German. Scriptor.
t. i. — Annales Veteres Francorum.
* Chron. Reginon. — Anastas. — Annal. Vet. Franc.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 39
kingdom, and to found in its stead the Carlovingian
kingdom of ItalyS that prince exercised, not only within
the proper limits of that kingdom, but even in the papal
city itself, such ample powers of sovereignty, as were
utterly incompatible with the continued recognition of
imperial authority in any other quarter. And at length
that authority, as well in regard of Rome as of the
West in general, became formally vested in himself
Without any public preparation, the Pope Leo III., as
Charlemagne, on Christmas-day 800, rose from his de
votions before the altar of St. Peter's, placed on his
head a precious diadem ; and the air was instantly rent
by the joyous shouts of the populace, in honour of
" Charles Augustus, crowned of God, the great and
pacific Emperor of the Romans ^."
The Roman bishops, could they have ordered things
according to their will, would probably have preferred
the qualified humiliation of the Ijombards, to the
total destruction of their monarchy ; would rather have
profited by aid afforded to them by the kings of the
Franks from a distance, than have seen those princes
within their walls, their protectors but their masters.
As it was, in escaping from the continued pressure of
difficulty and danger, they had lost that virtual inde
pendence of power which they had so long enjoyed, —
they had exchanged a nominal sovereign for a real one.
The new emperor was, however, of necessity, a friend
to the apostolic see. Prom the authority of that see it
was that his house had derived its original claim to

' Chron. Regin
' Eginhardi Annales de gestis Caroli Mag. — Annales Laurissenses
ad an. 801. — Chron. Regin. — Annales veteres Franc, ap. Martene et
Durand. Coll. Ampliss. t. v. p. 907.
3

40 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
royal honours, as well as he himself his title to the im
perial name. He had already shown, on a splendid
scale, his zeal for the extension of the Church and his
munificence in endowing her. And as the great bulk
of his dominions lay beyond the Alps, it was probable
that his engagements there would prevent his spending
any considerable portion of his reign in Italy, or exercis
ing over the papal city the strict control of a resident
sovereign. Intelligent friends to the papal power might
therefore, even in what they could perceive at the mo
ment, see much to encourage them as to the results,
yet hidden in futurity, of the change which had now
occurred : though it would have required the eye of a
prophet to foresee that one principal result of the
northern sovereign's exaltation would be the establish
ment of the Roman bishops on a yet higher pinnacle of
monarchical power.
By increasing and consolidating the temporal great
ness of the pontiff, Charlemagne endeavoured to esta
bhsh in Italy a power devoted to his interest, and suf
ficient to overpower all attempts against the continuance
of his dominion in that country. He, therefore, con
siderably enlarged the limits of the Roman territory, of
which the Popes were to be the possessors, in the same
dependent relation to himself in which they had for
merly stood to the Byzantine Csesars. Aware of the
deference paid, in most parts of his empire, to the
papal name, he on various occasions promulgated his
enactments as resulting from the suggestion or counsel
of the apostolic see. And when, acting as he did as
the converter, as well as the conqueror, of the outlying
portions of his empire, it became necessary to establish
bishoprics in the territories added by his means to the
Church, he procured, and professed to act upon, the

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 41
sanction of the pontiff to the measure' ; thus extend
ing, in some directions, the papal pre-eminence beyond
the ancient limits of the Roman world.
But the greatest boon, in a temporal sense, con
ferred by him upon the successors of St. Peter, was
unquestionably his acceptance of the imperial crown
at their hands'. His coronation in itself ratified, as
it were, and proved, in the eyes of the nations of
the West, the claim of the Roman bishop to an uni
versal supremacy. And such a ratification Avas, during
the existence and reign of the Carlovingian princes,
repeatedly renewed. Pope Stephen IV. placed, at
Rheims, in 816, the imperial crown on the head of
Louis, Charlemagne's son and successor I Pascal I. per
formed, at Rome, the same office for the son of Louis,
Lothaire*. Louis II., the son of Lothaire, receiA^ed the
diadem from the hands of Leo IV. in 850 ^ ; and sub
sequently, in a letter addressed to the Grecian em
peror, Basilius the Macedonian, spoke of his having been
elevated to the high dignity which he enjoyed, under
heaven, by the unction and imposition of pontifical
hands^; and of his ancestor having received the im-
' In his foundation, for instance, of the see of Bremen, Charle
magne describes the first bishop as appointed " summi et universalis
Papas Hadriani praecepto, necnon Moguntiacensis Episcopi Lullonis
omniumque qui adfuerunt pontificum consilio." — Adam Bremens.
Hist. lib. i. c. 10. ap. Lindenbrog. Scriptor. Ber. German. Septent.
'' " Inde," says Cantelius, " consecrandi Imperatoris consuetudo
manavit in Oriente, et perpetua certaque lex fuit, ut is unus imperator
et asset et diceretur qui a Romano Pontifice Imperii accepisset
insignia." Cantelius, Metropol. Urb. Histor. pt. i. Diss. ii.
' Annales Bertin. ad ann. — Eginhardi Annal. — Vid. Ermoldi
Nigelli Poem. ap. Murator. t. ii. pt. ii. p. 42.
* Annal. Bertin. ad an. ^ Annal. Bertin.
* " Ad unctionem et sacrationein qua per summi pontificis manus

42 LIFE OF [book I.
perial title " by God's sanction, and the judgment of
the Church," expressed by a similar ceremony '.
The spiritual dignity of the Roman prelate, thus
briUiantly illustrated, not only maintained its ground,
but received accessions of consequence at a time in
which the progress of events was tending to degrade
the episcopal body in general from the high place of
respect which in earlier ages it had filled. The Church,
in the transalpine dominions of Charlemagne, bore a
character materially modified by the rudeness of her
semi-barbarous members ; and the efforts of that mo
narch, exerted toward her refinement, promoted at the
same time her secularization. His own idea of her
nature and essence seems to have been influenced by
the impressions natural to a temporal and military
monarch. The pope, as we have seen, he treated in
several acts of government as his official adviser or
chancellor; and his bishops, whom he endowed with
ample territories, became his barons, — his counsellors
and ministers at home, and the governors of his pro
vinces abroad^.
Their positions in the new bishoprics partook,, in
deed, in some measure, of the military character ; as it
impositionem divinitus sumus ad hoc culmen provecti, aspicientes."
Anonymi Salernitani Chronicon, ap. Muratori, Rer. Ital. Scriptt.
t. ii. pt. ii. p. 245.
' " Dei nutu, et Ecclesiae judicio, summique Pontificis per imposi
tionem," &c. ib. p. 246.
' Which he thought it expedient to entrust to them for two rea
sons : first, because he believed that persons in holy orders would
be less likely than laymen to violate their oaths of fidelity ; and
secondly, because, if the subjects entrusted to them should revolt,
they might use the spiritual arms of the Church, as well as the tem
poral means of the state, to reduce them to obedience. Vid.
Will. Malmesb. de gestis regum, 1. v.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VIL 43
was to them that the sovereign looked to repress the
rebellions of his recently acquired subjects, as well as
to resist the incursions of barbarous hordes from the
wastes beyond the limits of his territory. And even
those prelates who had been fixed in stations ap
parently less likely to bring. them into immediate con
tact with military operations, became, soon after the
great monarch's death, of necessity involved in the
general movement, military as well as civil, which
ensued from the interminable feuds of his degenerate
descendants. The spiritual dignitaries, therefore, of the
whole Carlovingian empire were placed in a false and
unecclesiastical position ^ : and this circumstance, viewed
in connection with the general rudeness of their age,
and with the gross views and habits natural to nations
just reclaimed, and that in the mass, from idolatry,
will in great measure enable us to understand the
deplorable account given of the Western Church in the
ninth century by the writers of the time.
In forming our estimate of the character of the
clerical body at any given epoch, we should, it is true,
probably deceive ourselves, did we omit to take into
calculation the effect of that feeling of hostility to the
Church, her ordinances, and her ministers, which is,
unhappily, too intimately interwoven with our corrupt
nature, not to manifest itself in some measure in the
annals of each succeeding generation. Of that holy
institution we are sure, in the pages of the contem
porary historians of any age, to hear the worst. Her
enemies will not fail to blazon forth, with exaggera-
^ Thereby placing, of course, the sovereign in a position as irregu
lar. We find Charlemagne styled by a writer of the ninth century,
" Episcopus episcoporum." Monach. Sangallens. de gestis Caroli
M. libri duo, in Canisii Lectt. Antiq. t. ii. pt. iii. p. 67.

44 LIFE OF [BOOK 1.
tions, every error and every corruption which may give
a plea for their animosity toward her, and tend to lower
her in the general estimation of mankind. And, with
views very different, her best and truest friends will
often use language tending in some degree to a similar
result ; and will breathe forth their grief and indigna
tion against her defiling sins in a tone calculated to
impress those who feel less warmly on the subject, with
an exaggerated idea of the evils which form the themes
of their reprehension. But, making every allowance
for such causes of error in the case before us, we can
easily conceive, when the spiritual and unearthly
powers confided by the great Head of the universal ,
Church to His bishops, were systematically vested in
the same hands with the more tangible authority of
municipal governors, magistrates, and military leaders,
that the community, ever more inclined to walk, in the
language of Scripture, by sight rather than by faith,
would learn mainly to fix their attention upon the
latter of these two discordant characters thus unna
turally united ; and either to forget the bishop in the
count, the pastor and the apostle in the prefect and
the warrior ; or else, as far as episcopacy preserved a
substantive essence in their eyes, to degrade it in their
thoughts, by assimilating it to offices created by merely
secular power, supported by merely tangible means,
and exercising a merely political authority.
And this diversion, so to call it, of the episcopate
from its original destination brought about, as a matter
of course, the introduction into the episcopal body of
persons by no means qualified for sacerdotal pre-emi
nence. In theory, the right of election to vacant
bishoprics was recognised by Charlemagne and his
descendants as existing, according to ancient and

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 45
canonical practice, in the clergy and people of the
diocese'. But the founder of the Carlovingian dynasty
was on several occasions induced, either by peculiar
circumstances, or by the ambition and intrigues of those
about him, to exercise a more than merely influential
or confirmatory authority on such occasions^. And
though his son and successor, Louis the Debonair,
professed his respect for the Church's elective privi
leges in the same terms with his father ^ he frequently
placed persons selected by himself in the sacred office ^
by virtual nomination. We find the prelates assem
bled at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 836, addressing this em
peror in terms which imply that the responsibility for
the result of episcopal elections, and consequently that
the power of directing them, was habitually recognised
as resting with himself*. And subsequent princes of
the Carlovingian house exercised on such occasions the
privileges of monarchical control with a yet more
unsparing hand. Whatever, indeed, might have been
thought of the Christian liberty of the Church in the
selection of her spiritual pastors, the sovereign had
unquestionably a plausible right to dictate in the
nomination of those to whom he was to look for the
maintenance of order, the administration of justice, and
the collection of revenue, in the different districts of

' Sacrorum Canonum non ignari, ut in Dei nomine sancta Ecclesia
suo liberius potiretur honore, adsensum ordini ecclesiastico pr»-
buimus ; ut scilicet episcopi per electionem cleri et populi secundum
statuta canonum de propria dioecesi eligantur. — Capitular. Car.
Mag. anno 803.
^ Vid. Monach. Sangallens. et Thomassin. pt. ii. lib. ii. c.
xxi. § viii.
' Capitular, ann. 816. ap. Baluz. t, i. p. 564.
* Hard. t. iv. p. 13. c. 9.

46 LIFE OF [book I.
his empire. The transfer of elective power from the
hands of the Church herself to those of the temporal
sovereign, may be regarded as a natural and necessary
accompaniment to the process of her internal secular
ization. And while thus becoming dominant in episcopal
elections, the monarchs naturally exerted with still less
of scruple their arbitrary power in cases of nomination
to the rich abbeys, which through the liberality exer
cised or encouraged by their race were now rising to
importance in their dominions ; cases in which ancient
usage and canon law were less directly opposed to their
authoritative intervention. Abbacies, as well as sees,
were consequently bestowed by them from such
motives as usually influence princes in the distribution
of places of honour and responsibility of a secular kind.
They sometimes selected those who had rendered them
services of a political or personal kind, or whose talents
fitted them to superintend the sovereign's interest in
the seats of their spiritual jurisdiction; sometimes
they made from their favourites, their companions in
sport, or their parasites, a yet more unworthy choice ;
and sometimes, forgetful of the holy nature of the
things with which they presumed to traffic, they ven
tured to make ecclesiastical stations and dignities
the subjects of bargain and sale; conferring a vacant
benefice on the individual who either paid down
the largest sum for it into their coffers, or who pro
mised the most ample contributions from its future
proceeds. No sooner, indeed, had the munificence of Charle
magne rendered offices in the Church objects of eager
desire to the worldly and the covetous, than the crime
which, from the unhappy man who first attempted to

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 47
purchase the gifts of the Holy Spirit, has received the
appellation of Simony, began to spread through the
western empire to a fearful extent; and it became
customary to purchase with gold, as well admittance into
every rank of the sacred ministry, as the pastoral mis
sion implied in the appointment to stations of ecclesias
tical superintendence and responsibility. As early as
829, the prelates assembled in council at Paris found
it necessary to urge Louis the Debonair to use all his
influence in extirpating " this heresy so detestable, this
pest so hateful to God," from the Roman Church'.
The synod of Meaux, in 845, renewed the warning ^.
And Leo IV., in or about 847, denounced it in an
epistle to the Bishops of Britanny as a crime con
demned by many councils '. But it was difficult to
impress the enormity of the practice upon an age which
had become accustomed to see not only ecclesiastical
offices, but holy orders themselves, bestowed on grounds
the most frivolous or unworthy. The nobles, in those
times, continually procured the ordination of their
younger sons or relatives, for the sole purpose of
qualifying them for the acceptance of lucrative bene
fices ; giving them, while they did so, the same mili
tary training aud secular habits with the rest of the
family. Others procured the admission to the priest
hood of dependants whom they intended to retain in
subordinate stations in their household. " Such," says
the high-principled Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, in
the time of Louis the Debonair, " is the disgrace of our
" times, a disgrace to be deplored with the whole foun-
" tain of our tears, that there is scarcely one to be found
' Hard. t. iv. c. ii. p. 1302. ' Ibid. p. 1490.
' Ibid. t. V. p. 1.

48 LIFE OF [book I.
" who aspires to ariy degree of honour or temporal dis-
" tinction who has not his domestic priest;. and this, not
" that he may obey him, but that he may command his
" obedience alike in things lawful and things unlawfiil ;
" in things human, and things divine ; so that these chap-
"lains are constantly to be found serving the tables,
" mixing the strained vdne, leading out the dogs, man-
" aging the ladies' horses, or looking after the lands '."
And because it was of course impossible, however
they might have desired it, to obtain, for stations so
degrading, respectable members of the sacerdotal body;
"for what good clergyman," continues the indignant
prelate just quoted, " could bear to defile his character
and life with men like these ?" they selected, without
the slightest reference either to knowledge or principle,
those whom they thought most likely to perform satis
factorily the various domestic offices above enumerated,
and then called on Agobard himself, or his brother pre
lates, to admit, as a matter of course, the "clerklingsV'
as they contemptuously styled them, to holy orders;
a request with which the regulations of the empire,
though no human enactments could in truth be bind
ing in such a matter, compelled the insulted bishops to
comply '.
Aware of these facts, we need not be surprised to
find, in the enactments of various synods of the time,

• Ita ut plerique inveniantur, qui aut ad mensas ministrent, aut
saccata vina misceant, aut canes ducant, aut caballos, quibus
feminae sedent, regant, aut agellos provideant.— Agobard. de Privi-
legio et jure Sacerdotii, § xi.
^ Clericionem. — Agob. 1. c.
= Vid. Capitular, lib. i. c. xc. et lib. v. c. clxxviii.-Hincmari
Capitula, anno 874. c. v.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 49
the evidences of a state of things, in relation to the
sacred ministry, most irregular and disgraceful. The
bishops, for instance, assembled at Paris in 829, com
plained that many of their brethren in the ministry
were so occupied by the pursuit of gain, and by their
entanglement in various worldly avocations, that they
suffered many infants, in the districts subject to their
charge, to die without the blessing of Baptism'. The
council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 836, found it necessary
to prohibit extortion and intemperance in the episcopal
order, and to speak of several members of that order
as living aM'ay from their dioceses, to the neglect
alike of the performance of divine service, of preaching,
of the care of their flocks, and of that hospitality which
became- the episcopal station^. The synod of Pavia, in
850, prohibited to the clergy the practice of sumptuous
banquets, and the use of dogs and hawks ^. And that
distinguished prelate, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims,
judged it expedient to issue a decree against the pavrn-
ing, by his clergy, of the chalice or paten of the Eucha
rist, the covering of the altar, or the sacerdotal robe *.
But enactments like these, impaired as had become
the constitution of the Western Church, and crip
pled as were her proper and essential powers, seem
rather to have been put forth as protests against the
advance of corruption, than with any sanguine expecta
tion of materially interfering with its general pro
gress. The theory of papal supremacy, when presented to
churchmen in connexion with a state of things like
' Hard. t. iv. pp. 1305, and 1315-16.
' Ibid. p. 1392, et seqq. ' Ibid. t. v. p. 25. c. 3.
* Ibid. p. 393.
VOL. I. E

50 LIFE OF [book I.
this, could scarce fail to commend itself to many,
through the hope, which it encouraged, that the primate
who, by the Carlovingian system, was brought into sensi
ble contact with the whole western world, might, by his
paramount authority, be successful in crushing many
evils, too great to succumb to the efforts of minor
authorities. Rome, fallen as she was from apostolic
purity, was yet undoubtedly exempt from that gross-
ness of corruption, which prevailed in the semi-civilized
and semi-Christianized North. Favoured, too, by the
circumstances which we have mentioned, she had
maintained a degree of independence, which no other
branch of the Church, toward the middle of the ninth
century, could boast. The " summus pontifex et univer
salis Papa," as Pascal I. was styled by Louis the Debon
air, was, though a subject, in some sense a powerful
ally to the imperial throne. His influence was essen
tial to the peace and security of a branch of the western
empire, which, while most important, was at the same
tirne distant from the main seat of the Carlovingian
strength and resources. Louis therefore, and his im
mediate successors, the emperors or kings of Italy,
though they asserted over the papal city the general
rights of sovereignty, and attempted systematically to
maintain the ancient imperial prerogative of presiding
over pontifical elections, were yet forced on many
occasions to temporize, or even to acquiesce in the
violation of their mandates. Stephen IV. and Pascal I.,
the two pontiffs elected next after the imperial corona
tion of Charlemagne, were both chosen and consecrated
without awaiting the imperial fiat ; and though a sub
sequent pontiff, by the imperial direction, passed a
decree which rendered necessary the presence of a
representative of the sovereign at the elective cere-

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. .51
mony, yet the enactment was repeatedly broken
through. Such, indeed, was usually the critical state
of the papal city during a vacancy of the holy see, that
the immediate election of a new pontiff was often a
matter of indispensable necessity, even to the civil
security of the place. Leo IV., one of the most virtu
ous popes of the age, was thus hastily elected, in 847,
that Rome might be the better protected against the
assault of the Saracens, who were then in considerable
force in the neighbourhood'. Pontiffs so chosen paid,
it is true, all subsequent homage to the imperial dignity,
and explained, as though anomalous, the circumstances
of their elevation. But the occurrence of such events,
explained as they might be, tended of course to con
firm, while it illustrated, the comparative independence
of pontifical election from monarchical control. The
divisions, too, and consequent weakness, of the Car
lovingian sovereigns, when the extended territories of
the empire were divided among them, brought forward
the Roman bishops into new relations toward the
sovereigns of the West.. Louis the Debonair being at
variance with his sons, Gregory IV., in 833, crossed
the Alps, and arrived at the scene of action in the cha
racter of a mediator. The jealousy of the German pre
lates resented his interference, and the attempt was
unsuccessful. But the misconduct of the princes whom
the pontiff had come to befriend, their relentless cruelty
to their conquered father, and the miseries which ac
crued to their subjects as the fruit of their unnatural
rebellion, might well induce a prevalent wish that the
papal voice had been more influential; a prevalent
' Anastas. and F. Pagi Breviarium Gest. Rom. Pontif. t. i.
p. 365.
E 2

52 LIFE OF [book I„
desire to behold something more than a mere form
in the ceremony by which the successor of St. Peter
was made to appear a superior arbitrator between
princes contending for a crown.
Aware of this tendency in the public mind, we shall
the more readily understand the fact, otherwise inex-
pHcable, that, toward the middle of the ninth century,
the theory of papal supremacy, already existing, if we
may so say, in its great but yet unconnected elements,
received definite outlines and a systematic consolida
tion, by the promulgation, and almost undisputed re
ception, in the Western Church, of a series of forgeries
of the most extraordinary kind.
Various collections of the canons, the written law of
the Church, had at different periods been made. The
compilation of this kind in authority at Rome at
the commencement of the Carlovingian era was that
of Dionyjrius Exiguus ; which was, indeed, generally
reverenced throughout the western world ; but in
some countries the collection had been enlarged by
the incorporation into it of the acts of local councils
and other matters of detail, from records extant in vari
ous places. Such was the case in Spain, where a col
lection of canons existed in a form thus enlarged; which,
being dignified by the name of the celebrated Isidore
of Seville, was known, by name at least, to the various
Churches of Europe, and esteemed, it would seem
justly, as an ample and authentic collection of the re
cords of Christian antiquity. But at the period spoken
of, — toM'ard the middle of the ninth century, — spurious
exemplars of this collection made their appearance in
Germany and other parts of the Carlovingian territory ;
exemplars which contained, in addition to the mass of
authentic matter for which the collection was renowned.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 53
a variety of letters, decrees, and other documents, pro
fessedly the work of bishops of Rome, from the very
earliest periods of the Church's history ; but in truth the
forgeries of the author, whoever he may have been, of
the collection in its altered form. Not to mention
the palpable anachronisms with which they are fraught ;
the citation, for instance, of texts from translations com
posed subsequently to their ostensible date ; their lan
guage, and the spirit which they breathe, is throughout
adapted to the circumstances of the times in which
they were made public, and not to those of their ima
ginary origin. The primitive fathers are made to use
expressions which did not become current till long after
their epoch, and to direct their censures to crimes
and evils which, familiar as they were in the ninth
century, were undreaded, because unknown, in the
earlier ages of the Church's existence. The spurious
series is throughout consistent with itself, and the scope
of the whole is the assertion of the Church's independ
ence from every species of secular dominion or juris
diction. As against the laity, the episcopal office is
magnified; a bishop, it is declared, is not to be con
demned, whatever his offence, by any earthly tribunal ;
the sheep are not even to bring an accusation against
the shepherd, but to leave the work of correction, if
correction be necessary, to his ecclesiastical superior ;
and this superior is throughout declared to be the
Roman pontiff, who is styled in a number of the docu
ments " the bishop of the holy and universal Church ',"
and to whom alone is attributed the power of judging
and punishing episcopal offenders ; though this power,
' Vid. Stephani 1 Ep. i. ap. Harduin. Concil. t. i. p. 143, et
Pontiani Ep. 2, ibid. t. i. p. 117.

54 LIFE OF [book I.
in the case of inferior members of the sacred order, is
recognised in the provincial metropolitans '. In gene
ral, too, it is to the pope that all causes of any im
portance are to be referred ". His sanction is re
quisite for the session of every council, and his fiat
alone gives authority to its decrees '. The apostolic see
of Rome is the head and hinge of all churches ; and as
the door is directed by the hinge, so by the authority
of that see, according to the Lord's disposal, all churches
are governed *.
Such being the nature of the forgery, it might at first
sight appear to have been concocted at Rome, and for
Roman purposes. But such does not seem to be the
case : the researches of the learned into this curious
point have generally led them to the conclusion, that
the collection in question was first made public, be
tween the years 830 arid 850, at Mentz ' ; a deacon of
which city, Benedict by name, lies under strong suspi
cion of having either perpetrated the deception, or wit
tingly assisted in its extension ; and that, it would
seem, for purposes to which the exaltation of the

' Eleutherii Ep. ap. Harduin. t. i. pp. 101, 102, et Marcelli
Decreta, ibid. p. 221.
2 Marcelli Dec. ut sup.
' Vid. Epist. Afrorum ad Damasum, et Damasi rescriptum ad
Afros c. ii. ap. Harduin. t. i. pp. 763, 764,
* Sicut cardine ostium regitur, sic hujus sanctae sedis auctoiitate
omnes ecclesiae, Domino disponente, reguntur. Anacleti Ep. 3.
Hard. t. i. p. 74.
' One of the documents contains passages from the acts of a synod
which was holden at Paris in 829 ; this therefore is the earliest pos
sible period of the forgery ; and on the other hand, in 857, it had
acquired sufficient notoriety to be cited, as we shall shortly see, in a
public document.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 55
Roman see was but subsidiary and subordinate. The
documents may indeed be regarded as embodying the
prevalent wishes of the Germanic Churches at the
period in question; wishes in which the compiler,
whether he were Benedict or any other ecclesiastic,
may naturally be supposed to have participated.
Bishops, in those semi-barbarous realms, were exposed
to violences of all kinds from tyrannic and unprincipled
nobles and rulers ; to whom their wealth formed a
tempting prize, and who, in that era of imperfect jus
tice, found little difficulty in alleging legal excuses for
their spoliation. Under such circumstances they found
it difficult, either to maintain their station of dignity in
the public estimation, or to exert with any semblance
of independence, their episcopal authority ; and from
these evils, they could by no other means be so effect
ually protected, as by a public recognition of the doc
trine, that they were responsible for their conduct to
ecclesiastical superiors alone.
Yet a complete subjection to their respective metro
politans might seem to tliem fraught with dangers
scarcely less to be deprecated. These most dignified
members of the episcopal order were, of the whole body,
the most exposed to the influence of kings and nobles,
and to the manifold corruptions of the time ; not to
mention that they were frequently advanced to their
archiepiscopal dignity, on account of their experienced
or expected subserviency to the views of secular digni
taries. The unchecked dominion of these over their
suffragans might therefore have proved, to the latter, a
secular tyranny under another name ; a tyranny more
galling than the direct exertion of despotic authority,
inasmuch as, being less open to suspicion, it might be
more unsparingly exerted. In connexion, therefore.

56 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
with the teaching which declared their exemption from
direct secular jurisdiction, the bishops of Germany and
Gaul were glad to receive a doctrine which enabled them
to set in opposition, when necessary, to their legitimate
ecclesiastical superiors, the paramount authority of a
Roman pontiff. They willingly learned to believe that
it was as that pontiff's deputies and representatives
alone that archbishops wielded the metropolitan prero
gative ; that their decrees in matters of Church govern
ment emanated in effect from him, and were reversible
at his pleasure ; and that even in the exercise of their
most important right, that of episcopal consecration,
they acted with authority derivative from the great
source of all ecclesiastical power, the oecumenical see of
St. Peter.
Under this state of feeling in the Church, the system
set forth in detail in the spurious decretals of Isidore
had been, as we have seen, for some time tending to its
accomplishment in practice, when first that celebrated
collection appeared. The immediate effect of the
forgery was, therefore, rather to sanction and con
solidate relations already existing between the different
orders in the Christian hierarchy, than to introduce new
ones; and though the work, having been once received,
undoubtedly did much toward handing down in its
completeness the system of papal monarchy to sub
sequent ages, it derived its own weight, at the epoch of
its origin, from the tendency which already existed in
that system to perfect and extend itself. In the
forgeries of the German deacon, divines found au
thorities, apparently of the most indisputable kind, in
support of points which they were eagerly desirous to
establish. They found themselves enabled to assert
their liberties, and to denounce the crimes of their

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 57
contemporaries, in what professed to be the authentic
voice of catholic antiquity ; and, under these circum
stances, they were not likely to scrutinize, with an eye
of critical suspicion, the collection presented to them
with the outward semblance of genuineness, and with the
sanction of a venerable name. The altered " Decretals of
Isidore" obtained, consequently, undisputed acceptation
in the Western Church. Even the sagacious Hincmar,
archbishop of Rheims, the most distinguished Gallic
churchman of the ninth century, though he disputed,
with regard to some points, their authority, did not
advance any doubt of their authenticity'. And thus it
came to pass, that, through the successful fraud of a
German ecclesiastic, the papal supremacy, or rather
monarchy, was established on a new and durable
basis ; that sovereignty of the Roman patriarch, which
till then might be said to depend, for its continued
recognition, upon the indistinct impressions, the mu
table feelings, habits, and circumstances of each suc
ceeding generation, receiving the solidity and perma
nence of a system visibly sanctioned by antiquity,
illustrated by a long list of precedents, and defined
with the accuracy of a written law.
In a more detailed history of the times now treated
of, many subordinate causes and principles would
demand their share of notice, as having co-operated in
bringing out the great change thus accomplished in the
transference of supreme spiritual power from the hands
of the collective hierarchy of the West to those of one
single, king-like, prelate : and even in the cursory ac
count which we are now giving, it seems necessary to
' Vid. Hincmari opusc. adv. Hincm. Laudun. c. 24. 0pp. t. ii.
p. 471.

58 LIFE OF [book U
advert to one of these secondary agents in the revolu-.
tion ; — the spirit of monasticism. For monastic bodies
seem, in the adjustment of the question between what
may be styled episcopal aristocracy and pontifical mon
archy, to have played a part somewhat similar to that
filled in the struggles, of rather a later date, between
secular kings and the baronial vassals, by the municipal
corporations of Europe. The policy of these last per
petually led them to add weight to the power of the
crown, from a fear of the more obnoxious tyranny of
petty oligarchs. And it need not surprise us to find a
line of conduct parallel to theirs adopted, with reference
to the hierarchy, by the monastic brotherhoods ; opposed
as such a line must seem to all primitive views of the
Church's polity.
For all institutions emanating from man have some
besetting evil tendency or other ; and that of religious
societies, even when free, in their original constitution,
from the sin of violating the Church's discipline, is, unques
tionably, to throw that discipline into the back-ground ;
as though the bonds of union, thus humanly contrived,
obscured to the minds of men the idea of that more sacred
union, — our fellowship with each other as members of
the one Church Catholic, — which Heaven has appointed
for us. And it is probably, in part, to this cause,—
though something must undoubtedly be ascribed to the
general misconduct of the prelacy, — that we are to trace
that opposition to episcopal power which generally,
and as a rule, distinguished the monastic policy. The
inmates of convents were habitually afraid and jealous
of all control which the bishops of their respective
districts, as such, might exercise over them or their
concerns. In a variety of ways, they systematically
laboured to procure for themselves an exemption from
3

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 59
the jurisdiction of these, their legitimate superiors ; and
they were consequently ever ready to enter into a con
nection with a distant authority ; — as was, in most cases,
that of the Roman patriarch,— which held out to them
any prospect of an emancipation from it.
The mention of the above singular forgery can
scarcely fail to remind the learned reader of another, —
nearly, as it should seem, of the same date, — the cele
brated " Donatio Constantini ;" by which it was made
to appear, that the popes were possessed of the rights of
sovereignty over Rome, in virtue of a deed of gift from
the iirst Christian emperor. The history of this second
fabrication does not seem to come, equally with that of
the decretals, within the scope of a narration intended
to describe the growthjof the Roman bishop's spiritual
supremacy. Yet the spiritual government, if not the
spiritual power, of the pontiffs, was materially modified
by the influence of the supposititious " donation," which
tended to assimilate yet more to an earthly royalty
a power in itself too royal, — too like that of a secular
monarchy, — to harmonize with the true character or
spirit of the Church.
The origin of the fabricated decretals is not, it has
been said already, traceable in any manner to the
Roman see. Nor does it seem to have been by popes
or their dependants, that the spurious documents thus
promulged were first appealed to as authoritative.
We find the Carlovingian monarch, Charles the Bald,
quoting them, in a letter addressed by him to the
counts and bishops of his kingdom, in 857 ', while the
first recorded instance of an appeal to them on the part

Synod. Carisiac. ap. Hard. t. v. p. 118.

60 LIFE OF [book I.
of a Roman bishop occurred in 865, in the time of
Nicholas I. ' ; the history of whose pontificate forms a
striking illustration of the system of papal preponder
ance which their contents recognised and confirmed.
Of that pontiff, who ascended the apostolic chair in 858,
we read that he, first among the Roman bishops, was
crowned in a kingly manner ^, having placed around
the long single-pointed mitre of his predecessors that
golden circlet which formed the recognised emblem of
sovereignty. The emperor Louis II., instead of resent
ing this innovation, honoured the ceremonies with his
presence ; and when, during his stay at Rome, he
encountered the new pope in the street, he alighted
from his horse and led that of the pontiff for the dis
tance of a bow-shot ^. This emperor's acknowledgment
of the derivation of his own power from the papal
authority has been already mentioned ; and his con
duct on other occasions was consistent with the recog-

"O

' Epist. ad universos episcopos Galliae, Harduin. t. v. p. 590.
^ Coronatur . . . urbs exultat, clerus laetatur, senatus et populi
plenitudo magnifice gratulabatur. Anastas. in Vita. — Regno de
more insignitus, mitra turbinata, scilicet cum corona. Mos iUe
coronandi Rom. Pontifices antiquissimus erat, licet ante Nic. I.
nullum ejusmodi coronationis nobis occurrerit exemplum. F. Pagi,
Breviar. t. ii. p. 29.
Nic. I. anno circiter 860, circulum aureum civilis potestatis insigne
mitrse addidisse perhibetur ; eadenj tamen quae prius erat servata
mitrae figura est, mitrae quas nunc ab episcopis adhiberi solet longe
absirailis : hsec enim bifida, et duos in apices distracta ; ilia vero
oblonga erat, et in acumen desinens ; cujus usus ad Bonifacium
usque vm. a quo . . . circulo aureo alter item additus anno 1300,
cui Urbanus v., anno 1365, tertium etiam imposuit. — Cantelius,
Metropol. urbium hist. pt. ii. Diss. ii. But the date of these addi
tions is not perfectly clear. See a note to book iii. cap. 1.
' Anastas. in vita Nic. I.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 61
nition. John, Archbishop of Ravenna, whom Nicholas,
as exalted above all metropolitans, had summoned to
answer charges which had been brought against him
before the papal tribunal, refused to obey the summons.
And when the pontiff, upon this, pronounced him
excommunicate, the archbishop, eager to maintain the
dignity of his see, which was esteemed second to none
in Italy but Rome itself, presented himself before
Louis at Pavia, and besought him to command the
abrogation of the sentence. But the monarch, declin
ing to take any such step, directed him to lay aside his
pride and to humble himself before " that great pope,"
" to whom," said Louis, " we and the whole Church
bow, and show him all duty and obedience '." And so
prevalent, in the minds of all, had now become the idea
of a legitimate supremacy in the successor of St. Peter,
that the people of Pavia not only shrunk from receiv
ing the second prelate of Italy into their houses, but
were reluctant to hold, even in the way of buying and
selling, any intercourse with his attendants^. And
being thus strong at home, in the support of his sove
reign and of public feeling, Nicholas ventured to inter
fere with the concerns of other countries, in a com
manding tone. Lothaire, king of the territory, since
styled from him Lotharingia, or Lorraine, had put away,
after much ill treatment of her, his wife Teutberga,
and married another, named Waldrada, in her stead.
And his influence with the ecclesiastical authorities of his
own country had been sufficient to procure their official
sanction to this disgraceful conduct. But Nicholas,
rendered indignant by the accounts which reached him
' Anastas. in vita Nic. I. ap. Muratori, t. iii. p. 255.
' Ibid.

62 LIFE OF [book I.
of these foul transactions, brought into action against
the profligate king and his prelates the whole weight
of the papal power. By the threat of excommunicar-
tion, he compelled Lothaire to put Waldrada away, and
to restore the injured and repudiated Teutberga to her
queenly dignity' ; at the same time enforced the de
position of Thietgaud and Gunthar, the archbishops
respectively of Treves and Cologne, who had been
mainly instrumental to the accomplishment of their
sovereign's guilty design ^ And during these events,
he humbled, in another way, the powerful Hincmar of
Rheims himself, by compelling him to restore to the
clerical station certain persons whom that prelate had
deposed as uncanonically ordained, and to re-establish
in his diocese Rothad, bishop of Soissons, who had ap
pealed to Rome against the decree of the Rhemish
archbishop and his synod, which deprived him of it^.
" Nicholas ruled," says an ancient chronicler *, " over
kings and tyrants, and, as though lord of the world,
exceeded them in authority." The account is exagge
rated ; but, written as it was within half a century after
the demise of Nicholas, it may be taken as indicating
the general feeling of the time, with respect to the
position which he assumed and maintained in Europe ;
and shows to how great an extent he was considered
to have illustrated and enforced the system embodied
in the decretals of Isidore. That system, from Jiis
time, became the received theory of ecclesiastical govern-
' Chron. Regin.
^ Hard. t. v. p. 571 et seqq. Chron. Regin.
' Hard. t. v. p. 577. De Marca, de Concordia Sacerdotii et Im
perii, 1. vii. c. xxiii. et xxiv.
^ Regibus ac tyrannis imperavit, eisque ac si dominus orbis terra-
rum authoritate praefiiit. — Chron. Regin. apudPistor. t. i. p. 70.

CHAP. I.] GREGORY VII. 63
ment in the Latin Church ; and, though the weakness
of the successors of Nicholas, or the difficulties in
which, at various periods, they were involved, were
destined, for some time longer, to prevent its coming
into settled and permanent operation ; so that his ponti
ficate may rather be regarded as a momentary type, or
fore-shadowing, than as the actual commencement, of
the great ecclesiastical empire of the middle ages ; yet
the recognition of that empire thenceforth, in theory at
least, was general ; and its non-realization, in any sub
sequent instance or epoch, may be regarded as an ex
ception to an admitted and respected rule'.
We have thus traced some of the principal steps
by which the constitution of the western Church was
in effect converted for a time into a monarchy ; the
power which the great Founder of the Church had
bequeathed to the episcopal body throughout the world
devolving, as far as the Latin nations were concerned,
upon one king-like prelate in the seat of ancient empire.
It is a prevalent but most erroneous notion, that this
his elevation resulted from an over-strained, — a too
exclusive, — adherence to the old Catholic impressions
of primitive Christianity ; to what, in short, often bear
among us the designation of high Church principles ;
whereas, in truth, the direct contrary was the case. It
was in opposition to those principles, or in a forgetful-
' We find the archbishop of Mentz and the collective hierarchy of
Germany thus expressing themselves in 895, in the 30th canon of the
council of Tribur : — In memoriam beati Petri Apostoli, honoremus
sanctam Bomanam et Apostolicam sedem : ut quae nobis sacerdotalis
mater est dignitatis, esse debeat magistra ecclesiasticae rationis.
Quare servanda est cum mansuetudine humilitas, ut licet vix feren-
dum ab ilia sancta sede imponatur jugum, conferamus, et pia devo
tione toleremus. — Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 448.

64 LIFE OF [book I.
ness of them, that the novelty of papal monarchy arose;
it was on the ruins of the ancient and authorized eccle
siastical polity, — on the general degradation of the pre
lacy of Western Europe, — that was based the kingly
throne of the successors to St. Peter. The pontiffs
thus exalted did not so much claim new privileges for
themselves, as deprive their episcopal brethren of privi
leges originally common to the hierarchy. Even the
titles by which these autocratical prelates, in the pleni
tude of their power, delighted to style themselves,
" Summus Sacerdos," " Pontifex Maximus," " Vicarius
Christi," "Papa" itself, had, nearer to the primitive times,
been the honourable appellations of every bishop ; as
" Sedes Apostolica " had been the designation of every
bishop's throne'. The ascription of these titles, therefore.

' Bingham Origin. Ecclesiast. bk. ii. cap. ii. and Thomassin.
pt. i. lib. i. cap. iv. § 2. 5. As for " Vicarius Christi," strangely as the
title is now sometimes spoken of, it simply conveyed, as originally
applied, a recognition of the great truth that all authority given to
men on earth is but the derivative and representative of His who
is exalted above all authority and principality and power in heaven.
As such it was, in the earlier part of the middle ages, currently
applied, not only to bishops, the peculiar representatives of super
human power, but even to secular princes. " Vicarii Christi" was
the style assumed by the prelates assembled at Thionville in 884
(Harduin, t. iv. p. 1466) and unhesitatingly applied to his episcopal
hearers by the Monk Abbo of St. Germain des Pres, in a sermon
preached about the beginning of the lOth century (Abbonis sermo
ii. ap D'Achery, Spicileg. t. i. p. 337). At Meaux, in 845, the bishops
spoke of themcelves hy the equipollent designation " Vicars of God"
(Harduin, t. iv. p. 1500). As late as 1024, Aribo archbishop of
Mentz is described by a rhyming biographer of the Emperor Conrad
the Salic as saying to that prince " ad summam dignitatem perve-
nisti, Vicarius es Christi" (Wippo de vita Chunradi Salici. Pistor.
Script, t. iii. p. 466). And the sovereign of England is declared
to be " Vicarius summi Regis" in article xiv. of the ecclesiastical

BOOK I.] GREGORY VII. 65
to the pope, only gave to the terms a new force, because
that ascription became exclusive ; because, that is, the
bishops in general were stripped of honours to which
their claims were as well founded as those of their
Roman brother ; who became, by the change, not so
strictly universal, as sole, bishop '. The degradation of
the collective hierarchy, as involved in such a relative
exaltation of one of its members, was seen and re
sisted by one not likely to entertain unreasonable or
exaggerated views of the dangers to be expected from
Roman aggrandizement, the truly great and good pope
Gregory I. " I beseech your holiness," said this pon
tiff to the patriarch of Alexandria, who had addressed
him, contrary to his previously expressed desire, by the
title of ' Papa Universalis,' "to do so no more; for that
" is taken from you which is bestowed, in an unreason-
" able degree, upon another  I do not reckon that
" to be honour, in which I see their due honour taken
" from my brethren. For my honour is the honour
" of the Universal Church — the solid strength of my
" brethren ; I then am truly honoured, when the proper
" share of honour is assigned to each and to all. But,
" if your holiness styles me ' universal Pope,' you re-
laws of Edward the Confessor, confirmed by William I. (Harduin,
t. vi. pt. i. p. 988.) Since the Reformation the title in question has
been of right claimed again for our English prelates. Vid. Bingham,
1. 0. § 10. " We," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, " are ambassa-
" dors and legates for Christ; Christ's vicars, not the pope's dele-
" gates . . . and therefore it is a strange usurpation that the pope
" arrogates that to himself by impropriation, which is common to
" him with all the bishops of Christendom." — Dissuasive from
Popery, c. i. § 10.
" ' " Ecclesiae catholicae episcopus," a style frequently adopted by
the pontiffs in latter times, was consequently an accurate statement
of their supposed character.
VOL. I. ^

66 LIFE OF [book I.
" nounce that dignity for yourself which you ascribe
" universally to me. But let this be done no more.
"  My predecessors have endeavoured, by cherish-
" ing the honour of all members of the priesthood
" throughout the world, to preserve their own in the
" sight of the Almighty '."
And even at a much more mature stage of the
growth of papal pretension, in the eleventh century
itself, we find the pontiff Leo IX., in an epistle to the
Grecian Patriarch Michael Cerularius, repeating the
assertion, made by Gregory in the above epistle, that
his predecessor and namesake, Leo the Great, to whom
the title of oecumenical patriarch had been offered by
the Council of Chalcedon ^, had repudiated the proud
appellation, by the ascription of which to one prelate
an affront would be offered to the equal dignity of all '.
But such a statement, in the later Leo's mouth,
expressed the sentiments of past times, rather than of
his own. As time went on, as circumstances tended
more and more toward such a concentration of the
privileges of the hierarchy in the occupant of one in
dividual see, the due rights of ordinary prelates were
-forgotteri alike by the Roman patriarchs and by the
episcopal body in the West. Had the bishops in general
been animated by truly Catholic principles, they could
never, assuredly, have acquiesced in, or rather have
aided to bring about, the surrender, into a brother pre-
' Greg. Mag. Ep. viii. 30. Vid. Joann. Diaeon. in vita Gregorii,
lib. iv. c. 58, et Thomassin. pt. i. lib. i. cap, xi. § 15, 16.
' Vid. Thomassin. vet. et nov. Eccl. discip. pt. i. lib. i. cap.
xi. 32.
' " Superbum refutavit vocabulum penitus, quo videbatur par'
" dignitas subtrahi cunctis per orbem praesulibus, dum uni ex toto
" arrogaretur." — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 932. ¦
3

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 67
late's hand, of their inherent and independent powers.
But we may not harshly judge them. The Church's
immediate advantage and security appeared to point
out to them the change. Oppressed and endangered
in their respective countries, they saw in Rome the
only ally to whom they could efficiently appeal ; in the
admission of her supremacy, the only principle by
which they could secure either freedom for the ordi
nary discharge of their episcopal duties, or opportunities
of advancing the plans which they might form of
ecclesiastical improvement or renovation. And, thus
tempted, we need not marvel if they too generally for
got the high, the imperative, duty of clinging at all
times to the divinely appointed order of things under
which the Church commenced her existence ; of main
taining under all circumstances, and at all hazards,
that indispensable key-stone of her spiritual fabric, her
ancient apostolical polity.
The Roman bishops themselves, had they been un
tainted with the general grossness of perception of the
age, would have resisted the accomplishment of this
unauthorized mutation in the Church's constitution, as
strenuously as Gregory the Great had opposed himself
to its theory. But the early purity of the faith was,
as we have seen, obscured: both at Rome and elsewhere,
the fine gold had become dim ; and the external form,
the outward fabric, so to call it, of the holy Church,
therefore underwent, in men's eyes, a modification,
analogous to that of the eternal, and in themselves
unalterable, doctrines which she internally enshrined.
In the world without her, feudalism was now the
dominant tendency of the day; the leading political
phenomenon of the ages which succeeded that of Car
lovingian sovereignty was the rise and grovpth of that
F 2

68 LIFE OF [book I.
great system, the strength and stability of which con
sisted in its classifying and compacting to each other
the different ranks and orders, by a succession of grada
tions, so as to give to each individual a definite place in
society ; a definite relation, though it might be through
many intervening links, to the throne. Monarchy,
under that system, began to assume a new aspect, and
to rest on a basis far firmer than before ; acting, if we
may so say, on the whole of society ; and resembling
in its elevation, not the capital of the slender and soli
tary column, but the apex of the solid and substantial
pyramid. And the Church, in proportion as her real
nature and character is imperfectly understood, is ever
exposed to the temptation of modifying in some de
gree her constitution by that of the political world
around her. Even irrespectively, therefore, of all
causes previously alluded to, it grew, in great measure,
out of the natural course and progress of events, that in
such a period of political transition, the patriarchal pre
eminence of the Roman prelate should gradually come to
be confounded by his brethren with the authority of a
spiritual lord paramount ; and that the aristocracy, if it
may be so styled, by which the Church was originally
governed, should thus in effect give place to a mon
archy, as to a system more accordant with the charac
ter assumed by the secular governments of the nations.
We sometimes hear this papal empire spoken of as
though it had been the direct, the originating, cause
of all those strange corruptions of doctrine and practice
which during any portion of the middle ages arose to
acceptation in the Church. But a very brief inquiry
will suffice to convince us of the fallacy of this view of
things, or to prove to us that those corruptions derived,
for the most part, their origin from other sources.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 69
Image-worship, for instance, the most extraordinary,
perhaps, of all the errors into which the Church has at
any time been permitted to fall, was, as we have seen,
a product of the warm and excitable imagination of
the East. Purgatory was first treated of, in a tangible
way, by the great Augustine, bishop of the African city
of Hippo. And Transubstantiation, first set forth in form
in the writings of a monk of Corbie, near Amiens, was,
as the reader will learn during the course of this narra
tion, only definitively adopted by the papal see, when it
had been forced on a reluctant pontiff by the clamour
of a council, which appeared to embody the popular
feeling of the West. And though, as in the instance,
already cited, of image-worship, the popes often took
a prominent part in the defence of these errors, when
they had once arisen and diffused themselves; yet it
was as the representatives of public feeling, as the sup
porters of notions which had become general, that they
did so. It was in allying themselves, as their new
position often forced them to do, with the popular
party, that they allied themselves with the popular cor
ruptions. And however, therefore, we may censure
them for having thus suffered themselves to be guided
by the dictates of low secular policy rather than of
strict uncompromising principle, it would be unreason
able, on this account, to condemn either them or their
authority, for the actual origination of the corruptions
thus laid to their charge.
That there existed a sort of mysterious sympathy
between the system of errors which, collectively taken,
may be styled doctrinal popery, and the solitary eleva
tion of the Roman patriarch's throne, may not be
denied. But it were a more correct view of this con
nexion to regard the two as derived from one com-

70 LIFE OF [BOOK I.
mon source, than to consider the one as having been
directly instrumental in the production of the other.
As the temper of the times waxed gross, as the vision
of spiritual religion faded before men's eyes, both
Christianity and the Christian Church became to their
regards, if the expression may be allowed, materialized ;
and the conversion of the unearthly system of the
apostolic polity into a more worldly, a more tangible,
scheme of monarchy, is to be traced to mental habits
and modes of thought, very nearly allied to those
which moulded a reverential and mysterious feeling
toward the saints departed, into a systematic invocation
of them; and which degraded the holy and ineffable
mystery of the real presence in the Eucharist, into the
more definite and intelligible miracle of Transubstan
tiation. It was the cry of the favoured subjects of God's elder
dispensation, " We will have a king over us, that we
also may be like all the nations'." And the papacy,
rising, as has now been described, to solitary domi
nion, may be regarded as a striking antitype and cor
respondence, under the new state of things, to the
kingdom of Saul and his successors, under the old.
Like that kingdom, the papal autocracy presented
itself as an unauthorized innovation, — a wilful, human
modification of a divine and heaven-appointed polity.
Like that, it tended to divide, by permanent distinc
tions, those who had been ordained to form but one
people, and, as brethren, to dwell together in unity.
And like that, alas ! it ultimately led the way to a
Babylonish thraldom. But, unhallowed as had been
its origin, the Israelitish monarchy became, we know,
' 1 Sam. viii. 19, 20.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 71
the scene of God's most striking providences, the stage
allotted to His prophets, and the channel through which
He deigned to bring about a partial fulfilment, even of
those predictions of national blessing, which the sin of
His people withheld them from realizing to the full.
David reigned as the man after His own heart ; the
splendid majesty of his son was permitted to adumbrate
that of the " greater than Solomon," who was to come.
An angel descended from heaven, and the sun receded
in his course, to preserve or to comfort Hezekiah ; and
Josiah was called by name, centuries before his birth,
to the high service of extirpating the idolatries of
Bethel. In like manner the papacy, when it had monopolized
to itself, by whatever means, the whole governing power
and representative authority of the Western Church,
was permitted, as we shall shortly see, to become, in the
hands of Heaven, a favoured instrument of good. And
whatever we may think of its present position or recent
conduct, it were most unjust, most unreasonable, on this
account, to slur over the glories attendant on its earlier
day. It was, in effect, the realization of that spiritual
autocracy of which, as has been observed, the pontificate
of Nicholas I. was rather a foreshadowing than an
illustration, which at last imposed an effectual check on
the portentous abuses of the Church, already described ;
on that profligacy, simony, and worldliness of the
clergy, and consequent depravity of the laity committed
to their charge, which rendered the period antecedent
to such a realization, most truly, the dark age of Chris
tian history. To the papal power, more especially as
wielded by him whose eventful life will form the
principal subject of the following pages, is due, what
may with justice be called the Reformation of the

72 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK I.
eleventh century^ But this is an anticipation ; — before
approaching the history of that memorable period, it
will be necessary to continue the melancholy annals of
ages, during which the evils above-mentioned continued
to flourish, both at Rome and elsewhere, in unchecked
and baleful luxuriance.

BOOK I.— CHAPTER II.

EXTINCTION OF THE CAELOVINSlAN UNE — CORRUPTION OF THE TIMES POLLOWINS
THAI EVENT — DISGRACEFUL HISTORY OF THE ROMAN SEE — OTHO THE GREAT
 EVENTS WHICH LED 10 HIS INTERFERENCE WITH THE AFFAIRS OF HALT 
His REVIVAL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE — POSITION ASSUMED BT HIM WITH REFER
ENCE TO THE PAPACY  HIS DEATH — CONNEXIONS OP OTHO II. AND OTHO III. WITH
ROME — EXTINCTION OP THE SAXON IMPERIAL LINE — CONTINUED DEPRAVITY
OP THE TIMES  MORAL DEGRADATION OP THE PAPACY — CAUSES OF ITS CON
TINUED INFLUENCE OVER THE GENERAL CHURCH  ILLUSTRATIONS OP THIS INFLU
ENCE  HENRY II. CHOSEN EMPEROR — HIS INTERCOURSE WITH ROME — HIS
DEATH  ELECTION OF CONRAD THE SALIC, FIRST EMPEROR OF THE FRANCONIAN
LINE  HIS CHARACTER AND POLICY INSTRUMENTAL IN PREPARING THE WAY
FOR THE GREAT STRUGGLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY BETWEEN THE CHURCH
AND THE STATE.

The imbecility of Charlemagne's descendants, and the
discords which incessantly raged among them, brought
the glories of their house to a speedy termination.
Charles le Gros, the sixth and last emperor of their
family, was, in 887, contemptuously expelled from the
throne K And the imperial title, after being for some
little time longer a subject of dispute between contend
ing princes of Italy and Germany, and becoming in suc
cession the prize of such as could obtain a momentary
advantage over their rivals, fell itself, on the death of
Berengarius, in 924 % into disuse ; the nations of the
West resuming the character of independent and
' Hermanni Contracti Chronicon, ad ann, — Muratori, Annali
d'ltalia. ' Muratori.

74 LIFE OF [book I.
unconnected principalities or kingdoms. But the idea
of Roman spiritual supremacy, consolidated as that
supremacy had now become, and accordant as it was
with the habits and demands of the age, did not fade
from men's minds with the disappearance of the secular
polity in connexion with which it had grown to
maturity. Nor did even the profligacy or violence which,
in the following period of confusion, disgraced the
Roman bishops, — though fatal to their moral influence
in Rome itself, — suffice to eradicate those impressions
of the plenitude and extent of papal authority, which
had now been made on distant nations. The era which
followed the extinction of the Carlovingian line is
confessedly the most gloomy and disgraceful in the
Church's annals ' ; and the then recognised seat of
supreme ecclesiastical authority fully participated in
the general darkness and corruption. The imperial
power having become extinct, Rome, which owed
allegiance directly to that power, and formed no part
of what was styled the kingdom of Italy, became an
independent state; but her pontiffs soon found that
' Novum inchoatur saeculum, quod sui asperitate ac boni sterili-
tate, ferreum, malique exundantis deformitate, plumbeum, atque
inopia scriptorum appellari consuevit, obscurum, — Baronii Annales,
ad an. 900.
Iniquitates nostrae multiplicatas sunt super caput, et delicta nostra
creverunt usque ad coelos. Fornicatio et adulterium, sacrilegium et
homicidium inundarunt, et sanguis sanguinem tetigit . . . contemptis
edictis episcopalibus, unusquisque, quod vult, agit : potentior viribus
infirmiorem opprimit : et sunt homines sicut pisces maris, qui ab in-
vicem passim devorantur . . . Hinc est quod videmus per totum
mundum rapinas pauperum, depraedationes rerum ecclesiasticarum
. , . Omnis paene ordo, omnis status ecclesiae confusus ac temeratus
est. — Adlocutio Herivei Archiepisc. ad Concil. Trosleianum a. d.
909. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. pp. 505, 506.

chap. II.J GREGORY VII. 75
they had only exchanged their subjection to a single
and distant sovereign for a slavery to many nearer
tyrants. The lawless and licentious nobles of the
neighbourhood became the virtual masters of the papal
city ; which they impoverished by their rapacity, and
desolated by their factions. The pontifical elections
were brought completely under their control ; on the
occurrence of a vacancy, the dominant party of the day
introduced a creature of its own to the papal chair, who
was, generally, soon driven from it by the fall of his sup
porters and the exaltation of an opposite faction. Popes,
during this disgraceful period, were repeatedly seen to
condemn the acts, and to deny the title of their pre
decessors. One, — Stephen VI., consecrated in 896 ', —
actually dragged the body of an obnoxious predecessor,
— Formosus, consecrated in 89 1 ^, — from the grave ; and
after subjecting it to a mock trial for usurpation of the
papal see, pronounced it guilty, and directed, that, after
the amputation ofthe head and of three fingers, it should
be thrown into the Tiber '. Stephen was soon himself
deposed, and strangled in prison ; and by a subsequent
pontiff, — Theodore II., in 898, — the body of Formosus,
found by some fishers, was solemnly reinterred, his acts
declared valid, and the expelled clergy, whom he had
ordained, restored to their benefices *. And at length,
as if to complete the disgrace of the once honoured
apostolic see, the power of selecting the Patriarchs of the
West fell into the hands of the intriguing and licentious
Theodora, and of her equally unprincipled daughters,
' F. Pagi Breviarium Gest. Pontificum. ' Ibid.
' Herman. Contract. — F. Pagi Breviar.
* F. Pagi Breviar.— Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 487.

76 LIFE OF [book I.
Theodora and Marozia >. These unhappy women, the
members of a patrician family at Rome, by their arts
and beauty, obtained an unbounded influence over the
aristocratic tyrants of the city. One of the Theodoras
appointed a lover \ and Marozia nominated a son \ to
the apostolic see. And when another son of the latter,
Alberic, kindled to indignation by the insolence of her
third husband, Hugo king of Italy*, deprived her of her
power, it was only to assume to himself, together with the
civil government of the city, the power which she had
enjoyed of nominating pontiffs at her will. He main
tained his authority, in this as well as other respects, till
his death, which occurred in 954* ; and then bequeathed
it, undiminished, to his son Octavian, a youth who,
though only seventeen years of age, had already been
admitted to holy orders ^. On the death, in 955 ', of
Agapetus II., the last ecclesiastic nominated, under the
domination of Alberic, to the papal throne, the young
ruler, or his partizans, thought it advisable, that, instead
of selecting another dependent pontiff, he should conso-

' Cum Romae dominarentur potentissimae aeque ac sordidissimae
meretrices, quarum arbitrio mutabantur sedes et dabantur episco-
patus. — F. Pagi Breviar.
^ John X. 914. F. Pagi Breviar.
' John XI. 931. Luitpr. lib. ii. c. xiii. — F. Pagi Breviar. — but
see Muratori's remark on the subject in his Annali d'ltalia, an. 931.
* Albericus . . . matris hortatu aquam ad abluendas Hugonis ma
nus infudit, sed cum non tam admodum scite praebuisset, Hugo
correctionis gratia ei alapam impegit, qua contumelia Albericus
provocatus, Romanes ad defectionem impulit. — F. Pagi Breviar,
° Chronic. Farfens. ap, Murator. Rer. Ital. Script, t. ii.
* Flodoard. in Chron. ad an. 954.
' Mansi ; according to others, in 956. Vid. F. Pagi Breviar. t. i,
p. 451.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 77
lidate his influence and power, by being himself elevated
to the apostolic chair ; which he accordingly was, and
assumed in his new character the designation of John
XII. ', though he continued to style himself by the name
of Octavian in matters of secular business ^
During the administration of the pontiff chosen
under these evil auspices, originated that second and
more lasting connexion of the papal power with
transalpine sovereignty, which resulted from the re
vival of the imperial dignity in the person of Otho
the great. And it will be necessary to bring the origin
of that connexion before the reader at some little
length; on account of the light which its history
is calculated to throw on the position occupied by the
papacy, in relation to the empire, during many subse
quent ages.
Otho, a prince of the Saxon line, succeeded his
father, Henry the Fowler, upon the German throne,
in 936 ^. The kingdom of Italy, which, from the down
fall of the Carlovingian power, had been the alternate
prey of despotic tyranny and anarchical disorganization,
was at that period groaning under the oppression of Hugo
of Provence, already mentioned as the third husband of
the infamous Marozia. The last-named prince directed
his policy to the systematic abasement of all that was
exalted or powerful in his kingdom. His half-brother,
Lambert Marquis of Tuscany*, and his nephew, An-
scar. Marquis of Spoleto ^ became themselves the vic-
' Being, it seems, the first by whom a new name was adopted on
elevation to the pontificate. — F. Pagi, Breviar. t. i. p. 452.
' Muratori, Annali d'ltalia ad an. 956.
' Herman. Contract. — Chron. Reginon.
* Luitprand, lib. iii. c. 13.
' Ibid. lib. V. c. 2 et 3. Lambert was the son of Bertha of Lor-

78 LIFE OF [book I.
tims of his jealousy; the first being deprived of his
possessions and eyesight, and the other put to death, by
his machinations. Dividing his nobles from each other
by his intrigues, Hugo crushed them, in succession, by
his power; and even the favourites and dependants
whom he had himself enriched, were shortly stripped
again, by his suspicious rapacity, of all that they had
amassed. Bishops, in whom he had not full confidence,
he chased from their sees, and substituted for them
natives of Burgundy or Provence, who, in Italy, would
depend on himself alone for support'. The revenues
of the richest abbeys and benefices he appropriated to
his mistresses, or made the object of a scandalous traffic,
from which accrued no inconsiderable portion of the
revenues of his crown.
The existence of this state of things had suggested
to Henry the Fowler the idea of settling, by an armed
interference, the affairs of Italy ; though he was not des
tined to put that idea in execution. But when Berenga
rius, Marquis of Ivrea, and grandson ofthe emperor ofthe
same name^, presented himself before Henry's successor
Otho, as a fugitive from the Italian monarch's cruelty,
he was received with a degree of favour and countenance,
which enabled him some time afterwards to put him
self at the head of the malcontents of Italy, and to
compel the tyrant of that country to abdicate the
throne. It was then decided, by a diet convened at
Milan, that the regal title should remain with Hugo's
raine, Hugo's mother, by her second husband Adalbert II, Marquis of
Tuscany ; of the same parents was born Ermengarde, who, as second
wife to Adalbert Marquis of Ivrea, became mother of Anscar.
' Luitprand, lib. iv. c. 3.
^ Being the son of Gisla, daughter to that emperor, the first wife
of Adalbert, Marquis of Ivrea, above mentioned.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 79
son, Lothaire; but that the general administration of the
kingdom should be confided to Berengarius. But the
noble thus placed in a most ambiguous position, was not
long satisfied with the imperfect enjoyment of power.
He viewed, too, with jealousy, the favour shown by the
prelates and other dignitaries of the kingdom, to the
new sovereign, and to his queen, the young and amiable
Adelaide of Burgundy. And the death of the former,
which occurred, under circumstances likely to excite
suspicion, in 950, was by many attributed to his con
trivance. Notwithstanding, however, the ill-will which
the suspicion must have excited toward him, Berenga
rius had the address to procure his immediate election
as Lothaire's successor ; and he was crowned at Pavia,
together with his son Adalbert, whom he associated in
his dignity, within a month after the youthful monarch's
decease. The royal widow Adelaide, who had not yet
seen her twentieth year, was detained, by his orders, in
close and rigorous confinement'. She contrived, how
ever, to escape from his hands, and was kindly pro
tected by Adelard, bishop of Reggio, and by the Marquis
Azzo, who then held, as a fief under that see, the
mountain-fortress of Canossa, in the Apennines. A
strong feeling was of course excited by the misfortunes
of this princess against her oppressors; and by her
friends, who put themselves in communication with the
German court, it was suggested, that Otho, then a,
widower, should receive her hand, and free the Italian
kingdom from the tyranny of its new ruler, by claiming
the crown for himself. Otho hesitated not to close
with these tempting proposals. In the year 951, he
crossed the Alps, at the head of an army so formidable,
' Herman. Contract.— Ditmar. Episc. Merseb. in Chronic.

80 LIFE OF [book I.
that the confounded Berengarius' durst not meet him
in the field ; and establishing himself, without oppo
sition, in Pavia, there solemnized his nuptials with
Adelaide, and declared himself king of Italy^. Nor,
though he was shortly summoned back across the Alps
by domestic troubles, did Berengarius even then feel
himself strong enough to attempt the recovery of his
kingdom by arms. He therefore followed Otho, as
a suppliant, into Germany, and threw himself before
the feet of that sovereign and of his queen, the injured
Adelaide, imploring their forgiveness'. And Otho,
influenced, we may suppose, alike by policy and gene
rosity, consented that Berengarius and Adalbert should
retain their regal title and power, on their agreeing
to hold the Italian kingdom as a fief, under the par
amount sovereignty of his own, and on their binding
themselves, by the oaths and ceremonies usual on such
occasions, to feudal subjection*.
When, therefore, eight years afterwards, Berengarius
and his son, by a course of tyranny and oppression, had
worn' out the patience of their subjects^', and, by their
injuries or their menaces, had excited the indigna
tion of the Roman see, it was to the German sovereign,
that the eyes, as well of the pontiff, as of the aggrieved
Lombards, were naturally turned for redress and deli
verance. It is not clear what the particular evils were
His Berengarius compertis, obstupefactus,
Non helium movit regi, non obvius exit,
Sed se servandum castello protinus apto
Intulit, in tutis posito firmisque locellis.
Hrosvitha Carm. de vita Oddonis.
' Chronicon Begin.— Herman. Contract.— Ditmar. Episc. Merseb.
' Herman. Contract. * Chron. Regin.
* Luitprand, lib. vi. c. 6.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 81
which John XII. at that moment, either suffered or
dreaded from the Italian tyrants ; evils, the immediate
pressure of which, blinded his eyes to the consequences
likely to result to his own irregular authority, from the
subjection of Italy to a powerful and determined sove
reign ; but certain it is, that his legates, despatched in
the course of the year 960 into Germany, presented
themselves before Otho, with the most urgent entreaties,
that for the love of God, and of His apostles, St. Peter
and St. Paul, he would be pleased to rescue the Roman
Church from the ferocity of the two Italian sovereigns,
and to restore her to her pristine liberty'. And these
envoys met, in the German court, with several distin
guished persons from A^arious parts of Italy, who had
come on a like errand with themselves^. Walpert,
archbishop of Milan, had with difficulty escaped thither,
to complain of his unjust expulsion from his metro
politan see, and of the appointment of an intruder in his
room. And Gualdo, bishop of Como, had also his tale
to relate, of injury and insult inflicted by the tyrants,
and by the queen of Berengarius, the imperious Willa.
Otho was not deaf to this general call ; and his second
expedition into Italy, undertaken under these auspices,
was as successful as had been the former one. Beren
garius, powerless as before to resist him, and now hope
less of compromise or pardon, fled at his approach. A
Milanese diet declared Otho duly elected king of
Italy ; and in the metropolitan church of that city, the
celebrated iron crown was placed upon his head, by the
hands of the restored Archbishop Walpert'. But a
solemnity still more august awaited the German sove-
' Sigebert. Gemblac. ^ Luitprand, lib. vi. c. 6.
' Luitprand, lib. vi. — Landulph, senior, in Mediolan. Hist. lib. ii,
c. 16, VOL. I. Ct

82 LIFE OF [book I.
reign at Rome ; for there, on the feast of the Purifica
tion, A. D. 962, he received, from the hands of Pope
John, the imperial diadem of Charlemagne, and thus
became the second renovator of the Western Empire'.
This turn of events brought the supreme monarchical
and ecclesiastical powers once more into immediate
contact with each other; and to cursory observers it
might appear that the new emperor stood, with relation
to the pontiff, in a position precisely similar to that
once occupied by the son of Pepin. The coronation of
Otho was, like that of Charlemagne, the recognition
and ratification of a spiritual monarchy, vested in the
apostolic see. Like Charlemagne, too, Otho showed
himself desirous to secure, by his exertions, and extend,
by his liberality, the temporal power and possessions of
the successors of St. Peter ^ But the papacy, widely
as had spread its renown, and extended as were now
the limits of its admitted jurisdiction, had become,
through the crimes and follies of its more recent occu
pants, debilitated at home. When closely confronted,
it was found to have lost the moral strength which it
had possessed in earlier days ; and, under this alteration
in circumstances, motives similar to those which had
rendered Charlemagne its deferential friend, induced,
or rather compelled, Otho to take upon himself the
character of its authoritative patron and controller.
' Chron. Regin. — Herman. Contract.- — Lamb. Scafnab. — Sigeb.
Gemblac. ^ The "Diploma Ottonis Imperatoris," edited by Baronius, and said
to be preserved, written in letters of gold, in the castle of St. Angelo,
(vid. Hard. Concil. t. vi. pt. i. p. 623,) — a document by which the
emperor confirms to the Roman see, among a variety of other pri
vileges, the full dominion of the papal city, and of the territories of
the Church around it, — is in all probability a production of much
later times.

CHAP. II.] GREGORY VII. 83
Elected as had been John XIL, at the age of 18,
to the papal chair, and appointed, as he had been, to
that chair, merely for the purpose of strengthening his
secular influence, it need not surprise us to find that he
disgraced his high dignity by a licentious and profligate
life. On Otho's appearance in Rome, he seems to have
seen the necessity of checking, at least, the public in
dulgence of his vices ; but the new-made emperor had
no sooner quitted the papal city, than he resumed the
shamelessness of his career. The Lateran palace was
disgraced by becoming a receptacle for courtezans ; and
decent females were terrified from pilgrimages to the
threshold of the apostles, by the reports which were
spread abroad of the lawless impurity and violence of
their representative and successor '.
The fame of these transactions could not fail to reach
the imperial ear. The emperor was reminded, too,
from various quarters, how nearly it concerned him,
now that he had become the head of the western
world, to maintain the decency and respectability of
the Latin Church, and to put an end to the scandals
daily brought upon her by the disgraceful excesses of
her spiritual head.
Hints were also thrown out, that John, jealous of the
superior authority which he had himself put into Otho's
hands, had entered into a correspondence with the de
throned Adalbert, inimical to the emperor's interest.
' Quod si cuncta taceant, Lateranense palatium, sanctorum quon
dam hospitium, nunc prostibulum meretricum, non silebit amicam
conjugem Stephanae patris concubinas sororem. Testis omnium gen
tium, praeter Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quae sanctorum apo-
stolorum limina orandi gratia timent visere, quum nonnullas ante dies
hunc audierint conjuges, viduas, virgines oppressisse. — Contin.
Luitprand. 1. vi. o. 6.
G 2

84 LIFE OF [book I.
But to these Otho paid no regard; and Avhen the
reports of trusty persons, sent by him to Rome for the
purpose, convinced him that the accounts which he
had received of John's general conduct were by no
means exaggerated, " Puer est, — he is but a boy," said
the considerate prince; "the example of good men,
" aided by fair reproof and kind persuasion, will yet
" extricate him from these evil ways ; and we shall then
" say with the prophet, ' This change is from the right
" hand of the Most High '.' " He despatched, accord
ingly, some nobles of his court, with a message of mild
admonition to the youthful pontiff; and proceeded him
self to blockade the fortress of St. Leo^, in Umbria,
where Berengarius had entrenched himself with some
of his remaining followers '. John, in answer to his
message, despatched his chief secretary Leo, and an
other noble Roman,- to the emperor, with promises of
amendment ; but he showed, even then, his spleen at
Otho's admonition, by objecting to him, as a violation
of the rights of the apostolic see, the siege of St. Leo,
a fortress within its territory. "I have pledged my
self," said Otho, in reply to this futile charge, " to
" restore the patrimony of St. Peter entire to his sue-
" cessors ; and how am I to fulfil the pledge if I do not
" subject it to my power, by the complete conquest of
" the enemy, by whom a portion of it is still occupied?"
But the insincerity of John's conduct was shortly
demonstrated by irrefragable proof. Otho heard that
Adalbert, having landed by papal invitation at Civita
Vecchia, had entered Rome in a triumphal manner,
and been received by the pontiff with the greatest
' Contin. Luitprand. 1. vi. c. 6.
' Chron. Regin. the place is called by Luitprand. Mons Feretratus.
' Chron. Regin.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 85
honours'. Summary measures now became necessary,
and Otho moved at once upon Rome. John, after
some vain preparations for resistance, fled at his ap
proach : the emperor was received by the Romans
with shouts and gratulations as their deliverer from an
odious tyranny ; and availed himself of this feeling in
his favour to demand from the clergy and people an
oath that they would thenceforward elect no pontiff
without the sanction of himself or of the king Otho,
his son. Then, at the entreaty of both prelates and
people, he summoned a council, which met, in Novem
ber 963, in the Basilica of St. Peter ; and by which,
after it had been twice adjourned, to give John an
opportunity to attend, that pontiff was on the 4th of
December formally and unanimously deposed; Leo,
his chief secretary and late ambassador, being, under
the auspices of Otho, elected in his room ^
Leo's character was unimpeachable ; but, when
chosen to this high ecclesiastical dignity, he was a
layman, — a circumstance which naturally scandalized
many, while it was taken up by many more as an
ostensible cause for the discontent with which, proud
of the liberties of their city, they beheld a pope elected
by the virtual nomination of a German sovereign. The
partizans of John availed themselves of this prevalent
'feeling, to excite a tumult in Rome, which broke out
on the 3rd of January, 964 \ and which was only ap
peased by Otho with much difficulty and bloodshed.
And the emperor, subsequently to this event, had
1 Contin. Luitprand. — Chron. Regin.
* Contin. Luitprand. Gotf. Viterb. Pantheon ap. Struv. t. ii. —
Herman. Contract. — Sigeb. Gemblac. — Harduin. t. vi, pt. i. p. 627.
— Chron. Regin.
' Chron. Regin. Contin. Luitprand.

86 LIFE OF [book I.
scarcely left the papal city, to complete the overthrow
of Berengarius and Adalbert, when the deposed pontiff
once more made his appearance in Rome : his partizans
prevailed over their antagonists ; and Leo, stripped of
every thing which he possessed, esteemed himself
fortunate in escaping with life to the camp of his
patron '. John now, in his turn, called a council, which
met on the 26th of February, 964 ^ and which did not
hesitate to declare Leo's election illegal, — to degrade
from their stations those ecclesiastics who had taken
part in it, — and to annul the acts of the imperial
nominee's ephemeral reign.
Otho was naturally incensed at this gross violation,
on the part of the Romans, of the compact into which
they had so recently entered vdth him. And his vrrath
was converted into fury when he heard of the mutila
tions and other cruelties with which John revenged
himself on the principal persons who had favoured his
rival ^ But before he could bring his army before
the walls of Rome, Providence delivered the Church
from the tyrant who disgraced her; and John was
carried off, on the 14th of May, either by a rapid ill
ness, or by the consequences of a blow or wound re
ceived in the prosecution of his intrigues *. The public
feeling, however, of animosity toward Otho, by which
John in his latter days had been supported, did not
expire with him. The Romans, on his death, instead
of recognising Leo, and inviting his return, elected,
' Contin. Luitprand. Chron. Regin. Gotf. Viterb.
' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 631.
' Contin. Luitprand. Chron. Regin.
* Dum se cujusdam viri uxore oblectaret, in temporibus adeo a
diabolo est percussus, ut intra dierum octo spatiUm eodem sit vulnere
mortuus. — Contin. Luitprand. 1. vi. c. 11.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 87
as John's successor, a cardinal deacon of the Roman
Church, who ascended the apostolic chair under the
name of Benedict V.' But the party who thus acted
were powerless to resist the imperial arms: Otho
entered Rome, at the head of his forces, on the 23rd
of June ; and there summoned a council, at which Leo
presided on the pontifical throne ; while Benedict, ap
pearing before him as a criminal, was compelled to
strip himself of his robe of state, and to resign his
crosier into the hands of his rival; by whom it was
instantly broken into pieces ^
There were many who felt that this ceremony did
not remove the original defect of Leo's title ; and
indeed, papal writers of a comparatively recent date
maintain that this council, like the former one, holden
by Otho in Rome, was a pretended one, — in ecclesias
tical language, a conciliabule ; and that on this occa
sion, it was the true pope who appeared as the criminal,
and the pretender who sat as his judge. The mal
contents, however, were now too well convinced of
Otho's superiority of force to attempt any further out
break. The emperor, crossing the Alps early in the
year 965, took Benedict with him, and confided the
exiled pontiff to the charge of the archbishop of
Hamburg, by whom he was treated with all honour
and courtesy. Nor did Leo long survive his patron's
departure. He breathed his last, on the 17th of March,
965; on which the Romans, humbled by experience,
despatched an embassy to their German sovereign, and
entreated him to point out, according to his good
pleasure, an occupant for the chair of St. Peter. It is
' Herman. Contract. — Sigeb. Gemblac. — Chron. Regin.
' Chron. Regin. — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 637. — Herman. Contract.
— Sigeb, Gemblac.

88 LIFE OF [book I.
said, indeed, that the message was accompanied by an
intimation that no new nominee could be so acceptable
to his Roman subjects as would be the exiled Benedict ;
and that Otho was about to accede to the request.
But this intention, if indeed it existed, was frustrated
by Benedict's death ' ; and, on the return of the Roman
envoys to the papal city, accompanied by the bishops of
Spires and Cremona on the part of Otho, the election
took place in favour of John, bishop of Narni^, who
thus became John XIII. ; a pope, during whose ponti
ficate, the relation of dependence, which the papacy
had now assumed toward the imperial power, was yet
further illustrated and confirmed. Viewing himself
as the imperial nominee and representative, the new
pontiff was induced to treat the principal personages
at Rome with a haughtiness, which excited general dis
gust. The citizens rose against him in arms, and com
pelled him first to barricade himself in the castle of
St. Angelo, and then to fly the city: nor was he
restored to the apostolic chair, till Otho came once more
at the head of an army to Ro^e, and punished with a
severity amounting to cruelty the principal agents in
the insurrection ^ John XIII. then held the see undis
turbed till his death, which occurred in Sept. 972.
The emperor, on that event, sanctioned the election of
a Roman by birth, who was promoted to the papal
chair under the name of Benedict VL, and whose
exaltation only preceded by a few months the death of
his imperial patron, as Otho breathed his last on the
7th of May, 973 *.
The above brief account of this monarch's intercourse
' Adam. Bremens. Hist. c. 57.
' Chron. Regin.— Herman. Contract  Sigeb. Gemblac.
^ Chron, Regin. — Herman. Contract.
* Herman. Contract, — Lamb. Scafnab.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 89
with the papacy, will suffice to illustrate the difference,
already alluded to, between his position and that of
Charlemagne, with relation to the great ecclesiastical
power of the West; to show how that great power,
extended and consolidated as was now its empire abroad,
was becoming dependent for its security, if not for its
existence, on the secular authority at home. And the
relation, thus established, between the imperial crown
and the tiara, was maintained without any material
modification, during the reigns of Otho's son and grand
son, Otho II. and Otho III. The first Otho had not
long breathed his last, when the ever-turbulent Romans
arose against the last pontiff of that emperor's nomina
tion, imprisoned and murdered him; electing in his room
a profligate cardinal deacon, who assumed the name
of Boniface VIL' But this wretched man, in the
short space of one month, disgusted those who had pro
cured his elevation ; and, after plundering the treasury
and basilica of St. Peter of all that he could conve
niently carry away with him, he fled to Constantinople^.
And Otho II., by sanctioning the election of Benedict
VII. ^ a member of the great family of the counts of
Tusculum*, arrayed a large party among the Roman
aristocracy on his side ; and so far succeeded in maintain
ing the imperial authority, that, on Benedict's death, in
983, he procured the election, as pontiff, of his imperial
Arch-chancellor, John XIV.° But Otho II. himself
' Herm. Contr. " Ibid.
' According to some writers, the intruder Boniface was in the
first instance succeeded by a pope named Donus ; but the chronology
of the period is obscure. — Vid. Pagi Crit. in Baron, and vid. F. Pagi
Breviar. t. i. p. 463.
* Or " Tuscoli." It is difiicuit, sometimes, in treating of these
middle ages, to decide whether a proper name is to be given, with the
greatest correctness, in its Latin, or Italian, form.
* F. Pagi Breviar. — Sigeb. Gemblac. — Herman. Contract.

90 LIFE OF [book I.
died in the December of the same year' ; and, in the
March following, his unhappy nominee was dragged,
by the Roman populace, from the papal throne to a
dungeon ; while the infamous Boniface, returning from
Constantinople, became once more the master of Rome,
and maintained himself there for seven months ; at the
end of which period he died ^ The deposed John had
been previously murdered in his prison ; but another
pontiff of the same name was nominated in his room in
985 ^ He, like his successor, Gregory V., was driven,
during his pontificate, into exile* by the ante-imperial
party, and only restored by the arms or influence of the
German court. In the time, indeed, of the latter of
these pontiffs, the animosity of the Romans to the
emperors and their nominees had reached such a pitch
of exacerbation, that it was proposed by a powerful party
among them, headed by an intriguing noble named
Crescentius, to recognise once more the paramount
lordship of the Grecian empire over the papal city, and
abjure for ever the supremacy of the German Caesars.
In furtherance of these plans, Gregory V. was declared
deposed, and a Greek prelate (John XVI.) elected by
the factious to the apostolic see ^ But Otho III., then
advancing to man's estate, espoused with zeal the cause
of the exiled pontiff, who was his near relation. Accom-
' Lamb. Scafnab. — Ditmari Chronic.
" Herman. Contract. ^ Ibid.
* The account of John XVth's flight into Tuscany from the
turbulence of Crescentius, is given by Baronius; but F. Pagi
(Breviar. t. i. p. 469) professes himself unable to find it in any
writer earlier than Werner Rolwink, who wrote in the 15th century.
Vid. Pistor. Rer. Germ. SS. t. ii. p. 536. Hermannus Contractus
says of him, that " Clericos suos parvipendens, odio ipsis est
habitus." ^ Annales Hildeshemens. Ditmari Chron.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 91
panied by Gregory, he made a forcible entry into Rome
in 998. The Grecian intruder, seized in his flight, was
treated by the relentless Gregory with cruelties and
indignities too horrible to mention' ; and Crescentius,
having defended himself for some time in the castle of
St. Angelo, was at length compelled to surrender, and
was beheaded by the emperor's command ^
On Gregory's death, in the following year (999), Otho
procured the nomination of his tutor, Sylvester IL, a
person who, under the name of Gerbert, had much dis^
tinguished himself in the paths of literature ; and whose
researches in physical science had procured him, with
the vulgar, the reputation of a magician ^ This pontiff,
consequently, it was who filled the papal chair when
the tenth century closed upon the world ; an event
almost immediately succeeded by the extinction of the
male line of the great Otho, in the death of his grand
son Otho IIL, who breathed his last in January, 1002*.
The general darkness and corruption of the period
which had thus reached its termination have been
already adverted to. The abuses of the century pre
ceding continued unreformed ; the moral degradation of
the clergy had produced a general contempt of church
ordinances alike in themselves and in their flocks.
The clerical body of Italy, says an indignant bishop'
' Linguam cum oculis et naribus amisit. Ditmar. — Ab imperatore
caecatus et truncatus deponetur. Annales Hildesh.
^ Ditmar. — Arnulph. Hist. Mediolan. — Annales Hildesh.
= Willielm. Malmesburiens, de gestis regum Anglor, lib. ii. c. 10.
— Ditmar. * Sigeb. Gemblac. — Herman. Contract. — Ditmar,
= Volumen perpendiculorum Ratherii Veronensis, vel visus cujus
dam appensi cum aliis multis in ligno latronis. D'Acher. Spicileg.
t. i. p. 345. 355 ; — Itinerarium Ratherii Romam euntis. Ibid. t.
i. p. 379—384.

92 LIFE OF [book I.
of this gloomy time, had sunk so far into habits of self-
indulgence and dissipation, as to be no otherwise dis
tinguishable than by the shaving of the head and crown,
by some slight peculiarities of vestment, and by the neg
ligent performance of certain rites in the Church, from
the profane laity around them'. And these latter
were but too naturally induced to make light of those
menaces of the Divine wrath, which they perceived to
be, even among those to whom they were entrusted,
the subjects of habitual contempt^ Nor could the
populace in general attach in their thoughts much
importance to the censures of the Church, when wielded
by those who, if Church canons had indeed any force,
were themselves evidently excommunicate '.
And the pontiffs, struggling under the shadow of the
imperial power for security at home, were not able,
even had they been willing, to direct their energies to
the accomplishment of any great or systematic reform
ation abroad. It does, indeed, at first sight, appear
a singular circumstance, that the theory of their supre
macy should have maintained itself in undiminished
acceptation during this long period of their moral and
' Unde ad tantam consuetudo, et majorum eos exempla jam olim
impulerunt impudentiam, ut solummodo barbriasio, et verticis cum
aliquantula vestium dissimilitudine, et quod in Ecclesia cum negli-
gentia agunt non parva, unde tamen affectant magis placere mundo
quam Deo, aritudistare eos videas laico. — D'Acher. t. i. p. 354.
^ At cum nos videant ridendo ea quoque legere saepe, et tam
obstinate adversiim talia, tamquam audacter resistere, et rebellione
contra Deum publica obdurari, si illi talia non curant mirumne
alicui potest videri ? — ib. p. 353.
' Unde et excommunicationes nostras cum absolutionibus parvi
ducunt, quia quantum intelligere possunt, et nos a Sanctis Canonibus
excommunicatos cognoscunt, et ligatum neminem ligare vel absolvere
posse arbitrio proprio comprehendunt. — ib.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 93
political weakness. The same causes, however, by
which that theory had been mainly brought out, con
tinued to operate in upholding it. A variety of
motives, good or bad, still concurred in leading many
ranks and classes to look with satisfaction to the ex
istence of a central and generally controlling ecclesiasti
cal monarchy. And the metropolitans themselves, who
might be supposed to feel themselves the most immedi
ately humbled by the introduction of such a monarchy
into the system, were still often induced to ally them
selves with it as the readiest mode of obtaining a pre
ponderance over rivals in hierarchical dignity. We find
Dietrich, Archbishop of Treves, soliciting and obtain
ing from John XIII., in 969, for himself and his suc
cessors, that precedence among the archbishops of
Germany, which was now recognised as connected with
the privilege of representing, as a legate, the pontifical
power ' ; though the claim to such precedence, when
advanced on similar grounds in the preceding century by
the son of Charlemagne, Drogo, Archbishop of Metz, had
been received with such dissatisfaction, that that prelate,
for the sake of peace, was induced to relinquish it ^
The legaijtine system had gradually grown up, from
ihe necessity experienced by the pontiffs, during the
reign of the divided Carlovingian sovereigns, of almost
constantly maintaining, at the court of each of these
princes, with whom they were in some respects so
closely connected, a confidential representative. Such
a representative, when hi? office became systematically
acknowledged, participated, of course, to some ex-
' Harzhem. Concil. German, t. ii. p. 648.
" Vid. Epistle of Sergius II. appointing Drogo his legate. Hard.
t. iv. p. 1463, et seqq. and the proceedings of the Council of Ver-
neuil. Hard, t, iv. p. 1472.

94 LIFE OF [book I.
tent, in the dignity ascribed by the public voice to
his principal. And when the theory of the false
Isidore had fully developed itself, the powers which
the legate, in the papal name, asserted his right
to wield, were such as to prevent any thing like the
free exertion of metropolitan authority in any other
hands than his own. It was his business, according to
the papal view, to summon, at pleasure, to councils the
general prelacy of the regions which were entrusted to
his charge ; to preside over them, notwithstanding the
presence of the national primates, — to sanction new
laws, — to demand the censure of the sjmod upon such
as had offended, and in the event of the synod's dis
agreeing with him, to appeal to Rome, — to remove even
metropolitans, if contumaciously disobedient, from their
office ; — and to forward the decrees of all councils to
Rome, in order that, if approved of, they might he
sanctioned ; and, if otherwise, annulled, by the supreme
authority of the successor of St. Peter '.
These extraordinary prerogatives were, it is true,
but slowly, and to the last but imperfectly, acknow
ledged by the nations. But by the end of the tenth
century their general tenor was so far understood and
admitted, that not only did many primates, like Die
trich, eagerly barter their own independent character
for one which implied a continual dependence upon
Rome ; but even a secular king, Stephen of Hungary,
conceived that he strengthened his authority over his
newly-converted subjects, by' obtaining from Sylvester
II. the permission to combine his regal title with that
of legate of the apostolic see ^.
' Cantelius de Metrop. Urbium hist. pt. i. diss. iv. p. 65.
^ Bonfinii Rerum Hungaric. decad. ii. lib, i. p. 119; — Cantel.
in loc. citat.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII- 95
With regard, indeed, to the papal connexion with
temporal sovereigns, it may be remarked, that the
restoration of the empire by Otho not only displayed
the pontiffs once more to the world, in the ceremony
of coronation, as the bestowers of the imperial dignity,
but tended to countenance the feeling, then growing, in
the public mind, which ultimately led men to regard
the papal see as the legitimate disposer of all the
thrones and dignities of earth. The feudal ideas which
were now spreading themselves over Europe accus
tomed mankind to a gradation of authorities arising in
progressive stages above each other ; each in its place
commanding that below it and obeying that above it.
The small landholder held his property under a lord
who was in some sense his immediate sovereign ; that
lord again was in his turn the vassal to a greater baron ;
the" baron owed a species of allegiance to the duke or
margrave of the province ; and it was this last digni
tary alone who owed the undivided duties of a subject to
the crown. To minds familiar with this state of things,
the exaltation of one throne in Western Europe to
pre-eminent dignity, would seem, — even independently
of recollections of the past, — like the exaltation of its
occupant to a kind of paramount lordship over other
sovereigns ; a vague and shadowy suzerainty, but
one which harmonized too well with the ecclesiastical
supremacy already ascribed by the Western Church to
one paramount head, not to find a place, in the current
creed of the day, by its side. And, when this had
become the case, the pope, in placing the diadem upon
the imperial brow, appeared to the general apprehension
as the dispenser, not of one monarchy alone, but of
the united sovereignties, — the collective dignities, — of
Western Europe, represented by their head.
13

96 LIFE OF [book I.
Under these circumstances, we find that the powerful
Hugh Capet, founder of the dynasty which has ruled
France from his days to our own, having procured,
through his prelates, the deposition of a Rhemish
archbishop, was so anxious to conciliate John XV. and
to procure his sanction to the measure, that, in an
epistle to the pontiff, in which he assured him that no
step had been taken in violation of his apostolic pre
rogative, the king offered to proceed to Grenoble, and, if
John would agree to meet him there, to receive him
with all honour, and to submit the case in question to
his authoritative decision '.
During the same pontificate it is, that the first
recorded instance occurs, of the practice, afterwards so
frequent, of canonization by the authority of a pope
and council of the Roman province. John XV., in
993, added to the saintly calendar the name of Ulrich
bishop of Augsburg, who had died in 973 ^ thus acting,
as he expressed it, " by the authority of the blessed
Peter, prince of Apostles," and exerting a new species
of prerogative, as the one visible head of the commu
nity of the faithful, the " bishop of the holy Roman
Catholic and Apostolic Church ^"
And though, notwithstanding the humble tone as
sumed by Hugh Capet, John was not, it should seem,
able to settle to his entire satisfaction the business of
the Rhemish archbishop, on which that monarch had
addressed him ; yet the general deference of France to
the papal authority was strikingly displayed in the fol
lowing pontificate of Gregory V. Robert, the son and

' Nihil nos contra apostolatum vestrum egisse scimus.  Hard.
t. vi. pt. i. p. 730.
' Herman. Contract. ' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 727.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 97
successor of Hugh on the Gallic throne, had married
Bertha, daughter of Conrad king of Burgundy ; his
union with whom was uncanonical, both on the ground
of consanguinity, and because Robert had contracted
what the Church considered a spiritual relationship with
Bertha, by having undertaken the office of godfather to
one of her. children by her former husband. Incensed
by this gross violation of ecclesiastical discipline, Gre
gory, when restored to Rome by the arms of Otho III.
in 998, ventured, in council, to declare this royal mar
riage void; to command the parties who had contracted
it to separate from each other ; and to declare the arch
bishop of Tours, Avho had celebrated the illegal ceremony,
as well as all the bishops who had countenanced it by
their presence, excluded from the communion of the
Church, until they should have made fitting satisfaction to
the apostolic see '. The haughty prince at first defied the
pontiff and disobeyed his sentence ; but when Gregory
declared him excommunicate, and his kingdom under
an interdict ^ — the first instance of such a measure in
France, — the scene was soon changed. The astonished
Robert beheld himself deserted by all, and his court
converted into a solitude. Two faithful domestics alone
remained near him, to minister to his wants; and even
these, avoiding his touch as infected, threw every plate
and vessel out of which he had eaten or drunk, into the
fire '. Under these circumstances the king felt that he
had no course left but submission ; he dismissed Bertha
from his arms, and obtained, by his humiliation, the
pardon of the apostolic see.
' Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 756.
^ Hist. Franc. Fragm. ex veteri exemplari Floriacensi, apud Du
chesne, t. iv. p. 85.
' Damiani lib, ii. ep. xv. ad Desiderium.
VOL. I. H

98 LIFE OF [book I.
In the attainment of a result so important to the
power of that see, Gregory V. was, no doubt, materially
aided by the indignant feeling, which the king's conduct,
opposed as it was to recognised and respected laws, had
excited in the minds of his subjects. He was, more
over, encouraged to strike the blow by the countenance
and support of his patron Otho HI., who was present
at his Roman council, and approved ofits decrees. And
when we take this last circumstance into consideration,
the proceeding, viewed as a whole, may be thought to
indicate alike the maturity of the system, which con
centrated the general Church's power of discipline in
one pontiff's hands, and the danger, to which that
system had now given birth, that such a pontiff himself
might be made, by circumstances, the creature of a
secular sovereign, and thus in effect transfer the whole
spiritual government of the Church, into hands which
bore no apostolical commission to administer it.
Upon the death, however, of Otho IIL, and the extinc
tion, in his person, ofthe imperial Saxon line, that danger
might seem, for a while, to disappear. The nobles of
Germany, on that event, elected to their vacant throne a
Bavarian prince, Henry II. ' But, though they intended
that this election should virtually confer the Italian
and imperial crowns, as well as that of their own coun
try, the Italians, discontented with their vassalage to
a foreign people, conceived that the juncture presented
a favourable opportunity for the recovery of their
national independence. They selected, consequently,
as their king, one Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea; and,
though their nominee was not able to stand in the
field against Henry, when the latter advanced to Pavia,
' Herman. Contract

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 99
and there received the iron crown' — 15th May, 1004, —
from the hands of the archbishop of Milan ; yet, as the
German monarch was soon recalled across the Alps,
and detained some years on their northern side, by
difficulties arising from the novelty of his regal
power, Ardoin was enabled to maintain, during that
time, a precarious dominion in northern Italy. Rome
was therefore severed, for a season, from all direct com
munication with the German sovereigns. But the
papacy, long used to lean for support on their imperial
sceptre, had now, if we may so speak, no substantive
power of its own. The aristocratic and democratic
faction , whom the authority of the Othos had often
failed to keep down, now that this authority was
removed, were controlled by their mutual rivalry alone.
Sylvester II. died in 1003, the year following that of
the last Otho's decease ; and the three following popes,
.lohn XVL,— June 1003,— John XVII,— Dec. 1003,—
and Sergius IV., — 1009, — were the creatures and nomi
nees of such nobles or popular leaders, as could obtain in
turn a momentary preponderance in the distracted city.
Benedict VIII., the successor of Sergius, was elected in
1012, through the influence of the family of the counts
of Tusculum, with which he was connected, — a family
which, as it was pre-eminent in power among the
Roman aristocracy, had already exercised on many occa
sions a preponderating influence over the papal elec
tions, and now attained the power, which it for some
time maintained, of virtual nomination. The Romans,
it is true, indignant at its domination, and disliking its
nominee, rose against Benedict in the year following that
of his election, and compelled him to fly from the city ;
' Herman. Contract.
H 2

100 LIFE OF [book I.
while a more popular ecclesiastic, Gregory by name,
was installed in his room. But Henry IL, having sur
mounted his difficulties in Germany, was now prepared to
move once more into Italy. Applied to by the fugitive
Benedict for assistance, he gladly embraced the oppor
tunity of strengthening his interest at Rome, by the
alliance of a party, so powerful there as was the house
of Tusculum. Triumphant over his rival Ardoin, he
appeared with his army before Rome, where he found
all opposition fall before him, and received the imperial
crown, from the hands of the pontiff whom he had
restored, on the 14th of February 1014'. Aud, as
Ardoin, shortly after this event, was induced by ill
health to retire into a monastery, Henry's title contin
ued undisputed in Italy during the remainder of his life,
notwithstanding the general repugnance of the Italians
to a German master. As, however, he was compelled
to pass the greater part of his reign to the northward
of the Alps, his authority, in his southern kingdom, was
but imperfectly obeyed; and, in Rome itself, he was
only strong in the power of his aristocratic allies,
the chiefs of the family of Tusculum. With pontifical
elections he had no opportunity, subsequently to his
coronation, of interfering, as he and Benedict VIII.
died within a few days of each other, in July 10241
On the death of the latter, the partizans of the Tusculan
family, secured, by the vacancy of the imperial throne,
from monarchical interference, and superior to opposition
from any other quarter, procured the election of the
deceased pontiff's brother, who already bore the titles
of duke and senator of Rome, and who assumed, as
' Herman. Contract. Sigeb. Gemblac. ' Herman. Contract.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 101
pope, the name of John XVHL' The election is said
to have been compassed by bribery and other unjustifi
able means ; a statement, which the character of the
family in question, and of the object of their choice,
renders too probable. John, as may be inferred from
the nature of his former titles, was a layman to the day
of his papal consecration ^ ; and so little did he, after
that event, regard either the obligations of his new
character, or the dignity of the see over which he had
been chosen to preside, that he expressed his readiness,
in consideration of a large sum of money to be remitted
to him by the Greek Emperor Basil, to recognise the
right of the Grecian Patriarch to the title of oecumenic,
or universal, bishop ; a title against which, from the
time of its assumption by their Eastern brethren, the
popes had not ceased to protest ; and which they could
not, indeed, have admitted, without acquiescing in the
degradation of their own see to a secondary and de
pendent rank in the hierarchy of the Church. But
the fame of this disgraceful transaction had no sooner
been bruited abroad, than the universal burst of indig
nation, which it excited among the churchmen of the
West, prevented the profligate pontiff from putting his
design in execution I
The Germans, upon the death of Henry IL, who left
no issue, elected, as their sovereign, Conrad, surnamed
' Herman. Contract. This pontifi' is also styled John XVIII.
by Harduin, but there is some uncertainty respecting his proper
numeral designation. F. Pagi reckons him John XIX. and Baronius
John XX.
' Largitione pecuniae, repente ex laicali ordine neophytus consti-
tutus praesul. ... ex laico, (nefas dictu,) est transformatus in Papam.
Vid. Baron. Annal. ad ann. et Glaber Rodulph.
' Hugo Flavin iac.

102 LIFE OF [book I.
the Salic, duke of Franconia, a prince of illustrious
descent, but small possessions'. He ascended the
throne as Conrad 11.^ and became the progenitor of
that line of sovereigns which filled the imperial throne
during one of the most momentous periods in the
annals of the Church and of the world. For, though a
powerful party in Italy, impatient of German rule, had
upon Henry II.'s decease, offered their crovra in the first
place to Robert, king of France, and then to William,
duke of Aqui tain, yet these princes both shrunk from the
precarious dignity ; and the malcontents were forced to
acquiesce in the councils of those of their countrymen
who had deputed to the German court, Heribert, the
powerful archbishop of Milan, with the proffer of their
crown ^ Conrad, as a newly elected sovereign, ' was
surrounded with difficulties in his own country. He
contrived, however, to lead an army across the Alps in
1026 ; he received, in the spring of that year, the
Italian crown, at Milan; and at Easter, in the year
following, that of the empire was placed, by John
XVIII., upon his head, in the presence of the great
Canute, king of England and Denmark*, and of Rudolf,
king of Burgundy, with the former of which sovereigns
Conrad concluded a treaty for the marriage of his son

' Wippo de vita Chunradi Salici. Herman. Contract.
* Of Germany. As sovereign of Italy, he was Conrad I. It may
be as well to mention here, that throughout this work the German
sovereigns are spoken of by the numerical designations which they
bore in Germany.
' Wippo de vita Chunradi.
* Vid. Cnutonis Epistola ad Anglos, ap. Willielm. Malmesburiens.
de Gestis Reg. Anglor. lib. ii. c. 11. — Herman. Contract. — Wippo. —
Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 845. — Otton. Frising. Episc. Chronic. 1. iv.
c. 29. 13

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 103
Henry, afterwards Henry IIL, with the Danish prince's
daughter Cunelind.
Conrad the Salic was a prince possessed of great
abilities, and of peculiar tact in the science of govern
ment. The smallness of his hereditary possessions
made it difficult for him to support the dignity of his
crown ; and the spirit of disorder, which prevailed during
his reign to a frightful extent, taxed, to the utmost, his
prudence and his energies. But, by a consistency of
plan, and by a happy mixture of firmness and concili
ation in conducting the struggles in which he was en
gaged, Conrad surmounted the obstacles before him ;
he secured, in spite of powerful opponents, the establish
ment of his family on the throne ; and, if he was not
able to appease in his own time, those troubles which
had arisen from the weakness or mismanagement of
former governments, he laid the foundation for a more
orderly organization of society, by his labours in sys
tematizing and perfecting that feudal code, which had
now become, as it were, the common law of his empire,
but which received through him the precision and clear
ness of statutary legislation '.
The causes in which the system of fiefs originated, it
is not necessary here to discuss. Whatever these may
have been, it is evident that such a system could not
long exist Avithout undergoing a considerable modifica
tion of its original spirit and character. The bond of
kindred, or the moral ties of gratitude or affection, which
in its origin had bound individual grantors and grantees
of land to each other, had of course a tendency to grow

' " Erat itaque Conradus iste armis strenuus, consilio providus,
sapientia florens, peritus et jure civili et in religione Christiana
devotus." — Gotf. Viterb. ap. Pistor. Rerum Germ. SS. t. ii. p. 331.

104 LIFE OF [book I.
feebler and feebler with each succeeding generation.
Superiors, therefore, as time went on, were sometimes
induced to treat their inferiors in feudal relationship
with a severity and oppression unknown in the infancy
of that connexion. And while the system was tra
ditional and unsettled, the lord might, if he so pleased,
tyrannize over his vassal, by demanding of him unrea
sonable and extraordinary services, and, if these were
refused, deprive him of his fief at will. But to the
growth of these evils, Conrad the Salic strenuously
opposed himself. Through his regulations, first in Italy,
and then elsewhere, fiefs of the ordinary kind were
recognised as descending from father to son ; the ser
vices to be rendered by their holders were defined, and
regulated according to the precedents of the past ; and
the lord was prohibited from either demanding more,
or expelling his vassal from his land, without a kind
of legal process and conviction of guilt. These arrange
ments were productive both of security to the subject,
and of authority to the crovra. The empire, under
them, assumed a more regular constitutional organiza
tion ; the antagonist powers, if we may so call them, of
society, were brought into a species of contact Avith
each other, conducive to their general equilibrium ; and
Conrad thus, though he died, in 1039', in the midst of
wars and discord, bequeathed to his son, Henry IIL, the
foundations of an authority, more solid than had been
enjoyed by any of his predecessors upon the German
throne. The Church, like the estates of secular society, acquired
security for her possessions under Conrad's sway : he
saw, in the baronial importance of her prelates and
' Herman. Contract. — Lamb. Scafnab. — Wippo. — Sigeb, Gemblac.

CHAP. It. J GREGORY VII. 105
abbots, a counterpoise to the formidable power of his
unruly secular aristocracy; and he therefore willingly
enriched them, by distributing among them the lands
which during his reign, through the attainder of their
holders, became forfeited to his crown. But it was,
unfortunately, too exclusively as a political body, that
he contemplated the holy institution ; and amid the
straits to which he was reduced by the smallness of
his revenues, he was induced so far to forget the sacred
ness of the pastoral mission, as habitually to receive
pecuniary presents of considerable value from those
whom he selected for vacant sees or abbeys, thus
sanctioning and extending, by his example, the baleful
practice of that unhallowed traffic by which the Church
had been so long polluted, and which the enactments
of councils, and the indignant denunciations of indi
vidual prelates, had in vain sought to put down, from
the days of Charlemagne to his own.
The policy, therefore, of this able monarch, tended
not only to strengthen and consolidate the feudal
system in general, and the power of the feudal monarch
in particular, but also to incorporate, or, — if the ex->
pression may be allowed, — to melt, the Church into that
system, so as to render her an essential and inseparable!
portion of it, — to subject her to all its laws, — and to
associate her in all its destinies ; — a process rendered
the more easy of accomplishment, by that forgetfulness
of her real nature and spiritual prerogatives which was
induced in men's minds by the constant spectacle of an
unholy traffic in her sacred offices. And in succeeding
to his father's power, Henry IIL, as though by necessity,
succeeded also to the task of working out these tenden
cies in practice, and of completing and filling up the
shadowy outlines which Conrad had imperfectly traced.

106 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK I.
It is, consequently, by the accession of the former of
these princes to power, that a definite form may be
considered to have been given to that great contest
which will form the principal subject of the following
pages. The whole history, indeed, of the imperial
j Franconian line is that of one long struggle between
I the Western Church, as represented by the papacy, and
I the principle of a feudal classification of society, which, as
I maintained by Conrad and his descendants, threatened
I to reduce her to the state of a merely human and sub-
J ordinate institution. On the importance and results of
that contest it were premature here to dilate. Its
general nature has been thus briefly alluded to, in order
that, as the narration proceeds, it may be seen to what
the course of events from this time was tending, and
what was the bearing of each occurrence, on the
development of that approaching crisis, which was
destined definitively to fix the position of the Church
in feudal Europe.

BOOK I.— CHAPTER III.

CONSECRATION OP BENEDICT IX. — HIS PROFLIGACY — HIS SALE OE THE PAPACY TO
GREGORY VI.  ELECTION, BY AN OPPOSITE PARTY, OP A PRELATE WHO ASSUMES THE
NAME OF SYLVESTER III.  BENEDICT RENEWS BIS CLAIMS  GENERAL SCANDAL
EXCITED BY THESE PROCEEDINGS — HENRY III. MARCHES INTO ITALY, DEPOSES
OR EXPELS THE RIVAL PRETENDERS, AND NOMINATES CLEMENT II. TO THE
PAPAL CHAIR — CORONATION OP HENRY, AS EMPEROR, BY THE PONTIFF THUS
CHOSEN — COUNCIL OP CLEMENT II. AGAINST SIMONY  HENRY RETURNS TO
GERMANY.

With the internal affairs of Rome, or of her Church,
Conrad the Salic, engaged as he was in other parts of
his empire, had little opportunity directly to interfere.
And his son Henry was, for several years after his
accession, too much occupied in Germany, to cross the
Alps in quest of the imperial diadem. The imperious
and licentious house of Tusculum, therefore, continued
to control both the city and the papacy with an
arbitrary sway. And upon the death of John XVIII.,
in 1033, so little regard did his brother, the head of
that potent family, deem it necessary to pay to appear
ances, that he directed the election and consecration of
his son Theophylact' ; a boy not more, according to some
authorities, than ten or twelve years old^ The unhappy
vouth was consecrated under the name of Benedict IX.
If ' Herman. Contract.
^ Puer ferme decennis. — Glaber ap. F. Pagi Breviar. t. i. p. 500.
Ordinatus quidam puer annorum circiter duodecim contra jus, fasque,
quem scilicet sola pecunia auri et argenti plus commendavit,

108 LIFE OF [book I.
and soon exemplified the unfitness of the selection by
the giddy and precipitous manner in which, as soon as
his years admitted it, he plunged into every species of
debauchery and crime. The disgust excited by his
proceedings grew at length too general to be controlled
by the interest or authority of his family ; and the
Romans, in 1038, drove the young pope from his see.
The emperor Conrad, however, was then in Italy, and
still anxious for the maintenance of friendly relations
between the Tusculan house and himself. He there
fore marched upon Rome, a city which he had not
visited since the period of his coronation ; and Benedict
was restored. But the unfortunate man failed to profit
by the warning thus given him, continuing to disgrace
his pontificate with every species of crime ', and
familiarizing himself, it is said, even with adultery and
murder ^. And at length, as if determined to outrage
public feeling to the utmost, he had the madness to
think of marrying his first-cousin, the daughter of a
nobleman named Gerard de Saxo. The father, when
the project was communicated to him, at once declared it
impracticable, except upon the condition that Benedict
would, in the first instance, resign the popedom ; in
which event Gerard hoped that the power of papal
nomination might be wrested from the Tusculan family,
and fall into the hands of himself and the party among

quam aetas aut sanctitas. Ibid. But respecting this extreme youth,
or rather childhood, of Benedict IX. when appointed, there seems to
exist some doubt. There is, unhappily, none with respect to the
infamy of his subsequent conduct.
' Cujus vita quam turpis, quam fceda, quamque execranda exti-
terit, horresco referre. — Victor III. dialog.
^ Post multa turpia adulteria et homicidia manibus suis perpe-
trata, postremo &c. — Bonizo, ap, (Efel. t. ii. p. 801.

CHAP. III. J GREGORY VII. 109
the nobles to which he belonged. But in this he was
disappointed. Benedict, intent on accomplishing his
marriage, was prepared to relinquish his dignity; but
instead of abandoning it to the faction of his intended
father-in-law, he entered into communication with the
archpriest of Rome by name John Gratianus, who ex
pressed himself ready to give him a large sum if he
would declare himself unworthy of the pontificate, and
abdicate it. Gratianus was a man who, in those bad
times, was considered more than ordinarily religious ' :
he had lived free from the gross vices by which the
clergy were too generally disgraced ; but he had availed
himself of the high repute which this circumstance had
procured him, to amass sufficient money for the scheme
which he now attempted, — a scheme which, if we give
him credit for purity of intention, betokens unques
tionably the grossest ignorance of the limits of sa
cerdotal duty. This was, to exalt himself to the
papacy, and, in so doing, to assert, in opposition to the
aristocracy, the long dormant right of the Roman clergy
and people to a free election of their spiritual pastor.
He persuaded Benedict, therefore, not indeed to resign
professedly in his favour, but to resign at a time in
which, having employed the remainder of his treasure
in purchasing the support of influential Romans, he
was tolerably sure of being elected to succeed him.
This took place accordingly; and Benedict, in 1044,
having received the stipulated price ^ consecrated with
his own hands his successor, by the name of Gregory VI.

' Qui tunc magiii meriti putabatur. — Bonizo, 1. c. Qui tunc in
urbe religiosior caeteris clericis videbatur. — Victor III. dial. iii.
' Quia, voluptati deditus, ut Epicurus magis quam ut pontifex
vivere malebat. — Victor III. dial.

110 LIFE OF [book I.
But Gerard and his party, indignant at this frustra
tion of their hopes, refused to acknowledge the trans
action ; and on the assumption that the papal chair was
vacant, nominated to it John, bishop of Sabina, who
gave them a considerable sum for his elevation, and
who assumed the name of Sylvester IIL' The power,
however, of the house of Tusculum was still formidable.
Benedict, finding his intended spouse withheld from him,
and not feehng himself bound in honour by his bargain
with. Gratianus, after an absence of three months, re
appeared in Rome and asserted his former pretensions.
But though he succeeded in occupying the Lateran
palace, he was not able to drive either of his competi
tors entirely out of the city. The world, therefore,
beheld for some time the shameful spectacle of three
self-styled Popes, oppose.d to each other, living at the
same time in different palaces, and officiating at differ
ent altars of the papal city : Benedict performing the
sacred functions of his office in the Lateran ; Gregory
in St. Peter's ; and Sylvester in the Church of Santa
Maria Maggiore. The degradation of the once hon
oured chair of the Apostle had now reached its climax.
The scandal of these proceedings excited a general cry
of indignation ; and as the corruption and disorganiza
tion of all classes of Roman society seemed to preclude
the possibility of any reform originating at home, the
eyes of many were wistfully turned towards Germany,
as the only quarter from which a remedy for these
dreadful evils could be looked for ^.
Averse as the Romans usually, and naturally, were to
Teutonic control, the name of the young and enero-etic
Henry IIL, who now filled his father Conrad's throne,
' Bonizo, 1. c. '' Bonizo,

CHAP. m.J GREGORY VH. Ill
became familiar in their mouths as that of a desired
and expected deliverer; and in a rhythmical saying
which passed from mouth to mouth, he was implored
to come, and, as the vicegerent of the Almighty, to an-r
nul the unnatural union which connected three hus
bands with a single bride '.
But the monarch thus appealed to was occupied by
wars with revolted nobles or neighbouring nations, and
unable, during the year 1045, to attempt an expe
dition into Italy. The factions, therefore, continued
to rage in the distracted city of St. Peter ; and though
that of Gregory, after some little time, seemed to pre
ponderate over its antagonists, yet its chief found
himself compelled to propitiate his rival Benedict by
permitting him to retain that portion of the papal
revenues which was derived from England ^. And
through this circumstance, as well as the further
diminution of the income of the see which resulted
from the opposition of Sylvester, and the general
results of the struggle, Gregory found his pecuniary
resources miserably inadequate to the preservation
either of dignity in his government or of order in the
city ^ No pilgrim could now approach the apostolic
' Una Sunamitis nupsit tribus maritis.
Rex Henrice, Omnipotentis vice,
Solve connubium triforme dubiu-m,
Vid. Annalista Saxo ad ann.
' Otto Frisingens. vi. c. 32. This historian, not a contemporary
one, is evidently in error in describing the Archpriest John and
Gregory VI. as different persons. — Vid. F. Pagi Breviar. t. i. p.
504. ' Praeter pauca oppida vicina, et oblationes fidelium, pene nihil
haberet, quo se sustentaret. — Willielm. Malmesb. de gestis regum,
lib. ii! c. 13.

112 LIFE OF [book I.
threshold without fear of falling into the hands of the
robbers and murderers who infested the city and its
neighbourhood ' ; and Gregory, to subdue and chastise
them, found it necessary, not only to maintain a stand
ing body of troops, but repeatedly to put himself at
their head, and to proceed in person to the capture or
the slaughter of these outrageous offenders. He first
expelled them from the sacred limits of St. Peter's ;
then carried his arms further, and cleared the neigh
bouring towns and roads from their marauding bands '.
And when the incongruity of these warlike proceedings
with the sacred duties of the pontifical office raised an
outcry against him, his partizans met it by the singular
expedient of supplying him with a coadjutor, in the
person of Laurence, Archbishop of Amalfi ; a prelate
who for his assertion and enforcement of ecclesiastical
prerogative and discipline, had been banished from his
archbishopric ^ by Guaimar, prince of the city. Lau
rence, it was agreed, should officiate for the pontiff in
the offices of the Church, and should carry on the
general business of the papal government, while his
principal might still devote himself to his active, but
unpriestly, labours in the armed enforcement of public
tranquillity. Such an arrangement, as Gregory was an
unlettered man, probably suited him better than would
have done a partition of duties of an opposite kind.
While, by the nomination of the archbishop, those of
Gregory's partizans who were anxious for a reform of
' In medio foro sicarii vagabantur . . . Super ipsa corpora aposto-
lorum et martyrum, supra sacra altaria, gladii nudabantur, et obla
tiones accedentium vix dura appositas de manibus abripiebantur. —
Will. Malmesb. 1. c.
' Will. Malmesb. 1. c.
" Ughelli Italia Sacra, t. vii. p. 195. edit. Colet.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 113
the Church, secured the services of a strict and able
prelate toward the accomplishment of their designs '.
For unlettered as he was, and unworthy as had been
the mode of his exaltation, Gregory VI. seems to have
been supported against his rivals by whatever of high
feeling or catholic principle yet existed in the papal
city. A school was now growing up, at Rome and else
where, of men who, disgusted with the outrageous cor
ruptions of the Church, pined for her reformation ; and
who, at the same time, felt that such reformation, to be
essential and permanent, must be connected with her
liberation from the thraldom in which she had long
been held to regal or aristocratical power. The supreme
functions of her internal government having become, —
as though by the general consent of the collective epi
scopacy of the West, — entrusted to the pope, they saw
that the vigour of her administration must be crippled
throughout, if the pontiff continued either the depend
ent nominee of a German monarch, or the creature of
a Tusculan count. They beheld the spirit of feudalism
gradually drawing the hierarchies of the different
nations of Europe more and more into its system, and
confounding their spiritual character with the secu-
larities around them. And they could not but regard,
under existing circumstances, the interference of
Henry, as an event likely to consolidate that system,
by subjecting the papacy to a thraldom more complete
than it had at any preceding period experienced.
When, therefore, Gregory VL, under the most un-

' Laurentius, Amalfitanae sedis archiepiscopus, qui potens in
litteris ac biglossus, Grasce noverat et Latine, et, quod longe pree-
stantius est, laudabilis vitae claritate poUebat. — Petr. Damian. in
vita S. Odilonis.
VOL. I. I

114 LIFE OF [book I.
propitious circumstances, had succeeded in restoring the
appearance, if not the substance, of a canonical election
by the Roman clergy and people, he had drawn these re
formers, by a strong attraction, to his side ; as in the
success of his cause had become involved a practical
illustration of their leading principle. His competitors
they were, on all accounts, anxious to oppose ; and when,
as we have mentioned, they had put the virtual adminis
tration of the Church into the hands of Laurence, whom
they trusted and revered, they willingly forgot the errors,
the ignorance, and the simplicity, of her nominal gover
nor, and endeavoured to persuade themselves that his
pontificate would prove a distinguished era of eccle
siastical reform'.
They were, however, soon awakened from the dream
in which they thus hastily indulged. Henry IIL, having
at length satisfactorily arranged his northern affairs,
prepared, in the autumn of 1046, for an expedition into
Italy. This prince, who was then in the very prime of life,
having been born in 1016, had inherited to the energy
and abilities, as well as the sceptre, of his father
Conrad : and while he was actuated by the same
general principles of rectitude by which that father
had been characterized, he was able, in one respect, to
resist a temptation, to which Conrad, from the difficulties
of his position, had been induced to yield. In no single
instance is the fame of Henry IIL obscured by the
disgrace of simony. To that unholy practice, the young
monarch, from the beginning of his reign, displayed a
determined opposition; while the energy of his cha
racter, and the strength of his devotional feelings,
' Vid. Damiani lib. i. ep. i.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. ] 15
naturally induced him to rejoice in being called to the
part of a reformer of the Church. Like his contem
poraries, he was impressed with the idea that the
episcopal power of that Church was by divine appoint
ment mainly concentrated in the Roman see ; and he
therefore, felt that he could undertake no holier task,
than the liberation of that see, from the factions which
tyrannized over, and the corruptions which polluted it.
But unfortunately, alike for the permanence of his
improvements, and for the future destinies of his own
imperial house, Henry undertook this task, — a feudal
monarch, — with a mind thoroughly imbued with the
feudalizing system of his father and of the day. His
own sovereign power was that which events around
him were conducing to render the sole independent,
substantive, authority in the political constitution of
society. All grades and orders of civil dignity were,
at the moment, systematically ranging themselves in
relations of definite subordination around the steps of
the imperial throne, and deriving from those relations
a principle of strength and permanency unknown to
them before. And the Church afforded, in her outward
circumstances, no indication, that the formation of such
relations would not, in her case, be equally beneficial.
On the contrary, the principle of feudalism, the strong j
and prevailing principle of the day, seemed, at first
sight, to hold out to her the only means of imme
diately and efficiently coping with the dangers and
difficulties which beset her. And, this being the case, I
the sovereign was of all men the least likely to open
his eyes to the evils probable in future to result from
an undue exertion, in this direction, of the regal pre
rogative. Henry set out, therefore, with the purpose, — it would
I 2

116 LIFE OF [book I.
be scarcely fair to say, the intention, — of making the
Church's spiritual governors independent of every other
external authority, by binding them in close dependence
on the authority of his central throne. Conscious of his
good intentions, and confident in his power, he deemed
that he should thus secure moral weight to their author
ity, and energy to their efforts, for carrying into effect
the reformation which he desired ; and, as he was
prepared scrupulously to avoid all violation of the out
ward forms and decencies of ecclesiastical independence,
— as he showed, by his consistent practice, a deep rever
ence for the majesty of the Church and of her minis
ters', — he probably little understood the real nature of
the precedent which he was setting; — little dreamed,
that, by his measures for the remedy of temporary evils,
he was founding a system of a permanent nature, — a
system, by which the Church which he revered would
ere long have been depressed from her original state
of substantive existence, into that of a mere creature and
' organ of the secular ruler ; and by which, therefore, had
it been destined to receive consolidation, she would have
been subjected to a more galling, as well as a more last
ing, degradation, than the vices or follies of her pastors,
or their controllers, had ever as yet brought upon her.
Those who, as we shall find in the sequel, protested
against that system, and resisted its accomplishment^
'^did so as asserters of pontifical, rather than of episcopal,
_^erogative. But, however unauthorized the steps by
wiiich the Roman Patriarch had become the sole repre
sentative of apostolic power in the West, he was, de
facto, such a representative at the epoch in question ;
' Henricus III. nunquam insignia regalia sibi praesumpsit im-
ponere, nisi clam confessionis ac poenitentiae verberum insuper satis-
factione, licentiam a quolibet saeerdotum suppliciter mereretur. 
Annonis vita, c. vi. in vita SS. a Surio, t. vi.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 1 17
and might consequently, as against an external and
intruding power, fight with honour its battles, and -
assert with truth its rights. The power of the papacy, \
with all its defects, was, as should be recollected, itself i
episcopal. The internal government of the Church was j
not, by the Roman Patriarch's elevation, taken out'
of that sacred body in which the Redeemer had placed /
it, however irregularly within that body it had come to i
be distributed ; and therefore the churchmen of the day, j
in contending against its menaced transference from
the papal chair to the imperial throne, may unquestion
ably be considered as witnessing, — in a manner, — to
the truth, and asserting the legitimate privileges of the
Catholic Church. But their real position will be best -
explained by a continuance of the narration.
Henry III. was received in northern Italy by the
powerful and magnificent Boniface, Margrave of
Tuscany', with a splendour which dazzled and surprised
him. In Pavia, he held, on the 25th of October, a
counciP, which was attended by nine-and-thirty of
the most distinguished bishops of Germany, Italy,
Burgundy, and France ; with whom he conferred on the
' Boniface was son to Tedaldo, Count of Modena, Reggio, Mantua,
and other places, and had been enfeoffed with the duchy and mar-
quisate of Tuscany by Conrad the Salic. When Henry IIL, on
his Italian expedition, arrived at Mantua, Albert, the Viscount, or
deputy, of Boniface in that city, presented him with an hundred
horses, and two hundred birds of chace, — a present, which naturally
impressed the monarch with a high idea of the magnificence of a
noble, whose dependents were thus wealthy. Henry subsequently
invited Albert to dine at the royal table ; but the Viscount excused
himself, saying, that even his own maister had never honoured him
with such an invitation ; nor was it till he had received permission from
Boniface to do so, that he obeyed the royal summons. — Vid. Doranizo.
' Herman. Contract.

118 LIFE OF [book 1,
state of the pontificate, with a view to the deposition of
all its existing claimants. But the prelates declared
that a bishop, and much more a pope, could not be
condemned unheard ; and Henry therefore invited Gre
gory VI. to join him in northern Italy. This simple and
ignorant man', trusting in what he considered the purity
of his intentions, and in the feeling which existed in the
papal city in his favour, unhesitatingly set out for the
imperial court; and, presenting himself before Henry at
Piacenza, was received by the king with all honour and
distinction ^. Thence he proceeded, with the monarch
and his train, to Sutri, a town about thirty miles to the
north of Rome ; where Henry, again halting, summoned
a council around him ', at which Gregory, as pope, took
the presiding seat. His late competitor Benedict
having retired and abandoned his claim, no step, with
regard to him, was thought necessary ; but Sylvester
was condemned to be deprived of his episcopal and
sacerdotal rank, and to be confined for the remainder
of his life within the walls of a monastery *. And, this
haying been done, Gregory hoped that he should him
self be recognised as the unquestioned occupant of the
papal chair.
But the designs of the monarch were far different ;
he intended the removal of all from power in Rome
who had connected themselves with the disgraceful
history of the last two years. A difficulty, how
ever, stood in his way : the principles of the false
Isidore were now universally admitted ; and accord
ing to these, the pope, being himself the supreme
judge of bishops and all other ecclesiastical digni-
' Erat enim idiota et mirae simplicitatis  Vid. Bonizo, p. 801.
' Herman. Contract. Bonizo, 1. c. ' Herman. Contract.
* Bonizo.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 119
taries, could not be judged by them ; and Henry
was therefore obliged to use some management in
compassing his object. Under his auspices, before the
council of Sutri dissolved itself, the following scene took
place : — His bishops, the cases of Gregory's rivals hav
ing been disposed of, requested the pontiff to state, for
their information, the circumstances of his own election
to the papal office ; and when they had thus drawn
from him an admission of the unholy traffic by which
that transaction had been accomplished, they brought
before him the impropriety of his conduct in a manner
so glaring, that the confounded pontiff at length ex
claimed, " I call God to witness that, in doing what I
" did, I hoped to obtain the forgiveness of my sins and
" the grace of God. But now that I see the snare
" into which the enemy has entrapped me, tell me
" what I must do ?" The bishops having thus ob
tained their point, replied, "Judge thyself — condemn
" thyself with thy own mouth, — better will it be for
" thee to live, like the holy Peter, poor in this world and
" to be blest in another, than like the magician Simon,
" whose example misled thee, to shine in riches here,
" and to receive hereafter the sentence of condemna-
" tion '." And the penitent Gregory, in obedience to
the suggestion, spoke as follows : — " I, Gregory, bishop,
" servant of the servants of God, pronounce that,
" on account of the shameful trafficking, the heretical
" simony, which took place at my election, I am
" deprived of the Roman see. Do you agree," he con
cluded, "to this?" "We acquiesce," was the reply,
" in your decision ^ ;" and the ex-pope at once divested
himself of the insignia of pontifical authority \
' Bonizo. ' Bonizo. •" Victor iii. Dial. lib. iii.

120 LIFE OF [book I.
His path being thus cleared before him, Henry pro
ceeded to Rome. The resignation of Gregory, which his
partizans with some reason considered as a forced one,
excited in their minds a strong feeling of discontent.
They had recognised him as a pope, in form at least,
legitimately elected ; to him, as such, they had pledged
themselves by oaths of obedience ; and in the principle
with which they dentified his cause, they saw, as
they imagined, the only instrument which might avail
to save the Church from the impending danger of an
unqualified thraldom.
Those, however, to whom thoughts like these sug
gested themselves, were but few ; and the cause with
which they connected themselves was disgraced by too
many foul stains, to permit them to hope for any
general sympathy. Nor, however universal their feel
ings might have been, did there exist, in their long cor
rupted and degraded city, sufficient strength for any
demonstration in opposition to the German sovereign's
power. Henry, therefore, entered Rome, unopposed, on
the 23rd of December 1046. On the day following, he
assembled around him, in the Church of St. Peter, in
addition to the prelates who had formed his council at
Sutri, the clergy and the other most influential per
sonages of Rome ; and bade them proceed, in his
presence, to the election of a pontiff. This task, his
audience, as he probably intended and expected, de
clined, and begged him to accept, with the dignity of
Patrician of Rome ', the office of selecting their future
^ The title of Patrician was originally given to the emperor's de
puty and representative who resided in the papal city. But during
the unquiet times of which we have been treating, the dignity be
came in great measure an independent one, and was seized at differ
ent periods by powerful nobles of Rome for the sake of its privileges.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 121
pastor. He, upon this, assumed the green mantle, the
golden circlet, and the ring, which designated the
dignity in question; and then taking the hand of
Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who had accompanied
him from Germany, he led him up to the papal chair,
and placed him there to receive the general homage of
the assembly '.
It was alleged, as a reason for this elevation of a
foreigner to the Roman see, that the papal city con
tained at the time no persons worthy to fill that
exalted station ^ But, however this might have been,
Henry was of course glad to seize any pretext for con
firming his control over the Romans, by the nomination,
to the pontificate, of a friend and countryman of his own.
The pontiff, thus selected, was enthroned on the
following day, the Feast of the Nativity, under the
name of Clement II. ; and immediately afterwards ex
ercised, for the first time, the power with which he had
been invested, by placing the imperial diadem upon the
head of his patron ; crowning at the same time, as
empress, Henry's second consort, Agnes, the daughter
of William, Count of Poitiers ^.
Early in the following January*, Clement held, in
one of which was the right of presiding over pontifical elections.
And the expedient of investing the emperor himself with this, appa
rently secondary, dignity seems to have been adopted on various
occasions, as a mode of protecting the city from the oppressions of
such petty tyrants as might otherwise usurp it.
' Herman. Contract. — Benzonis Panegyric, in Henr. III. lib. vii,
c. ii. p. 1062, in Menckenii Script. Rerum Germ.
' Victor iii. dialog. — Leo Ostiens. in Chronic. Casinens.
' Herman. Contract. — Annalista Saxo. — Glaber. Rodulph. 1. v.
c. i. — Chronograph. Saxo.
* Circa nonas Januarias. Vid. dementis II. liter. Synodic, ap.
Hard. t. vi pt. i. p. 923.

122 LIFE OF [book I.
Henry's presence, a council, in which the emperor
declared his determination to extirpate the detestable
sin of simony by every means in his power. The
acts of this assembly, bearing on the general question
of reformation of manners, no longer exist in an official
shape, but we learn the tenor of one of its decrees from
contemporary authority ; namely, that every person who
had been admitted to orders by a simoniacal prelate,
whom he knew to be such at the time of his ordination,
should be prevented from exercising the duties of his
ecclesiastical station, until he should have atoned for
his offence by a penance of forty days '. And with the
view of preventing, for the future, the exercise of this
unhallowed traffic in the highest quarter, and of
rendering impracticable those nefarious bargains and
sales of the papacy which his age had too often wit
nessed, and of which the notorious venality of the
Romans rendered the recurrence too probable, Henry
exacted, and received from them, the solemn pledge,
that the elections should be placed for the future under
his entire control, and that no one should presume to
nominate a pastor to the apostolic see, without the
previous sanction of the imperial ^ or, as it should per
haps be said, of the patrician, authority '. And having
thus shown himself the enemy of ecclesiastical abuses,
and settled, as he hoped, the government of the Church
' Damian. Opusc. vi. c. 35, and Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 925. Bonizo,
p. 802.
' Ut ad ejus nutum sancta Romana Ecclesia nunc ordinetur,
ac praeter ejus auctoritatem apostolicas sedi nemo prorsus eligat
sacerdotem. — Damian. Opusc. vi. c, 36.
' Henricus imperator, factus est patricius Romanorum, a quibus
accepit in electione super ordinando pontifice principatum.— Damian.
in Concil. Osbor. ap. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1123.
13

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 123
on a safe and permanent footing, he quitted the papal
city, and having in the first place attended to some
matters which required his attention in southern Italy,
returned across the Alps to his native country ; carry
ing with him into banishment the deposed Gregory VL,
together, it would seem, with some of his more active
supporters '.
This last measure may be considered indicative of a
consciousness, on Henry's part, that a party, possessed of
some weight in Rome, had been offended by his recent
demeanour, and was yet disposed to assert the deprived
pontiff's cause. But what the strength of that party
really was, the monarch, in all probability, was far from
perceiving. With the supporters of Gregory VL, as
we have seen, were blended those who, while yearning
for the Church's general reformation, felt that such a
reformation was only to be effected, in connection with
her permanent liberation from the secular thraldom,
which had so long oppressed, and so often degraded her.
This party, if so we may style those who were yet
scarcely beginning to feel their union in the main
tenance of the same great principles, seems now to have
had its representatives spread over Western Europe;
embracing in its fellowship several of the most learned,
the most devoted, the most pure, among the Churchmen
of the day. But its apparent force, as a party, even in
its centre, the papal city, was, as yet, but small. The
' Some writers of a comparatively recent date, e. g. Baronius and
tbe Pagis, — state that Clement II. also accompanied Henry III. to
Germany, and cite a passage of Leo Ostiensis, which is probably a
corrupt reading, as it is not found in Muratori's edition of Leo. The
statement — an extremely improbable one in itself, — rests on no other
contemporary authority ; but is, indeed, at variance with the asser
tions of some of the most accurate chroniclers of the time.

124 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK I.
great majority of well-disposed men, naturally delighted
at their liberation from such scenes as those which they
had recently witnessed, and from the tyranny of such
factions as those of Benedict and Sylvester, were dis
posed to hail with acclamations every step of the re
forming monarch's career ; nor saw in that career the
assertion of any principle fraught with danger to the
future welfare of either Church or state. And Henry
himself, it is probable, did no more than concur in
opinion with these, in regarding the men, whom he
might perceive to be thus discontented, as theoretic
speculators, better acquainted with books than with
men, and vainly aiming, in human things, at a state of
ideal perfection. The monarch could not understand
the ties of sympathy which united these learned, pure,
and thoughtful men, with those whom similar studies,
similar contemplations, and similar purity of life, were
leading in other countries to the adoption of similar
sentiments. And still less could he appreciate the
power which their principles, when appealed to in hours
of trial, might exert over the hearts and affections of
mankind. He returned, therefore, to his German
territories, with the gratifying consciousness of having
performed a great pubUc duty ; and without, of course,
in the least imagining, that in the measure which he
had, to all appearance, so triumphantly and satisfac
torily accomplished, he had laid the foundations of a
struggle, which was to be the unceasing occupation
of his descendants, and to stamp with a fearful and
mysterious character the continuous destinies of his
imperial line.

BOOK II.— CHAPTER L
A.D. CIRC. 1020  A.D. 1052.
ORIGIN AND EARLY YEARS OF HILDEBRAND  HIS RESIDENCE AT CLUNI — APPEAR
ANCE AT THE COURT OP HENRY III. AND RETURN TO ROME — HIS ATTACHMENT
TO GREGORY VI., AND JOURNEY WITH THAT PONTIFF, WHEN DEPOSED, INTO
GERMANY — HENRy's COUNCIL IN THAT COUNTRY — DEATH OF CLEMENT II. —
INTRUSION OF BENEDICT — APPOINTMENT AND DEATH OP DAMASUS II. — ELEC
TION OF LEO IX. — HIS INTERVIEW WITH HILDEBRAND, JOURNEY TO ROME, AND
RE-ELECTION THERE — SYSTEMATIC COMMENCEMENT OF THE REFORMATION — CON
TEST BETWEEN HENRY III. ' AND GODFREY OF LORRAIN — SUBMISSION OF THE
LATTER — COUNCIL OF RHEIMS — OF SIPONTO— OP MANTUA — PERSONAL HABITS
OF LEO.
It is at the epoch of the council of Sutri, that we find
the name of Hildebrand, — the well-known appellation of
Gregory VII. antecedently to his pontifical election —
first mentioned in connexion with the public history of
the Church and of the empire. Of his earlier years, so
little is known with any degree of certainty, that it seemed
expedient to bring that little before the reader, in the
shape of a digression appendant to the main thread of our
history, rather than as a formal commencement of the
history itself. From its briefness, such a digression will
not materially interfere with the continuity of the narra
tion : and it is, in truth, so exclusively as a Church
man that Hildebrand has become known to posterity ;
so completely identified is his recorded career with the
annals of the Roman Church during the more active

126 LIFE OF [book n.
period of his life-time ; that the summary, which has
now been given, of the prior fortunes of that Church,
appeared fitter to serve as a general introduction to
the detail of his achievements, than would have been
that notice of his birth, boyhood, and youth, with which
the work of a biographer would more regularly have
commenced. The date of his birth is unrecorded ; but, from tbe
indications afforded by different passages of his history,
it would seem probable that that event took place
between the years 1010 and 1020. Nor is it quite
clear, either where he first saw the light, or from what
parents he derived his origin. But the most probable
account of these points seems to be that, which desig
nates, as his birth-place, the town of Soana, on the
southern borders of Tuscany ; and which ascribes to his
father the name of Bonizo ', and the humble occupation
of a carpenterl And, even if this statement should be,
in its detail, inaccurate, we seem to have no good
grounds for doubting that the main impression which
it conveys is correct ; and that the parentage of Hilde
brand was mean and undistinguished ; though some of
his historians, ashamed of this meanness of extraction,
' So Pandulphus Pisanus. Paul of Bernried has it Bonico, and
the Cardinal de Aragonia, Bonato, or Bonito. The same Cardinal
describes him as "patria Suanensis;" Pandulphus Pisanus and
Paulus Langius say, " natione Tuscus ;" but Hugo Flaviniacensis
declares that he was born of Roman parents at Rome.
" Addunt vero ista de fabri filio, quod cum puer luderet ad pedes
patris ligna dolantis ; ex rejectaneis segmentis, ciim nesciret literas,
casu elementa ilia formarit, ex quibus simul conjunctis, illud David-
icum exprimeretur oraculum, " Domiuabitur a mari usque ad mare ;"
quo significaretur, manum pueri ductante numine, ejus fore amplissi •
mam in mundo auctoritatem. — Baron. Annal. ad ann. 1073. Vid.
Mabillon. Prsefat. in P. Bernried. ap. Murator. Rer. Ital. Script, t. iii.
pt. i.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII, 127
have endeavoured to connect him with the noble family
of the Aldobrandini. He was soon, however, removed
from the paternal roof, to a fitter scene of preparation
for the toils and duties which awaited him. An uncle
filled, during the period of his childhood, the situation
of abbot of the monastery of St. Mary, on the Aventine
hill at Rome ; a relative, who may probably be identi
fied with Laurence, the archbishop of Amalfi, already
mentioned, unquestionably a patron and preceptor of
Hildebrand'. And, under the auspices of this person,
he received an education in the bosom of that Church
which he was destined to defend so conspicuously ;
rapidly acquiring a knowledge of what were then
styled the liberal sciences^, and exhibiting, from his
earliest years, the rudiments of that devotional tem
perament, which in after-life so strikingly characterized
him. He was, says one of his annalists, a monk from
his boyhood ;' his life, from its very commencement, was
one of abstinence, mortification, and self-command.
Arrived at man's estate, he undertook a journey
' Vid. Ughelli Italia Sacra, t. vii. p. 195. edit. Colet. — Laurence'
was consecrated Archbishop of Amalfi, a. d. 1030, ob. a. d. 1048.
Ibid. ' i. e. grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and
astronomy, or, as they were metrically enumerated, —
Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tonus, angulus, astra.
The three first of these were styled the trivium, the four last the
quadrivium. ^ Hildebrandum ... a puero monachura fuisse, disertis verbis
tradit Ordericus Vitalis, lib. iv. Hist. Ecclesiast. Vid. Mabillon
Praefat. in P. Bernried. For an illustration of his systematic self-
command in little things, see Damiani. Ipse mihi nuper confessus
es, quoniam ideo te funditus a porrorum, sive ceparum, perceptione
compescis, quia videlicet his acuminibus uberius delectaris. In his
itaque despicabilibus rebus et gravior abstinentia, et minor est gloria.
— Damian. Opusc. 32. c. I .

128 LIFE OF [bookii.
across the Alps. Disgusted with the general laxity of
manners which, during the dark period of which we
have been treating, prevailed at Rome, he perhaps
wished to perfect his habits of discipline, by association
with purier and stricter fraternities than those with
which he was familiar ; for we find that he fixed his
residence for some time in the celebrated and power
ful monastery of Cluni, in Burgundy, a spot in which
the monastic system is described, by writers of the day, as
existing in a state of the fullest perfection'. Here,
with all the ardour of a youthful and energetic spirit, he
embraced the ascetic habits of the place, and, at the same
time, endeavoured to complete the culture of his mind,
by a diligent application to all those branches of study for
which that celebrated monastery afforded opportunity ;
establishing for himself, by these means, a reputation
which drew on him the eyes of the whole community, and
caused the Abbot Odilo^ to apply to him the words of
the angelic prophecy concerning the Baptist, " He shall
be great in the sight of the Lord."
' Vidi siquidem paradisum quatuor Evangelistarum fluentis
irriguum, immo totidem spiritualium rivis exuberare virtutum: vidi
hortum deliciarum diversas rosarum ac liliorum gratias germinantem,
et mellifluas aromatum ac pigmentorum fragrantias suaviter red-
olentem, ut de illo vere valeat Deus omnipotens dicere, Ecce odor
filii mei sicut odor agri pleni, cui benedixit Dominus. Et quid
aliud Cluniacense monasterium nisi agrum Domini plenum dixerim,
ubi velut acervus est ccelestium segetum chorus tot in charitate
degentium monaehorum ? Petr. Damian. Epp. lib. vi. ep. iv.  Dum
tam districtum, tamque frequentem sanctas vestrae conversationis
ordinem recolo, non adinventionis humanae studium, sed Sancti
Spiritus magisterium esse perpendo, Vid. Ep. v. ejusd. libri (Ad
Monachos Cluniacenses).
' Himself an eminent saint. Vid. Vitain S. Odilonis Abbatis
Cluniae. Petri Damiani 0pp. t. ii. p. 179, edit. Paris, 1663. Odilo
was born, according to this authority, in 961, and died in 1048.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 129
After some time, Hildebrand set out on his return to
Rome; and having, either at Cluni, or previously to
the commencement of his travels, assumed in form the
monastic character' and habit, he is said to have
appeared, on his way into Italy, at the court of Henry
IIL, in the character of a preacher; moving the monarch,
after he had attended to his eloquence, to exclaim,
that he had never heard a man preach with such
boldness the word of God I But the zeal and the
strictness of principle, which had been matured at Cluni,
excited sentiments less favourable toward Hildebrand,
among the lax and self-indulgent churchmen of Rome,
when he once more took up his residence there. He
found, says Paul of Bernried, that a prophet has no
honour in his own country ; and was led, according to
the same historian, to determine on quitting once more
the unworthy city, and seeking, in other climes, more
congenial associates. But he had no sooner begun to
put this intention in practice, than doubts appear to
have arisen in his mind, of the propriety of the measure.
He might well feel, that, in leaving Rome, he was
deserting the spot in which heaven had imposed on
him the duty of bearing testimony against the wick
edness of the times. And when he had arrived at
Acquapendente, — thoughts like these embodying them
selves in the visions of his sleeping hours, — he imagined
that St. Peter, on three successive nights, approached his
' These are not to be confounded with holy orders. " Monks, in
" their first original, were generally laymen." Bingham, i. bk. vii.
c. 2. Nor, however common the practice of uniting the clerical and
monachal characters subsequently became, was it incumbent on
monks to be ordained till the time of Clement V. an. 1311. Ib.
^ Paul. Bernried. c. x., but the fact must be regarded as doubtful,
VOL. I. K

130 LIFE OF [book IL
bed, and commanded his return to the appointed sphere
of his duty; a command to which, — when the triple
occurrence of the dream had impressed him wdth the
belief that it was something more than an ordinary crea
tion of the imagination, — ^he lost no time in exhibiting
all dutiful obedience '.
We subsequently hear of him as the supporter and
friend of the unfortunate Gregory VI., whose deposi
tion has just been narrated. The appointment, already
mentioned, of his relative, or preceptor, Laurence, to
act as Gregory's coadjutor, was, in all probability, the
immediate cause of this connexion. But if the mind
of Hildebrand had already grasped, in any degree, those
principles, to the defence of which his subsequent life
was perseveringly devoted, the form of Gregory's elec
tion must have strongly biassed him, as it did other
Churchmen, in favour of that well-meaning but mis
guided pontiff's cause. After the council of Sutri,
Hildebrand, like his master, accompanied Henry on his
return into Germany, it would seem by constraint ^ ;
and we may well suppose that the monarch, aware, as
well of his abilities, as of his adherence to Gregory's
party, would be loth to sanction his continued resi
dence at Rome. Having crossed the Alps, he sought
— though not, it appears, until after Gregory's decease
— his former abode of Cluni ; where the respect which
' Paul. Bernried. c. xi.
' His own expression is " invitus ultra montes cum domino papa
Gregorio abii." — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1590. But this may refer to
a reluctance to acquiesce in the state of things which necessitated
the pope to undertake the journey. According to Bonizo, Hilde
brand went " volens ergadominum suum exhibere reverentiam," &c.
Vid. Ottonis Frisingensis episc. Chronicon, 1. vi. c. xxxii.

CHAP. lJ GREGORY VH. 131
he^ enjoyed among the inmates of the monastery, pro
cured his speedy elevation to the dignity of its Prior';
and where he was permitted to enjoy another brief in
terval of retirement and uninterrupted devotion, before
the course of events called him, as we shall hereafter
see, to active and unintermitting labours in the papal
city. Henry — ^for we now resume the thread of our public
history — on his return to Germany, lost no time in
manifesting his intention to persevere in the good
work on which he had entered, of purifying the Church
from her abuses. Summoning around him, during the
summer of 1047, the prelates of his country ^ he thus
spoke : " It is with sorrow that I address you, ye that
" stand in Christ's stead over the Church which He
" purchased with His blood. For, as it was out of the
" free grace of God the Father, that He was given
" unto us, and born of the Blessed Virgin, so did He
" enjoin His Apostles, 'Freely ye have received, freely
" give.' But ye, corrupted by avarice, are under a
" curse, because ye give and take in barter for the holy
" treasures which ye dispense : and even my father,
" for whose soul I am most anxious ^ was in his life-
" time too much led away by this accursed covetous-
" ness. He, among you, who feels himself sullied by
' At Cluni, under the abbot, there were two priors — a prior major
and a prior claustralis — the latter being a kind of deputy of the
former, and representing him in his absence. Vid. Antiquiores Con-
suetudines Cluniacensis Monasterii, ap. D'Acher. Spicileg. t. i.
p. 686, 687. Hildebrand was, probably, only prior claustralis.
^ Probably at Spires. Glaber Rodulphus, the chronicler of this
council, does not fix the scene of it ; but Hermannus Contractus,
speaking of Henry's visit, in this year, to Spires, says generally,
" Ibi colloquium cum regni principibus habuit."
' De cujus animae periculo valde pertimesco. — Glaber Rodulph.
K 2

132 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
" this sin, should, according to the letter of the canon,
" be forthwith deprived of the ecclesiastical office, —
" whatever it be, — which he may hold. For this, — this
" is the fearful sin which brings down judicial calami-
" ties upon our suffering people ; this it is which Hea-
" ven scourges among us by famine, by epidemic dis-
" eases, and by the sword."
The prelates around him, too generally conscious of
a participation in the guilt which he denounced, shrunk
within themselves; and, aware as well of his deter
mination of character, as of his plenitude of power,
trembled for the issue. Great therefore was their
relief, however overpowering their shame, when, in
answer to their acknowledgment of guilt, and supplica
tion for clemency, the monarch thus continued : " Go
" hence, employ that well which you have ill obtained ;
" and forget not, in your prayers, to implore mercy
" for the soul of my father, as of one involved in like
" criminality with yourselves." He then dismissed
them, demanding, previously to their departure, their
assent to a decree which enacted that no office or
station in the Church should thenceforth be made the
subject of purchase or sale, and that whosoever should
attempt the practice of such nefarious traffic should he
deprived of any office which he might have attained, and
be visited with the anathema of the Church. While,
with regard to his own future conduct, the emperor,
in the presence of the council, solemnly pledged him
self as follows : " As God has freely, of his mere mercy,
" bestowed upon me the crown of the empire, so will I
" give freely and without price all things that pertain
" unto His religion '."

' Glaber Rodulph. v. 5. Vid. Baron, and Mansi Concil. t. xix.
p. 627.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 133
Had the life of Clement II. been prolonged, he
would doubtless have continued to labour as an active
coadjutor in forwarding the plans of his energetic
patron. But the life of this estimable pontiff termi
nated on the 9th of October, 1047 '. And the notori
ous dislike of the Romans to a German pope, viewed
in connexion with the events by which Clement's death
was immediately succeeded, gave rise to a suspicion
that poison had been employed to shorten his exist
ence. For he had scarcely breathed his last, when
the Tusculan faction arose once more in arms, and
summoning their wretched creature Benedict IX. from
his retirement, seated the unhappy man once more
upon the throne of St. Peter ; a position in which he
was enabled, by the swords of his partizans, to main
tain himself during several months ^ : while the evils
and disorders to which Henry flattered himself that he
had put an effectual stop, began to reign anew.
Many, therefore, of those who had the most indig
nantly murmured at the complete subjection of the
Church to an imperial master, were driven, by these
sad circumstances, once more to entreat that master
to become the arbiter of her fate. The secret wish
of some of the clergy seems to have been, that Henry
should virtually annul the decision of Sutri, by re
storing to Rome the yet living pontiff, whom they con
sidered to have been uncanonically deposed. But this
wish they durst not express, and the suggestion conveyed
to the emperor, as the general wish of the Roman clerical
' Herman. Contract. — Leo Ostiens. — Abb. Ursperg. — The in
scription on Clement's tomb in Bamberg Cathedral gives the 10th as
the day of his decease, but this inscription appears to be modern,
though the tomb itself is probably the original one. Vid. Landgraf 's
Dom zu Bamberg, p. 3.
" Leo Ostiens,

134 LIFE OF [book IL
body, was, that he should nominate Halinard, the pious
and learned archbishop of Lyons, to the vacant apostolic
chair '.
Henry, truly anxious to make a good selection,
would probably have attended to the intimation ; but
Halinard, averse to the exaltation intended for him,
kept perseveringly aloof from his court ^ ; and the
monarch, thus compelled to look elsewhere, fixed his
choice, after much deliberation, on Poppo, bishop of
Brixen. The nomination took place at Christmas,
1047 ; but it was not till the following summer — 17th
July 1048 — ^that the pontiff elect was led by Boniface,
Margrave of Tuscany, to Rome; and there, — the intruder
Benedict flying before him, — was installed in his high
office, under the name of Damasus II. '
Previously to making this selection, Henry had writ
ten to request the advice of the leading prelates of his
realm on the momentous occasion. But the only
answer received by him, which embodied the feeling of
discontent, just adverted to, against the proceedings of
Sutri, seems to have been that of the firm and high-
minded Wazo, bishop of Liege. "Consider," replied
that prelate to the royal inquiry, " whether it be not
" the guidance of Heaven, by which the seat of a pope,
" uncanonically deprived, has been reserved for him ;
" when you see him still live, while the person whom
" your command had installed in his room is no more.
" My advice, therefore, since you have deigned to ask
' Diligebant enim eum valde Romani propter facundiam oris sui
et affabilitatem sermonis. — Chron. S. Benigni, in D'Acher. Spicileg.
t. ii. ' Ibid. p. 392.
' Patritiali tyrannide dedit eis ex latere suo quendam episcopum,
virum omni superbia plenum. Bonizo, p. 803, — Herman. Contract.
— Lamb. Scafnab. — Sigeb, Gemblac,

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VIL 135
" it, is, that your highness should not place another
" intruder in the chair -of a yet living pontiff; for
" neither do laws human nor laws divine allow, — and this
" the Fathers unanihaously testify, — that a pope should
" be judged by any but God alone. I protest, before
" God, and by the oath which I, an unworthy priest, have
" taken before you, that I can think of no advice more
" true, more sound, to give you in this matter '."
This message was naturally kept back from the
emperor, by those about him, as long as possible, nor
did it reach his ears until his decision in favour of
Poppo had been virtually made ; when the only result
which it produced was, that it induced Henry to treat
Wazo with an unwonted and unmerited coldness, during
the few remaining months of that respected prelate's
life. Wazo died in July, 1048, and the ex-pontiff,
whose cause he had advocated did not, it would seem,
long, if at all, survive him. For, though the circum
stance just narrated proves Gregory VI. to have sur
vived the nomination of Damasus, yet his death is
stated to have followed, at no long interval, his deposi
tion and removal to Germany ^.
But Henry had scarcely received the tidings of the
installation of the second pope whom he had given to
the chair of St. Peter, when they were succeeded by
the intelligence that the newly-enthroned pontiff was
no more. Damasus II. closed his earthly career on
the 8th of August ; within the brief space of three or
four weeks from his formal assumption of the duties of
his office ^ ; and the rapidity with which the one event
' Alexandri Gesta Episcoporum Leodiens. c. 62. ap. Martene
et Durand. Coll. ampliss. t. iv. p. 902.
^ Bonizo.
^ Bonizo. — Herman. Contract.— Leo Ostiens.

136 LIFE OF [book H.
succeeded the other, could not but tend to corroborate
the suspicions already current respecting the decease of
Clement, as well as to give rise to similar ones on the
present occasion'. Henry, therefore, on undertaking
again the arduous task of worthily filling the apostolic
see, had a new difficulty to contend with, in addition to
all those which had formerly perplexed him. He found,
among the German prelates, whom he first sounded
on the subject, a general reluctance to accept a dignity,
which appeared to be fraught with such mysterious
danger ^ He therefore turned his thoughts to the
bishops beyond the Rhine; and, with the view of making
a selection in that quarter, he summoned a council, to
be holden in their neighbourhood, at Worms, for the
Christmas of 1048.
Halinard of Lyons, it seems, yet continued to avoid
the imperial court, — or Henry could scarce have
failed to compel him to assume the pontifical name ;
— and, under these circumstances, when the coun
cil met, the unanimous voice of the dignitaries
assembled, proclaimed that Bruno, bishop of Toul,
was the fittest person to fill the papal chair. Bruno
was a native of Alsace, and nearly connected by
blood with Henry himself ^ His character was mild
and unambitious, his devotion fervent, his manners
courteous and popular; and he was possessed, if not
of commanding talents, at least of considerable energy
and activity of character. He was far from either
expecting or desiring his own elevation. When it was
first announced to him, he requested three days to

' Hunc Pontificem (Damasum II.) veneno a Benedicto IX. pro-
pinato extinctum asserit Benno. Pagi, Breviar.
' Bonizo, p. 803. ' Annalista Saxo.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 137
consider of his acceptance or rejection of the proffered
dignity ; and at the end of that period, in the hope of
being still permitted to decline it, he made before the
assembly a humble confession of his faults, and thus
endeavoured to "impress them with a conviction of his
unworthiness to occupy the throne of St. Peter. But
his efforts were vain : the assembly overruled his ob
jections ; the envoys from Rome who were present,
were urgent in their entreaties to him ; and he found
himself compelled to assume, on the spot, the style and
honours of a pontiff'.
The time had now arrived, in which Hildebrand was
destined to connect himself more closely than he had
yet done, with the leading transactions of his time ; and
to take his first overt step toward the practical realiza
tion of that theory to which he, and those who thought
vdth him, so ardently clung. Bruno knew and re
spected his zeal and his ability ; and, as he happened
to be at Worms during the session of the council, the
newly-chosen pontiff sent for him, and requested him
to be the companion of his intended journey to Rome.
" I cannot," said Hildebrand, " accompany you ;" and,
when pressed to declare the reason of this, probably
unexpected, refusal, he said, " Because you go to occupy
" the government of the Roman Church, not in virtue
" of a regular and canonical institution to it, but as ap-
" pointed to it by secular and kingly power ^" This led
' Vita S. Leonis Papae a Wiberto Archidiacono, 1. ii. c. 2. p. 291.
ap. Muratori, SS. Ber. Ital. t. iii. pt. i. ;— S. Leonis Papae IX.
vita a S. Brunone Signiensi Episcopo, Murat. t. iii. pt. ii. p. 347,
et seqq. — Bonizo, p. 803.
" Bruno, in vita S. Leonis ; but other authors give other scenes of
the dialogue in question. Otho Frisingensis describes it as taking
place at Cluni, and Bonizo in Bezan9on. Wibert describes Leo, as

138 LIFE OF [book II.
to a discussion, in which Bruno, gentle and candid by
nature ', and already, perhaps, inclined in his heart to
favour the principles which Hildebrand now advocated
before him, permitted himself to be convinced, that the
legitimate electors to the see of St. Peter, were the
Roman clergy and the people ; and he prepared to
shape his course accordingly. Returning to Toul, to
make the necessary preparations, and to take a farewell
of his diocese, he set out thence in a style very different
from that' which had usually been adopted by the nomi
nees of Teutonic sovereigns^ in their inaugural journeys
to the papal city. Instead of the rich pontifical attire
which they were wont, from the day of their nomination,
to assume, he clothed himself in the simple habit of a
pilgrim ^ ; thus publicly testifying to the world, that
notwithstanding the act of the German Henry and
his council, he considered that his real election was
yet to come. Leaving Toul on the third day from the
festival of Christmas, he halted, on his way, at the monas
tery of Cluni, and from hence, if not from Toul itself,
was accompanied by Hildebrand, in his unostentatious
progress to the papal city. At that city, bare-footed,
and clad in the humble guise which he had thus
assumed, Bruno arrived in the early part of February
1049^; and, as he found the clergy and people assembled,
and uttering hymns of thanksgiving and shouts of joy in
honour of his arrivaP, he at once addressed them, and
having announced to them the mode of his election in
Germany, entreated them fully and freely to declare
from the first accepting his dignity on condition of the assent of the
Roman clergy and people.
' Ut erat natura simplex atque mitissimus. — Bruno in vita.
' Contra omnium apostolicorum morem. Wibert. 1. ii. c. 2.
' Bonizo, p. 804. ¦* Wibert. 1. c. ' Wibert.

CHAK I.] GREGORY VII. 139
their sentiments on the subject. Their election, he
said, was of paramount authority to every other ; and,
if what had been done beyond the Alps, did not meet
with their general approval, he was ready to return —
a pilgrim as he had come, — and to shake off the burden
of a responsibility, which he had only upon compulsion
undertaken'. His discourse was responded to by an
unanimous shout of approval; and Bruno, installed
without delay in his high office, assumed thenceforward
the name of Leo IX.^
From this event may be dated the regular, system
atic, commencement of that important reformation, the
history of which will mainly occupy the following-
pages. The pontificate of Clement II. had been too
short to produce any effect, of a permanent nature, on
the tone of feeling and habits of the time. We have
seen that, on his decease, the scenes of anarchy and in
famy, by which the papal city had been previously con
taminated, had been enacted anew ; and that Damasus
IL, when at length nominated to the vacant apostolic
throne, expired almost in the moment of his occupying
it. The great work, therefore, was yet to be done : we
may believe the account of Leo's biographer, when he
says, that at the epoch of that pontiffs accession, " the
" world lay in wickedness, holiness had disappeared, jus-
" tice had perished, and truth had been buried, Simon
" Magus lording it over the Church, whose bishops
" and priests were given to luxury and fornication ' :"
and we may understand the feeling with which the
' Wibert. Bonizo.
" Herman. Contract. — Anselmi Monachi Eccl. S. Remigii Remens.
dedicationis hist., ap. Mabillon, Act. SS. Ord. S. Benedict. Saec. vi.
pt. i. p. 627. — Gotfr. Viterb. Chronic, pt. xvii.— Sigeb. Gemblac.
' Vita S. Leonis IX, a Brunon. Signiens. Episcopo.

140 LIFE OF [book II.
new pontiff's contemporaries seem to have regarded his
assumption of the papal dignity, as the commencement
of a new epoch, an era of blessings to the Church ' ; —
a feeling which, in the spirit of their times, they em
bodied in the legend, that, in his progress toward Rome,
his nocturnal musings were cheered by the harmonies
of angelic choirs, who, in unearthly strains, proclaimed
that the thoughts of the Almighty were now thoughts
of peace toward His afflicted people ^
Had the pontiffs, whom Henry previously nominated,
been permitted to exert a more durable influence over
the Church's fortunes, it is probable, that any reform
ation which they, under the monarch's auspices, might
have accomplished, would have borne a far less search
ing and decided character than that which was now
destined, under Leo and his ecclesiastical advisers, to
commence its operation. The emperor, in the innate
honesty of his heart, and in his undissembled reverence
for things sacred, hated the infamous practice of simony
with a determined hatred ; but there were features in
his character which could not but disqualify him for
the office of cleansing the Church from pollutions of
another kind, or indeed from acting at all, in the highest
sense of the word, as a reformer of the Church. With
all his good and noble qualities, Henry was not adorned
by the grace of personal purity'; nor did it byauy means
' Leo, qui quemadmodum scriptum est, coepit invocare nomen
Domini ... a quo omnia ecclesiastica studia renovata ac restaurata ;
novaque lux mundo visa est exoriri. Victor III. dialog. 1. iii.
^ Sigeb. Gemblac. — Wibert. — Chronograph. Saxo.
^ Erat afiabilitate gratissimus, ac liberalitate perspicuus, atque
humilitatis gratia praeditus .... universis circumcirca existebat
araabilis . . . Tamen, proh pudor ! unum in eo nimium erat repre-
hensibile, quod incontinentiji carnis luxuriae infamabatur. Glaber
Rodulph. V. c. i.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 141
comport with his disposition, while himself indulging in
forbidden pleasures, to take an active part in the repres
sion of a similar licence in others. It was not, there
fore, to him, energetic as he was in other respects, that
the Church could look with any hope for her deliverance
from evils which, more detestable than simony itself,
were at the same time even more widely prevalent, if
possible, around her contaminated altars.
The papal reformers, however, more comprehensive
in their views, as well as more pure in their lives, were
prepared to assail simony and impurity side by side;
and their mode of warfare against the latter of these
two rank offences was, as is well known, an appeal to,
and attempted enforcement of, those canons of the
Church, in their time generally recognised as authori
tative, but as generally disobeyed, which made a life of
virgin purity incumbent on all members of the sacred
ministry. The question of the abstract propriety of these strin
gent regulations, or of the enforcement of clerical
celibacy in general, is one far too broad and important
to admit of discussion here. The reader is, therefore,
referred to other sources of information for satisfaction
on this head, and for the particulars of such early events
in Church history, — the passing, for instance, of the
canon of Nice, or the part attributed to Paphnutius, in
the council of that city, — as bear upon this momentous
subject. It will suffice for the present purpose to
remark, that, during the two centuries which intervened
between the election of Nicholas I. and the period of
which we are treating, the Latin Church's adoption of
the principle that celibacy was incumbent on her
clergy, had been recognised by a number of decrees,
and illustrated by a variety of events. Direct con-

142 LIFE OF [book II.
demnations of the practice of clerical marriage will, for
instance, be found in the reply of Nicholas I. to the
queries of the Bulgarians, about A. D. 860', — in the
acts of the synod of Worms, A. D. 868 ^ — in the
epistle of Leo VII. about A. d. 938, to the Gauls and
Germans ^ — in the decrees of Augsburg, a. D. 952*, —
in the address of Benedict VIII. to the synod of
Pavia ^ about a. d. 1020, — and in the canons sub
sequently enacted by the same assembly ®. With the
view of guarding against violations of such precepts,
a variety of later synods repeated and enforced the
prohibitory canon of Nice, against the admission, by
priests, of any females, other than their nearest rela
tives, to dwell in their houses. Even this exception
was disapproved of by Hincmar of Rheims, who cited
against it a saying of St. Augustine, which had been
quoted by St. Gregory the Great ' ; and it was abro
gated by the councils of Mentz and Metz, in 888 * ; not,
as it appears, before it had been in certain cases most
fearfully abused^. A similar course was adopted by the
council of Nantes, about a.d. 895 '". The difference of
opinion between the Greek and Latin Churches on this
point, elicited from the celebrated Ratramnus, better
known by the name of Bertram, an essay, in which the
views of the latter are illustrated and maintained " ;
and before his time, Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, whose
canons were published about a. d. 750, had gone so fer
' Hard. t. v. p. 376. ' Ibid. p. 739.
' Id. t. vi. pt. i. p. 579. ' Id. t. vi. pt. i. p. 617.
' Id. ibid. . p. 803. ' Id. ibid. p. 813.
' Id. t. V. p. 397. ' Id. ibid. pp. 406. 491.
" Id. " Id. ibid. p. 457.
" Contra Graecorum opposita Bomanam Ecclesiam infamantium,
t. iv'. c. 6, in D'Acher. Spicileg. t. i. p. 103.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 143
as to direct the clergy, — as prohibited from marriage
themselves, — to abstain from presenting themselves at
the marriage-feasts of others'.
Justified, or not, as the Latin Church may have been
in thus perseveringly opposing the combination of the
sacerdotal with the marital character, we may perhaps,
— in the stringency and formality ofthe above canons, —
in the substitution of positive prohibition and denunci
ation for the tone of half-expressed, — ^half-hinted, — in
ducement and encouragement, in which celibacy is
recommended in holy writ, — trace another symptom of
that tendency to harden, — to systematize, — to cor-
porealize, — the sacred dogmas and mysteries of Revela
tion, which has been already adverted to, as character
izing the temper of the middle ages ; and as operative,
during those ages, in modifying to the eyes of men,
as well the fabric of the holy Church herself, as
the deposit of eternal truth committed to her care.
And, if so, it was not, of course, probable that men
whose minds, like those of the papal reformers, were
attuned by education to this prevailing tone of re
ligious feeling, should see any error in canons which,
while harmonizing wdth that feeling, presented them
with the most promising means of putting an end to
a state of things which filled them with the most
just, the most natural, indignation. For the battle
which, in fact, they undertook against their less strict
contemporaries, was, unquestionably that of purity
against impurity, of holiness against corruption. It
might be thought that the general neglect of the
restrictive ordinances in question, by enabling the

' Regula Ca«onicorum Chrodogangi, in D'Acher, Spicileg. t,
579.

144 LIFE OF [book IL
clergy to contract the engagements of marriage, would
have prevented their plunging to any extent into the
grossness of debauchery. But this, the dark, the damn
ing, records of the time show not to have been the
case. The priest who had habituated himself to trample
upon one precept bearing the impress of the Church's
authority, had passed the great moral barrier which sepa
rates the systematically, though imperfectly, dutiful, from
the habitually godless and profane: the consistency of his
character was marred ; and his progress to the worst
excesses of vice was, perhaps, accomplished by an easier
transition than had been his first bold step from obedi
ence to its opposite. The infamies prevalent among
the clergy of the time, as denounced by Damiani and
others, are to be alluded to, not detailed. Such pollu
tions might, it is conceivable, have been better com
bated, had the reformers of the eleventh century,
instead of enforcing to the utmost the strict tenor of
the Latin decrees, removed the married clergyman
from his position of fellowship with every class of the
licentious and profane, by adopting the less rigid
code of the Greek or other branches of the Church
Catholic. But a line like this, circumstanced as they
were, can scarcely be said to have been open to their
adoption. Seizing the means in their power, they set
themselves to achieve, — and did achieve, — a most im
portant reformation; and we may not think lightly,
either of their principles or of their labours, because
that reformation was imperfect.
Established at Rome, Leo lost no time in testifying
his respect and gratitude to Hildebrand, his adviser
and friend, whom he admitted to the order of sub-
deacon" in the Roman Church, and whom he placed
' Bonizo,

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 145
over the important church and monastery of St. Paul'.
The situation was a most honourable one : by connect
ing its occupier with the second great apostolic founder
of the Roman Church, it invested him with a character
second, in some respects, to that of the pope alone.
But it was also, at the moment of which we speak,
surrounded with the most fearful difficulties.
The estates of this holy institution had been stripped
of every thing valuable, by the predatory bands infest
ing the Campagna — the offices of devotion were sys
tematically neglected — the house of prayer was defiled
by the sheep and cattle who found their way in and
out through its broken doors ^; and the monks, con
trary to all monastic rule, were attended in their re
fectory by women ^ Hildebrand, however, in the
ardour of his soul, devoted himself to the accomplish
ment of an immediate reformation. Burning with
zeal, he seemed to see, in dreams, the great Apostle of
the Gentiles himself, engaged in the work of cleansing
the dishonoured sanctuary, and calling upon him earn
estly for aid in the operation *. And so actively did
he, in his waking hours, labour in this good cause, that
the evils, which he confronted, gradually disappeared
before his exertions. The affairs of the monastery were
restored to order, and the brethren were recalled to
habits of strictness and purity, suitable to the vows
which they had taken. And so strong, in after-life,
* Paul Bernried, c. xiii.
' Such profanation of holy buildings was not unparalleled at the
time. In some capitula of an author who seems to have fiourished
about this period, though his name and station is not known, it is
said, " Videmus ciebro in ecclesiis messes et foenum congeri." —
Vid. Mansi, t. xix. p. 705.
' Paul Bernried. c. xiii. * Ibid.
VOL. I. ^

146 LIFE OF [book II.
was Hildebrand's attachment to them, — so great
was his confidence in the efficacy of their united
prayers, — that if, at any time, he felt himself sinking
under the troubles and embarrassments which beset
him, he would send for them, and inquire what sinful
action had been committed among them, which closed
the ear of Heaven to the petitions, which he knew
that their community ever offered in his favour '.
The conduct of Leo, in the matter of his election,
could scarcely be acceptable to the imperial patron,
by whom he had been originally nominated. Henry,
however, was, in all probability, but imperfectly ac
quainted with its details; and as he was, at any rate, in
capable of appreciating the importance of the principle
which it asserted and exemplified, he may naturally
have seen, in the pilgrimage and apparent non-recogni
tion, by his nominee, of the validity of his appointment,
nothing more than further demonstrations of that
diffidence and humility, with which Bruno had, at the
first, striven to resist his contemplated elevation.
Henry knew, besides, the new pontiff, in the character
of an attached friend and relative, and would not,
therefore, be disposed to regard the details of his
demeanour with a jealous eye. And the monarch's
attention was, during the winter of 1048-49, powerfully
attracted in other quarters, by the wars and troubles
which afflicted and menaced his empire. For Godfrey,
Duke of Lorraine, surnamed the Bearded, whom he had
some years before refused to enfeoff with more than a
moiety of the territories held by that noble's father, the
' Tam singularem coepit habere fiduciam super opitulationibus
precum illorum, ut, si quando non liberaretur ab adversitatibus,
certissimum ei signum fieret, alicujus delicti impedimentum esse
inter eos : quo praesentiae ipsius examinatione correcto, solito cursu
liberationem ejus acceleratam ferret oratio. Paul Bernried. c. xiv.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 147
late Duke', had been thus rendered the determined
enemy of the imperial house ; and now, undismayed by
the ill success of a former struggle, had taken up arms
anew ; and as this disaffected noble had procured the
alliance of Baldwin count of Flanders and Dietrich count
of Holland, his revolt presented, at this juncture, an
appearance so formidable, that it seemed to require
Henry's most energetic efforts to encounter and suppress
it^- Nor could the monarch fail to be gratified by the
consisteht manner in which Leo, when once installed
iu his seatj proceeded to promote those measures of ec
clesiastical reformation toward which his own efforts had
been already so strenuously directed. The new pontiff
had found himself, at first, surrounded by financial
difficulties of a serious kind. The rapacity of some of
his worthless predecessors had so plundered the Apo
stolic see, that he could for a time obtain no income for
his maintenance ; and he even appears to have thought
of raising money by the sale of his vestments, and
flying to his northern diocese, when some seasonable
presents from Benevento diverted him from the design '.
Leo presided at a council, holden at Rome, on the 1 1 th
of April 1049, which was numerously attended by the
bishops of Italy ; and to these he, in the fervour of his
zeal, announced his intention of declaring void all
ordinations made by prelates tainted with simoniacal
¦ Gothelo, surnamed the Great, had enjoyed the duchy of upper, as
well as that of lower, Lorraine ; but this union of two fiefs, generally
divided, appeared to the emperor to invest a subject with too formidable
power ; and though Godfrey, for some time before his father's death,
had acted as his general assistant in the government of both, he was
only invested, on that event, with the duchy of lower Lorraine,
upper Lorraine being given to his brother Gothelo, surnamed " le
Faineant." — Vid. Art de verifier les dates.
' Herman. Contract.— Sigeb. Gemblac.
' Wibert. in vita S. Leoni,$, lib. ii. c. iii.
L 2

148 LIFE OF [book H.
practice. But against this a general cry arose from the
sacerdotal order. It was affirmed, and probably with
reason, that, were such a decree enacted, the Churches,
so widely had the evil spread itself, would be deprived
of persons to perform the necessary services, while the
laity would be driven to despair, by being bereft of
the offices and consolations of the ministry. And Leo
was therefore obliged to content himself with a re-enact
ment of the decree passed on the subject by Clement
two years before '. He then left Rome on a journey
northwards, and after holding, during Whitsun-week,
another council at Pavia ^ he proceeded into Germany :
anxious alike to forward in that country the work of
ecclesiastical reformation, and to appease the troubles
by which its civil relations were distracted. Appearing
in Henry's court, he found that monarch actively
engaged in preparations for the subjugation of his dis
obedient vassal, Godfrey of Lorraine; and, upon the
emperor's request, Leo pronounced against that rebel
lious noble the censures of the Church. By this step,
the spirit of Godfrey was subdued : he was smitten,
too, with penitence, in consequence of the burning of
the cathedral of Verdun, during the storming of that
city by his soldiers ; an event which, happening under
such circumstances, he imputed to himself as a crime.
And thus humbled, and pressed on every side by Henry's
arms, he was soon reduced to seek the pardon of his
offended sovereign; and for that purpose, to implore
the effectual mediation of Leo *.
' Damiani Opusc. vi. c. 35. — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 991. — Wibert,
in vita S. Leonis, lib. ii. c. iv.
' Herman. Contract. — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 991.
' Propter componendum statum ecclesiarum, et pacem Galliis
reddendam. Lamb. Schafnab.
* Herman. Contract. — Sigeb. Gemblac— Alexandri Gesta Epi-
scopor. Leodiens. cap. 1. — Lamb. Schafnab, ad an. 1046.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VlL 149
While this affair was pending, the pontiff, having been
requested, by the clerical authorities of Rheims, to
consecrate the Church of St. Remigius in that city,
availed himself of the opportunity, to announce his
inte'ntion of holding a council there, for the purpose of
a general inquiry into the condition and abuses of the
Church of Gaul. And the transactions which followed
that announcement strikingly show the moral power
then possessed by the papacy, even in kingdoms with
which it was not immediately connected. Several of
the French prelates and nobles took alarm at the
declaration of Leo's intention, and represented to their
king, Henry I., the danger which would result to his
authority, as well as to their own, from his permitting
the Pope to visit, for such a purpose, the cities
of France at his pleasure. And when the pope,
in opposition to the king's suggestions, showed him
self determined to put his intention in practice, the
monarch was afraid, in any more direct way, to thwart
it, than by summoning his bishops and nobles to
attend him on an expedition against some insubordi
nate vassals in another direction, and thus attempting
to diminish, as far as he might, the number of prelates
at the council '. Leo found, however, twenty bishops,
about fifty abbots, and a number of other ecclesiastics,
prepared to receive him, when he took his seat in form
in the synod of Rheims ^. But these dignitaries seem to
have attended rather for the purpose of submitting their
own lives and characters to the pontiff's investigation,
than of aiding him with their counsel, or pronouncing
sentence upon others. The transactions were carried on
by the single authority of Leo himself, in whom the
assembly recognized "the sole primate and apostolic
' Hard, t, vi. pt. i. p. 996. ' Ibid. p. 1009.

150 LIFE OF [book II.
governor ofthe universal Church '." His officer, a deacon
of the Church of Rome, opened the proceedings, by de
claring the subjects on account of which the council had
Nbeen convened — namely, simony; the unlawful inter
ference of laymen with things spiritual ; unlawful mar
riages ; the infringement of the nuptial vow ; the dere^
liction, by monks and clergymen, of their engagements ;
the part taken by the latter in secular warfare ^ ; several
incipient heresies; and the prevalence of crimes of
'the most odious nature. And then the prelates, — ^the
, German primate, the archbishop of Treves,- — being in
cluded in their number, — were called on by the same
officer, under pain of the anathema of apostolical
authority, to make a solemn declaration, in presence
of the assembly, that they had obtained by no
simoniacal traffic the sees which they respectively filled.
The German archbishop, and most of the other prelates,
complied with the demand ; while those who hesitated
to do so were questioned as criminals, and, upon an
inquiry being made into their conduct, were deposed,
or otherwise punished, as Leo himself thought proper
to decide. The council continued three days in ses
sion, and then broke up, after enacting twelve canons,
directed toward the restoration of church discipline and
the purification of ecclesiastical manners.
Leo then, revisiting the imperial court, presided,
together with the emperor, over a council, holden at
Mentz^; and there procured the adoption of several
regulations, similar in spirit to those of Rheims, against
the sin of simony; together, with others tending to
' Quod solus Romanae sedis pontifex, universalis ecclesiae primas:
esset et apostolicus. Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1003.
" De clericis mundiali militiae studentibus. Harduin. t. vi. pt. i.
p. 1002.
' Harduin. t. vi. pt, i. p. 1009. Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 151
the enforcement of those long-neglected canons of the
Church, which made celibacy imperative upon the
clergy. It seems to have been in this assembly that
the humbled Godfrey of Lorraine threw himself at the
emperor's feet, and received a personal pardon, though
his territories, now in Henry's power, were naturally re
tained by the victorious monarch. The council being dis
solved, Leo set out on his return to Italy, accompanied —
probably at Henry's wish — by the pardoned duke and his
younger brother Frederic '. In the latter, the pope found
talents and virtues, which highly prepossessed him in the
young noble's favour; and Frederic, having been ad
mitted to holy orders, was shortly appointed archdeacon
and chancellor of Rome. In Italy, Leo continued during
the next few years to labour with the same activity
which had distinguished the commencement of his
career, while, by the mission of Hildebrand, as his
legate, into France^, he endeavoured to continue, in that
country, the good work which the council of Rheims
had begun. In the spring of 1050, the pontiff held a
council at Siponto, and there deposed two archbishops
on the ground of simony '. Further measures against this
unhallowed traffic, and against clerical licentiousness,
were taken by him in a council at Rome in 1051*.
And in 1052, summoning a council at Mantua, he
attempted to carry the strictness of his reforms into
northern Italy. But the populace, incited by the lax
and corrupt clergy of the place, assailed his domestics,
while they waited at the door of the church in which
the assembly was convened ; and when he himself, in
consequence of the tumult, came forth, it was but to
behold the scene of outrage continued, while stones
' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ Berengar. de sacra coena adv. Lanfranc. edit. Vischer. p. 50.
' Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1027. " Ibid.

152 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK II.
and other missiles, aimed at those who had caught hold
of his robes for security, flew thickly about his person '.
He was compelled to close the meeting in disorder;
and though he presided, the following day, in greater
peace, over the assembly, he did not venture, under
these critical circumstances, to enforce his measures of
reform with the customary rigour.
The personal habits of Leo, while he thus actively
laboured in the cause of reformation, were of the most
ascetic nature; his life formed a consistent course of
abstinence and self-denial ; and the hours of sleep were
systematically abridged by his devotions : for, when at
Rome, it was his wont, thrice in the week, to walk bare
foot at midnight from the palace of the Lateran to the
church of St. Peter — from one extremity, that is, of
Rome to the other — accompanied by two or three only
of his clergy, for the purposes of praise and prayer ^ :*
a spectacle, which might well strike those with astonish
ment, who were accustomed to the scenes of infamy
and riot, by which the palace in question, and the papal
city in general, had been disgraced under the licentious
pontiffs of the preceding age. But circumstances arose,
not long after the events which have been above nar
rated, which induced this pure and holy pontiff to turn
his attention to undertakings of a very different descrip
tion, and to exhibit himself in the unwonted character
of a military leader. And as the causes which led to
his campaign had been long in progress, while that
campaign itself, though short, was fraught with con
sequences the most important to the papacy and to the
Church, the subject may be thought to deserve consi
deration in a separate chapter.
' Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1029.
^ Wibert. S. Leonis vita. Victor III. Dial. iii. Leo Ostiens.

BOOK II.— CHAPTER II.
A. D. CIKC. 900 TO A. D, 1054.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORMANS IN NEUSTRIA  POSITION OF SOUTHERN ITALV AT THE
COMMENCEMENT OP THE ELEVENTH CENTCRY-r-DEEENCE OE SALERNO, BY NORMAN
PILGRIMS, AGAINST THE SARACENS — NORMANS INVITED, BY GUAIMAR, PRINCE OF
THAT PLACE, INTO ITALY  GROWTH OF THEIR POWER THERE  THEIR VIOLENCE
AND CRUELTY  LEO'S JOURNEY INTO GERMANY TO SOLICIT AID AGAINST THEM  HIS
RETURN AND MILITARY EXPEDITION AGAINST THEM — BATTLE OF CIVIIELLA — HIS
¦ CAPTURE  HIS TREATY WITH THEM  HIS DEATH.
A NEW power, — that of the Normans ', — ^had, since the
commencement of the eleventh century, rapidly arisen
to consequence in southern Italy, — a power which the
occupants of the holy see could scarce fail to regard, at
the period of which we are treating, with the most
serious apprehensions. This warlike and enterprising
race, having, by naval expeditions from their native
Denmark or Scandinavia, long ravaged the northern
coasts and territories of France, obtained at length,
about the year 900, a permanent settlement in that
country, and gave their name to the fertile province
previously known by the appellation of Neustria. And
the century which followed this settlement, beheld,
* Vide, for the general history of the settlement of this people in
Italy, Muratori, Annali d'ltalia ; Sismondi, Hist, des Republiques
Italiennes ; Giannone, Ist. del Regno di Napoli. 9

154 LIFE OF [book II.
as might naturally have been expected, considerable
changes among them. Settled amidst a French popu
lation, they gradually adopted the language, and em
braced the religion, of the country ; though both the
one and the other underwent, it seems, a considerable
modification in their hands. They preserved, however,
through these mutations, the bold energetic spirit which
had originally distinguished them, and which, as they
extended their influence, stamped its impress so deeply
on the general chivalry of Europe. Nor did they, in
the process of refinement, entirely lose a less amiable
feature of the character which had originally belonged
to them, — the wiliness, which seems a constant charac
teristic of nations in the savage state ' ; insomuch that
the leaders under whom they ultimately spread them
selves over Europe, were for the most part as famed for
their deep-laid schemes and crafty policy, as for their
heroic achievements and personal daring.
The awe-inspiring character of their new faith, aided
perhaps by the splendour then incorporated into its
ritual, produced a strong impression on the fervent
temperament of the Norman race. But contemplating
that faith with gross and carnal eyes, they sought to give,
as it were, visibility to its unseen truths, tangibility to
its spiritual essence, by connecting it, as far as they
could, with objects and places yet visible and tangible.
They became assiduous pilgrims to the scene of the
Redeemer's ministry, and of the other great events
recorded in holy writ, as well as to all those spots which

' Gens militiae assueta, et sine bello vivere nescia, in hostem
impigre procurrere ; et ubi vires non successissent, non minus dolo
et pecunia corrumpere. Willielm. Malmesb. de gestis reo-um,
lib. iii. p. 57. ed. Savil.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VH. 155
legends then current indicated as having been dis
tinguished by subsequent manifestations of supernatural
power. And Italy, when this practice became frequent
among them, was visited by them in numbers ; both
as containing within itself many scenes of reputed
holiness, and as lying on the direct way to the yet
holier regions of Palestine.
Southern Italy, — that portion of the country which
now forms the kingdom of Naples, — was suffering, at the
commencement of the eleventh century, from a state of
confusion even more disastrous than that which we
have described as afflicting the northern provinces.
The emperors of Greece, from whom the bulk of their
Italian territories had been wrested by the conquering
arms of the Lombard kings, had, by degrees, on the
extinction of that formidable monarchy, resumed some
portion of their former power ; and Bari, the capital of
their south-Italian domains, was the residence of a
viceroy, styled the Catapan ; a title, from the corrup
tion of which, the province which they last possessed is
known, even now, by the name of the Capitanate. The
rest of the district which we are considering was sub
ject to petty dukes or princes, surviving representatives
of the once irresistible Lombard power ; or else apper
tained to large and commercial towns, which possessed
republican or aristocratic governments of their own.
The African coast, and even Sicily, was still subject
to the Saracen yoke ; and the Italian princes, in their
frequent feuds with each other, were often tempted,
forgetting the difference of faith, to request the aid of
these formidable neighbours, in the adjustment of their
quarrels. To such requests, the Saracens were ever
ready to accede : they were found, however, in most
cases, to fight more for themselves than for their allies ;

156 LIFE OF [book II.
and those had often the most cause to regret their
intervention, who had themselves invoked it. By the
close of the tenth century, the power and energy of
this martial people had materially declined; though
they were still the objects of general dread to the
effeminate inhabitants of Apulia and Calabria ; as they
still, from time to time, made descents upon the coast
of those provinces, fortified strong-holds, occupied
passes, and laid cities under military contribution. But
the land thus distracted between the mutual animo
sities and opposing rule of three races, the Greeks,
the Lombards, and the Saracens, was now to be visited
by a fourth, before whose energy and whose fortunes
all the three alike were destined to succumb.
In or about the year 1002, a petty flotilla ap
peared before Salerno, and a body of Saracens, land
ing under the walls of the place, demanded, with
the customary menaces, a pecuniary contribution.
Guaimar IIL, prince of Salemo, and his timid sub
jects, felt that they had no course to adopt but submis
sion ; and their surprise was great, when about forty
pilgrims from a distant land, who happened to be at
the moment within their walls, requested of the prince
arms, horses, and permission to chastise these insolent
marauders. The request was readily complied with :
the pilgrim warriors, accoutred in haste, galloped
eagerly forth through the gates of Salerno ; the Sara
cens, confounded and dismayed, fled tumultuously
from the onset of this unexpected foe ; and esteemed
themselves happy when their retreating barks bore
them out of reach of the sword of the victorious
Normans'. ' Leo Ostiens.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 157
The delighted Guaimar would willingly have been
prodigal in his bounty toward his gallant deliverers ;
but he experienced a second surprise, when the costly
presents which he laid before them, were firmly, though
courteously, rejected. " For the love of God, and of
" the Christian faith," said the chivalrous pilgrims, " we
" have done what we have done ; and we may neither
" accept of wages for such service, nor delay our return
" to our homes." They departed accordingly ; but not
unaccompanied. Guaimar sent with them, to their
native land, envoys, laden with presents, such as might
best tempt the countrymen of these hardy and dis
interested warriors, to enlist in his service. Specimens
of southern fruits, superb vestments, golden bits, and
magnificent horse-trappings', attracted and dazzled the
eyes of the population of Normandy, and produced on
the enterprising youth of the province their natural
effect. Encouraged by the glowing description given
by their friends of the sunny clime which they had
visited, and of the opportunities, there offered, of enter
prise and honour, swarms of northern warriors crossed
the Alps : they were readily and honourably welcomed
by Guaimar and other princes of southern Italy ; and
engaged, under one banner or another, in most of the
intestine quarrels which at that period distracted the
country^ The principal band of these warlike colo-
' Citrina per eos poma, amygdala quoque et inauratas nuces, ac
pallia regia, et equorum phaleras auro argentoque distinctas illuc
dirigens, ad hujusraodi gignentem humum illos non modo invitabat,
verum attrahebat. — Leo Ostiens.
' Leo Ostiens. Vincit pecunia passim.
Nunc hoc nunc illo contempto, plus tribuenti
Semper adhaerebant ; servire libentius illi
Omnes gaudebant, a quo plus accipiebant. Gul. Appul.

158 LIFE OF [book II,
nists, subsequently to the death of Guaimar IIL, passed
from the service of his son Guaimar IV. into that of
the Greek emperor Michael, surnamed the Paphla-
gonian ; and served with honour under his standards in
an expedition undertaken against the Saracens of Sicily.
But, upon their return to the main-land of Italy, dis
satisfied with their new masters, and incited by Ardoin,
a Lombard chief, who had a personal quarrel with the
Grecian governor, they declared war, in their own
name, against the Eastern empire ; and, with Ardoin
at their head, endeavoured to effect the expulsion of
the Greeks from Italy. Two campaigns, those of
1042 and 1043, sufficed to make them masters of
Apulia. Melfi, near the Ofanto, became the central
point, or capital, of their states ; and was in the first
instance governed by the joint authority of the Lom
bard Ardoin, and of William of Hauteville, surnamed
Iron-arm, their native leader. Twelve important towns,
Siponto, Ascoli, Venosa, Lavello, Monopoli, Trani,
Canne, Monte Peloso, Trivento, Acerenza, Sant' Angelo,
and Minervino, became in a little time the respective
appanages of as many counts, who participated with the
rulers of Melfi in the exercise of the general powers of
government ; and who thus gave to the first rude con
stitution of the Normans in Italy the character of a
military oligarchical republic. But as the principal
cement of this hastily formed government was the
conviction of their subjects, that such an organization
presented the most promising mode of gratifying their
cupidity, and of protecting themselves from the retali
ation of those whose possessions they had plundered ;
these rulers found themselves unable, even if they were
desirous, to prevent the continuance of a system of
violence and marauding, which rendered the name of

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 159
Norman a terror to Italy. The precepts of their new
religion, and the awe inspired by the superstitions with
which it was in their minds connected, became alike
powerless to allay in the northern warriors the thirst
for gain ; and many a consecrated pile and holy spot,
which had witnessed their devotions, when they came
as pilgrims and worshippers, was subsequently pro
faned, by their appearance as bandits and despoilers.
The tidings of these sacrilegious acts soon reached,
of course, the ears of Leo IX. And when he saw that
the insulters of the Church were also the ruthless
oppressors of their fellow-creatures, — when he beheld
the southern gates of Rome daily throijged by the
wretched inhabitants of Apulia, who, destitute, blinded,
and horribly mutilated, were seeking a refuge from
further tyranny behind the sheltering walls of the
papal city ', the pitying pontiff yielded himself entirely
to the impulses of his benevolent nature; and, — without,
perhaps, a due consideration of the measure — formed
the plan of leading an army in person against these
barbarous intruders, and expelling them from all those
possessions of the Roman Church which they had pre
sumed to occupy.
Intent upon this project he, in 1052, crossed the Alps
once more, with the view of soliciting assistance from the
Emperor in its execution ^ and arrived at a moment
in which that monarch was actively engaged in warlike
operations on the borders of Hungary. Henry seemed,
' Multi ex Apuliae finibus veniebant, oculis eifossis, naribus
abscissis, manibus pedibusque truncatis, ac Normannorum crudelitate
miserabiliter querentes. Unde factum est, ut vir mitissimus, pietate
et misericordia plenus . . . compatiens . . . illius gentis superbiam
conaretur humiliare. — Bruno in vita S. Leonis.
' Herman. Contract.

160 LIFE OF [BOOK IL
notwithstanding, at first well disposed to accede to the
pontiff's wishes ; but circumstances made it difficult to
detach any large body of troops on so distant an errand;
and Leo, after attending, during some months, the pro
gress of the imperial court, set out, in the early spring
of 1053, for Italy, accompanied only by about 500
German warriors', under the command of an officer
named Werner ; even this scanty force being in great
measure composed of volunteers. But when once
more in Rome, he issued a general invitation to the
natives of Italy to range themselves under the sacred
banner of St. Peter; and a motley multitude, consisting
chiefly of Apulians, Campanians, and inhabitants of
Ancona, responded to the call. Some were animated
by a natural feeling of animosity toward the oppressors
of their country ; some heard a summons from Heaven
in the voice of its minister, and marched to the field
under emotions similar to those which, in the following
' Less than 700, says Gulielmus Appulus, who thus proceeds to
describe their nation : —
 haec gens animosa feroces
Pert animos, sed equos adeo non ducere cauta,
Ictibus illorum, quam lancea, plus valet ensis :
Nam nee equus docte manibus giratur eorum,
Nee validos ictus dat lancea, praeminet ensis :
Sunt etenim longi specialiter et peracuti
Illorum gladii, percussum a vertice corpus
Scindere saepe solent, et firmo stant pede, postquam
Deponuntur equis, potius certando perire
Quam dare terga volant, magis hoc sunt Marte timendi,
Quam dum sunt equites : tanta est audacia gentis,
Italiae populo qui se sociaverat illis.
Germani comites praesunt Transmundus et Atto
Et Burrellina generata propagine proles.
Gul. Appul. historic. Poema de gestis Normannorum,
1. ii. ap. Murator. SS. Rerum Ital. t. v. p. 260.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 161
age, inflamed the bosoms of crusaders ; while others, of
a different description, were either lured to the cam
paign by ordinary hopes of plunder, or led to imagine
that their service in such a cause might in some degree
extenuate, in the eye of Heaven, the criminality of
their previous career.
Opinions widely different from each other have been
entertained respecting the propriety of Leo's conduct
in this matter'. Whether Hildebrand, — trusted and
deferred to as he constantly was by the pontiff, — took
any active part on the occasion, is not clearly known.
His participation in the project is invidiously urged
against him by his embittered adversary, Benno ; but
the statement appears to be unsupported by other con
temporaneous authority ; and the work of Benno is filled
with so many palpable calumnies against Hildebrand,
that nothing in the nature of an accusation can be
worthy of credit which rests upon his evidence alone.
It is, however, undeniable, that Hildebrand, when exalted
to the papal chair, himself entertained, as we shall sub
sequently see, a somewhat similar project. But it is
also a fact, that his friend, and the principal organ of
the party, so to call it, with which he at the time was
acting, — the celebrated Peter Damiani, — -Tias left on
record his protest against the assumption, by the suc
cessor of St. Peter, of that earthly sword, the use of
which had been, by our Lord Himself, forbidden to the
Apostle ^
Such a proceeding, against a professedly Christian
people, might justly at that epoch have been styled un-
|recedented. Familiar to the age as was the sight of
' Vid. Baron. Annal. ad an. 1053, n. 10 et seqq.
' Vid. Damiani, 1. iv. ep. 9, et Baron. 1. c.
VOL. I. M

162 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
ordinary bishops accompanying their retainers to the
field, it was long since the spectacle had been exhibited,
of an army avowedly led to combat by the acknow
ledged Father of the Christian world ; and, though
John X. had, it is true, somewhat more than a century
before Leo's time, conducted his forces to the field,
it was against Mahometans that he engaged in battle
on the Garigliano'; and, not to mention the former
decrees of prelates and councils upon the subject, one
of the twelve canons of Leo's own council of Rheims
expressly forbad the participation of the clergy in secu
lar warfare ^. But the compassionate pontiff was, in
all probability, too strongly influenced by his feeUngs to
reflect on the sanction, which — in appearance, at least —
he was giving to a practice so recently condemned ; nor
did he, it seems, at all calculate upon the effusion of
blood ; but hoped, by the force which he reckoned on
arraying in the field, to reduce the enemy to immediate
submission ^
It was on the 18th of June, 1053*, that Leo's troops
confronted those of the enemy near the town of Civi
teUa. The Normans, when aware of his intentions,
had made all preparations in their power to ward off the
coming bloV. William Iron-arm was no more; but
his brothers, Humphrey and Robert, — the latter of

' A. D. 916. Luitpr. lib. ii. c. 14.
' Ne quis clericorum arma militaria gestaret, aut mundanae
militiae deserviret. Concil. Remens. canon vi. Hard. t. vi. pt. i.
p. 1007.
' Non ut cujusquam Northmannorum seu aliquorum hominum
interitum optarem, aut mortem tractarem, sed ut saltem humano
terrore resipiscerent, qui divina judicia minime formidant. Leonis IX.
epist. ad Constantinum Monomachum. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 959,
' Herman. Contract.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 163
whom, subsequently surnamed Guiscard, had recently
arrived in Apulia with a considerable reinforcement to
the Norman forces, — succeeded to the command of his
intrepid warriors; and Richard, count of Aversa, the
chief of a smaller, but independent, Norman colony in
Italy, brought all the force which he could muster to
the defence of the common cause. But the Normans
were dispirited : rumour had magnified among them
the scale of the papal preparations, and they were
awed by the sacred character of him in whom, even
while he was their enemy, they recognized their spiritual
parent. The heralds, therefore, who approached Leo
while he was yet within the walls of CiviteUa, assumed
an humble tone' ; they deprecated his hostility, and
informed him, that the Norman princes, though they
declined to abandon possessions which they had won,
were ready to hold their conquests thenceforward by
his grant, and to do suit and service for them to him, as
to their lord paramount ^ But the tall, bulky, Germans,
by whom the pontiff was surrounded, smiled in scorn
when they beheld the diminutive though active forms
of their adversaries ^ ; and Leo, inspired by their con
fidence, as well as by his conviction of the goodness of
his cause, rejected the overtures of the Norman leaders,
and demanded the total abandonment of the lands
which they had recently usurped from St. Peter*. This
the Normans declined to concede, and therefore, feel-
' Herman. Contract. ^ Ibid.
¦* Teutonici, quia caesaries et forma decoros
Fecerat egregie proceri corporis illos.
Corpora derident Normannica, qua3 breviora
Esse videbantur, nee eorum nuntia curant. Gul. Appul. p. 259.
* Herman. Contract. — Gul. Appul. 1. c.
M 2

164 LIFE OF [bOOKIL
ing that no other alternative lay before them, they
gave the signal for battle, before Leo had issued from
the gates of CiviteUa. The result of the action which
now took place, falsified alike the confident antici
pations of the one party, and the desponding auguries
of the other. The impetuous charge of the Norman
chivalry at once unmanned the timid Italians who com
posed the bulk of Leo's army ; and who fled in every
possible direction. Werner and his German band met
the shock with the calm courage of their country ; but
the Normans, unresisted elsewhere, turned their flanks,
and hemmed them in on every side ; until this gallant
troop, contending valiantly to the last, covered with
their corpses the ground which they had occupied. But
for their resistance, — so sudden was the flight, so rapid
the dispersion, of Leo's army', — the business of the day
might seem rather to deserve the name of a slaughter
than of a battle '.
The conquering chiefs pushed on without delay,
through the streets of CiviteUa, into the presence of
Leo^ But they no sooner beheld the venerable pontiff,
' Occulto Dei judicio ; sive quia tantum sacerdotem spiritalis
potius quam pro caducis rebus carnalis pugna decebat ; sive quod
nefarios homines quam multos ad se, ob impunitatem scelerum, vel
quaestum avarum confluentes, contra itidem scelestos expugnandos
secum ducebat ; sive divina justitia alias, quas ipsa novit, ob causas
nostros plectente. Herman. Contract.
' The carnage, according to Godfrey of Viterbo, who dedicated his
history to Urban III., was so great, that a pile, composed of the
bones of the slain, was even in his time pointed out to strangers by
natives of the country. Gotf. Viterb. ap. Pistor. t. ii. p. 338.
' According to some accounts, Leo was without the city during
the battle, and when, after its termination, he sought refuge within
its walls, he was repulsed from it by the citizens, from their fear of
his victorious enemies. Vid. Gaufrid. Malaterr. Hist. Sicul. lib. i*,
c. 14.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 165
than, exchanging the fierceness of the warrior for the
subdued tone of the penitent, they fell at his feet, and
in abasement and tears besought the absolution and
the blessing of their vanquished enemy '. Moved by
this conduct, and induced by the exigency of his posi
tion, Leo revoked the sentence of anathema which he
had pronounced against them ; and they then escorted
him with all reverence and honour to the city of
Benevento^. Here the humbled pontiff remained nine
months, during which time, at the request of his cap
tors, he consented to grant them, in the name of St.
Peter, the investiture of all their conquests, made or to
be made, in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily; which they were
thenceforward to hold as fiefs of the holy see'. By
this turn of events, his defeat and captivity became
productive of results more favourable to the papal
power, than would in all probability have attended the
most brilliant victory which could have been reaped by
his arms on the plains of CiviteUa. Leo and his suc
cessors acquired a claim to the services of the Norman
chiefs, as of rightful vassals ; and the power was recog
nized in them of conferring the investiture, — as lords
paramount, — of extensive domains, which had not pre
viously been in any manner subject to their sway: nor
was it to be feared that the Normans would hastily
throw off the connexion thus entered into ; as the same
causes which had induced them to form it, would con
tinue to operate in inclining them to uphold it. Their
' Gul. Appul, — Mutatis animis, in ejus sunt conversi obsequelam :
cujus osculantes vestigia, sibiimmeiitam deposcebant indulgentiam.
Wibert. in vita S. L. lib. ii. c. 11.
* Herman. Contract.
' Gaufr. Malaterr. Hist. Sicul. lib. i. c. 14. ap. Murator. Rer.
Ital. Script, t. v.

166 LIFE OF [book II.
crafty chiefs clearly saw the advantage of basing their
right to their territories on a title more solid than that
of conquest, and of linking their claim to the obedience
of their subjects, with the duty of the latter toward the
representatives of St. Peter.
Another result of the campaign must, if he were
fully aware of it, have been still more gratifying than
the above, to a pontiff of the humane disposition of
Leo. For the Norman chiefs, who continued, during
his stay at Benevento, to exhibit toward him every
possible token of respect, were influenced by his per
suasions, or by the reverence with which his character
inspired them, to abate much of the brutality which
had hitherto disgraced their proceedings. And the
altered position in which, by Leo's instrumentality, they
were now placed, had doubtless of itself a humanizing
influence upon their minds. In obtaining the rank,
they in some measure adopted the manners, of legiti
mate sovereigns ; and in the dignified characteristics of
settled power, were rapidly, though gradually, merged
the turbulence and ferocity of the unrecognized invader.
But, notwithstanding these encouraging circum
stances, we may well conceive that the unfortunate
Leo felt humbled to the dust by the unexpected failure
of his long-projected enterprise. His ardent tempera
ment had encouraged him too confidently to anticipate
a blessing ok his exertions; and the same disposi
tion now led him to trace the displeasure of Heaven
in his calamity. While at Benevento, he employed all
his hours, except those engaged in negociation or other
necessary business, in religious meditation, in prayer,
and in exercises of ascetic devotion. Though his health
was declining, a carpet on the bare earth was his
ordinary couch, a stone his pillow, and a hair shirt his

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 167
garment next the skin. Under such austerities, aided
as they were in their effect by the sorrows and anxieties
of his mind, his constitution gradually sank ; and when
he at length left Benevento, and returned, in March
1054, to the papal city, it was only to breathe his last
there on the 19th ofthe following April ', after having
committed to his beloved friend Hildebrand the pro
visional government of the Roman Church, until a new
pontiff should be appointed to the apostolic see ^
' De obitu S. Leonis Papae, ex codice Beneventano, ap. Mabillon.
Acta SS. Ord. S. Benedict, saec. vi. pt. ii. p. 78. — Lamb. Schafnab, —
Annalista Saxo. — The 16th of April is the day named in the
Chronicle of Hermannus Contractus. Chronographus Saxo names
the 18th.
^ Bonizo.

BOOK XL— CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1054 TO A.D. 1056.
PAPAL MISSION TO CONSTANTINOPLE — MARRIAGE OF GODFREY OP LORRAINE WITH
BEATRICE OP TUSCANY — PROCEEDINGS AT ROME IN CONSEQUENCE OF LEO'S DEATH
— ELECTION OF VICTOR II.  ^MARCH OF HENRY III. INTO ITALY — CONDUCT OP
BEATRICE — FLIGHT OF GODFREY  HENRY'S RETURN TO GERMANY — HILDEBRANd'S
LEGATION TO FRANCE — ARRANGEMENT THERE OF THE DISPUTE BETWEEN HENRY
AND THE KING OP CASTILE  HENRY'S INTERVIEW WITH THE FRENCH KING 
victor's VISIT TO GERMANY  HENRy'S TROUBLES, DECLINE, AND DEATH.
It may be necessary, for the purpose of enabling the
reader more fully to comprehend the position of the
papacy in following years, to state that, shortly before
his death, Leo had despatched Frederic of Lorraine and
other legates to Constantinople'. The Greek patriarch,
Michael Cerularius, had for some time publicly im
pugned the papal claim to supremacy, and also spoken
in censure of various rites and practices of the Latin
Church. And Leo, after asserting the one, and defend
ing the others, by letters, was induced at length to
despatch these envoys, with the commission to repre
hend the patriarch in person, and generally to assert
the rights of Rome in the eastern capital. The patri
arch, however, persisted in refusing either to retract
' Bonizo. — Annalista Saxo. — Lamb. Schafnab. — Sigeb. Gemblac.
— Leonis Epist. ad Michael. Constantinopol. Patriarch, ap. Hard.
t. vi. pt.i. p. 927.— Wibert. in vita S. Leonis. — Chronograph. Saxo.

CHAP. m.J LIFE OF GREGORY VII. 169
what he had advanced, or to recognize the superior dig
nity of his Roman brother ; and the legates at length
took the decided step of publicly laying a scroll, con
taining the sentence of his excommunication, upon the
high altar of St. Sophia ' ; after which, leaving Con
stantinople, they shook off, — in imitation of apostolic
practice, — the dust from their feet, against the con
tumacious city^ The emperor, Constantine Mono-
machus, anxious to avert a lasting breach, sent after
them, and at his request they turned back from Selym-
bria ^. But their return was, through the opposition of
the patriarch or of his clergy, only productive of agi
tation and tumult : after some little time they finally
departed from Constantinople*; and this unhappy event
may be termed the consummation of that great and
lamentable schism, which had been long preparing, and
which has divided the Churches of the East and of the
West, from that hour to this present day.
A sudden turn, during the progress of these events,
occurred in the fortunes of Frederic's brother Godfrey.
By a marriage with Beatrice, the widow of the rich
Boniface, Margrave of Tuscany — a lady who, contrary
to the usual custom of the time, continued to rule the
possessions of her deceased husband — the exiled duke
of Lorraine became at once one of the most powerful
princes of northern Italy '.
' Sigeb. Gemblac. — Annalista Saxo.
* Lamb. Schafnab. et Commemorat. brev. rerum alegatis apostolicas
sedis Constantinopoli gest, ap. Hard. t. vi. p. 967.
' Ibid. * Ibid.
^ Herman. Contract. Continuat. — Lamb. Schafiiab. — Beatrice was
daughter to Frederic IL, who had preceded Godfrey's father Gothelo
in the duchy of Upper Lorraine, and had been left on her parent's

170 LIFE OF [book n.
On the death, therefore, of Leo, the papal city was
no longer so completely under Henry's control as it
had been when that pontiff was elected. An inveterate,
and now potent, enemy to the irnperial house, occupied
its approaches in Tuscany. In the south, the papal
chair, by whomsoever filled, might call, in an emer
gency, upon the willing services of most formidable vas
sals. And the form of Leo's election, had recalled to
the memories of those Romans, who needed such re
minding, their ancient privileges in the free election of
their pontiff.
It behoved the monarch, then, to move with caution
toward the appointment of Leo's successor, and to
regard, in his selection, the maintenance of his own
authority in Italy, as well as the respectability of the
papal chair. The nomination of a prelate unacceptable
to the Roman authorities, under existing circumstances,
might seriously endanger the one as well as the other.
To Hildebrand, standing, as he did, high in the
esteem of his countrymen, and entrusted as he was
with the temporary charge of the Church by the de
parted pontiff, many eyes were in the first instance
naturally turned as to that pontiff's most fitting suc
cessor; and his friends, taking advantage of this impres
sion, were eager at once to elect him to the apostolic
death, under the latter prince's guardianship. Her life-enjoyment, as a
widow, of her husband's fiefs, is imagined by M. de St. Marc (Abrege
Chronologique) to have been the result of some special arrangement
entered into on her marriage — an arrangement in which the emperor
may have concurred as a compensation for any claims which she might
have on her father's duchy. Beatrice was first-cousin to Henry III.,
her mother Matilda having been sister to Conrad's empress, Gisela of
Swabia.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 171
throne'. But Hildebrand resisted the proposal ^ and
prevailed on them rather to send him as their envoy to
the imperial court, with powers to select the prelate
whom he might deem fittest for the exigencies of the
time, and to demand of the emperor that person, in
their name, as the future pontiff.
Shrinking from the weighty responsibility of pontifical
dignity himself, he perhaps saw no other person, in the
long corrupt church of Italy, possessed of the talents,
disposition, and character, which were required for the
office. And the power of the factions which were still
fomented in Rome, by the counts of Tusculum and
other licentious nobles, whose strong-holds environed
the city, might well convince him that no pope could
yet maintain there with success the apostolic dignity
who was not supported, — and known to be so, — by the
full weight of the imperial authority. He set out,
therefore, for Germany; and, — either with the secret
concurrence of his leading friends at Rome, or of his
own sole motion, — announced to Henry that the Roman
clergy and people requested of him, as their new pope,
Gebhard, bishop of Eichstadt ', the emperor's attached
friend and counsellor, and one who had, as such, shown
himself of late a formidable opponent to the principles
recently brought forward by the papal school. The
step, with whomsoever it may have originated, displayed
a singular depth of policy, and a most accurate ap
preciation of character. Henry, though most reluctant
to lose this faithful friend, — though, with the view of
inducing Hildebrand to make another choice, he sug-
' Bonizo, p. 804. See the epistle of Dietrich, bishop of Verdun,
quoted below, in book iii.
^ Vix multis lacrymis et supplicationibus. Bonizo.
' Leo Ostiens. in Chron. Cassin.l. ii.c. Ixxxix. Herman. Contract.

172 LIFE OF [book H.
gested the names of various other persons as fit to fill
the vacant office, — could not, nevertheless, reject the
proposal in terms so decisive as he might have done,
had the name of one less friendly to him, — less notori
ously devoted to his interests, — been submitted to his
approval. And he must, at the same time, have felt a
strong inducement to place, on the throne of St. Peter,
a prelate, who had ever shown himself devoted to the
imperial interests ; together with a satisfaction that the
wishes of the Roman clergy and people should have
centred in one so personally acceptable to himself.
The firmness, consequently, of Hildebrand, at length
prevailed. Henry's reluctance gave way ; and Gebhard,
who seems himself to have been as averse as was his sove
reign to his exaltation ', was induced to acquiesce in it.
Unfriendly as he had hitherto been to the papal policy,
he possessed, — as his intelligent proposer no doubt was
aware, — principles and a character, which could scarcely
fail to lead him, when placed in his new situation, and
surrounded by new associations, to a line of conduct
more suitable to the views of the Roman conclave, than
to those of his imperial master. And as his talents
were considerable, while his name was universally re
spected, his nomination at once put into the chair of
Leo an able successor, and deprived the opposite, or
imperial, interest, of him who had been till then among
the ablest of its champions and defenders.
The nomination of Gebhard took place, it seems, at
Mentz ^, late in the autumn of 1054 ; and though Henry,
in acceding to that measure, doubted not that he was
placing a firm friend over the metropolis of Italy, he
' Invito licet imperatore, invito etiam eodem ipso episcopo. Leo
Ostiens. 1. ii. c. 89.
' Herman. Contract, rnnh'""-^*

CHAP, III.J GREGORY VII. 173
felt that his now jeoparded authority in that country
could only be successfully maintained by his own
immediate presence there. Having, therefore, settled
the affairs of Germany in comparative tranquillity,
and having procured, in that country, the election and
coronation of his infant son Henry', as his future
successor, he crossed the Alps in the spring of 1055^
at the head of a considerable force, and in the com
pany of the pontiff. From Verona, where the king
halted in April, he sent Gebhard forward to Rome,
where the latter, after being elected in due canonical
form, was consecrated on Maundy Thursday — April 1 3
— by the name of Victor II. '
The emperor had previously instructed all influential
nobles and princes of Italy, by letters, to keep a watch
ful eye upon the proceedings of Godfrey, whom he
spoke of as a public enemy ; and it was now no secret
that the principal motive of his appearance in Italy was
the wish to humble the noble, thus powerful once more.
Godfrey, alarmed by his demonstrations, sent envoys
to assure him of the innocence of his intentions, and of
his continued fealty. "Nothing," he bade them say,
" was farther than rebellion from his thoughts — on the
" contrary, he was ready to brave every thing for the
" welfare of the emperor and of the state. Exiled as he
' Born 11th Nov. 1051, Lamb. Schafnab. An oath of fealty to
him had been exacted by his father from the nobles of the empire
in the Christmas following his birth. Id.
^ Id — Annalista Saxo.
' Herman. Contract. Continuat.— Id fuit in Victoris II. elec
tione singulare quod unius Hildebrandi sufiragio Bomanam sedem
adeptus est. Id enim Hildebrandi in ecclesiam meritis ab universo
elero datum est, ut quem ex imperatoris consensu elegisset, ejus
rata esset electio. Cantelius, metropolitan, urb. hist. pt. ii. dissert, iv.
9

174 LIFE OF [book n.
" had been from his country, and deprived of his pater-
" nal possessions, the wealth of his wife formed the sole
" means of his support : nor had he formed that con-
" nexion but with the princess's own free and solemnly
" expressed consent' ;" and, though Godfrey was too
wary to put himself into the power of his displeased
sovereign, he permitted Beatrice herself, accompanied by
her young daughter Matilda, to appear and plead her
cause before him. Nearly connected as she was, by
blood, with himself, Henry would scarce admit her into
his presence, or listen to her story ; she persevered,
however, boldly in her justification ; she had done, she
said, nothing, but what the law of all nations allowed
her to do. Bereft of her husband, she had sought
another master for his vacant house, and, herself a free
woman, had married a free man, without fraud or
sinister machination. Henry was still unappeased, and
though, aware of Godfrey's talents and power, and fearful
of his calling the formidable Normans to his aid, he was
constrained to declare the prince innocent of any viola
tion of the imperial laws, he nevertheless commanded
the detention of Beatrice in his court ; partly because, as
he gave out, she had surrendered herself as a hostage ;
and partly because he considered her to have committed
a grave offence, in marrying, without his consent, a man
who had been declared a public enemy^. This suf
ficiently convinced Godfrey of the continued unfriendli
ness of Henry's intentions towards himself ; and finding
that the monarch was constantly extending his negoci-
ations among the Lombard nobles, for the purpose of
compassing his ruin, he resolved on thwarting these in
' Lamb. Schafnab.
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo. — Herman. Contract. Con
tinuat. — Chronograph. Saxo.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII, 175
what, his politic genius taught him, would prove the
most effectual manner.
Crossing the Alps in secret, he suddenly reappeared
in his native Lorraine ; and finding his old ally, Baldwin
of Flanders, still ready to espouse his cause, he com
menced, in company with that chief, the siege of
Antwerp. From before this place, the appearance of
imperial reinforcements obliged them to retire ; but,
foiled as they thus were, their revolt continued to
present an appearance so formidable, that Henry felt
himself compelled, after some little time, reluctantly to
abandon his Italian schemes, and to attend to the security
of his northern dominions. He recrossed the Alps, in
the winter of 1055, bearing with him Beatrice and her
daughter in honourable captivity'. Taking his road
through Switzerland, he halted for the festival of
Christmas at Zurich, and there arranged the future
marriage of his son, then five years old, with Bertha,
daughter of Otho, the Margrave of Susa ^. The Easter
of 1056 was Spent by the monarch in the episcopal
city of Paderbom ^ ; and shortly after that season he
established himself again in Goslar.
During his stay in Italy, he had found time to hold,
in concert with Pope Victor, a council at Florence,
in which a decree was passed against the alienation of
Church property, and various matters were discussed
relating to discipline and doctrine *. The new pontiff,
already in some sort a disciplinarian, soon showed, as
Hildebrand had anticipated, his readiness to advance,
in the reformation of abuses, upon the broad principles
which characterized the papal schooP. And though Vic-
' Bonizo, p. 804. ^ Berthold. Const. ^ Lamb. Schafnab.
* Hard. t.vi.pt.i.p.l 039. — Damiani ep. lib. iv. 12. — Bonizo, p.804.
* Studium severioris disciplinae et decretorum Leonis IX. obser-
vantia hostes nonnuUos fecit Victori Papae.— Pagi Breviar.

176 LIFE OF [book IL
tor is said never to have entirely forgiven Hildebrand
his pertinacity in the matter of his election, — and indeed
to have looked, from that time, with dislike upon monks
in general, — he felt the necessity of treating a person so
distinguished, with the deference to which his talents
and character entitled him, and sent him back as legate
to Prance, armed with all the necessary powers to con
tend against the abuses which, notwithstanding Leo's
efforts in that country, were still fearfully prevalent in
the Galilean Church. And Hildebrand's success in
this contest must needs have been great, since chronicles
of the time describe it as attended with miracle. An
archbishop, it is said, who had been on good grounds
accused before him of simoniacal traffic, had contrived
to bribe the principal evidences against him to silence,
and then, presenting himself with a bold front before
the legate, demanded to be confronted with his accu
sers. " Believest thou," said Hildebrand, " the Holy
" Spirit to be of one substance and Deity with the
" Father and with the Son ?" " I do," answered the
archbishop. " Then," rejoined Hildebrand, " say be
fore us, ' Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.'" The suspected prelate at
tempted to comply ; but when he had said " Glory be
to the Father, and to the Son," his voice failed him, '
and notwithstanding all his efforts, he found it impossi
ble to recite the remainder of the doxology ' . In distress
and confusion, he threw himself before the legate, con-
' " Credisne, o Episcope, Spiritum Sanctum unius cum Patre et
Filio esse substantias et Deitatis?" Quo respondente, "Credo,"
" Die,'" inquit, " Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto." 
" Gloria Patri et Filio " dicebat ; sed Spiritum Sanctum norainare
minime valebat. — Paul Bernried. c. xvii. — Pet. Damian. Opusc. xix.
cap. iv. — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1039. — Willielm. Malmesb. de gestis
regum, lib. iii. — Bonizo, p. 805.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 177
fessed his guilt, and received with patience the sentence
of his deposition. And so striking was the example,
that no less than forty-five bishops, and twenty-seven
other dignitaries ' or governors of Churches, came for
ward to confess the guilty mode by which they had
obtained their benefices, and retired from stations in
which they felt that they had no valid claim to remain ^.
Other records of this time describe Hildebrand as gifted
with an intuitive power to read in men's bosoms the
thoughts which they concealed ', and to detect, — when
those around him were tried by any peculiar tempta
tion — the hidden presence of the tempter. Such nar
ratives, — whatever may be thought of them in them
selves — unquestionably prove the searching nature of
the legate's investigations, as well as the general awe
and veneration inspired by his character *.
One event, which occurred during his stay in France,
is memorable, both because it illustrated, in a remark
able manner, that yet unrealized system of papal
supremacy which future years were to develope, and
because it exhibited Henry IIL, the lordly controller of
the papacy, in a situation, relatively to that power, very
different from that which he had been wont to occupy.
Ferdinand, since styled the Great, the warlike and
powerful monarch, who had united under his sway the
two kingdoms of Castile and Leon, became so far
flushed with success, as to think of assuming, if not the
imperial title, at least such ensigns and characteristics
of imperial dignity, as were inconsistent with the re-
' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. '1039. Eighteen bishops, according to
Bonizo, p. 806.
^ Victor. III. dialog, lib. iii. ' Paul Bernried. cap. 18.
< Id. cap. 19.
VOL. I. N

178 LIFE OF [book n.
ceived theory, that the Emperor of the Romans stood
single and pre-eminent, among the sovereigns of the
Western world.
And Henry, naturally eager to maintain his privi
leges, saw a mode more expedient than warfare for pre
serving them inviolate, in a reference of the matter to
the Roman pontiff. By Victor it was directed, that the
question should be inquired into and decided by a
council, holden under his legate, at Tours. Thither,
accordingly, did Henry's envoys proceed, to plead their
master's cause ; and thus the world beheld the setter-
up and puller-down of popes, the despotic controller of
the city and see of St. Peter, recognizing, in the suc
cessor of that Apostle, an arbiter and a judge, even of his
right and title to the loftiest prerogatives of his crown.
To Henry's own eyes, secure as he probably was of a
favourable decision, this recognition seemed a mere
form, — an empty show, — such as had been his apparent
acceptance of the imperial dignity, from the hands of
his own nominee, Clement II. Whatever necessity
he might sometimes feel himself under, during this
latter portion of his reign, of acting, toward the Roman
authorities, in the tone of compromise, rather than in
the language of uncontrolled sovereignty, he doubtless
considered such necessity to be but of a temporary
nature; and saw not, in the apparently trivial and
momentary obstacles which embarrassed his motions, the
precursors and symptoms of a great moral revolution
already in progress of developement. He hesitated not,
therefore, to do homage to the semblance of power, in
hands which he never expected would compass its
reality. The decision of the council, against Ferdinand's pre
tensions, was communicated to that monarch by proper

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 179
envoys, and his submission to it was required under the
authority of the papal name : and the Spanish prince,
acting upon the advice of the assembled prelates and
nobles of his realm, not only abandoned, in obedience
to the mandate, the pretensions which derogated from
the imperial dignity, but would, it seems, have sacriflced
to his fear of Henry, or of the pope, the original inde
pendence of his country, by acknowledging the emperor
his lord paramount, had not Roderic Diaz, the cele
brated Cid, by the firmness of his counsels, and by the
authority of his name, diverted him from the measure '.
No less respect, however, was shown to the papal
authority, by the Spanish, than by the German, sove
reign. Envoys from Ferdinand waited upon the legate
to represent their master's case before him, and, through
their negotiations, the matter was amicably arranged.
But though this affair was thus peacefully closed, the
subsequent months of Henry's life were full of troubles.
Continually harassed by the anxieties occasioned to him
by Godfrey's movements in Lorraine, he was, in the year
1056, engaged in an angry correspondence with the
French king, with whom he had, by appointment, a
personal interview, at a place named Ivoy ^ in the ter
ritory of Treves. The result of the meeting was so
unsatisfactory, and words, during the discussion, ran so
high between the hostile monarchs, that the emperor
at length closed the proceedings, by calling upon the
French sovereign to meet him in single combat on
the morrow. The latter could not openly decline
' Mariana. Historia general de Espaiia, lib. ix. c. 5. — Vid.
Baron, ad an. 1055, et F. Pagi, Breviar. t. i. p. 528.
^ Lambert of Aschafienburg calls it Civois: his annotator (in
Pistorii Scriptt.) says that it is called, in German, Ipsch ; in French,
Ivoy; "in Tre virorum finibus."
n2

180 LIFE OF [BOOK IL
the challenge, but privately departed from the scene
of the conference during the intervening night;
and Henry, frustrated in his purpose, returned to
Goslar '.
Here he was, after some little time, visited by Pope
Victor, whose presence he had requested, and who
at his desire had relinquished for a while his reforming
labours in Italy ^- The pontiff arrived at Goslar in
time to celebrate there the festival of the Nativity of the
Virgin, — the &th of September, — and was received by
his imperial master and friend with the most magnificent
hospitality ^ But Henry was found, by his former
counsellor, feeble in health, and depressed in spirits ;
and it was, probably, on this account, that the court
moved, almost immediately after the festival, from
Goslar, to the castle of Botfeld, in the Harz. Henry
here endeavoured to recruit his spirits, and reanimate
his drooping frame, by partaking largely of the pleasures
of the chase, to which he had ever been addicted. But
the aspect of affairs continued to darken around him :
tidings arrived that the numerous army which he had
sent against the Luticians, a savage horde on the
borders of Saxony, had been defeated with terrible
loss*. Bohemia and other parts of his empire were
in a critical, or disorderly, state. He had recently been
' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ By his activity in these, Victor exposed himself to a constant
and harassing opposition from that anti-papal party, to which he
himself had formerly belonged. When suffering from it, he was
wont to say. " This falls on me deservedly. Paul must feel what
" Saul has done. The lamb must bear what the wolf once infiicted."
Leo Ostiens. — F. Pagi Breviar. t. i. p. 528.
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Sigebert Gemblac.
* Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo. — Herman. Contract. Con
tinuat. — Chronograph. Saxo.

CHAP. in.J GREGORY VII. 181
deprived, by death, of several nobles, to whose talents
and loyalty he had looked as to the most solid pillars
of his throne : and the drought of the past summer had
produced an unusual prevalence of distress and mortality
in his dominions '. This accumulation of evils aggra
vated, if it did not entirely cause, a malady, which
attacked him at Botfeld, and which speedily overcame
his exhausted powers. Becoming aware of his ap
proaching end, he bewailed, with a contrition apparently
the most sincere, the sins and follies of his by-gone life ;
he directed compensation to be made to all whom he
conceived himself to have aggrieved, and requested
the forgiveness and prayers of all whom he might in
ignorance have wronged. He pointed out his young
son, already crowned, as his appointed successor, and
commended him to the watchful care of his mother, the
Empress Agnes, and of the father of the Church : and
then, while Victor and many other distinguished per
sons stood beside his bed, he breathed his last ; dying
on the 5th of October 1056, in the 40th year of his
age. His remains were borne to his native province of
Franconia, and there interred beneath the massy, and
yet incomplete, vaults of Spires Cathedral, on his birth
day, the festival of St. Simon and St. Jude ^
' Annalista Saxo.
^ Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo.
" Ad templum Spirae dormit, quod struxerat idem."
Domnizo.

BOOK IL— CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1056 TO A.D. 1059.
ADJUSTMENT, BY VICTOR II., OF THE AFFAIRS OF GERMANY  APPOINTMENT OP FRE
DERIC OP LORRAINE, AS ABBOT OF MONTE CASSINO  DEATH OF VICTOR — ELECTION
OF FREDERIC AS STEPHEN IX.  NOMINATION OF DAMIANI TO THE BISHOPRIC OP
OSTIA — SCHEMES OF GODFREY OF LORRAINE — DEATH OP STEPHEN — IRREGULAR
ELECTION OP JOHN, BISHOP OF VELLETRI  POSITION OF THE IMPERIAL COURT-
TROUBLES IN GERMANY  ELECTION OP NICHOLAS II.
On the death of Henry Illi, the evil tendencies of the
system which, with regard to the Church's government,
he had espoused, would have fatally displayed themselves;
had not that system received an effectual check, from the
movements of the new Roman ecclesiastical school. It
would have been seen, on how frail a basis the honour
and security of the Church would have been placed, had
she indeed been bowed to that state of complete sub
jection to the genius of feudalism, in which the deceased
monarch's policy had constantly tended to place her. The
beneficial energy of Henry's government, — the rectitude
of its administration, — depended upon his own personal
qualities, and by consequence upon his continued ex
istence. And had not the papacy, during the later
years of his reign, recovered a sort of substantive being,
the Church, which it represented, would have been
exposed, upon his death, to all the evils attendant on the
uncontrolled autocracy of an infant, whose disposition
was as yet unformed, and whose training, in the posses
sion of sovereignty, was not likely to be efficient in giving

CHAP. IV. J \ LIFE OF GREGORY VII.- 183
a favourable bias to his disposition, or in disciplining his
mind. It will be seen, even as the case really stood,
of how formidable a nature the Church's perils, at this
juncture, were ; and how severe a struggle it cost her,
under her papal governors, to withstand the energies of
that power which Henry III. had established over her ;
and which was wielded, after his decease, in a manner
very different from any in which that well-intentioned
monarch would ever himself have dreamed of wield
ing it.
The presence of Pope Victor, at the critical moment
of Henry's death, was a circumstance most important
to the tranquillity of Germany, and to the stability
of the youthful successor's throne. For the seeds of
discord and confusion were widely scattered through
out the empire. The haughty nobles, whose power
the emperor had abridged, and whose pride he
had humbled, by the resolute assertion of his kingly
prerogatives, saw, in his death, the opportunity of re
covering the licentious independence which they had
formerly enjoyed. And the Saxon chiefs, while parti
cipating in this general feeling, viewed with a peculiar
spleen the dominion of the Franconian princes, upon a
throne which had previously been occupied by a Saxon
Une ; and to which they persuaded themselves that their
province had a kind of special right. The reign, too, of
a woman, — and such of course would the child Henry's
virtually be, while he continued under the guardian
ship of his mother ', — was a new thing in Germany ;
and one which the haughty spirit of the Germans
inclined them to think derogatory to their manly
honour. While the gentleness and 9onciliatory dis
position ofthe amiable Agnes,— qualities which would in
' Annalista Saxo.

184 LIFE OF [book II.
almost any other station have won for her the love of aU
around her, — were, in a sovereign, too apt to be ascribed
to weakness or timidity, and to give encouragement to
presumptuous disobedience.
The authority, however, of Victor, commanded gene
ral deference. The young sovereign was unhesitatingly
acknowledged as king of Germany, the discontented
murmurs of the nobles were, for the moment, sup
pressed, and the principal enemy of the imperial house,
Godfrey of Lorraine, was by the papal mediation re
conciled to it. Godfrey appeared, vrith his ally Baldwin,
before a council holden, in December 1056, at Cologne',
and did homage to his new sovereign ; and then, receiv
ing again his wife Beatrice, who had been so long de
tained from him, he returned to the superintendence
of his Italian territories, and to the formation of new
schemes, for the extension of his influence and the
consolidation of his power.
Having arranged this important business, and ad
justed, as best he might, the other matters of difficulty
in Germany ^ Victor took leave ofthe imperial Agnes,
and returned, in the spring of 1057, to Rome, in which
city he presided over a council, holden on the 1 8th of
April \ He bore with him, it appears, full authority to
act in the young Henry's name in the administration of
the imperial* government to the southward ofthe Alps;
' Harduin, t. vi. pt. i. p. 1041. — Sigeb. Gemblac. — Marian. Scot.
' Compositis mediocriter, prout tunc copia erat, regni negotiis. —
Lamb. Schafnab.— Marian. Scot. — Annalista Saxo.
^ Vid. Stephani IX. Papte Epistol. ad Pandulph. Marsican. episc.
— Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1052.
* To avoid confusion, this epithet is throughout this work applied
to the government, family, &c., of the German monarchs. But it is
not, on all occasions, strictly correct. As successor to his father.

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VII. 185
and it was, probably, business connected with this com
mission, which induced him, shortly after the day just
named, to move to Florence, for the purpose of inter
course with Godfrey. Hildebrand either accompanied
him thither, or met him there ; and Frederic, Godfrey's
brother, also presented himself before him in that city.
This prince, on his return from his eastern embassage,
had found his patron Leo dead, and himself in imme
diate danger from Henry's hostility ' ; for that emperor,
jealous of all Godfrey's relatives, had given orders for
his apprehension. But Frederic put himself in security
against any proceeding of that kind, by flying to the
powerful and celebrated abbey of Monte Cassino, and
there solemnly devoting himself to a monastic life ^.
The office of abbot became subsequently vacant ;
and the talents and virtues of Frederic — together with,
it may be, the influence of his birth and connexions —
induced the monks to nominate him to that dignity ^ :
and he now proceeded to Florence, as well to procure
from the papal authority the confirmation of this elec
tion*, as to urge Victor to direct the censures of the
Church against Thrasimond, Count of Chieti, who had
plundered him of the costly presents which he had
brought from Constantinople, and who also withheld
from the brotherhood of Monte Cassino certain lands
to which they were entitled.
The pontiff readily confirmed the new abbot's election,
and as readily pronounced against Thrasimond the sen
tence of excommunication — a sentence by which that

Henry IV. could claim no higher title than that of king ; that of
emperor, implying a coronation, by the pope, at Rome.
' Lamb. Schafnab.— Sigeb. Gemblac. " Ut supr.
' Leo Ostiens. 1. ii. c. 94. * Id. c 96.

186 LIFE OF [book ii.
lawless noble was soon brought to submission : and
then, anxious either to show his high esteem for Fre
deric, or to secure the continued aUiance of his able and
powerful brother, Victor nominated him to an office in the
Roman Church, by creating him cardinal presbyter of
St. Chrysogonus '.
Late in July, Frederic quitted the pontiff's presence,
and, instead of taking up at once his residence in his
monastery, proceeded in the first instance to Rome, to
initiate himself there in the duties of this new station.
Nor had he again left the papal city^ for Monte Cas
sino, when the unexpected intelligence arrived that
Victor was no more, having breathed his last at Flor
rence, on the 28th of July^ A clamour instantly arose
for the immediate appointment of a successor. The
feeling which Hildebrand had with difficulty thwarted
on the last occasion, had since that period been gra
dually increasing in intensity ; and, to those who did
not participate in it, the fear of the licentious nobles of
the Campagna, who were now no longer held in check
by the name of Henry HI., and from whom some
attempt upon St. Peter's chair might hourly be ex
pected, would present a powerful argument for the
necessity of a speedy election. A man, therefore, of
Frederic's high character being on the spot, the Romans
resorted to him for advice, and pressed him to suggest
the name of a future pontiff. Frederic mentioned in
succession five names, the first four being those of
Italian bishops, the fifth that of Hildebrand, who
though still but a subdeacon, had long exercised in
Rome an authority far more extensive than properly
' Leo Ostiens. 1. ii. c. 95. ' Ibid.
' Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VII. 187
belonged to that comparatively humble station. But
none of these suggestions were approved. Hildebrand,
though a strong party in Rome now recognized him as
their leader, was too strict in his habits and unbending
in his manners, to be a popular favourite. He was,
besides, in Tuscany, and though the idea was for a
moment entertained of waiting for his arrival', a con
viction of the dangers of delay outweighed with the
Romans all other considerations ; and losing at length
their patience, they clamorously exclaimed that their
adviser should be himself their pastor ^ Seizing the
surprised and reluctant Frederic, they led, or rather
dragged him, to the Lateran Church, and there en
throned him; hailing him, in honour of the papal
saint to whom the day was dedicated, by the name of
Stephen IX. : and on the following day (August 3) the
consecration took place, with all customary forms, in
the basilica of St. Peter '.
Sudden as was the event, the election taking place
on the fifth day after Victor's death, no time was
afforded to the Romans for the careful balance of
contending difficulties, or the formation of deep-laid
schemes of policy. But we can scarcely doubt that the
clamourers on this occasion were, to a certain extent,
the instruments of more skilful and practised poli
ticians : for there was evidently no person whom the
assertors of papal independence could at the moment
have more eligibly selected than Stephen IX., for the
illustration of their principles and the furtherance of
' Fuere tamen qui Hildebrandum adhuc apud Tusciam. . . expec-
tandum dicerent. Leo Ostiens.
' Leo Ostiens. 1. ii. c. 9&. — Herm. Contract. — Marian. Scot. —
Sigeb. Gemblac. — Annalista Saxo.
' Leo Ostiens. 9

188 LIFE OF [book IL
their views. Thoroughly imbued with their spirit, he
could scarce fail to continue in the course of his im
mediate predecessors ; while his acknowledged talents
and character were such as must give weight to his
exertions. Connected as he was with Godfrey, now
the powerful, or rather formidable, aUy of the empire,
the empress and her counsellors could scarcely, even if
so inclined, venture to go the length of gainsaying the
election. And the name of the Tuscan prince would
form a support to his power against the violence of
Campanian nobles, as efficient as had been the imperial
authority, and yet not capable, like that authority, of
being perverted to the work of riveting on the Church
the fetters of an obnoxious vassalage to the state.
Peaceably seated, under these circumstances, on the
papal throne, Stephen lost no time in giving proofs of
his sincerity in the cause of ecclesiastical reformation,
in which, though feeble in health, he laboured with a
determined assiduity, and with a monastic rigour '. It
was by him that, according to a contemporary author,
Hildebrand was admitted to deacon's orders, and de
clared archdeacon of Rome ^ ; though other accounts
would fix this transaction either in a foregoing or fol
lowing pontificate I Unquestionably, however, Hil-

' Maxime pro conjugiis clericorum ac saeerdotum, nee non et
consanguineorum copulationibus destruendis, nimio zelo decertans.
Leo Ost. c. 96.
' Bonizo, p. 805, followed by the Cardinal de Aragon.
' According to Paul of Bernried. c. xv. it was Leo IX. by whom
Hildebrand was thus exalted; but Hugo Flaviniacensis, in Chronico
Virdunensi, ascribes the act to Nicholas II. ; and Leo Ostiensis speaks
of him as a subdeacon in the latter part of Stephen's pontificate, but
as archdeacon on the death of that pontiff"s successor, and DamiailV"*
(writing lo Nicholas 11.) of his being Victor's legate in Gaul, dum

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VII. 189
debrand was honoured by him with every mark of
confidence and esteem. And Peter Damiani, already
mentioned as a distinguished personage among the
churchmen with whom Hildebrand was principally con
nected, was by Stephen, early in 1058, preferred to the
bishopric of Ostia '.
Damiani was a man of sincere and deep devotion,
of extraordinary talents, and of a monastic austerity.
He was of too ardent a temperament to be uniformly
judicious in his proceedings ; and his faith was of a
description which led him to receive, without ques
tion, a host of legends of the most absurd descrip
tion. But there shone forth in him a singleness
and purity of character, which, in connexion with his
abilities, procured him the universal respect and admi
ration of his contemporaries. And though, in pushing
to the extreme the notions of the age, he must be
admitted to have played no unimportant part in forward
ing the progress of doctrinal corruptions ; yet his name
— when the nature of his position is fairly taken into
the account, — can scarce be thought undeserving of
the veneration of posterity. His exaltation, in this
instance, was resisted by him with all his might. He
adhuc subdiaconatus fungeretur officio. Damiani Opusc. xix. c. iv.
" Though archdeacons in these last ages of the Church have usually
" been of the order of presbyters, yet anciently they were no more
" than deacons." Bingham, 1. ii. c. 21. § 1. And such appears
to have been the case with Hildebrand, who was not ordained
presbyter until he had been elected pope. " The office of arch
deacon," according to the author just quoted, 1. c. § 3, was " always
" a place of great honour and reputation, for he was the bishop's
" constant attendant and assistant; and next to the bishop, the
" eyes of the whole Church were fixed upon him."
' Vita B. Petri Damiani per Joannem Monachum, c. xiv. — Da
miani vita in histor. Ravennat. Hieronymi Rubei. lib. v.

190 LIFE OF [book IL
feared to be drawn from the unremitting austeri
ties of his retirement; and it was not until he was
threatened by Stephen and his council with excommu
nication, that he consented to exchange the life of
seclusion and self-denial which he lived, for the activity
and notoriety of a more responsible situation '.
Had the days of Stephen been prolonged, his ponti
ficate would probably have formed a remarkable sera
in the history of ecclesiastical reformation. Nor would
it, we may conceive, have been less important in its
influence upon the political history of Europe. For
the brother of Godfrey was naturally disposed to favour
the ambitious projects of that crafty chieftain. And
the vacancy in the imperial crown occasioned by
Henry's death, together with the childhood of the young
king Henry, its expectant possessor, might have sug
gested, to a less ambitious prince than Godfrey, the pos
sibility of placing on his own head the yet unappro
priated imperial diadem, which it rested with his brother
formally to bestow. With a view, it is said, to the
furtherance of this project, the pope, in the character,
which he still retained, of abbot of Monte Cassino,
commanded his reluctant monks to convey to him
in secret their conventual treasure of gold and silver;
promising them a speedy return of its amount, with
presents in addition. But when, — the story continues,
— he beheld the collected store which had been offered
at their altars, he wept over it, and, unwilling to dese
crate it, by employing it in the secular schemes which
he meditated, he commanded its immediate restoration
to the sanctuary to which it belonged ^.
' Vita P. Damiani, per Joan, Monach. 1. c. — vita ejusdem per
Joannem Antonium Flaminium.
^ Leo Ostiens. 1. ii. c. 98.

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VII. 191
But the dazzling prospect of imperial honours, if
it in truth ever assumed a semblance of reality in
Godfrey's eyes, was destined to be speedily dissipated.
Stephen's health had long been feeble. The conscious
ness, indeed, of a premature decline, is said to have
been one of the causes which led him to embrace the
monastic life' ; and the relinquishment of that life, for
the cares and anxieties of the pontificate, was not likely
to restore his drooping powers, or renovate his de
caying frame. On the approach of winter^ he re
moved from Rome, and spent that season in his former
home at Monte Cassino. During its continuance^ he
became convinced that he had not much longer to live,
and consequently procured the election of Desiderius, a
man eminent for talent and virtue, as abbot in his place*.
He returned, however, in February to Rome, and there
assembling the most influential among the clergy and
people, he adjured them in the most solemn manner, in
the event of his death, to elect no pontiff without the
advice and concurrence of Hildebrand °, who was then
absent on a legation in Germany. He then moved ^ to
Florence, to take perhaps a last farewell of his brother,
and there it was that, on the 29th of March 1058, he
breathed his last, after a short pontificate of about eight
months'. The determination of the better part of the Roman
clergy and people, to redeem the pledge which they had
' Lamb. Schafnab. ad an. 1054.
^ On St. Andrew's day. Leo Ostiens.
' Circa ipsam Natalis Domini festivitatem. Leo Ostiens.
* Leo Ostiens. 1. iii. c. ix.
° Leo Ostiens. Petr. Damian. ep. iii. 4.
" lOth Feb. Leo Ostiens.
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Leo Ostiens.

192 LIFE OF [book II.
given, and to take no step toward an election until
Hildebrand should return from the German court, gave
an opportunity to the factious barons of the Campagna^
and to their adherents in Rome, to recur to the violent
practices of former times. Suddenly, and by night, the
count of Tusculum and other nobles appeared, at the
head of an armed band of followers, within the city,
occupied the church of St. Peter, and presided over the
tumultuous mockery of an election, by which their sim
ple and ignorant creature, John, bishop of VeUetri, was
chosen to the papal see by the name of Benedict X.'
But the cry of indignation, excited by this disgraceful
proceeding, was loud and universal. Peter Damiani,
and the other bishops of the province of Rome, were
vehement in their opposition to its perpetration, and
in their denunciations against its perpetrators. To
Damiani, as bishop of Ostia, it belonged, to act as
metropolitan of that province during the vacancy of
the papal see, and in that capacity to consecrate or con
firm the destined successor of St. Peter. But he, of
course, indignantly refused his countenance and assist
ance to the ratification of such an election as this;
and the supporters of the intruder were forced to con
tent themselves with an irregular, uncanonical cere
mony, performed, — since no bishop was to be procured,
— by the unlettered archpriest of the diocese over which
Damiani presided^.
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Leo Ostiens. — Homo stolidus, deses, ac
nullius ingenii. Damiani Epist. ad Henricum Archiep. Ravennatem,
lib. iii. 4.
' Presbyter Ostiensis Ecclesiae, qui utinam syllabatim nosset vel
unam paginam rite percurrere. — Ibid. The heading of this epistle in
some editions, by which it is made to refer to a subsequent trans
action, is evidently erroneous.

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VH. 193
Accounts of this disastrous event were soon spread
abroad, and they no sooner reached the ears of the
Empress Agnes and of Hildebrand, than these two
illustrious personages saw alike the necessity of
taking measures in concert, — of selecting, without
delay, a worthier occupant for the papal chair than
the intruding prelate, — and of supporting the claims
of the object of their choice, by the full weight of the
sovereign authority. The question between imperial
nomination and papal independence could scarcely be
mooted on an occasion like this, when it seemed likely
that the authority of the crown and the privileges of the
papal see might both be appealed to in vain, against
the lawless occupation of the chair of St. Peter, by the
nominee of an unprincipled oligarchy.
For Agnes, at the moment, was surrounded by diffi
culties and troubles. The discontented spirit of the
Saxon race has been already adverted to. With several
of their chiefs, private causes of complaint added bit
terness to the animosity generally felt toward the Fran
conian line ; and so alarming, in the spring of 1057, be
came the aspect of the province, that the empress found
it necessary to summon a council to be holden at
Merseburg, within the limits of the Saxon territory, on
the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul ' ; and to take the
young king thither with a strong escort, for the purpose
of restoring peace, and of asserting the royal authority.
The head of the Saxon malcontents was Otho of Nord-
mark, a nobleman who, having seen a fief, which he
considered his birthright, given to another ^ had per
suaded several of his brother chiefs not only to assist him
' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ Annalista Saxo ad an. 1056. — Lamb. Schafnab.
VOL. I. 0

194 LIFE OF [book II.
in its recovery, but to raise him to the throne itself, and
to compass, for that purpose, the destruction of the
young prince who at the moment occupied it. Henry's
authority, therefore, and life were alike in peril. But
it happened that, as Otho was riding, at the head of his
armed followers, toward Merseburg, he was met by
Bruno and Ecbert, the king's cousins, who were also
accompanied by their vassals. So fierce was the ani
mosity between these chiefs and the Saxon noble, that
they no sooner saw each other, than they rushed into
combat ; and Bnino and Otho, charging with a ftiry
which rendered them forgetful of self-defence, fell
almost instantly by each other's hand '.
This event, by depriving the Saxon insurgents of their
intended leader, disconcerted their plans, and the coim-
cil of Merseburg concluded its session in tranquillity.
But their hostility to Henry's government, was only
increased by the necessity, thus imposed on them, of
checking its expression; and the scarce-stifled rebellion
might be expected, on the first favourable moment, to
burst into a flame.
In southern Germany, it is true, no danger existed
on so formidable a scale ; yet even here the imperial
government was beset with difficulties and distractions.
The presence of Victor had produced but a momentary
suspension of the feuds and discords, which divided the
haughty Teutonic nobles from each other ; and a con
stant source of new dissensions among them, existed in
the rivalry with which they sought, of their sovereign,
the great ducal fiefs of the crown, as these became
vacant by the death of their holders. Calculating upon
the speedy d^ath of Otho, who held the duchy of
' Lamb. Schafnab. Annalista Saxo.

CHAP. IV. J GREGORY VH. 195
Swabia, Henry IIL had promised that fief, in reversion,
to Count Berthold of Zahringen, and given the count
his ring in token of the promise '. But Otho did not
die till the year after the decease of his sovereign ; and
when Berthold presented himself before Agnes with
the ring, he found the fief already bestowed upon
Count Rudolf of Rheinfeld^ The latter chief, for the
purpose of enforcing his claims, had possessed himself
of the person of the young princess Matilda, the
late emperor's daughter, then eleven years old, and
demanded of Agnes her consent to his future marriage
with her ^ And the empress, unable to refuse, and
ignorant of Henry's promise to Berthold, bestowed on
Rudolf the duchy of Swabia, and endeavoured to make
a firm friend of one, thus determined to be her son-in-
law, by entrusting him also with the government ot
Burgundy ; a province, the administration of which her
husband had always kept in his own hand. Berthold,
though he was subsequently invested with the duchy of
Carinthia, was naturally embittered against the imperial
house by this apparent breach of faith. And in Rudolf,
— as the young princess Matilda died before she arrived
at a marriageable age — the empress was aggrandizing
one destined to prove, to her royal son, not an affec
tionate brother, but a formidable enemy.
Under these circumstances, unable to send a German
armament into Italy, it was to the arms of Godfrey
alone, that the empress could look for the maintenance
of the imperial authority in that country, and for the
liberation of the papal city from the grasp of the
Tusculan intruder. And this was probably the cause
» Annalista Saxo.— Abb. Ursperg.
' Annalista Saxo.— Abb. Ursperg.
^ Annalista Saxo. — Lamb. Schaf.
0 2

196 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK II.
which led to the selection of the able and pious
Gerard, the bishop of the Tuscan capital, Florence,
as the future pontiff '. This prelate was accordingly
demanded, in form, of the youthful king ; and at the
same time, by Hildebrand's arrangement, elected pope,
by those of the Roman clergy and people who had
fled from the domination of the intruder, at Sienna,
on the 28th of December 1058 ^ And he then set for
ward, under Godfrey's escort, for the seat of his pon
tifical authority. Halting, on his way, at Sutri, he
there, in the presence of Godfrey, and of Guibert
the imperial chancellor of Italy, held a council of the
prelates of Lombardy and Tuscany ^ ; before which the
intruder was formally summoned to appear. But that
unhappy man, deserted by his adherents, — whom the
name of Godfrey inspired with dismay, — no sooner
received the message, than he fled in haste from the
scene of his usurpation, and left it free for his rival *.
And Gerard, happy to be thus spared the necessity of
making his way into Rome by force, entered that city
unattended by soldiers ^ and was forthwith, peaceably
and canonically, installed in the chair of St. Peter, by
the name of Nicholas 11.^ Nor had many days
elapsed after this ceremony, when his late rival, throw
ing himself at his feet, confessed the greatness of his
guilt, and prayed for absolution. Nicholas granted
the boon, but deprived him of his episcopal and sacer
dotal rank; and he spent the remainder of his days
insignificant and forgotten '.
' Sigebert. Gemblac. — Leo Ostiens. 1. iii. c. 13.
' Vid. Pagi Breviar. ' Harduin, t. vi. pt. i. p. 1061.
* Card. Aragon. ° Bonizo, p. 806.
° Between the 8th and 18th of January 1059. Vid. Pao-i Breviar.
' Bonizo. — Leo Ostiens. 1, iii. c. iii.

BOOK IL— CHAPTER V.
FROM A.D. 1059 TO A.D. 1061.
CRITICAL SITUATION OP THE PAPACY — COUNCIL OP THE LATERAN, AND DECREE
OF NICHOLAS II. RELATIVE TO PONTIFICAL ELECTIONS — ACCOMMODATION WITH
THE NORMANS  OVERTHROW OF THE ROMAN NOBLES — AFFAIRS OF MILAN — •
MISSION TO THAT CITY OP DAMIANI AND ANSELM DA BADAGIO — MISSION OF
ALDRED ARCHBISHOP OP YORK AND OTHER PRELATES TO ROME — DISSATIS
FACTION OF THE IMPERIAL COURT WITH THE DECREE OF ELECTIONS — DEATH
OF NICHOLAS II.
Happily as the usurpation of this intruding bishop had
been overcome, the situation of the papacy, when
Nicholas assumed its administration, was by no means
such as to inspire its supporters with sanguine expect
ations of its continued independence and security. The
imperial power, though at present in abeyance, might
soon arise to strength again, and re-assert its former
privilege of despotic control. And recent events, on the
other hand, had shown, that the weakness of that power
might lead to disasters yet more fearful, than were to
be apprehended from even its most vigorous exertion.
Unsuccessful as the late outrage had ultimately proved,
its temporary success sufficiently showed the proba
bility of its recurrence. Every new pontifical election
would afford an opportunity for a similar attempt ; and
even if none were actually made, it Avas vain to hope
that the Roman authorities would act with a substantial
independence, while aware that bands of licentious

198 LIFE OF [book ii.
warriors might, at any moment, be poured into the city
from Tusculum, — fromPalestrina, — or fromNomento, —
to nullify the legitimate proceedings ofthe conclave, and
to seat a creature of their tyrannical masters upon the
apostolic chair.
In the north of Italy, meanwhile, a formidable oppo
sition was organizing itself to the austere and reforming
policy of the Lateran. The Lombard clergy had been
more completely involved in the general corruption of
the last years, than their brethren of any other Itahan
district. When therefore, through the systematic and
energetic measures of Leo and his successors, the
reformation, previously looked on by many as a mere
speculative notion, began to assume in their eyes the
semblance of a reality, they were seized with surprise
and alarm, and prepared to resist with all their force its
further progress. And the jealousy with which they
were wont to uphold the dignity of their metropolitan
Church of Milan — a Church which, glorying in the
renown of her great pastor, the holy Ambrose, was loth
to acknowledge an inferiority to her Roman sister, — sup
plied them with an additional motive for opposing the
course of any policy, which avowedly emanated from
the papal city.
The warriors, too, of the south, had become
estranged and hostile. — ^The Norman sovereignty of
William de Hauteville, shared for a while between
that chief's surviving brothers, Humphrey and Robert,
fell, on Humphrey's death, to Robert alone. This
intrepid and sagacious chief — best known by his
honorary surname of Guiscard ' — was now the lord of
Apulia and Calabria, and daily menaced with further
' i. e. The wise one — a name akin to the, now contemptuous, term,
" wiseacre."

CHAP, v.] GREGORY VII. 199
encroachments the feeble Catapans of Greece ; who
were barely able to defend from his arms the Capi
tanate, with the territories of Bari and Otranto.
The Lombard principality of Capua had fallen into
the hands of another Norman chief, who maintained
himself there as an independent count ; but the cities
of Salerno and Amalfi, and the state of Benevento,
continued for a while to assert a precarious liberty.
In Victor, the Normans had beheld a representative
of the imperial policy and power, — ever objects of their
dread ; while in Stephen they had suspected a partici
pator in the plans and machinations of the intriguing
Godfrey, who was known to be anxious to compass
their downfall. Nicholas therefore, who might be said
to come as the nominee of Agnes and of the Tuscan),
duke together, could not expect to be regarded with
impressions more favourable. And, as it might be a
doubtful point with that crafty people, whether more
was gained by a recognition of the papal suzerainty,
than was lost by the restrictions to the indefinite
extension of their empire, which that recognition im
plied, it was by no means clear, — ^however Nicholas
might seek to conciliate them, — that the connexion
formed with them by Leo could now be renewed.
The new pontiff, however, who, like his predecessors,
honoured Hildebrand with the highest degree of con
fidence and respect, proceeded, under the guidance of
that sagacious adviser, to meet, as best he might, the
exigencies of the time. First and foremost, presented
itself the necessity of guarding against such tumultuous
proceedings as had recently occurred, by defining the
characteristics of a valid pontifical election. In that
necessity, Hildebrand and his party saw an opportunity
of straitening, as far as legal enactments could straiten
it, the influence exercised on such occasions by the

200 LIFE OF [book II.
imperial power ; and endeavoured to avail themselves
of that opportunity to the utmost extent. But the
interests of the court were, on the other hand, ably
supported by the imperial chancellor, Guibert ; and the
course pursued bore, consequently, in some degree
the character of a compromise.
One hundred and thirteen prelates, in consequence
of the summons of Nicholas IL, assembled in council
in the Lateran, on the 13th of April, 1059'. After
passing several canons, of a tenour similar to those
by which Leo IX. and others had attempted to restore
the purity of the Church, they adopted, with regard to
the election of its chief pastors, a memorable decree, to
the following purport* : — " We decree and appoint, that,
" on the death of the present pontiff of the universal
" Roman Church, the cardinals' shall in the first place,
' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1061. Damiani Opusc. xxx. c. i.
^ Two ancient versions of this decree are extant : the translation
in the text is made from that which appears the oldest, which is given
in the Chronicon Farfense ap. Murator. Rer. Ital. Scriptt. t. ii. pt. ii.
and in Udalric Babenberg. Cod. Epistol. No. 9. with the exception of
a few words taken from the other version (that in Hugon. Floriacens.
Tractat. ap. Baluz. Miscellan. ed. Mansi. t. ii. p. 196,) the corre- •
sponding passage in the former version seeming to be imperfect.
' According to an account of the Roman Church in 1057, given by
Baronius " ex antique codice," its constitfltion was then as follows :
The seven Cardinal Bishops (those of Ostia, Porto, St. Ruflna,
or Silva Candida, Alba, Sabina, Tusculum, and Praeneste. Vid.
Cantel. de Metropolit. urb. hist. pt. ii. diss. 5) were attached to
the Church of the Lateran.
Of the twenty- eight Cardinal Presbyters, —
Seven belonged to Sta. Maria Maggiore.
Seven „ St. Peter's.
Seven ,, St. Paul's.
Seven „ St. Laurence without the walls.
The Deacons were eighteen in number ; six styled Palatini, and
twelve Regionarii.
The Subdeacons were in number twenty-one-, seven Regionarii,

CHAP. V.J GREGORY VII. 201
" weighing the subject with the most serious consider-
" ation, proceed to a new election ; regard being had to
" the honour and reverence due to our dearly beloved
" son Henry, who is now styled king, and who, it is
" hoped, will hereafter, by the gift of God, become
" emperor ; according to the grace which, on the medi-
" ation of his chancellor Guibert, we have granted to
" him, and to his successors, who shall have obtained
" a like privilege from the apostolic see. Taking all
" precautions that the pest of simony do not contami-
" nate their proceedings, let religious men, together
" with our most serene son Henry, take the lead
" in conducting the pontifical election ; and let other
" persons follow their guidance.
" If any of her members be found worthy of the
" honour, let the choice be made from the Church of
" Rome ' herself ; but, if not, let a worthy person be
" taken from any other Church. Should the perverse-
" ness of depraved and impious men have so far pre-
" vailed, as tha.t a fair, honest, and uncorrupt election
" cannot take place in Rome, let the cardinal bishops,
" with the religious clergy and catholic laymen^, few as
seven Palatini, and seven others who formed what was called Schola
Cantorum. There were twenty-two abbeys in the city. And in addition to
the seven collateral bishops, as the above mentioned were called,
sixty-two prelates of Italy were considered suffragans of the Roman
patriarch, being subject to no other metropolitan. These were
frequently called in to assist in synods.
With respect to the title " Cardinal " itself, see Muratori de
Cardinaliura institutione dissertat. in Antiquitat. Italiae medii sevi,
t. v. p. 153, et seqq. See also Thomassin. vetus et nov. eccl. discip.
pt. i. lib. ii. cap. cxv.
• i. e. of the Roman province.
' These last few words are inserted from the version of Hugo.
Floriac.

202 LIFE OF [book II.
" they may be, receive the power of electing a pastor
" for the apostolic see wherever, in concert with our
" most invincible king, they may deem it convenient.
" And if, when the election shall have been made, the
" storms of war, or violence of malignant men, shall
" render impracticable the customary enthronization in
" the papal chair, the person elected shaU nevertheless
" enjoy, as a true pope, full power of exercising the
" government of the Roman Church and of administer-
" ing her affairs."
This most important enactment was subscribed, — the
pontiff himself having first set his name to it, — by about
seventy prelates or other ecclesiastics, among whom
were Hildebrand and Peter Damiani'. And though
the imperial right " of interference was, in it, set forth
in a way which their party found, in subsequent years,
inconvenient ; there can be no doubt that, as com
pared with her past state, the tendency of such an
enactment was to raise the Church to a state of con
siderable independence as well as security. The popu
lace, who had so often, in a capricious and tumultuary
manner, controlled the proceedings of election, were
prohibited from all interference with those proceedings
until their last stage, and were then only to be per
mitted to interfere by an approval or disapproval of
the candidates presented them. It was put out of the
power of the nobles to give again, to an intruding
nominee, the semblance of title, by a mock election.
And in the emperors, who had learned to regard the
power of nomination as their own, the sole right re
cognized was that of concurring in the election, and of
sanctioning, by their approval, the choice of the Roman
' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1066.

CHAP. v. J GREGORY VII. 203
prelates, clergy, and people. And the compliment
itself, which was paid to the imperial crown, in the
person of the youthful Henry, was so worded as, in
opposition to the claims recently put forth and exer
cised by the sovereign, to assert the principle, that
the crown was itself a boon to be given or withheld
according to the good pleasure of the apostolic see.
The clear tendency of the decree was, in short, to
throw the whole power of election into the hands of
the college of cardinals. But what was to be the fate
of the decree itself; whether, systematically acknow
ledged and acted upon as occasion should require, it
was to become an operative reality ; or whether, over
ruled by imperial power, or trampled down by aristo
cratic or popular violence, it was to remain a mere
empty demonstration, and to produce no perceptible
effect upon the history of the world, was a question, the
solution of which was yet in the hand of time.
The event which immediately led to a settlement of
the question between the papacy and the Normans,
was Guiscard's conquest and occupation of Troia, a
city of the Capitanate, which, — though it had been long
in the possession of the Grecian crown, — the popes, it
appears, ever considered a rightful appanage to the patri
mony of St. Peter. Nicholas, therefore, demanded of
the conqueror, that the place should be surrendered to
his authority; and, upon Robert's refusal to comply
with the request, he threatened the haughty chief
with the solemn denunciation of the Church. Bold
as he was, Robert had not nerve to face the pro
mulgation of such a sentence. He despatched an
embassy to Rome, and endeavoured to bring about
an accommodation ; and the pope, who, like his adviser
Hildebrand, saw the expediency of attaching the Nor-
9

204 LIFE OF [book II.
mans firmly to the holy see, and the danger of con
tinuing in a state of hostility with that formidable
people, announced his intention of holding a council
at Melfi, the central point of the Norman dominions,
where Robert might himself appear, and where all
matters in discussion between them might be amicably
and definitively settled ; while, at the same time, the
benefits of the great ecclesiastical reformation in pro
gress, might be extended to those outlying, and, till
then, neglected regions \
The council was holden accordingly^; the pope availed
himself of the favourable position in which he stood, to
enforce among the luxurious and irregular clergy of
southern Italy, an attention to the canons, — against
clerical marriage and other forbidden practices, — which
had so frequently been promulgated in other districts.
And, — with regard to the main object ofthe meeting, —
the reconciliation, which both parties were alike
desirous to make, was not long deferred '. Robert
Guiscard was declared at peace with the Church, and
acknowledged ; — now that he scorned the humbler style
of Count, — by the title of Duke of Apulia *. The pope
consented to grant, and Robert to hold, all conquests
which the latter had previously made, or should thence
forward make, in Italy, together with all such territories

' Namque sacerdotes, Levitae, clericus omnis hac regione palam
se conjugio sociabant . . . vocat hos, et praecipit esse Ecclesise
sponsos, quia non est jure sacerdos luxurias cultor ; sic extirpavit
ab illis partibus uxores omnino presbyterorum. — Gul. Appul. ap.
Murator. t. v. p. 262.
' Leo Ostiens. iii. xiii. — Harduin, t. vi. pt. i. p. 1067.
' Card, de Aragon. in Vita Nic. II. Murator. t. v.
* " Robertum donat Nicholaus honore ducali." Gul. Appul. ap.
Murator. t. v. p. 262.

CHAP. V.J GREGORY VII. 205
in Sicily as he might be able to wrest from the Saracen
arms, as fiefs, under the paramount lordship of the holy
see ; and under the annual tribute of twelve pence of
Pavia, for every couple of oxen in the Norman chief's
dominions '. In token of this arrangement, Guiscard
received from the hands of Nicholas a consecrated
banner, and pledged himself as follows :
" I, Robert, by the grace of God and of St. Peter,
" Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and, by like grace,
" hereafter of Sicily, will from this hour be a true vassal
" to the holy Church of Rome, and to thee. Pope
" Nicholas, my lord. In the counsel or in the act
" whereby thy life or liberty shall be endangered, will
" I not share ; the secret which thou shalt have confided
" to my keeping, I will never, knowingly, reveal to
" thy hurt ; I will stedfastly assist the Roman Church
" in the protection and extension of the royalties and
" possessions of St. Peter, to the best of my power,
" against all men ; and I will support thee in the safe
" and honourable possession of the Roman papacy, of
" its territory, and of its privileges. No future ex-
" pedition or acquisition will I make without the consent
" of thee or of thy successors. All Churches in my do-
" minions I put, with their possessions, into thy power ;
" and I vrill consider the defence of them an obligation
" resulting from my fealty to the Church of Rome. And
" shouldst thou, or any of thy successors, depart this
" life before me, I, under the directions of the better-
" disposed cardinals, the clergy, and the people of
" Rome, will do my best to secure the election and
" ordination of a pontiff to the honour of St. Peter I"
' Per singula bourn paria denarios duodecim. — Leo Ostiens. iii. xvii.
'^ Borgia Breve Istoria del Dominio Temporale, app. No. iii.
p. 23. A shorter version is given by Baronius, "ex antique codice."

/
206 LIFE OF /[book II.
The council then broke up ; and Nicholas at once
availed himself of the fealty, thus purchased, of his
powerful vassal. At the pontiff's desire, Robert led
his warriors on an expedition against the strong-holds
of those tyrannical nobles, whose power had been so
long the scourge of Rome. One by one, they yielded
to his prowess ; the bulwarks of Tusculum, — Palestrina,
Nomento, — and Galeria, were in succession razed to the
ground ; he demolished all baronial strong-holds as far
northward as Sutri'; and the tyranny, which their
domineering possessors had so often exercised over
the papal city, was put an end to for ever.
Nor, in the mean time, was the critical state of
the Lombard Church overlooked by Nicholas or his
advisers. The pride, with which the Milanese clergy
in general asserted the dignity of the Church of St.
Ambrose, has been adverted to. But the reforming
movements at Rome had so far extended themselves
to their city, as to give birth to a party within its walls,
who boldly set themselves against the prevailing laxity
of doctrine and practice. At the head of this party
stood the deacon Ariald, a man well versed in theology
and in the literature of his time, who with much fire
and eloquence, though, it would appear, with indecent
boldness, was wont to harangue in public against the
dissolute and irregular manners of his clerical brethren.
These naturally sought to silence an orator so obnoxi
ous, by all means in their power; but Ariald was
supported by Landulf, an ecclesiastic of powerful con
nexions in the place, who participated in his senti
ments ^ and was thus enabled to persevere in his
J Bonizo, p. 806.
' Bonizo — .Arnulph. Hist. Mediolan. 1. iii. c. viii. — Landulph.
senior. Mediol. Hist. 1. iii. c. iv.

CHAP. V.J GREGORY VII. 207
attacks. And as the crime of simony, as weU as the
practice, reputed criminal, of clerical marriage was
notoriously prevalent in the Lombard capital', the
objects of Ariald's invectives were unable to reply to
them. The feeling, too, which ever disposes a popu
lace to Usten with avidity to charges against their
spiritual rulers, was an aid; it seems, of which Ariald
did not fail to avail himself. Inflamed by his dis
courses, the people learned to treat their prelate and
his clergy with open manifestations of contempt ; they
reviled them in the house of God itself, and hooted
them along the streets.
Unable, of themselves, to devise a remedy for this
menacing state of things, the Milanese clergy applied
for advice to Stephen IX., and, by his recommendation,
founded, it is probable, upon an imperfect acquaintance
with the circumstances, their archbishop. Guide, — a
prelate so deeply polluted with the corruption of the
times, that he is said to have invariably demanded a
price for the favour of admission into holy orders, — con
vened a council at Fontaeto ^ before which Ariald and
his friend Landulf were summoned to appear. But,
anticipating the verdict of an assembly convened under
such auspices, they paid no attention to the sum-
^ See with regard to simony, Glaber Rodulph. v. c. 5. Vid.
Bonizo, p. 799. With regard to marriage, it was maintained by the
Milanese clergy that St. Ambrose had given to members of the body
the permission to marry once with a virgin. Vid. Joannis Petri
Puricelli Dissertatio utrum S. Ambros. elero suo Mediolan. permi-
sit ut virgin! nubere semel posset, ap. Murator. Rer. Ital. Scriptt.
t. iv. p. 121. The really ancient custom of Milan was, it would
seem, the same with that of the Greek Church, " ut liceat uti uxore
ante ordinem ducta."
' Arnulph. Hist. Mediolan. 1. iii. c. xi.

208 LIFE OF [book n.
mons, and were consequently, by the archbishop and
his assessors, declared excommunicate.
Ariald, upon this, proceeded with all speed to Rome ',
and laid his own statement of the case before Stephen,
who, having thus a more complete view of it than he
had derived from the garbled representations of the
licentious clergy, declared the sentence null ; and felt
the necessity of interfering, with the full weight of
the pontifical power, to correct the vices, and repress
the disorders, of the Church of Lombardy.
But this task, through the early death of Stephen,
devolved upon his successor, to whom it presented
itself, fraught with much additional difficulty, in conse
quence of the long vacancy of the papal see. Nicholas,
however, resolutely undertook it. Peter Damiani,
whose indignation the excesses of the Lombard clergy
had kindled to the highest degree, was charged
with the commission of asserting the papal authority
in Milan ; Anselm da Badagio, bishop of Lucca, a man
of an amiable but less energetic character, being asso
ciated with him in the legation ^. Making their appear
ance in the long-disturbed city, these envoys found the
archbishop and his clergy, however hostile in secret to
their coming, prepared to acknowledge their authority,
and to receive them with every outward mark and sign
of deference. But the populace, moved perhaps by the
secret instigations of their pastors, soon showed, — dis
posed as they might be themselves to ridicule or revile
these careless guides, — that they were keenly jealous of
the assumed independence of their native Church, and
viewed with suspicion any papal interference with the
' Arnulph. ^ Cantel. Metrop. urb. Inst. pt. i. diss. i.

CHAP. V.J GREGORY VII. 209
proceedings of its governors. In tumultuous throngs
they fiUed the streets, and entered the building in which
the legates had convened the clerical body of the place.
And their wrath was greatly increased, when they there
beheld Damiani, as chief legate, after himself assuming
the principal seat of honour, place his colleague Anselm
on his right, and their archbishop Guide on his left '.
Loud murmurs filled the place at this seeming slight to
their pastor ; murmurs which that prelate artfully con
trived to augment, by saying, with apparent humility,
that he was in no way offended by this arrangement, —
but that he would sit, if commanded by the legates so
to do, on a stool ^ before their feet. The discontent at
length broke out into open tumult, — the populace ut
tered wild cries of vengeance against the presumptuous
legate, who had dared thus to insult the successor of St.
Ambrose : — the clergy, eager to augment the fray, rang
the alarm-bell in the various churches of the city ; — the
confusion increased, — and even the life of Damiani was
apparently in danger ^ But that bold and high-spirited
man was equal to the crisis ; ascending a pulpit, he
showed himself prepared to address the tumultuous
multitude. His dauntless bearing awed them to silence,
and he was heard with attention while, vrith dignity, and
with all the eloquence which distinguished him, he set
forth the claims which the mother Church of Rome
possessed on the dutiful obedience of her daughter, the
Church of Milan. He cited instances in which St,
Ambrose himself had appealed to the protection of the
Roman prelate, and acknowledged his pre-eminence.

' Vid. Damiani Act. Mediolanens. Opuscul. v. ' Ibid.
' Intentabant mihi, ut ita loquar, omnia mortem, et, ut ab amicis
meis saepe suggestum est, nonnulli meum sanguinem sitiebant. Ibid.
VOL. I. P

210 LIFE OF [book II.
" Search," he concluded, " your own records, and if ye
" find not there that what we say is the truth, expose
" our falsehood. But if ye find us true, resist not the
" truth, resist not undutifuUy the voice of your mother ;
" but from her from whom ye first drew in the milk of
" apostolic faith, receive with gratitude the more solid
" meat of heavenly doctrine."
This appeal, and the legate's fearless demeanour, pro
duced a sudden turn in the feelings of his hearers. The
archbishop, too, felt it necessary now to rise, and to
request his people, to suffer the skilful physician who had
just addressed them, to do his best toward healing their
spiritual sickness. The populace retired, soothed and
tranquil, and the clergy offered no further opposition
to the legatine authority. On Peter's demand, their
whole body, with the archbishop at their head, agreed
to pledge themselves by a solemn vow against simony
and clerical marriage. Ariald took the oath among
them ; and Peter, thus successful in his mission, pro
nounced in his official character the reconciliation of
Milan to the apostolic see '.
Before a council holden, about this time, by Nicholas,
at Rome, appeared an embassy from our English
sovereign, Edward the Confessor, charged with the
commission to obtain the pope's approval of the new
arrangements, with regard to the tribute to the holy
see, which the monarch had introduced into his do
minions, and a confirmation, by the same authority,
of the exemptions and privileges which Edward had
requested for his restored and beautified abbey of
Westminster ^ The embassy consisted of Aldred, arch-
' Act. Mediolanens. ut supra.
^ Vid. Chart. III. Regis Edwardi Confessoris Ecclesise Sti Petri
Westmonast. confect. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1153.

CHAP. V.J GREGORY VII. 211
bishop of York, of the bishops of WeUs and Hereford,
and of Tosti, earl of Northumberland. Aldred, in
addition to the other objects of the mission, had under
taken the journey for the purpose of obtaining Jrom
Nicholas the pall, or vestment of archiepiscopal dig
nity, which could, according to the usage of the times,
be conferred by the pope alone. But this, Nicholas, in
the present instance, declined to confer. He had, it
seems, various causes of complaint against the arch
bishop ; one of which was, that Aldred, though called
on to do so, refused to resign his former bishopric of
Worcester. And the discussion of these matters, so
irritated Aldred and his companion, the Earl Tosti,
that they left Rome suddenly, with the threat, that no
more English tribute should ever reach the apostolic
threshold. An accident, however, brought about a
speedy accommodation of this quarrel. On their re
turn, these travellers, being attacked and despoiled by
the followers of the rapacious Count of Galeria, one of
the nobles, whose strong-holds the Normans had de
stroyed', were driven back, stripped of all but their
garments, to Rome, Nicholas, as might have been
expected, received them with all kindness and hospita
lity, supplied their necessities, and put them in a con
dition to recommence their journey ; excommunicating,
at the same time, the profligate noble who had been
the cause of their misfortune. And the discussion, re
sumed, under these circumstances, on a more friendly
footing, was soon brought to a satisfactory termination.
Aldred, promising to resign his former see, was regu
larly invested with the pall, and then, the other objects
' Vid. Damiani Disceptat. in Concil. Osbor. Hard. t. vi. pt. j,
p. 1133.
p2

212 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK IL
of the mission having been accomplished, returned with
his companions to England'.
Notwithstanding the homage paid to Henry's name
in the late decree relating to papal elections, the im
perial court was naturally startled by the general tenor
of its enactments. And the measure became^ doubly
suspicious to Agnes and to her advisers, when viewed
in connexion with the line of policy adopted by
Nicholas, in his renewal of the alliance with the
Normans. Her first impulse was to declare the decree
irregular, and to demand its formal abrogation. But,
surrounded as the empress was with difficulties, she
was not able to give to any of her measures the cha
racter of promptitude ; and when, in 1060, a council of
the empire had been summoned at Worms, probably
for the purpose of carrying the above resolution into
effect, the general prevalence of an epidemic disease in
Germany compelled her to postpone its meeting I
And before any subsequent steps of a definite character
could be taken by her, a new importance was given to
the question, by the death of Nicholas, who expired, at
Florence, on the 22d of July 1061'; leaving behind
him the elements of a struggle, between the court and
the Church, more obstinate than any which the times,
as yet, had witnessed,
' Willielm. Malmesb. de gestis Pontiff, p. 153, edit. Savil. Sed
vide vitam S.Wulstani, ejusdem auctoris, ap. Mabillon. Act. SS. Ord.
S. Benedict. Saecul. vi. pt. ii, p. 828, et Pagi, in Baron, ad an. 1059.
^ Lamb. Schafnab. ' F. Pagi Breviar. t. i. p. 541.

BOOK II.— CHAPTER VI.
A.D. 1061 TO A.D. 1062.
VIEWS OP OPPOSITE PARTIES — TITLE OF PATRICIAN OFFERED TO HENRY IV. BY THE
ROMAN NOBLES — MISSION OP THE CARDINAL STEPHEN TO THE EMPRESS — HIS TREAT
MENT — ELECTION, AT ROME, OP ALEXANDER II., AND AT BASIL, OF THE ANTIPOPE
CADALOUS — EPISTLE OF DAMIANI TO THE LATTER — MARCH OF CADALOUS TOWARD
ROME  BENZO'S MISSION THITHER — BATTLE NEAR THAT CITY — INTERFERENCE OF
GODFREY OP LORRAINE  RETIREMENT OF BOTH COMPETITORS TO THEIR RESPECTIVE
DIOCESES  DISCONTENTS OF THE GERMAN NOBLES — ABDUCTION OF HENRY IV. FROM
HIS MOTHER — ADMINISTRATION OF ARCHBISHOP HANNO — DECREE OF THE COUNCIL
OF OSBOR AGAINST THE PRETENSIONS OF CADALOUS.
In their connexion with the Normans, Hildebrand and
his friends had a support which formed a considerable
counterpoise to the disfavour of the court. Godfrey
too, reconciled as he was in appearance to his sovereign,
was supposed still to remember his old injuries, and to
be by no means favourable to the extension of im
perial influence in Italy. Those, therefore, by whose
counsels the decree of Nicholas, relative to elections,
had been framed, now felt "themselves strong enough
to carry it into execution, and to select a successor
to the deceased pontiff by the deliberation of the
college of cardinals. They were prepared, according to
the tenor of the same decree, to act in some measure
under the sanction and authority of the imperial name ;
but they were by no means disposed to accept a mere
nominee of Agnes or of her advisers. But the empress,
as we have seen, was not prepared to be content with
this quaUfied homage to the sovereign authority. And

214 LIFE OF [book II.
her inclination to maintain the fulness of imperial privi
lege, was strengthened by her knowledge of the force,
moral and physical, which was ready in many quarters
to array itself on her side. Guibert, her chancellor in
Italy, formed the secret centre of a powerful party
spread throughout that country, whose movements were
more openly directed by the cardinal presbyter, Hugo
Candidus. This person, a countryman of Leo IX., had
been promoted by that pontiff to his station in the
Roman Church'. With great abilities, he possessed yet
greater ambition; and finding, that in a party con
trolled, as was that of the papalists, by Hildebrand, he
could attain but a secondary rank, he had transferred
his services to the side of the upholders of the imperial
prerogative. And of these he soon became the ostens
ible head^ though the talents and station of Guibert
always preserved to him, in reality, the paramount autho
rity. In Rome itself, a party had always existed who were
friendly to the unrestricted power of the crown — a
numerous body, too, of ecclesiastics, had been startled
by the increasing weight and influence of a party, so
strict and uncompromising in their reforms, as was that
of Hildebrand and Peter Damiani ; and found, in the
turbulent and licentious spirits with whom the city
abounded, ready and willing allies in the cause of con
tinued laxity. One of these latter, who bore the name
of Cencius, — being offended, that the office of prefect,
which had been filled by his father, had not been, on
that father's death, bestowed upon himself, — occupied,
with his licentious retainers, the strong-hold, well
known as the castle of St. Angelo ; and thence sub
jected the Roman citizens to systematic plunder, de-
' Bonizo, p. 803. " Id. p. 807.

CHAP, VI, J GREGORY VII. 215
manding a toll from all who crossed tne neighbouring
bridge over the Tiber. And so feeble, even in its own
city, were the hands of the papal government, that
Nicholas was forced to submit to the affront ; and to
content himself with pronouncing against the offender
the censures of the Church.
The Campanian nobles, still resentful at the affront
which had been inflicted on them by the Norman sword,
were eager, by the aid of the imperial power, to humble
the obnoxious party, which had so signally revenged
itself upon them. The excommunicate count of Gale
ria set out, in the name of his order, and of the Roman
people in general, for Germany' ; and laying before the
king the golden circlet and other ensigns of the patri
cian dignity, besought him to vindicate for himself the
power and privileges of his ancestors. The bishops,
meanwhile, of Lombardy, rejoicing in their liberation
from the yoke which Nicholas had imposed upon them,
met in council, and resolved to acknowledge, as pope,
none but a Lombard, on whom they might depend to
sanction or connive at the irregularities in which they
continued to indulge. And the notification of this
determination to Agnes sufficiently showed her, that
by appointing a pontiff from the district in question,
she might secure the co-operation of the Church of
northern Italy, on his behalf, in opposition to the
ecclesiastics of Rome, and in contravention of the
decree of Nicholas. The empress could also reckon,
in the event of a struggle, on the moral power of pre
cedent ; — on the historical associations which gave to
the sovereign, in the eyes of the existing generation, a
' Damiani disceptat. synodal. Opusc. iv. — Berthold. Constant
ad an. 1061.
' Bonizo, p. 807.

216 LIFE OF [book n.
prescriptive right to the supreme control in papal
elections ; — ^as well as on that aversion to the exercise
of independent power by the Church's governors, in
virtue of their station in the Christian theocracy, which
is,but too natural, in all ages, to the human heart. Her
party, so to call it, was therefore far more numerous
than that which acted, at the present crisis, in support
of Hildebrand and his coadjutors. The latter, however,
possessed the countervailing advantage of being keener
in the cause, better organized, and more united. The
imperialists acted as the defenders of things existing,
and such are rarely found to contend with the zeal
which characterizes assailants. Their numbers, too,
were composed of masses really hostile to each other's
interests, however conjoined for the moment. And
they were far less aware than their opponents, of the
real importance of the question now to be tried: they
fought, as the struggle developed itself, for the imme
diate recognition of an individual pope ; the papalists,
for the permanent establishment of an ecclesiastical
principle. The first step taken by Hildebrand and his party, on
the death of Nicholas, was the mission of the presbyter
Stephen, a respected member of the college of cardinals,
to the imperial court, for the purpose of sounding the
intentions of the empress, and of procuring, if possible,
her acquiescence in their projected course. But Agnes,
when Stephen arrived, had already decided on an
opposite line of conduct ; and the ecclesiastical envoy
was refused admittance to her presence. He remained
five days in her court, imploring this favour in vain ' ;
and then felt it his duty to return to the papal city with
the ridings of his failure; when Hildebrand and his
' Damiani disceptatio synodalis. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1130.

CHAP. VI. J GREGORY VII. 217
friends perceived that all hope of compromiserwas at
an end. The contempt with which their envoy had
been treated created a strong feeling in the breasts of
the Roman. clergy, and strengthened the minds of the
irresolute among them for a decisive measure. The
more determined availed themselves of the advantage,
and summoned the college of cardinals, for the election
of a pope, on the 1st Oct. 1061'. The privileges,
whatever they were intended to be, which the decree
of Nicholas had recognized in the youthful Henry, were
tacitly waived; in all other respects, the proceedings
were conducted in strict conformity to the provisions
of that enactment ; and the choice of the assembly fell
upon Anselm da Badagio, who has been already men
tioned as Damiani's colleague in the mission to Milan.
Anselm was immediately enthroned in form as Alex
ander 11.^ ; and one of his first acts was the nomination
of Hildebrand to be chancellor of the apostolic see.
Agnes had, in the mean time, summoned the prelates
and nobles of her empire to a council, to be holden at
Basil, on the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude (Oct.
28 ^). By that day, intelligence had arrived of Alex
ander's election, and the whole court was indignant at
this supposed rebellious transaction. It was, of course,
unanimously voted null ; and the meeting, at the sug
gestion of Guibert, proceeded to elect to the seat of St.
Peter, Cadalous, bishop of Parma*. This nominee is
described, by his opponents, the papal writers, as a man
' Damiani disceptat.
' Leo Ostiens. III. xxi. For the imperialist version of this trans
action, see Benzo, panegyric, in Henric. III. (IV.) Imp. lib. vii. c. 2,
in Menckenii Scriptt. t. i. p. 1063.
' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1117.
* Leo Ost. III. xxi. — Herman. Contract. Continuat. — Sigeb.
Gembl. 9

218 LIFE OF [book ii.
of depraved manners and profligate character ' ; and,
though we must make great allowance for the hasty
expressions of irritated partisans, it must be recollected,
that the step taken by the Lombard clergy almost com
pelled ' the empress to fix her choice upon a prelate
acceptable to the lax and simoniacal party in the
Church^; though it is not probable that she would
select any whose reputation had been publicly blasted.
Cadalous does not seem to have possessed any re
markable abilities; and this circumstance was not,
perhaps, forgotten by Guibert when he suggested the
name of that prelate to his imperial mistress. The
crafty chancellor, in all probability, wanted a pope who
should be the tool of his party, and not its leader. And
most unfortunate was it for the amiable and well-mean
ing princess who held the reins of empire, that, influ
enced by advisers and connexions like these, she was
induced to amalgamate the cause of her son vrith that
of one unfitted by personal qualifications for the papal
office, and at the same time pledged to degrade that
office by exerting its influence in support of lawlessness
and corruption.
The Roman party, though they must have expected
some such step on the part of Agnes as the election at
Basil, were particularly indignant when informed of the
object of her choice. Peter Damiani poured forth the
ardour of his soul in an epistle to the pretender, written
in the moment in which he received intelligence of his
' Card, de Aragon. — Virum divitiis locupletem, virtutibus egenum.
Bonizo. ^ Clerici uxorati .... qui hactenus dicti sunt Nicolaitae, amodo
vocentur et Cadaloitae. Sperant enim quia si Cadalous, qui ad hoc
gehennaliter sestuat, universali Ecclesiae Antichristi vice prsesederit,
ad eorum votum, luxuriae frasna laxabit. — Damian. Opusc, xviii.
Diss. 2. c. 8.

CHAP. VI. J GREGORY VII. 219
uncanonical election. He entreated him, he adjured
him, to return to the paths of duty and of obedience. Pie
besought him, instead of heading a schism himself, to
join his efforts to those of true Churchmen for the
preservation of unity in the Church. Breaking forth into
verse, he deplored the evils of the time, and the degrada
tion ofthe holy apostolic see '. And then, venturing to
assume the tone of a prophet, and calling the special
notice of Cadalous to the prediction, he declared to
him, in the following terms, that his death would occur
in the course of a year : —
Fnmea vita volat, mors improvisa propinquat.
Imminet expleti praepes tibi terminus sevi.
Non ego te fallo : coepto morieris in anno ".
Anxious as many in and near Rome must have been
for the expulsion of Alexander, and the introduction^
into the papal city, of the imperial nominee, the empress
found it impracticable to take, at the moment, any
overt measures in furtherance of their wishes. Her
own difficulties in Germany have been already adverted
to. The necessity of military preparation retarded the
journey of Cadalous to Rome ; who feared, besides, the
mountain-passes of Godfrey's territory, aware that the
Tuscan prince was inclined to favour his rival ^. And the
turbulent spirits of Rome itself were kept in check by
their constant terror of the Norman sword. Alexander
continued, therefore, for some months in Rome, unop
posed in any formal or effective way, however frequent
' Heu sedes apostolica,
Orbis olim gloria.
Nunc, proh dolor, efficeris
Officina Simonis,
&c. &c.
' Damiani, lib. i. ep. xx. ' Benzo, lib. ii. c. i.

220 LIFE OF [book II.
were the agitations and menacing the troubles by
which, in that unsettled time, the city was convulsed.
But in the spring of 1062, the Lombard bishop, at
the head of a considerable force, and amply provided
Avith treasure for the purpose of corrupting the adhe
rents of his rival', set forward for the city of St. Peter.
The prelates of northern Italy, as he moved along,
joined him with reinforcements, or received him with
demonstrations of joy and triumph^ ; and on the feast of
the Annunciation, he arrived at Sutri ^ Alexander,
aware of his approach, made such preparations, as his
means admitted of, for defending the papal city. Men
gazed, with anxious expectation, on the anticipated
spectacle of a war carried on between those who had
forsworn war, and for the possession of the seat of
peace. And it seems that, impressed with the horror
of the time, they were ready, — in the disturbed state
of nature, — in an earthquake and thunder-storm in
February, — in a season of unusual scarcity — and in the
prevalence of epidemic disease and mortality, by which
these visitations were attended* — to trace a mysterious
sympathy of the inanimate creation with the troubled
elements of the moral world.
To prepare his way in Rome, Cadalous had sent
thither his able, but unprincipled, adherent, Benzo
bishop of Alba, to sound the disposition of the Romans,
and, if possible, to prevail on them to throw open their
gates for the reception of the imperialist pontiff. Benzo
executed his task with skill. Received by the populace
' Portans secum ingentia auri atque argenti pondera. Bonizo,
p. 807.
' Tunc Symoniaci Isetabantur ; concubinati vero sacerdotes ingenti
exultabant tripudio. Bonizo, 1. c.
^ Benzo, lib. ii. c. ix.
' Herman. Contract. Continuat. — Berthold. Constant.

CHAP. VI.J GREGORY VII. 22 1
with favour, and admitted into the palace of Octavian
on the Palatine hill, he during several days carried on
negociations with the chiefs of the imperial party ' ; by
lavish presents, and yet more lavish promises, he swelled
the number of their adherents ; and at length, summon
ing the populace together in some arena or open
space, near the palace, he harangued them at length^ ;
and officially promulgating among them the imperial
commands, he called on them to reverence the ex
pression of the sovereign's will, and receive the pontiff
who had been chosen for them. Alexander appeared
on horseback at the place of meeting, attended by
a numerous train ^ But he and his friends made no
attempt, — they were, perhaps, too weak, — to stop the
proceedings ; and he contented himself with replying,
to Benzo's charge of perjury and rebellion, that he
was not unmindful of his obligations to his sovereign,
in simple duty to whom it was, that he had done
what he had done, and what a legate, despatched to the
imperial court for the purpose, should explain. And
then, turning his horse, he rode away, amid the ridicule
and revilings of the multitude *.
His party, nevertheless, maintained the upper hand
in Rome, though the tower of Cencius, and several
other strong posts and points in the city, were occupied
by the friends of his opponent. A respectable force
' Per singulas dies peroravi causam pueri regis, domini mei. —
Benzo, lib. ii. c. i.
^ Ad quoddam hypodromium. — Benzo, 1. ii. c. ii. Qu. the Co
liseum ?
' Affuit ex altera parte hsereticus ille Lucensis, imo Lutulensis,
cum suis glandariciis, cujus deterrima imago erat similis spiritibus
horrificis. Ubi vero apparuit, velut infernalis umbra, ejus formi-
dabilis vultus, murmur multum fit in populo, oriturque perstrepens
tumultus. — Benzi), 1. c.
* Tunc universus populus universaliter coepit clamare, Vade
leprose ! discede leprose ! — Benzo, 1. c.

222 LIFE OP [book II.
had been collected in Alexander's support ; and though
the main body of the Normans was now engaged in
another direction, he had doubtless the aid of some
valuable auxiliaries from their territory. He looked,
too, with confident hope for aid from Godfrey of Tus
cany. That prince, though he had not openly declared
himself in favour of either party, was known to watch
with jealousy the proceedings of the imperial nominee,
and had no sooner heard of the march of Cadalous, than
he set out himself for Rome, accompanied by his wife
Beatrice and his step-daughter Matilda, and attended
by a considerable body of his military followers.
Such was the state of things when Cadalous, on the
14th of April 1062, appeared in person before the
walls of Rome'. The gates had been closed against
him ; but Alexander, after what had passed, naturally
feared that they would be thrown open by the dis
affected within, on the moment of his attack, and
therefore deemed it advisable that the intruder should
at once be brought to action by his soldiery. A sally
was consequently made, while Cadalous was encamped
in the meadow of Nero^ And between his camp
and the gates, occurred a bloody skirmish, of which
the issue for some little time was doubtful; but the
partizans of Alexander began at length to give ground,
and were driven by the enemy once more within the
walls of the papal city I Within those walls, however,
Alexander yet maintained himself; the fear perhaps
of Godfrey, who was now at hand, prevented Cadalous
from pushing forward to the completion of his triumph,
and at the same time operated in repressing the move
ments of the intruder's friends within the city. But

' Baronius, ex veteri codice in Vaticano.
' In prato Neronis. Card. Aragon. " Benzo,

CHAP. VI.J GREGORY VII. 223
the triumph of Cadalous still appeared but deferred.
Crossing the Tiber, he put himself in closer com
munication with the leading nobles who favoured his
pretensions; and received, in his camp at Tusculum,
the envoys of the Greek emperor, who acknowledged
him as pope, and proposed an alliance against the
Normans, the common enemy '. This last transaction,
however, by exciting Godfrey's jealousy, seems to have
been the immediate cause of his, at length, declaring
himself hostile to the violent measures of the intruder^;
against whom he immediately advanced, and who, un
able to resist the number and prowess of his soldiers,
found himself entirely at his mercy. The partizans of
Alexander were freed at once from their fears, and
trusting to the professions repeatedly made to them by
the Tuscan duke, doubted not, that he would now, by
making himself master of the person of the pretender,
end at once the unnatural struggle. But his own
interest, and not the welfare of the Church, was the
mainspring of the wily Godfrey's policy. He showed
himself so far hostile to Cadalous, as to extort from the
unhappy man the treasure which he had with him, as
the price of his liberation ^ ; but it did not suit the
captor's policy to give to the opposite party a triumph
as complete as they had, from his intervention, antici
pated *. He, therefore, assuming the office of arbitra
tor between the two parties, announced it to be his
will that all hostilities between them should cease ;
that Cadalous should forthwith return to his diocese of
Parma, but that Alexander should also absent himself
for the present from the papal city, and return to his
former residence at Lucca; that he would himself
undertake to bring the case, in all its bearings, under
' Benzo, 1. ii. c, xii. ' Id. c. xiii.
* Ibid. — Bonizo. — Card. Aragon. * Leo Ostiens. — Card. Aragon.

224 LIFE OF [book n.
the consideration of the imperial court; and that by
the decision of that court, thus taken, all parties should
definitively abide '.
Cadalous, impotent to resist this self-appointed arbi
trator, had no resource but to acquiesce in his decision;
and departed for Parma in a manner which formed a
humiliating contrast to his triumphal approach to the
papal city^. Nor had Alexander any other alternative
than the adoption of a similar course; he set out,
therefore, for Lucca. Godfrey still comported himself
as his friend, and promised to exert all his influence in
procuring, if possible, from the empress, the repudiation
of Cadalous, and a sanction to the act of the Roman
electors. And with this prospect the party of Hilde
brand was forced to content itself; though its chief,
and the more thoughtful among its members, doubtless
felt that, in so acting, they were abandoning in some
measure the high ground which they had at first taken,
— the ground of principle, — and treating the question
in dispute as though it were one within the proper
sphere of secular policy — of mere expediency — of royal
or aristocratical caprice. As such, Godfrey, perhaps,
had from the first considered it ; his friendship for the
Roman Church, as far as it was sincere, being in all
probability like that of many princes and nobles of
decent repute, by whom the Church in different realms
and ages has been defended with more of activity than
of knowledge respecting her real character and pre
tensions. Such friendship has too often proved ruinous where
it was intended to be beneficial ; its scope embraces
but the present hour, and for the removal of a momen
tary evil it has been too often found to trample down
' Benzo, 1. u. ^ Bonizo, p. 807.

i CHAP. VlJ GREGORY VII. 225
the most sacred barriers, or to compromise principles
of the most unspeakable importance to the destinies of
ftiture generations.
There was, however, no remedy. Many of those
whose votes had elevated Alexander to the papal throne
were but too thankful that, in their deliverance from
the hostile entry of Cadalous, was involved their rescue
from the position, which they had been led to as
sume, of open resistance to the imperial will ; and
looked forward with joy, through Godfrey's interven
tion, to some amicable arrangement or compromise
which would restore immediate tranquillity to their
Church and city.
And the few higher and more intrepid spirits, who
felt that peace itself would be bought too dearly, if
obtained by the barter of principle, were consequently
compelled to look with patience to the turn which
events might take. No positive step was, fortunately,
required from them, which would have implied a re
nunciation of the line of conduct which they had
adopted. The retirement of Alexander from Rome
was a necessity imposed on him by circumstances which
he had no power to resist. He still maintained his
pretensions, used his papal title, and exerted such
authority in Rome as his means admitted of: nor was
any rival forced into St. Peter's chair in his place.
Their immediate duty, therefore, was "to stand and
wait ;" prepared to shape their subsequent course ac
cording to the yet uncertain exigencies of the future.
Cadalous, in the meanwhile, or as he now styled
himself, Honorius IL, frustrated as he had been, trusted
his cause to the undiminished favour of the Empress,
and to the continued support of his Lombard brethren ;
and confidently reckoned on eventual success. Antici-
VOL. I. Q.

226 LIFE OF [book II.
pating a speedy verdict of the imperial council in his
favour, — a verdict which Godfrey, he flattered himself,
would not venture to disobey, — he made all prepara-
tfons for an immediate enforcement of the expefcted
sentence, by collecting men and money for a second
expedition to the banks of the Tiber.
But an event was now about to happen in Germany
which was to produce a sudden revolution in the aspect
of affairs ; and to confound alike the expectations of
both contending parties. It was, as the reader is
aware, with some indignation that the haughty nobles
of the Teutonic realm had beheld the subjection of
their country to female sway ; a circumstance to
which they subsequently attributed every evil which
afflicted their land at home, and every disaster which
befel their army abroad. The Bavarians, whose duchy,
with the view of strengthening the regal authority, Agnes
had kept in her own hands, and whom she had sent,
under able leaders, on an expedition into Hungary,
were compelled to return in discomfiture; and, with
murmurs, attributed their failure to the fact, that
they had not a duke of their own to lead them into
the field. Agnes heard the complaint, and bestowed
the fief of Bavaria on Otho of Nordheim ' ; endeavour
ing, on this, as on all other practicable occasions, to
meet murmurs and discontent by gentleness and con
ciliation. But such policy, though imposed on her by
the exigencies of her position, was not suited to her
empire or to her times. Her motives were misconstrued,
and her kindness was abused. Forced to lean for aid
upon some one principal adviser among the prelates
and peers who surrounded her, she placed her confidence
' Lamb. Schafnab. ad an. J 061.

CHAP. VI.J GREGORY VII. 227
in the Bishop of Augsburg ; whose consequent ascend
ancy in her court, watched as it was with jealous eyes
by others of like rank, was taken up by them as a
new grievance, and made to serve as the foundation
of rumours most calumnious, and most inconsistent
with the real purity of her character '. The mal
contents affected to lament the condition of their
youthful sovereign, who was brought up under such
auspices. Henry had now attained his twelfth year;
and yet, they said, he was educated beside the distaff,
secluded from all manly pursuits and manly business.
Foremost among the murmurers were Hanno, Arch
bishop of Cologne, and Siegfried, Archbishop of Mentz;
both, probably, indignant at seeing an influence superior
to their own, enjoyed by a prelate of inferior dignity.
These conferred vrith Count Ecbert, the king's cousin,
on the necessity of finding some remedy for the exist
ing grievances; and the Count readily expressed his
concurrence in their sentiments. Nor was Otho, the
new Duke of Bavaria, found reluctant, for the sake of
humbling the obnoxious bishop, to conspire against
the authority of her who had recently honoured him
with such a distinguished mark of her favour ^. The
tenure by which Agnes held the reins of power was
simply the guardianship and tutelage of her son ; in
whose name the government had in point of form been
carried on from the period of his father's death. The
conspirators resolved, therefore, by a bold stroke, to
make themselves masters of the youthful Henry's
person, and with that, of the substantial power of the
state. The king, it was known, was to proceed along^ the
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ Id. — Annalista Saxo.
Q 2

228 LIFE OF [book II.
Rhine, with his mother and court, on his way to keep
the approaching feast of Pentecost, 1062, at Nime-
guen. In anticipation of this journey, Hanno prepared.
a vessel which, while well adapted for speed, was most
magnificently adorned with gilding, vrith carved work,
with tapestry, — with all, in short, which could dazzle or
attract the eye of a beholder. And it was contrived
that, while Henry was reposing, with his court, in a spot
which was then an island in the Rhine, dedicated to
St. Suitbert ', — but which now, the river having altered
its course, forms the site of the town of Kaiserswerth, —
the bark should be brought to the shore. At the royal
table, amid the gaiety of a sumptuous banquet, the
archbishop, casually as it were, alluded to the magnifi
cence of this extraordinary galley, and so excited the
curiosity of the youthful sovereign that he determined
on immediately inspecting it. He proceeded, there
fore, accompanied by Hanno and the other confede
rates, to the place where it lay ; but scarcely had he
stepped on board, when strong and active rowers, who
had been selected and instructed for the purpose,
sprang to their benches and rowed against the stream
toward Cologne, with a rapidity which prevented the
possibility of successful pursuit ^. The king was, for a
few moments, lulled by the false excuses of the con
federates, and imagined that the scheme was a matter
of sport ; but soon perceiving that they were earnest in
the purpose of carrying him away, he imagined that
they intended his destruction ; and as his only chance
of escape, he leaped into the Rhine, and disappeared
for a moment beneath its waters. The intrepid Count
Ecbert, however, plunged in after him ; and soon
' Lamb. Schafnab. * Id.

CHAP. VI.J GREGORY VII. 229
brought him back to the vessel. And now, soothed
by the solemn assurances of his captors that no mis
chief was intended him, and aware of the inutility of
any further attempt to escape, Henry submitted silently
to his fate, and was borne with all speed to Cologne ;
while the cries and execrations of the indignant people
resounded along the shore '.
Arrived at the city, Hanno found it necessary, in
order to allay the general ferment, to declare, that his
only object had been the promotion of the public welfare;
— that he had no wish to assume to himself the exclusive
guardianship of the young sovereign ; — but that Henry,
put under the general charge of the episcopal order,
should thenceforward be assisted in the affairs of govern
ment by the prelate, in whose diocese he might happen
at any time to be. This pledge, together with the
personal authority of the confederates, sufficed to silence
all immediate opposition ; and the unhappy Agnes be
held the revolution successfully accomplished, which
robbed her at once of her sceptre, and of her child.
In the first bitterness of her bereavement, she enter
tained the thought of exchanging the cares of the world
for a life of devotional retirement ; but her counsellors
persuaded her to postpone for a while the execution of
the project, and to await in quietness the probable
change of fortune in her favour ^
Godfrey had now crossed the Alps, and, even if not
implicated, as some accounts would lead us to suppose,
in the conspiracy itself, became, at least, a ready and
active party to the league of the confederates, sub
sequently to its accomplishment. And Hanno, swayed
either by the influence of that powerful coadjutor, — by
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.

230 LIFE OF [book II.
his own predilection, — or by a general desire to oppose
in every thing the policy of the imperial Agnes and her
favourite prelate, — prepared to abandon the party of
Cadalous, as speedily as he could do so without ex
posing to the charge of vacillation the councils of the
sovereign. Peter Damiani, whom the partisans of
Alexander sent, as their representative, into Germany,
was, therefore, favourably received. And a council
was summoned, to be holden at a place styled, by
Damiani, Osbor ', probably Augsburg, for the avowed
purpose of inquiring into the real merits of the case,
and of pronouncing a final decision on the claims of the
contending prelates. Before this assembly was read a
document, composed by Damiani for the purpose, and
drawn up in the form of a conversation or discussion,
between an advocate of the royal rights, and a defender
of the Roman Church ; by which the writer endeavoured
to show, that, in the election of Alexander, nothing had
taken place which was not, under the circumstances,
justifiable, and even canonical. The composition is
curious, as containing the most systematic statement,
which has come down to us, of the line of argument
then adopted by the papal party of the time. They
attempted not to deny the monarch's general right of
interference with papal elections; a right which the
decree of Nicholas had so recently recognized. But it
was maintained, that that right, while Henry was under
age, was in great measure in abeyance ; and that, with
regard to things spiritual, the Church, as the mother
who had given the king his second and heavenly birth,
was a fitter guardian and directress, than the parent

Harduin, t. vi. pt. i. p. 1119. — Damiani disceptat. synodal.
Opuscul. iv.

CHAP. VI.J GREGORY VII. 231
from whom he had merely derived an earthly existence.
The conduct of the court in refusing admittance to
Stephen, — the representative ofthe Roman clergy, — was
cited as having demonstrated the determination of the
royal counsellors to admit of no fair and canonical elec
tion, and as having driven the Romans to proceed in
the business without the imperial sanction, as the only
means of preserving, from the evil influences which
surrounded it, the dignity of the crown. In a discus
sion penned by Damiani, it may be easily imagined to
which side victory would be made to incline. One by
one, the royal advocate withdrew his objections ; and the
triumphant defender ofthe Church, — after giving thanks
to Him who, if He had permitted the bark of Peter to be
shaken by the storms, aud tossed by the waves, had
subsequently stretched out His hand to the apostle,
raised him up, and imposed a stillness on the wind and
sea, — concluded with the wish, that the pontificate and
the Roman empire might continue thenceforward in
unbroken alliance; that the two heads of the world
might be so united in perpetual charity, as to excite
no disunion among its inferior members ; and that the
kingdom and the priesthood, — each of which had been
made, by the one Mediator between God and man, a
sacrament of things unseen, — might be so knit together
in the bond of love, that a king should thenceforward
be recognized in the pontiff, and a pontiff in the
king. The council Ustened to Damiani's composition with
approval, and then hesitated not to pronounce the
verdict, which it had, in truth, been assembled to give.
The election of Alexander was declared legitimate,
that of Cadalous nuU ; and to Godfrey, together with
Hanno's nephew Burchard, bishop of Halberstadt, was

232 LIFE OF [book II.
entrusted the duty of leading back the rightful pope to
Rome, and securing to him the peaceable possession of
the throne of St. Peter.
The decree of Osbor was adopted on the eve of
St. Simon and St. Jude, 1062'. On the feast ofthe same
apostles, the year before, had occurred the irregular
election of Cadalous at BasiP ; and Damiani, who had
probably begun to feel rather anxious with respect to
the fulfilment of the prophecy on which he had ventured
in the preceding year, availed himself of this coincidence
to declare, that he had intended to predict, not the
natural death of Cadalous, but that moral death, which
he might be said to suffer, when thus publicly con
demned and deprived of the character which he had
assumed. But, notwithstanding Damiani's great and de
served reputation, it does not appear that this ingenious
exposition was considered as in all respects satisfactory,
or that it sufficed to shield him, or his presumptuous
prediction, from the taunting jests of his opponents '.
Humbled as Cadalous was, he was not deprived of
the hope of eventual success. Throughout Italy his
party was numerous and active*. The preponderance of
Alexander's party, in inspiring the Lombard clergy with
new fears, stimulated them to new exertions. The cha
racter, too, of Godfrey, — actuated as he evidently was
by policy, rather than principle, in the line which he had
adopted, — was such, that the party whom he opposed
might reasonably hope, by availing themselves of some
favourable conjuncture, to draw him again to their side.
' Damian. Opusc. xviii. Diss. 2, c. 8. Leo Ostiens. 1. iii. c. xxi.
' Damian. 1. c.
* Tunc quippe mortuus est in honore, cum honoris synodalis
judicio perdidit dignitatem. — Damian. 1, c.
* Ibid.

CHAP. Vl.J GREGORY VII. 233
Nor, in the unsettled condition of Germany, was it
very improbable that the supremacy of Hanno might
be annihilated as rapidly as it had been created, and
the court, in consequence, revert to its former policy.
The Pretender, therefore, continued with unabated
eagerness his preparations for a prosecution of the
struggle.

BOOK IL— CHAPTER VII.
A.D. 1062 TO A. D. 1067.
henry's BAD EDUCATION — CONTEST BETWEEN THE BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM AND
THE ABBOT OF FULDA — RETURN OF ALEXANDER II. TO ROME  RISE TO POWER OP
ADELBERT ARCHBISHOP OF BREMEN — HIS INCLINATION TO FAVOUR CADALOUS —
MELANCHOLY CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONTINUED STRUGGLE — RETIREMENT OP
DAMIANI FROM HIS BISHOPRIC — FALL OF ADELBERT — FLIGHT OP CADALOUS
FROM ST. ANGELO — DISTURBANCES AT TREVES — HENRY's ILLNESS AND MARRIAGE
— hanno's VISIT TO ITALY — COUNCIL OF MANTUA — RETIREMENT OP AGNES INTO
A CONVENT.
The confederate prelates and princes, who had snatched
the young Henry from the hands of his mother, had
made it a charge against her, that she was neglecting
to prepare her son, by a suitable education, for the high
station which he was destined to fill. But, just or
otherwise as this accusation, considered in itself, may
have been, they soon showed that, in their mouths, it
was but a pretence, a specious grievance, brought for
ward to screen the selfish motives which in reality
governed their proceedings. The ambitious feudatories
of the crown were, in truth, by no means anxious to
hasten the period of Henry's fitness to take upon him
self the charge of empire ; and preferred a course which
promised them a longer career of unrestrained and li
centious power. They excluded Henry from all partici
pation in the business of the state ; they surrounded

CHAP, VII, J LIFE OF GREGORY VII. 235
him with their creatures and dependents, and permitted
no other person to approach him without their special
permission ; they encouraged him in an unrestrained
indulgence in field-sports, in the pursuit of all youthful
pastimes and pleasures; and they neglected not only
the inculcation of the elements of necessary knowledge,
but also that which is of much greater importance, that
moral culture of the mind and principles, which is in
truth the one great business of education.
How much of the misfortune and misery of Henry's
future life may we not trace to the unprincipled conduct
of these evil guardians ? Nay, how large a portion of
the misery of many succeeding generations may we not
ascribe to those, to whom it was owing, that the head of
the imperial house, at this critical epoch of the world's
history, grew up to man's estate with a mind unculti
vated, with passions uncontrolled, and with faculties
unstrengthened by discipline to cope with or to master
the difficulties which he was doomed to encounter.
But had the prelates, by whom Henry was more
especially surrounded, shown much more anxiety than
they did for the instruction and moral improvement of
their illustrious pupil, their own manners were such as
could by no means inspire him with that reverence
toward his instructors, without which the principal part
of the work of education must ever be attempted in
vain. Their rapacity exhibited itself in the shameless
way in which they, as if in emulation of each other,
extorted from the crown the grant of lands, manors,
farms, and forests, to the manifest diminution of the
royal dignity ; as well as in the unjust annexation of
the property of religious communities, which were
unable, to resist them, to the territory of their sees.
Nor in pride, — or in the fierceness with which they

236 LIFE OF [book II.
resisted all real or imagined insults, — inconsistent as such
qualities are with the sacerdotal character, — were the
spiritual fathers of Germany a whit inferior to the
imperious secular nobles with whom they associated.
At the commencement of vespers, before the king and
court at Goslar, at the solemn season of Christmas,
1062, a dispute arose between the servants ofthe Bishop
of Hildesheim and those of the Abbot of Fulda, with
regard to the position of the seats of their respective
masters '. The abbot, by ancient usage, was entitled
to sit next to the metropolitan; but the bishop,
indignant that any should take this place, within his
own diocese, in preference to himself, had commanded
his domestics to place the chairs accordingly. The
dispute soon led to blows, and, but for the interference
of Otho of Bavaria, would have terminated in blood
shed. This noble asserted the rights of the abbot, and
the bishop was consequently foiled. He looked for
ward however to a renewal of the contest under more
favourable auspices ; and at the feast of Pentecost fol
lowing, previously to the entrance of the king and the
prelates into the Church, he secreted behind the high
altar Count Ecbert and some well-armed soldiers ^ As
the contending prelates proceeded to their seats, the
affray between the servants began again ; when the
Count, suddenly springing from his ambush, rushed with
his followers upon the astonished men of Fulda, and
drove them with blows and menaces from the Church.
But they too had made preparations for a violent strug
gle, and had friends and arms at hand. In a body they
rushed once more into the sacred building, and engaged
their enemies with swords in the midst of the choir,
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Ibid.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 237
confusedly mingled with the choristers '. Fiercely was
the combat waged: "throughout the Church," says
Lambert of Aschaffenburg, "resounded, instead of
" hymns and spiritual songs, the shouts of the combat-
" ants and the screams of the dying ; ill-omened victims
" were slaughtered upon the altar of God ; while
" through the building ran rivers of blood, poured forth,
" not by the legal religion of other days, but by the
" mutual cruelty of enemies." The bishop of Hil
desheim, rushing to a pulpit or some other conspicuous
position, exhorted his followers, according to the same
writer, as with the sound of a trumpet ^ to perseverance
in the fray ; and encouraged them by his authority, and
by the promise of absolution, to disregard the sanctity
of the place. The young monarch called in vain on his
subjects to reverence his royal dignity ; all ears were
deaf to his vociferated commands and entreaties ; and,
at length, urged by those around him to consult his own
safety, he escaped with difficulty from the thickening
tumult, and made his way to his palace. The men of
Fulda, by the efforts of Count Ecbert, were at length
repulsed, and the doors of the Church closed against
them ; upon which, ranging themselves before the
building, they prepared to assail their enemies again
as soon as they should issue from it ; and there remained
until the approach of night induced them to retire '.
Such scenes as these were not likely to impress the
youthful Henry's mind with exalted ideas either of the
purity and spirituality of the Church herself, or of the
reverence due to her ministers. Nor, nurtured among
' In medio chori psallentiumque fratrum manus conserunt. — •
Lamb. ^ Tanquam militari quodam classico. — Lamb.
' Ibid.

238 LIFE OF [book n.
those to whom such transactions were familiar, could
he easUy image to himself a purer state of society, or
learn to estimate aright the power of principle over
mankind. When, therefore, he came, in after-Ufe, into
contact with one by whom that power was asserted in
opposition to the kingly name and authority, it need not
surprise us to find that he misunderstood his own posi
tion, miscalculated the resources of his antagonist, and
fell, by consequence, into a series of errors, from which,
when he was better informed by experience, it had
become impossible for him to extricate himself.
During the progress of these transactions, Alexander
II. had been led back by Godfrey, to Rome, where he
once more took up his abode, in the month of January,
1063 '. But the city was still in a very unsatisfactory
state. The great fortress of Cencius, which we will
henceforward style by its more familiar appellation of St.
Angelo, continued in the hands of partizans of Cadalous,
who, — possessed of this strong-hold, — maintained a
general superiority on the right bank of the Tiber.
The empress, still in correspondence with the pre
tender, urged him to avail himself of this advantage,
and to ensure his triumph by speedily appearing among
them in person ^. And this he attempted to do ; but
the vigilance of Godfrey, who sedulously watched the
roads over the Appennines, delayed the accomplish
ment of the project ; and the remainder of the year
1063 passed away, without producing any signal change
in the relative positions of the contending parties in
Italy '.
Circumstances had however, in Germany, undergone
^ Bonizo. — Benzo. 1. ii. c. xv. ^ Benzo, 1. c.
' Benzo, ii. xvi.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 239
another mutation. Hanno, from the moment in which
he obtained possession of the royal person, had been
surrounded by difficulties. Violent and unjustifiable as
had been the measure by which the youthful Henry was
separated from his mother, the archbishop of Cologne
was probably influenced in the accomplishment of it by
motives more pure, or, at least, less selfish, than were
those of his coadjutors. His temper was passionate,
and he was deeply infected with the general rapacity
of the clerical body in that age ; but he at the same
time possessed, if we may judge from the represent
ations of contemporary writers, a sincerity of character,
which should incline us to believe, that in adopting the
line which he did, he was mainly actuated by the desire
of promoting the welfare of his country '. The deed
had, however, no sooner been accomplished, than he
found himself hampered on all sides by his more unprin
cipled confederates, and compelled to shape his course
according to the dictates of their rapacious and
licentious policy. The young king naturally regarded
him with disUke ; and unless he could be effectually
conciUated, Hanno felt that his power hung by a thread.
His ally Siegfried of Mentz, as a participator in the
abduction, was as obnoxious to Henry as himself; nor
was that prelate, — a man of an ordinary and worldly cha
racter, — at all likely, in opposition to such an obstacle,
to win his way to favour. Hanno determined, therefore,
on associating in the counsels and power of the con-
' See below, book iii. cap. viii. One chronicler of the times seems
quite at a loss to account for his implication in a deed, so inconsis
tent with his general character. " Quod ille, qua intentione fecerit,
" vel quoliter divino judicio placuerit, discernere non valemus,
" multa tamen incommoda ex tunc orta et deinceps aucta, certum
" tenemus." — Annalista Saxo. 9

240 LIFE OF [book II.
federacy, Adelbert archbishop of Bremen '. This prelate
was one endowed with singular qualifications to shine in
courts, and to fill a foremost place in the history of his
time. With a striking person, he possessed great
eloquence and a singular versatility of talent ; and while,
among princes and prelates, he asserted his dignity with
the loftiest and proudest, he won the favour of the
lower classes by his voluntary humiliations, his affable
manners, and his prodigal munificence ^. Presented to
Henry, he soon insinuated himself into the young
prince's confidence ; more especially as he had been no
party to the treachery of those who had plotted the ab
duction; and Hanno began to perceive that he was
likely to be himself superseded in power by the new
favourite whom he had introduced. But the discovery
came too late. Adelbert was day by day extending his
influence and growing in the royal favour ; and the dis
appointed archbishop of Cologne beheld him, in a short
time, the sole adviser of the monarch, and by conse
quence the sole depository of the power of the state.
More completely to secure his hold upon Henry, Adel
bert placed about him a young nobleman of agreeable
manners, but profligate character, Werner by name ' ;
' Lamb. Schafnab.
' Iste nobilissimus genere Halberstadensis prius praepositus erat,
ingenio acri, memoriae Celebris, eloquentiae singularis, forma corporis
speciosus, castitatis amator, largitatis ejusmodi ut petere haberet
indignum, tarde autem aut humiliter acciperet, prompte vero hilari-
terque saepe non petentibus largiretur. Humilitas in eo dubia
videbatur, quam solis exhibuit servis Dei, pauperibus et peregrinis,
adeo ut saepe antequam cubitum iret, xxx. et amplius mendicantibus
ipse genu flexo pedes lavaret. — Principibus autem saeculi et sequa-
libus suis humiliari nuUo modo voluit. — Hist. Archiepisc, Bremen-
sium incerti auctoris, edit. Lindenbrog.
' Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VH. 241
in whose society the king soon learned to delight.
Agnes too, her son being thus taken out of the hands of
his original betrayers, returned to his court, and was
treated by the now dominant prelate with the most dis
tinguished attention. Hanno's ostensible policy had
been based upon his character as an ecclesiastic. At
tachment to the Church had formed the avowed motive,
her prosperity the main object, of his labours. But
Adelbert, as though in opposition to this, professed to
assume, as his leading principle of conduct, a chivalrous
devotion to the person of his sovereign, a loyal eager
ness to assert and to extend the prerogatives of royalty.
And this disposition, together with the wish to gratify,
in every possible way, his new ally the empress,
induced him, as soon as he felt secure in his pre
eminence, to deny the authority of the council of
Osbor, and to declare himself the friend of the pretender
Cadalous. Another change, consequently, took place in the for^
tunes of the papal contest. Encouraged by Adelbert's
support, the intruder penetrated through Tuscany, and
suddenly appeared again before Rome '. Cencius and
his other friends threw open to him the gates of the
Leonine city, or that portion of Rome which lay on the
right bank of the Tiber ; and, aided by his aristocratic
allies from the neighbourhood, he immediately endea
voured to drive Alexander from the remaining portion
of the town^ But a stout resistance was made; a
large portion of the populace took up arms against the
assailants, and, surprised by Norman troops in his rear,
Cadalous was compelled to retreat into the impreg-
' Occulta quasi fur Romaniam venit, — Bonizo, p. 807.
^ Benzo ii. xvi. et seqq.
VOL. I. ^

242 LIFE OF [book II.
nable stronghold of Cencius, St. Angelo, and there to
estabUsh himself, closely watched by his adversaries '.
The Greeks, who, as it wiU be remembered, had
acknowledged him as the legitimate pope, were anxious
to prevail on the imperial court of the West, to dispatch
a German armament into Italy, in support of his claims,
as well as for the purpose of humbling the Norman
power ^ But, willing as Adelbert might have been to
undertake such an enterprise, it was not in his power
to gratify them. The forces of the empire were re
quired for the attainment of objects nearer home ; and
it was, besides, requisite, in the first place, to nullify the
decree which had been passed in favour of Alexander
by the fiat of another council ; a step which might he
attended with hazard. Benzo, bishop of Alba, who had
borne to Germany the request of Cadalous and his
party for immediate assistance, was therefore compelled,
on his return, to content himself with encouraging
them to persevere, and to trust to future succour. And
Cadalous, pent up within his tower, continued to keep
the papal city in a state of feverish anxiety, but was not
able to extend his dominion over it, or to prevent his
rival from consolidating his power, by the continued
occupation of the Lateran and general administration
ofthe papal government. Alexander had holden a coun
cil in 1063 \ and therein, re-enacting the decrees of his
predecessors against simony and clerical marriage, had
shown himself determined to follow the example of
their reforming policy. And two more councils were
summoned by him during the course of 1065*; the

' Bonizo, ut supra. — Card. Aragon. — Benzo 1. ii. c. xviii.
' Benzo iii. c. 1 et seqq. ' Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1137.
* Hard. pp. 1143.1145.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 243
principal object of which was the definition and enforce
ment of the Church's laws against marriage within the
prohibited degrees of consanguinity. But, though he
was thus able to go through the forms of legislation,
little can have been the weight of his pastoral enact
ments, while his right to the pastoral character was yet
the subject of contest ; feeble must have been his
efforts in stemming the corruption of the times, while
a rival, intrenched within sight of his pontifical palace,
menaced the existence of his authority, and arrayed
the half of Italy against his pretensions. Melancholy,
therefore, was the spectacle exhibited by the Church
thus divided against herself. " The rulers of Churches,"
says the ardent Damiani, " are now daily whirled
" along in such a vortex of worldliness, that though
" their mode of shaving the beard ', distinguishes them
" from the laity, their demeanour does not. Their
" studies are, not the words of holy Scripture, but
" legal decisions and forensic disputations. The halls of
"judges suffice not for the multitude of priests who
" throng them ; and the royal courts, in vomiting forth
" a shoal of monks and clergy, deplore their narrowness.
" The cloisters are, deserted ; the gospel is closed; the
" lips of priests being employed in expounding or dispu-
" ting upon secular laws. And would that we were con-
" tent with legal strife alone. We prefer arms, we
" snatch up arms, we brandish weapon against weapon,
" and fight with the sword, not with the word, in oppo-
" sition to the rules of our order . . . The laity universally
" pare away the Church's rights, diminish her incomes,
" invade her possessions, and exult in appropriating the
" stipends of her poor servants, as in dividing the spoils
' Barbirasium.
R 2

244 LIFE OF [book IL
" of an enemy. Among themselves, meanwhile, they
" spoil each other's goods — with mutual aggressions
" they assaU each other — and because, inclosed together
" in one common world, they cannot live separate,
" they harass ea'bh other by mutual devastation '."
" The malignant spirit of evil," continues the preacher,
" now hurries the human race, with more than his
" wonted eagerness, over the precipice of crime ; more
" fiercely than ever agitates all men with bitterness
" of hatred and treacherous animosity . . . The world
" may be compared to a sea. When the storms of
" wind arise, the face of the broad ocean being but
" gently curled, the waters near the shore are more
" powerfully stirred. And now, when we verge toward
" the end of the world, as toward a neighbouring
" shore, the hearts of all men are vexed by the raging
" storms of dissension and discord, and, as it were,
" dashed upon the strand by the foaming waves ^."
Alexander had not been long selected by the Roman
conclave to occupy the vacant seat of Nicholas, when
the singularly-minded writer of the above sentences
took a step, which it had required the most strenuous
exertions of the deceased pontiff, to prevent his sooner
adopting \ Wearied with the cares of his station, and
disgusted with the low tone of the society around him,
he abdicated his bishopric*, and retired to the seclusion
and asceticism of the cloister, from which he had unwill
ingly emerged. From his retirement, it is true, he con
tinued to watch with an attentive eye the fortunes of
the Church ; by his epistles he still interfered with her
' Damian. ep. i. 15. ad Alexand. II. ' Ep. iv. 9.
' Vid. Petri Damiani opusc. xix. de abdicatione episcopatus, ad
Nicolaum Rom. Pontif.
' Damiani opusc. xx. Apologeticus ob dimissum episcopatum.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 245
concerns, and influenced her destiny ; nor was he back
ward, when called on, to devote himself on special occa
sions to active services in her cause. But Hildebrand
never forgave him the sort of selfishness, for so it may
be styled, with which he determined on gratifying his
morbid craving after ascetic retirement, at a moment in
which the endangered Church so imperatively required
his episcopal services. And Damiani, on his part, seems to
have regarded Hildebrand, at this time, with sentiments
which it is not easy satisfactorily to analyze. " Perhaps,"
he says, " my flattering tyrant, who has ever soothed
" me with Neronian pity, who has fondled me with
" buffets, and patted me with eagle's claws, will break
" forth into the following complaints against me : — ' See,
" ' he seeks a nook, of refuge, and wishes, under the ex-
" ' cuse of penitence, to escape from Rome ; he wishes
" ' by disobedience to obtain quiet, and while others
" ' carry on the war, himself to repose in the shade.' But
" I reply to my holy Satan, as once the children of Reu-
" ben and Gad replied to Moses, ' We will go forth
" ' armed to the battle until the children of Israel shall
" ' obtain their inheritance, but we demand nothing for
" ' ourselves beyond Jordan, for we have already ob-
" 'tained our lot '.'"
Some feelings akin to jealousy, it may be, excited
by Hildebrand's now preponderating influence in the
Church, mingled themselves, in the mind of Damiani,
with his habitual disUke to rank and responsible station,
in now leading him to fulfil the design of abandoning
his bishopric. That influence, as exerted over Alex-
' Damian. ad Alexandrum Rom. Pontif. et Hildebrandum S. R. E.
cardinalem Archidiac. lib. i. ep. x. et opusc. xx.
9

246 LIFE OF [book II.
ander, he had recently satirized in the following couplet,
addressed to the object of his spleen : —
Papam rite colo, sed te prostratus adoro,
Tu facis hunc dominum, te facit ille Deum '.
And in another distich^ —
Vivere vis Romse : clara depromito voce,
Plus domino Papa quam domno pareo Papae ^.
Time went on ; the year 1065 found Cadalous still
invested in his fortress ; still able to agitate and per
plex the counsels of his rival, but still too weak to
advance from his post, or to venture on any measure of
active hostility. And from the empire the intruder
still looked in vain for effective support. Adelbert was
occupied with schemes, more immediately affecting his
own personal interests, than the vindication of the im
perial power over the papal city. Prosperity continued
for some time to attend the aspiring archbishop's career.
The affairs of Hungary were happily arranged, by the es
tablishment, on the throne of that country, of Solomon,
the son ofthe late king Andrew^; who had received
Henry's sister, Judith, — othervrise styled Sophia, — in
marriage, and who, grateful for his restoration, in form
acknowledged himself the vassal of the Teutonic realm.
Henry, now no longer a mere child, continued to treat
his counsellor with the fullest confidence, and to mani
fest his delight in Count Werner's society ; the two
favourites, therefore, swayed the empire at their wiU.
Prospects of the most dazzling nature swam before
the ambitious Adelbert's eyes. He contemplated taking
' Damiani Preces et Carmina, No. cxcv. ^ lb. cxlix.
^ Bonfinii Rerum Ungaric. Decad. ii. lib. iii.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 247
Hamburg as the seat of his power, and estaWishing a
species of papacy in the North. And as the develope
ment of this gigantic scheme, as well as the profuse
magnificence of his daily habits, required continual sup
plies, he was tempted, — though above the passion of
avarice in its more vulgar form, — to grasp at every possi
ble method of increasing his resources ; and he, and his
ally, disgraced their rule, by a wide-spread system of
corruption and plunder. Though withheld, by fear of
consequences, from interfering with the possessions of
the great prelates and nobles, they despoiled, without
shame, the lands and revenues of the less powerful
religious communities, and put up to sale every office,
civil or ecclesiastical, which fell to their disposal'.
But the overbearing demeanour which Adelbert,
thus virtually despotic, adopted toward his brother arch
bishops, and the other chief feudatories of the crown,
exasperated them to the extreme. In private confer
ences, they breathed into each other's ears their various
complaints ; and at length, secure of each other's con
currence, they resolved to strike a decisive blow, toward
the overthrow of the haughty favourite's power. They
summoned the general nobility of the realm, to a meeting
to be holden, in January, 1066, at Tribur^ ; where they
intended publicly to denounce the obnoxious prelate,
and to insist on his dismissal from the presence and
confidence of his sovereign. Startled by this extraordi
nary measure, Henry set out at once from Goslar, ac
companied by Adelbert and Werner, for the appointed
place. But the journey of one of his companions was
fatally interrupted. Count Werner, while halting in
the town of Ingelheim, near Mentz, became engaged,
'¦ Lamb. Schafnab. ' Near Durmstadt. Idem.

248 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
through the rapacity of his followers, in a fray with the
inhabitants; and received, in the confusion, a mortal
blow, from the hand of a slave, or, as some say,
of a dancing girl'. Henry, however, with the arch
bishop, appeared on the appointed day, at Tribur;
but he found the assembled nobles look coldly upon
him; their language was peremptory; and in terms
which he could not misconstrue, they gave him to
understand, that he must at once either abdicate the
throne, or banish the archbishop of Bremen from his
society and his counsels. The king retired, to deliberate,
during the night, upon the conduct to be pursued.
Adelbert suggested a departure, during the darkness,
from the scene of the rebellious assembly, and Henry
prepared to adopt the suggestion. But the project was
discovered, the king's palace was surrounded, and his
motions watched ; and so general was the exasperation
against the obnoxious prelate, that, when the morning
appeared, he was, with difficulty, preserved from the
violence of the multitude by Henry's exertions and
authority^. Thus unhappily situated, the king felt him
self constrained to yield to the demand of his nobles ;
Adelbert was dismissed with disgrace from his court,
retiring, amid the execrations of the populace, to
insignificance and obscurity ; and the chief power of
the state fell once more into the hands of Hanno,
Siegfried, and those other confederates, who had pre
viously wielded it. To Henry, they were as distasteful
as ever ; but he was forced for a time to submit to cir
cumstances, and durst not oppose their united power.
Cadalous, in the mean while, through the vigilance
of his opponents, was day by day more closely invested
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ Id.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VIL 249
in the fortress of St. Angelo. At length, straitened
by a close blockade, he was reduced to a state of the
greatest distress and privation, and, feeling the inutility
of a longer stay in Rome, resolved upon attempting an
escape. But the profligate Cencius, taking advantage
of his guest's necessity, would not suffer him to under
take such a step, until he had extorted from him three
hundred pieces of silver, as the price of his liberation'.
Cadalous then quitted by stealth^ the tower, — in which
he had now resided about two years, — and, eluding the
vigilance of his enemies, made his way, without misad
venture, to his proper diocese ^
Alexander II. was thus delivered from a constant
source of embarrassment at home, at the same time that
he was encouraged by the cheering prospect of a renewal
of the imperial support. Hanno returned to power
with the same sentiments in his favour which he had
formerly expressed ; and prepared to ratify and enforce
the decision of Osbor as soon as circumstances would
permit. But the arrangements necessary to accom
plish this end required time and management; more
especially as it was thought advisable, by way of autho
ritatively terminating the dispute, that a council should
be holden, under the imperial sanction, in Italy. The
confederate prelates and princes felt it, of course, neces
sary to watch, with much vigilance, the movements of
the monarch into whose counsels they had thus forced
themselves ; and, even independently of this considera
tion, the events in Germany, during the year 1066,
were of too critical a nature, to render it expedient, that

' Bonizo, p. 807.
' Uno ronsino et uno oliente contentus. Card. Aragon. — Bonizo.
' Leo Ostiens.

250 LIFE OF [book II.
Hanno should quit the court on a joiirney into Italy.
At Utrecht, where Henry observed the festival of
Easter, the archbishop of Treves suddenly breathed his
last ' ; and Hanno procured of the king, vrithout delay,
the investiture of his relative Conrad, provost of Cologne,
with the vacant see^ Conrad set out, accompanied by
the bishop of Spires, and escorted by a military force,
to take possession of the archiepiscopal residence. But
the clergy and people of Treves were indignant that a
new pastor should thus be intruded upon them, with
out their having been called on to take part in the
election. Under the command of Count Dietrich, the
principal lay-officer of the church, a considerable body
sallied forth, and surprised Conrad in his quarters,
the morning before his intended entry into the city.
A bloody skirmish ensued; Conrad's forces were dis
persed, and himself and the bishop of Spires made
prisoners'. The latter, who had hidden himself be
hind the altar of a neighbouring church, was severely
beaten, dragged with every species of insult out of
the precincts of the sanctuary, and then suffered, half-
naked and bare-footed, to escape on a sorry steed from
the scene of his disgrace. But the unhapy Conrad was
reserved for a severer punishment. After a short term
of rigorous imprisonment, he was made over by the
Count to four knights for execution ; and these, after
throwing him more than once from the top of a preci
pice, despatched him with the sword*. This tragical

' Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo.
^ Gesta Trevirensium Archiepiscoporum, ap. Martene et Durand.
Coll. Ampl, t. iv. p. 173.
' Gesta Tre vir. Archiep. ut supra.
^ Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo. — Gesta Trevir. Archiep. ut

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 251
event naturally inspired, in the king and his advisers,
the warmest indignation. But the schemes of venge
ance, which were in the first instance formed, were
soon abandoned. The court was not in a condition to
venture upon increasing its embarrassments by a civil
war. It was felt, too, that, unjustifiable as was the
deed which had been perpetrated, it had been provoked
by rash and over-hasty conduct on the other side. The
two parties, therefore, soon came to a compromise.
Udo, a respected ecclesiastic of the family of the
Counts of Nellenburg, was a person acceptable to
the king, and one whom, at the same time, the clergy
and people of Treves declared themselves willing to
accept as their pastor. He was, therefore, peaceably
nominated to the archiepiscopal dignity ' ; and the
murderers of Conrad escaped all punishment from the
hands of earthly justice ; though, in the miserable cir
cumstances under which they severally came, at sub
sequent periods, to their ends, men deemed that they
could recognize the less easily averted chastisements
of a higher tribunal ^.
An illness, vrith which the king, during the progress
of these events, was seized, gave occasion to his nobles
seriously to consider the important question of the suc
cession to the throne '. He recovered, however ; and in
deference to the wishes of his counsellors, consented,
during the summer, to fulfil the contract of marriage
made, in his name, by his father, with the Princess Bertha,
supra. — Sigefridi Moguntin. Epist. ad Alex. Pap. in Udalric. Baben
berg. cod. No. cxxix.
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Gesta Trev. Archiep. — Annalista Saxo.
' Ipse comes .... Jerosolymam pergens vitam finivit, et omnes
ejus consentanei mala morte perierunt. Annalista Saxo.
' Lamb. Schaftiab.

252 LIFE OF [BOOK H.
of Susa'. By this measure, the confederate nobles hoped
to give a new turn to his thoughts, and to wean him
from the profligate habits in which, young as he was,
he had begun to indulge ; and which they deprecated,
without, perhaps, reflecting how large a portion of the
evil was to be traced to their own neglect and crimi
nality. The measure, however, faUed. Henry, though
forced to go through the ceremonial of a marriage, con
ceived an aversion to the princess thus forced upon
him, and shunned her company. The event, therefore,
instead of furnishing Hanno and his friends, as they
had hoped, with a new hold over the sovereign's mind
and inclinations, did but supply them with a new
source and occasion of perplexity. But, though thus
independent, as to his personal conduct, of their autho
rity, the king continued unable to shake off their politi
cal control; and their power, in the spring of 1067,
was so far consolidated, that Hanno at length ventured
to set out on his projected expedition to Italy. He
crossed the Alps, accompanied by Godfrey of Lorraine,
and Otho of Bavaria, and escorted by three hundred
horsemen ^ ; and, without making any halt in Tuscany,
proceeded to Rome ; where Alexander, to whom he
had notified his approach through a new chancellor of
Italy, Gregory bishop of Vercelli, was prepared for his
reception. Assuming, as he felt it expedient to do,
the character of an unpledged arbiter between the con
tending prelates, Hanno, on his introduction to the
conclave, thus addressed the pontiff who presided over
it : " How is it, O my brother, that you have ven-
" tured to assume the papal dignity without the direc-

' Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo. — Bonizo, p. 808.
' Benzo, lib. iii. c, xxiv.

CHAP, VII.J GREGORY VII. 253
" tion or consent of the king, my master ? The sanction
" of princes and rulers has long been thought necesary
" to the validity of such promotions '." And then,
commencing with the patricians of Rome, and tracing
the transmission of their power to the hands of the
emperors of the West, he endeavoured — or seemed at
least to endeavour — to establish the correctness of his
assertion, by the citation of a variety of precedents
drawn from the records of the apostolic see. But the
defence of the Roman Church, which had been com
mitted, at Osbor, to Peter Damiani, was here under
taken by the virtual leader of Alexander's party,
Hildebrand himself. Stepping forward, as Alex
ander's archdeacon, to reply to Hanno's address, he
referred the archbishop to the practice of primitive
and apostolic times, and to those canons of the Church
in which, enacted as they had been at different times,
that practice had been recognized- and embodied.
He insisted upon the liberty of pontifical election,
guaranteed, by many such enactments, to the papal
city ; and, in reference to the recent decree of N icholas
IL, he attempted to show that in the election of Alex
ander nothing had been done which, when the circum
stances of the time were taken into consideration,
could be regarded as contradictory to the spirit of that
regulation ^. Hanno, prepared beforehand to be con
vinced, appeared to feel the force of the archdeacon's
arguments; but willing to give his decision all pos
sible weight, and for that purpose to maintain, for the
present, the character of an unbiassed umpire, he be
sought Alexander to appear at a council which he
intended to convene at Mantua ^ to which Cadalous
' Card. Aragon. ' Id. ' Id.

254 LIFE OF [BOOKII.
should also be summoned, and by which the great
question should be authoritatively decided. Situated as
Alexander then was, the proposal might be considered
humiUating; he knew, however, the motives of the
proposer, and, feeling that no other step could so effec
tually consoUdate his power, or appease the distur
bances of Italy, he hesitated not to accede to it'. This
important council, therefore, met, in his presence, in or
about the month of April, 1067 ^ It was numerously
attended by the prelates of northern Italy, most of
whom, as the reader is aware, had strenuously sup
ported the cause of Cadalous, But the definitive
severance of the imperial authority from the support of
his cause had influence with many. Many were pre
vailed on to give in their adhesion to the cause of
Alexander, by the weight of Godfrey's name, and by the
exertions of his wife Beatrice, the determined sup
porter of the Roman party. And some there, doubt
less, were, who, — though the contravention of the royal
will by an ecclesiastical body had at first appeared to

' Licet a Romanorum pontificum hoc esset alienum dignitate,
tamen quia necessitas urgebat. — Bonizo, p. 808.
' Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1143. — The writers of the time differ
much from each other in the date which they assign to this impor
tant assembly. Some, including Lambert of Aschaffenburg, and the
continuator of Hermannus Contractus, fix it in 1064. Siegbert of
Gemblours, and the author of the life of Ariald, in the Acta SS.
mens. Jun. di. 27, in 1067. Marianus Scotus ascribes the decision in
favour of Alexander to 1068 ; while Benzo appears to postpone it
to 1071 or 1072. But the date adopted in the text (1067) is that
approved, among modern critics and compilers, by the two Pagis,
by Schrockh, by the author of the Art de Verifier les Dates, and
by Stenzel. By the latter, the subject is critically discussed, in
an article of the appendix to his Geschichte der Frankischen Kaiser,
and his arguments seem to leave little doubt on the question.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 255
them a strange thing, — had learnt, from the fact of
Alexander's maintaining, during nearly six years, his
preponderance, to form new ideas on the subjects of
canonical elections, and of the limits, in things spiritual,
ofthe authority of the secular sovereign. The assem
bly met, therefore, disposed to abandon the pretender's
cause, and to give weight to that decision, in favour
of Alexander, which Hanno was prepared to make.
Anticipating the event, Cadalous did not appear. Sur
rounded by his adherents, he established himself at
Aqua Nigra, about twelve miles from Mantua; and
notified to Hanno, that he would only present himself,
on the archbishop's pledge to concede to him, as pope,
the presiding seat in the assembly. But when he
found this demand disregarded, and was informed, by
his scouts, that the council was proceeding with its
deliberations without him, he endeavoured to raise a
tumult, by breaking into the town at the head of his
military followers. By the efforts of Godfrey, however,
he was soon discomfited and repulsed, and the session
continued in tranquillity '. Alexander stated his case
fully and fairly before his brother prelates ; to the accu
sation which had been shamelessly brought against him
by Cadalous, of having compassed his election by simony,
he replied by a solemn oath of his innocence ; and the
unanimous voice of the assembly pronounced him the
legitimate successor of St. Peter, and Cadalous an
unauthorized claimant of the papal see ^ And thus at
length was brought to a conclusion this gr6at and
arduous struggle. The party of the intruder appears
to have been virtually annihilated by the blow : Hugo
Candidus ' and others of his chief supporters seeking and
' Benzo, iii. xxviii. "^ Sigebert Gemblac. — Marian. Scot.
^ Bonizo, p. 809.

256 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
obtaining a reconciliation with his successful rival. To
the day of his death, Cadalous continued to arrogate to
himself the papal name ' ; but he never dared, by any
act of aggression, to assert his pretensions ; never ven
tured to show himself again upon the banks of the
Tiber. And if this triumph of the ecclesiastical party, over
the late despotic policy of the court, required any more
palpable illustration in the eyes of mankind, such an
illustration was most strikingly afforded, by an event
which about this time took place. The Empress
Agnes, when bereft of her son, had entertained, as we
have seen, in the first moments of her anguish, the
thought of devoting herself to a life of religious seclu
sion. Though she had been subsequently recalled to
the court, and to her son's society, under the auspices
of Adelbert, it was not to resume the commanding
part which she had formerly played there, but to be
treated with empty honours, while she beheld the un
happy youth guided, in courses which she deprecated,
by counsellors whom she had no power to control.
She continued, therefore, a mourner ; and her sorrows
strengthened and confirmed the devotional tendency of
her mind. Earthly expectations fading before her, she
learned to lean more stedfastly on hopes from above.
Her friend and adviser, the Bishop of Augsburg, having
died, she listened with pleasure to the ghostly counsels
conveyed to her in the epistles addressed to her by
Peter Damiani. Under this training, she learnt to
view the course of her late policy with altered eyes,
and to mourn over the part which she had taken in
the election of Cadalous, as over a grievous sin. And,
' Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. VII.J GREGORY VII. 257
after Adelbert's overthrow had once more put her son
into the hands of those who had originally stolen him
from her, she resolved on abandoning alike the name
of earthly dignity, and the country in which that
dignity had been enjoyed; and on spending the re
mainder of her days, iu repentance and devotion, at the
threshold of St. Peter'. Wonderful, according to
Damiani, and edifying, was the spectacle of her en
trance into the apostolic city. She rode, not on a
stately palfrey, but on a short and sorry steed, scarcely
exceeding the size of an ass : the robe had been ex
changed for the veil, the purple for the sackcloth ; and
the hand which had wielded the sceptre, was worn by
the constant use of the psalter^. Arrived in Rome,
she humbled herself before the pontiff, whose title she
had disputed ; she sought and received his absolution ;
and then devoted herself to reUgious seclusion, in the
convent of St. Petronilla, in the papal city ^
' Sigebert Gemblac. — Annalista Saxo. — Chronica Regia S. Pan-
taleonis. ' Damiani, ep. v. lib. vi.
' Having in the first instance prepared herself for a monastic life
by a sojourn in that of Fructuaria, in Piedmont. Vid. Not. in Chron.
Cassin. Murator. t. iv. p. 450. — A most affectionate letter from the
empress to the monks of this place is to be found in Mabillon. Act.
SS. Ord. S. Benedicti, saecul. vi. pt. i. p. 311.

VOL. I.

BOOK IL— CHAPTER VIII.
A. D. 1066 TO A. D. 1073.
conquest op england — invasion of roman territories by richard op capua —
Godfrey's march against him — battle at aquino, and treaty — events in the
content of- tremiti — agitation in milan  murder op ariaxd — election of
ATTO AS ARCHBISHOP — ECCLESIASTICAL DISSENSIONS AT FLORENCE  KING HENRy's
ATTEMPTED SEPARATION FROM HIS QUEEN — HIS QUARREL WITH THE SAXONS —
damiani's mission to mentz  adelbert's return to power — OTHO OF NORD
HEIM DEPRIVED OF THE DUCHY OF BAVARIA  DEATH OF ADELBERT — GENERAL
COMPLAINTS OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE — RECALL OF HANNO TO POWER — ^TISIT OP
AGNES TO GERMANY — HANNO'S RETIREMENT — HENRY'S RASH AND TYRANNICAL
CONDUCT TOWARD HIS NOBLES AND PEOPLE.
During the progress of the struggle, which was con
cluded by the council of Mantua, occurred that memo
rable event, the conquest of England by the Normans.
Their leader WiUiam, as is well known, claimed the
crown from the date of Edward the Confessor's death ;
nor was the right to it of his chief opponent, Harold,
better than his own. But, before attempting to enforce
his pretensions by the sword, the Norman Duke, desi
rous to strengthen those pretensions as much as possible,
sent an embassage to Alexander IL, and, laying his
statement of the question before him, requested the
papal sanction to the projected enterprise'. By such a
' Justitiam suscepti belli, quantis poterat facundiae nervis alle-
gans. — Will. Malmesb. de gestis regum, lib, iii.

CHAP, VIII.J LIFE OF GREGORY VII. 259
recognition of the legitimacy of his title, Alexander,
while yet contending for that legitimacy with a formid
able rival, could not but feel highly gratified. And as
Harold, confident in possession, neglected to lay his
statement of the case before the apostolic chair in a
similar manner', the pontiff did not hesitate to send
back, with William's envoys, a consecrated banner, in
token of his approvaP. Various reasons, indeed, might
have induced him to look with hope to the success of
the undertaking. The outward devotion of the Nor
mans, and their reverence for the apostolic see, have
been already adverted to ; and in England, once the most
religious of kingdoms, religion, during the disastrous
period of the Danish struggles, had fallen into a state
of general decay. The pontiff might, therefore, look for
such favourable results from a Norman conquest of the
island, as did in fact attend that event. For, with all
their faults, the Normans, — we have it on the authority
of William of Malmesbury, — " raised up everywhere,
" on their coming, the frame of religion, which in Eng-
" land was half-dead. Everywhere churches might be
" seen to rise in villages, monasteries, built in a new
" mode of architecture, in towns and cities, and the
" country to flourish with new solemnities ; every rich
" man conceiving himself to have lost the day, which

' Haroldus id facere supersedit, vel quod turgidus natura esset,
vel quod causae diffideret, vel quod nuntios suos a Willielmo et ejus
complicibus qui omnes portus obsidebant, impediri timeret. — Will.
Malmesb. de gestis regum, lib. iii.
" Vexillum in omen regni Willielmo contradedit. — Will. Malmesb.
1. c, William, in return, after the battle of Hastings, sent to the
pope, as an acknowledgment, the captured standard of the Anglo-
Saxon king. Ib. Vid, Orderic, Vital, Hist, 1. iii. — Pagi Breviar, t. i.
p. 548, et Alexand. II, ep. viii, ap. Harduin. t. vi,
S 2

260 LIFE OF [BOOK IL
" was not adorned by some act of religious magni-
" ficence'." It was well for Alexander, that, shortly after these
transactions, the final seal was set to the legality of his
pretensions by the decision of the Mantuan council.
For danger now threatened him from a new quarter ; a
quarter to which he had for some time been accustomed
to look for protection and support. Richard, the
Norman prince of Capua, beholding the rapid successes
of Guiscard, and his brother Roger, the conqueror of
Sicily, was kindled to emulate their example ; or per
haps felt that his only prospect of security, against
ultimate subjection to these enterprising chieftains, lay
in a proportionate extension of his own domains and
influence. Richard had been a party to the council of
Nicholas II. at Melfi. Like Guiscard, he had there
acknowledged himself a vassal of the apostolic see. In
that character he had been present at Alexander's
election^, and had since efficiently supported the cause
of that pontiff by his arms. But now, adopting a new
line of policy, he entered the Roman territory in a hostile
manner, took Ceprano, and advanced, plundering and
destroying, to the very gates of the papal city ' ; where
he demanded to be immediately admitted to the dignity
and privileges of Patrician \ The demand was an insult
' Religionis normam in Anglia usquequaque emortuam adventu
suo sciscitarunt ; videas ubique in villis ecclesias, in vicis et urbibus
monasteria novo sedificandi genere consurgere ; recenti ritu patriam
florere, ita ut sibi perisse diem quique opulentus existimet, quem
non aliqua prseclara magnificentia illustret. — Willielm. Malmesb. de
gestis regum, lib. iii.
° Leo Ostiens. 1. iii. c. xxi,
' Intravit terram Carapaniae, obseditque Ceperanum, et compre-
hendit eum, et devastando usque Romam pervenit. — Lupus Pro-
tospata in Chronic, ad an. 1066. — Card. Aragon. in vit. Alex. II. ap
Murator. Rer. Ital. Script, t. iii. pt. i. p. 303.
* Leo Ostiens. lib. iii. c. xxv.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 261
to the monarchical dignity of Henry, as well as to the
city ; and it seems to have been, for a moment, contem
plated by the young king's counsellors, that he should
take this opportunity of an expedition into Italy, and,
while avenging his dignity on the presumptuous Norman,
receive the imperial crown in the city of St. Peter.
But Godfrey, though now in appearance the firm friend
of his sovereign, from whom he had, under Adelbert's
administration, received again his long-withheld duchy
of Lower Lorraine, was by no means anxious to behold
that sovereign in Italy. It was to him, as Margrave of
Tuscany, that the duty belonged, of making the neces
sary arrangements for the king's progress across the Alps,
and for his reception in the territories on their southern
side. His repugnance, therefore, to the project, was a
serious impediment to its execution ' ; and, by under
taking himself the task of checking the presumptuous
Norman, he attempted to remove, as soon as possible,
the king's principal motive for the contemplated expe
dition. Strongly solicited by Alexander and Hilde
brand to take upon himself the defence of the Church,
he proceeded to Rome, from which the Normans retired
at his approach ; and was thence accompanied, as he
moved in pursuit of them, by the pontiff himself and
the principal cardinals ; his step-daughter Matilda also
accompanying the expedition. He at length found the
Normans awaiting his approach at Aquino, on the
Garigliano ; a position in which they had strongly en
trenched themselves, under the command of Richard's
son Jordanus. Here they sustained his attacks, with
varying success, during eighteen days^ The chiefs of
the two armies then entered into negociations, which
terminated in peace, and in the abandonment, by Richard,
' Leo Ostiens. 1. iii. c. xxv. ' Id. 1. c.

262 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
of the ambitious views which he had been led to enter
tain. Godfrey, ever suspected of insincerity, is charged
with having, on this occasion, as on others, sacrificed
the public welfare to his individual advantage. The
gold of Richard, it is said, prevailed on him to release
the Normans from the streight into which his arms
had driven them, on terms which they had no right to
expect'. The Church, however, was delivered from
the danger which immediately threatened her; and
Alexander returned joyfully toward Rome^.
Either shortly before, or after, this successful ex
pedition, Alexander, accompanied by Hildebrand, paid
a visit to the monastery of Monte Cassino. Some
unfortunate occurrences had recently taken place in
the religious house, dependent on that monastery,
which was established in the island of Tremiti. The
monks of that place had become notorious for their
abandoned lives ; and Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cas
sino, — a man of more gentleness than firmuess of cha
racter, — endeavoured to palliate the evil, by displacing
the superior of Tremiti, who had been convicted of
many crimes, and appointing to the dignity of abbot, in
his room, a young man named Thrasimond, of noble
family and unblemished character. But the vicious
monks, — even vrithin a few days of this appointment, —
were detected in schemes of rebellion against their un-
welcome ruler; and, upon this, Thrasimond, seizing
four of the ringleaders, commanded that the eyes of
three should be put out, and the tongue of the fourth
cut off. Desiderius, when made acquainted with these
proceedings, was overwhelmed with grief; he condemned
Non parva, ut dicitur, a , Normannis donatus pecunia. — Leo
Ostiens. iii. xxv.
^ Leo Ostiens.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 263
the severity of the judge, mourned the sufferings of
the criminals, and, above all, — says his historian, who
probably well understood his character, — was distressed
by the scandal of the proceedings, and the infamy which
they would bring on the placed And, removing Thra
simond from his station, he subjected him to a severe
and public reprimand, and then to confinement and
penance. But Hildebrand, of a character very unlike
that of Desiderius, embraced, when informed of these
transactions, a totally different line of conduct. He
declared, that Thrasimond had shown firmness, and not
cruelty, toward the guilty men whom it had been his
duty to punish ; and, when he had, with difficulty, pro
cured from Desiderius the imprisoned abbot's release,
he appointed him to an abbey more important than
that of which he had been deprived, and, at no great
distance of time, procured his elevation to the bishopric
of Balva. Hildebrand would not be shocked — as a
person in the present age would be — by the horrid na
ture of the punishments inflicted ; and he might well
feel — the guilt of the sufferers being gross and manifest
¦ — that it was important to counteract the moral effect
of the course adopted by Desiderius, in the most de
cisive manner possible ^.
It was not probable that the great contest for the
papacy should continue so long as it did, without ex
citing into activity the local elements of discord which
existed in different cities, as well as principles of dis
union of a more general kind. And Milan, agitated
as it had already been, could scarcely be expected to
escape a repetition of the tumultuous scenes which had
' Turn denique, quod erat prsecipuum, et quod magis cor ejus
angebat, pro loci hujus infamia. — Leo Ostiens.
^ Leo Ostiens. lib. iii. c. xxvii.

264 LIFE OF [book II.
formerly disgraced it. We find, accordingly, that in
that iU-fated town, the apparent concord produced by
the efforts of Damiani, in 1059, speedily disappeared.
The archbishop and his clergy resumed the habits of
life which they had pledged themselves to relinquish ;
and their former antagonist, the deacon Ariald, set
himself anew, with all his energy, or rather violence,
to oppose them. By the death of his friend Landulf,
he was deprived of the assistance of a faithful coad
jutor; but he found as able, and as strenuous, an
auxiliary, in his deceased friend's brother, a layman,
Herlembald by name'. This person, returning from
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was so disgusted with the
state of things in his native city, that he contemplated
a retirement from the world into monastic seclusion ;
but Ariald persuaded him that his appointed line of
duty was that of active service. He, therefore, jpined
the zealous preacher in his exertions, and their united
efforts soon aroused anew a popular ferment in the
city. Alexander, when made aware of the importance
of this champion of Rome, presented him with a con
secrated banner; which he used to animate his fol
lowers in the affrays in which, through the mutual
exacerbation of the two parties, he was constantly
engaged. And in 1066, Alexander, in consequence of
the statements which reached him through the two
associated reformers, pronounced the aged archbishop
Guide excommunicate. The sentence was immediately
promulgated by Ariald in that prelate's city ; and the
consequence was, that on the feast of Pentecost, Guido
was furiously assailed and beaten, and his palace
plundered, by the Milanese rabble. But this atrocious
' Arnulph. Hist. Med. 1. iii, c. xiv. Landulph. senior, iii. xiii.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 265
outrage produced, as its natural consequence, a revul
sion in public feeling ; and Ariald, to save his life, fled
hastily from Milan. But two of the archbishop's clergy,
determined upon vengeance, followed his footsteps, and
coming up with him on the shore of the Lago Maggiore,
put him to the most cruel death, putting out his eyes,
and cutting off, in succession, the various members of
his body. This occurred on the 27th or 28th of June,
1066'.
"^ .This atrocious deed naturally excited in the Roman
conclave the warmest indignation. Alexander, how
ever, was, by disposition, always inclined to lenient
measures ; and when, in 1067, he felt himself securely
seated on the papal throne, he despatched Mainard,
bishop of Silva Candida, and John, a cardinal presbyter
of the Roman Church, as his legates to Milan ; commis
sioned, not to punish, while they deplored, the offences
of the past ; but to re-enact, for the governance of the
fiiture, the canons against simony and clerical irregula
rities, which had been so generally neglected in the city
of St. Ambrose I
But this lenient measure was only successful in pro
curing a momentary tranquilUty. The strife of factions
soon began to rage anew, and the contest continued,
during the whole of Alexander's pontificate, undimi
nished in its bitterness. Worn out by age, and the
violence of his adversaries, the infirm archbishop Guido
found himself at length unable to continue the strug
gle ; but when in 1069, he abdicated the see, he pro
cured the nomination of a successor who belonged to
the same party among the clergy with himself. God-
' Arnulph. 1. iii. c. xviii. Landulph. senior, iii. xxix.
^ Constitutiones quas legati sedis apostolicEe Mediolanensibus ob-
servandas prsescripserunt.— Hard, t, vi. pt. i. p. 1081.

266 LIFE OF [book IL
frey, for so the person thus appointed was named, re
ceived the ring and staff, the recognized emblems of
investiture, from king Henry ; and thus became at once
the representative of the imperial and of the anti-
Roman party in Milan. His election, however, was odious
to a large portion of his flock ; and he was compelled to
fly from the city'. Guido continued, during the brief re
mainder of his life, to exercise there a precarious autho
rity ; and after his death, Herlembald, armed with the
papal sanction, procured the election, by that portion
of the clergy and people who adhered to his party, of
a young man named Atto ^, This last transaction took
place in 1072, But the new nominee was, even during
the banquet which followed his installation, overpowered
by a party hostile to his pretensions ; falling into their
hands, he was treated with the utmost violence and
insult ^, and was thus compelled to purchase his safety,
by a solemn vow to renounce for ever the archiepiscopal
functions* Atto then, happy to have escaped with
his Ufe, fled to Rome, and there laid his case before the
papal conclave ; where Hildebrand had no sooner been
made acquainted vrith the circumstances, than he
declared that the oath taken under such constraint was
void ^ ; and one of the last acts of Alexander's life was
the sanction of Atto's pretensions and the denunciation
of his adversary as an intruder ", The mention of these
last circumstances in this stage of our narration is,
perhaps, rather out of place ; but it seemed desirable to
' Arnulph, 1. iii. c. xx,
* Bonizo, p. 810. — Arnulph. 1. iii, c. xxiii.
' Atto dum camerae unius lateret in angulo inventus capitur, et
misere laniatur. Demum per suras et brachia a summis ad ima
protrahitur. — Arnulph. Hist. Med. iii. xxiii.
* Arnulph. 1. c. * Bonizo, 1. c. " Arnulph. iv. ii.
9

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 267
bring the events at Milan under the reader's notice in
as connected a form as possible ; rather than to inter
rupt, by a repeated reference to them, the continuity of
other portions of the history.
The Church of Florence, too, was at this stormy
epoch in a state of unusual trouble ; owing to an accu
sation of simony brought against its bishop by the
monks of Vallombrosa — an accusation which, after
giving rise to much violence of discussion and many
heartburnings, was at length decided by a mode which
Alexander had declined to sanction — the ordeal of fire.
One of the monks passed unhurt along a burning path
between two masses of flaming wood ; and the bishop,
probably conscious of his guilt, retired from his see to
penitence and seclusion '. Other causes of quarrel con
vulsed other portions of Italy, and Alexander had
ample employment in meeting the exigencies which
they occasioned ; in addition to the constant labour of
propagating and enforcing those general principles of
ecclesiastical reform with which the papacy had now
identified its interests. The progress ofthe late conflict,
by connecting these principles with practical questions
of a momentous nature, had rendered them familiar to
the thoughts of all men ; and the result was a great
accession of moral strength to the side of their asser
tors. The violence vrith which these principles had
been impugned by the supporters of Cadalous, produced,
on that pretender's fall, a strong reaction in their
favour. And though it is probable that neither of the
two great parties in the Church understood, at the time,
the full importance of what had been accomplished,
we find that, almost immediately after the conclusion
' Victor III. dialog, lib. iii. — Epist. Florentin. ad Alex. II.
ap. Baron, ad ann, 1063,

268 LIFE OF [book II.
of the struggle, the intercourse between the pontiff and
the imperial court was carried on in terms, which
betokened a connection between the two, very dif
ferent from that humble dependency of the former
upon the latter, which had characterized the era of
Henry III.
The thoughtless son of that monarch soon gave
Alexander a cause to interfere in the affairs of Germany
with dignity and success. The aversion with which he,
at the time of his marriage, regarded the bride who had
been forced upon him, has been already mentioned.
The ceremony had scarcely been concluded, when he
set himself to devise the means of its annulment.
While himself avoiding his amiable consort's company,
it is said that he employed a confidential friend to win,
if possible, the neglected queen's affections, and, by
seducing her from her duty, to lay the ground for a
public accusation; by means of which he might free
himself for ever from a connexion which he detested'.
But the scheme, if indeed it were attempted, signally
failed ; and Henry, his impatience at length becoming
uncontrollable, suggested to Siegfried, archbishop of
Mentz, the expediency of a public separation ^ The
prelate then needed the royal assistance to carry into
effect some plans of his own ; he therefore promised his
co-operation ; upon which Henry ventured to propound
the question of an annulment of his marriage, before
his nobles assembled at Worms, shortly after the feast
of Pentecost, 1069 ^. The proposal was received with
general dissatisfaction ; none, however, at the moment,
openly opposed it, and it was settled that a council
should be held at Mentz, in the week after the ensuing
' Annalista Saxo. ' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.

CHAP. Vin.J GREGORY VII, 269
Michaelmas, for the purpose of proceeding with the
matter ' ; the unhappy Bertha betaking herself, for the
interval, to the abbey of Lorsch ^.
Henry then endeavoured to requite the services of
Siegfried, by assisting that prelate, in the contention
into which he had entered, with the inhabitants of the
province of Thuringia \ That province, though in
cluded in the arch-diocese over which Siegfried pre
sided, had not, from the time of St. Boniface, been
accustomed to pay tithes to the archbishops of Mentz.
But, in that period of general rapacity on the part of
prelates and nobles, the minority of Henry IV., Sieg
fried's predecessor, Luitbold, had procured from the
young king a document, in which the liability to tithe
of the royal possessions in Thuringia was acknowledged :
and the charge, with respect to the whole, compounded
for, by the cession to the archbishop of a considerable
portion of them in fee. When, therefore, William of
Meissen, who held the Mark of Thuringia under the
crown, died, and his brother Otho was appointed to
succeed him, Siegfried offered to enfeoff him likewise
with the lands thus given to the see, on the condition
that he would not or^ly pay the tithes himself on all
his other possessions in the province, but that he would
generally enforce such a payment throughout Thuringia*.
By his endeavours to do this, Otho made himself
generaUy detested by the Thuringians ^ as did also the
king's cousin Count Ecbert, who in 1 067 succeeded to
his government ® as well as to his compact with the
prelate of Mentz, But Ecbert himself died in the
'¦ Lamb. Schafnab. — Sigefridi Epist. ad Alexand. IL in Udalric.
Babenberg. Cod. Epist. No. cxxv,
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.
* Annalista Saxo. — Lamb. Schafnab.
' Annalista Saxo. ' Lamb. Schafnab.

270 LIFE OF [book II.
foUowing year 1068', and, as the king had given the
Mark, in reversion, to his son, it fell, on this occurrence,
into the hands of a child ; a circumstance of which the
discontented Thuringians resolved at once to avail
themselves for the recovery of their ancient rights
and prescriptive liberties. Siegfried therefore felt that
his pretensions must be forcibly asserted, or aban
doned for ever ; and, as the disturbances excited in that
part of Germany, by a discontented noble, gave Henry
occasion for an armed interference with its concerns ^
the archbishop, — as the price of his assistance in the
matter of the divorce, — besought the king to use his
power in the enforcement of the tithe, as well as ia
vindication of the dignity of the crown. Henry, to
whom every thing, but the desired separation, appeared,
at the moment, of secondary importance, readily ac
ceded to the request. And his arms were, for the time,
successftil in accomplishing his ends ; but, during the
subsequent progress of his reign, he had often occasion
to repent the rashness, with which, by connecting the
royal name with an odious quarrel, he had made
enemies of a gallant population, whose territories bor
dered on the already hostile and irritated province of
Saxony, As the time approached, which had been appointed
for the council at Mentz, the king, flushed with hopes
of speedily freeing himself from the bond which he
detested, set out for that city. But great was his
consternation and dismay when intelligence reached
him upon his journey that the now aged Damiani, in
the character of a legate of the apostolic see, was at
Mentz, awaiting his arrival, and prepared to denounce
the contemplated measure with the full weight of
' Lamb. Schaftiab. " Id,

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 271
pontifical authority '. Henry's first impulse, on receiv
ing this information, was to return at once into Saxony
and disappoint the assembled magnates. The advice
of his friends, however, showed him the danger of such
a proceeding, and he sent to request the appearance of
the members of the council before him at Frankfort.
Damiani appeared among them ; and declared his com
mission to represent the person and sentiments of Alex
ander. In the pontiff's behalf, he declared that the
project was one which it was shameful to entertain —
one which would disgrace the name, not only of a king,
but of a Christian. He entreated Henry, if nothing else
restrained him, to reverence at least his own illustrious
dignity, and not to tarnish his glory, by becoming,
instead of the avenger of misdeeds, the leader and
instigator of his Christian people to crime. He warned
him that, if persuasion failed to move him, he was pre
pared to appeal to the powers of ecclesiastical law, and
to exert the rigour of the canons ; and he declared that
the papal hands would never consecrate him to empire,
who should, by a deed of such scandalous example, have
betrayed, as far as in him lay, the Christian faith ^ A
murmur of approbation, as Peter concluded, ran through
the assembly; and Henry felt the inutility of resist
ance. " If these," he said to the nobles around him,
" be indeed your general sentiments, I must control
" myself, and bear the burden from which I cannot be
" freed." He then departed from the place of meeting
in haste, and, attended by about forty horsemen, took
the road to Saxony ',
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.
' Lamb. Schafiiab.— sed vid. Sigefridi Moguntini epist. ad Alex.
II. ut supra.

272 LIFE OF [book II.
The queen, with the body of his court, soon followed
him. He was prevailed on to receive her, in the first
instance, with civility; but for some time afterwards
treated her with coldness' ; the reconciliation, however,
seems subsequently to have been complete. She bore
him several children, and was, as long as she lived, his
constant companion and support, amid the troubles
and difficulties of his reign.
During the years which followed this transaction,
the thoughtless monarch contrived to embroil himself,
in succession, with most of the powerful nobles and
martial provinces of his empire ; and thus to shake, to
its very foundations, the authority of his crown ; and
though it would be foreign to the main purpose of this
narration, to detail all the feuds to which his acts of
wantonness or oppression gave birth, it will be neces
sary to mention some, as most materially modifying, by
their disastrous results, the complexion and character
of his subsequent reign.
About the time of his reconciUation with Queen
Bertha, his former adviser, Adelbert of Bremen, re
appeared at his court ; and the nobles were scandalized
by seeing that obnoxious prelate, whose departure
Henry had never ceased to regret, restored on a sudden
to aU his former plenitude of power. Independently of
the pleasure which Henry derived from the archbishop's
fascinating manners, the young king was probably glad
to be reUeved, by the energy and activity of his com
manding spirit, from the necessity of superintending in
person the irksome details of government. These he
could trust to Adelbert, whose talents he knew, and
in whose zeal in his service he confided ; and thus freely
' Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 273
and uninterruptedly indulge in that course of pleasures
to which he mainly devoted himself, and from which
he was only aroused when spleen, or ambition, led him
to attempt the ruin of some too powerful noble, or the
depression of some too independent province.
One of the great feudatories of his crown, whom he
regarded with peculiar jealousy and dislike, was Otho of
Nordheim, on whom, as we have seen, Agnes had con
ferred the duchy of Bavaria'. Otho was, in truth, an
unamiable man, of a scheming, ambitious disposition ;
and as he was possessed, not only of the common
quality of personal courage, but of the rarer art of
arranging and conducting armies with skill, he pos
sessed a formidable power for carrying into effect any
project which he might form. And Henry might
naturally detest the ingratitude, with which, so shortly
after his appointment to the duchy, he had united with
the discontented nobles, in wresting the powers of go
vernment from his imperial benefactress. When, there
fore, — ^in 1070, — an accusation of treason was brought
against Otho, by a man of most disreputable character^,
named Egino, Henry listened with pleasure to the
charge, and, at a council consisting, in great part, of
persons whom the successes of Otho had moved to
envy, demanded his reply to it in form. Egino's state
ment was, that Otho had practised with him to compass
by his means the murder of the king; but his only
proof was at most unsatisfactory one, — the exhibition of
the sword with which, as he said, he had been presented
' Annalista Saxo.
* Omni flagitiorum genere infamatum. Lamb. Schafnab. — Audacia
tantum et nequitia satis diffamatus. Annalista Saxo. — Abb. Ursperg.
— Bruno.— Chronograph. Saxo.
VOL. I. '^

274 LIFE OF [book II.
by Otho for that guilty purpose'. Notwithstanding,
however, the vagueness of this testimony, and the ill
fame of him by whom it was brought forward, Henry
treated the accusation as important ; and, upon Otho's
denial of the charge, he directed him to prepare for the
assertion of his innocence, by single combat with his
accuser, in six weeks' time, at Goslar. The great body
of the German nobles, when informed of this decision,
loudly complained of the unfairness of thus exposing a
man of the first rank, and most unsullied reputation, to
combat with one who, though of gentle descent, had long
sullied, by the commission of crimes the most atrocious,
the dignity of his blood. But Otho, in his indignation,
declared himself ready to engage any one, however un
worthy, rather than to lie under a suspicion so unfounded.
As the day, named for the combat, approached, he
advanced with his armed followers to the neighbour
hood of Goslar, and demanded of the king a safe con
duct, that he might plead his cause, and rebutt the
charge, by whatever means the general voice of his
brother- nobles should approve of. The king, to this,
returned an angry answer^; declining to grant any
safe-conduct for the purpose required, and declaring,
that in the event of his declining forthwith to under
take the appointed combat, his guilt should be con*
sidered as proved, and that he should be treated accord
ingly. Having received this message, and being aware,
from other sources, of the monarch's excited feelings
against him, Otho, by the advice of his friends, refused
to present himself at Goslar ^ On the day following
' Lamb, Schafnab.
'^ Atrociter et acerbe respondit. — Id.
* Id. — Bruno de Bello Saxon.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 275
this disobedience, Henry, in a council mainly composed
of Saxon nobles, to whom Otho was personally ob
noxious, procured sentence against him as a traitor,
which had no sooner been passed, than the unfortunate
duke's possessions were plundered and ravaged, with fire
and sword, by all who chose to avail themselves of the
king's name, to gratify their cupidity or their spleen
against him'. Levying a body of his retainers, Otho
commenced hostilities in his turn, and made reprisals for
the spoliation of his estates, by the plunder of the royal
demesnes in Thuringia. He had a warm friend and sup
porter in the young Magnus, son to Ordulf, duke of
Saxony ; and, through his aid, and ihat of other friends,
he maintained himself in arms, for a while, in opposition to
theroyal power. At length,however,hismeansfailed him;
but then the prudent counsels of count Eberhard of Nel
lenburg prevented matters from being carried to extre
mities ^ This nobleman, the brother of Udo archbishop
of Treves, having become known to the king, was prized
by him as a person of singular sagacity, and from this
time to the end of his life was frequently employed by
him in critical business of a diplomatic nature. Through
his mediation on this occasion, Otho, in the beginning
of the year 1071, laid down his arms, and at the
ensuing feast of Pentecost surrendered himself to the
king, with Magnus and others of his principal coad
jutors ; upon which Henry, taking the two chiefs into
his own custody, committed the remaining prisoners,
for a definite time, to the charge of different nobles of
the empire. The forfeited duchy of Bavaria was, in
the mean while, bestowed by the monarch on Welf
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo.
' Lamb. Schafnab.
T 2

276 LIFE OF [book n.
or Guelfo, an ItaUan noble, and son to Azzo marquis of
Este, who had married Otho's daughter Ethelind ', and
who, succeeding to the possessions and name of his ma
ternal grandfather, the last male of the ancient German
house of Guelf, became the progenitor of that illustrious
family, which, having subsisted with distinction in Ger
many from his times to our own, has, through a singular
combination of events, been placed in recent times upon
the English throne.
While Otho flourished in reputation and power,
Welf conducted himself as an attached friend to him,
and as an attentive husband to his daughter. But
the ruin of his father-in-law no sooner appeared, to the
crafty Italian, inevitable, than he disclaimed all partici
pation in his cause, — dismissed Ethelind vrith con
tumely from his house, — and strained every nerve to
procure from the king, by presents and promises, the
ducal fief of which Otho was deprived ^. In this, as
has been already mentioned, he succeeded ; but the
whole transaction gave great scandal'to the inhabitants
of that extensive duchy '. And though Henry, aware
of this, shortly afterwards visited Bavaria, his success
was but partial in calming their irritated minds, or in
reviving among them a loyal attachment to his person
and dignity.
Duke Ordulf, the father of Magnus of Saxony, died
shortly after Otho's relinquishment of hostilities ; an
event upon which, according to the ancient custom of
the province, his fief devolved upon his son, without
' Annalista Saxo. — Lamb. Schafnab. ' Lamb. Schafnab.
' They claimed the privilege of electing their own dukes : vid.
Lindebrog. cod. leg. antiquar. tit. 11. c. 1 and 20. " Noniie
" scitis Bajuarios ab initio ducem eligendi liberam habere potes-
" tatem ?" Henric. II. in Ditmar. Chronic.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 277
any grant or sanction from the crown. But Henry,
offended as he was with the young prince, was naturally
averse to see him at the head of that powerful people.
He therefore availed himself of Magnus' submission and
captivity, to strip his duchy of various possessions, and
to exercise over it an arbitrary power, by which its
martial population, already hostile to his royal house,
were exasperated to the highest degree.
On the 16th of March, 1072, Adelbert, after long
struggling with the attacks of disease, breathed his
last '. During the last months of his Ufe he had
governed the king with absolute control ; — banishing
all but creatures of his own from the royal society.
His death was therefore a subject of general rejoicing
to the discontented nobles of the land ; who, while
they in truth hated him for usurping a power which
they would fain have usurped themselves, had ample
grounds of a public nature to allege for their animosity,
in the disorders and ruin which his profligate adminis
tration had brought upon their country. The arch
bishop's main aim had been to gratify his young sove
reign ; and for this end he was ready, when necessary,
to encourage him, either in the neglect of irksome
duties, or in the perpetration of positive crime. Adel
bert's is indeed a sad history. With extraordinary
talents, he had received from nature the rudiments of
a good, as well as great, character. His feelings on the
subject of religion were so strong, that in celebrating
the holy mystery of the Eucharist he would often
dissolve into tears ; and in the midst of an age of
clerical laxity and corruption, he was believed to have
led a Ufe of unspotted conrinence and purity ^ But an
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.

278 LIFE OF [book n.
excessive vanity overpowered, at least to human eyes,
these principles of virtue ; and his counsels were
identified in the public estimation with a system of
evils, which continued to produce its baleful results,
long after he himself had been caUed away from
earthly existence.
On the Easter following his decease, — a festival which
the court celebrated at Utrecht ', — Henry was assailed
on every side by the petitions and remonstrances of his
people. They complained of the injuries and oppres
sions which were suffered by innocent persons through
out his kingdom ; of the wrongs of vridows and orphans ;
of the plunder of monasteries and churches ; in fine,
of the general licence, given to the vricked, to revel in
every species of crime. The nobles seconded them in
these complaints ; and the king, either shocked by the
state of things thus laid before him, or wearied by the
importunity of his petitioners, at length agreed to
solicit the archbishop of Cologne to take upon himself
the burden of the state ^. Hanno accepted, though
with apparent reluctance, this weighty charge, and soon
set himself in earnest to the work of reformation.
With all his faults, he possessed qualities which under
existing circumstances well fitted him for the office.
The austerity of his manners, and his freedom from the
gross vices which were too common in his time, pro
cured for him personal respect ; the energy of his cha
racter adapted him for grappling with, and overcoming,
obstacles, from which weaker-minded governors might
have shrunk ; and his zeal in punishing offences was not
perhaps the less suitable to the contingencies of his
time, that it was blended with a cruel severity* In the
' Lamb. Schafnab. * Id.

CHAP. VIII. J GREGORY VII. 279
administration of justice, he listened as readily to the
poorest, as to the most powerful complainant. The
rich, who abused their power over their weaker neigh
bours, became the objects of his severe rebuke ; and
their castles, if they permitted them to become places of
refuge to evil-doers, were by his orders levelled with the
ground, " For a time," says the accurate historian Lam
bert of Aschaffenburg, " his administration seemed to
"infrise into the vicious and indolent youth, whose
" dignity he represented, the activity and virtues of his
" royal father '."
But, as far as the monarch was concerned, the appa
rent reformation was of short continuance. Otho of
Nordheim was, probably by Hanno's recommendation,
released by the king from the (iaptivity in which he' had
now continued a year, and . permitted to retire, to his
hereditary possessions ; being however obliged to cede
a portion to the king ^. But Henry had now fixed an
eye of jealousy or suspicion upon another powerful
noble, Rudolf of Rheinfeld ; upon whom Agnes, as may
be recollected, had conferred the duchy of Swabia and
the government of Burgundy. On the decease of the
young princess, Henry's sister, whom he had intended
to make his spouse, Rudolf had connected himself in
another way with the royal house, by marrying a sister
of Queen Bertha; and this, after the offence which
Henry had given to her family, might be sufficient to
excite iU-will between the sovereign and his power-
1 Eo moderamine, ea industria atque auctoritate rem tractabat, ut
profecto ambigeres, pontificali eum, an regio nomine digniorem judi-
cares, atque in rege ipso, qui in cultu atque socordia praeceps ierat,
paternam virtutem et paternos mores brevi exsuscitaret. — Lamb,
Schafnab. ^ Id.

280 LIFE OF [book n.
ful vassal. But, however this may be, Rudolf was
accused before the king as an intriguer against the
state, and was summoned by Henry to appear and de
fend himself. But the Swabian duke remembered the
fate of Otho ; and therefore resolved, if possible, to ex
tricate himself in another manner from the danger which
threatened him. The violent step which he had for
merly taken, in the capture of the young princess, was
not so inconsistent with the usual manners of the time,
as to cause a deadly quarrel between him and the
lady's mother. Agnes seems, on the contrary, after
she had conceded to his demands the important fiefs
which he coveted, to have treated him as a valued and
important friend. To her, then, in this emergency, he
resolved to appeal ; and, devoted as she now was to
religious duties, the beneficent recluse felt that it was no
abandonment of the engagements which she had con
tracted, to leave the cloister for a while, vrith the intent
of succouring a friend in distress, and endeavouring to
maintain peace in a distracted state ', Accompanied
by a long train of abbots and monks, she set out for
Germany, and presented herself before her son at
Worms on the feast of St, James, 1072. Under
her auspices, Rudolf appeared before his sovereign, and,
defending himself against the charge which had been
brought against him, was admitted by Henry to an
apparent reconciUation, He knew however that ran
cour against him yet lingered in the monarch's mind,
and therefore, absenting himself from the court, he
retired to his possessions ^ ; a circumstance which
Henry subsequently distorted into a fresh ground of
suspicion against him,
' Lamb. Schafnab. = Id.

CHAP. VIII.J GREGORY VII. 281
Deferential as, for a time^ had been Henry's manner
to him, the archbishop of Cologne soon found how
unreal were the young sovereign's professions of attach
ment and reformation. He was disgusted, too, with
the daily scenes which he witnessed in the palace, and
which it was beyond his power to control. And,
therefore, at the feast of Christmas, 1072, alleging age
and infirmities as his excuse, he solicited permission to
resign the weighty charge which had been imposed
upon him '. Henry, delighted to be freed from one
whom he regarded as a severe pedagogue, readily
acceded to the request ; and immediately returned to
the unbridled gratification of those violent passions and
licentious appetites, which he had, during the short
period of Hanno's administration, hardly and imper
fectly restrained. To make permanent his temporary
ascendency in Saxony, he commanded the erection of
castles or forts on hills and other important positions
throughout the province, and filled them with followers
whom he could trust ; and as he had no power of
permanently furnishing these garrisons with the means
of subsistence, he authorized them, as though they had
been in an enemy's country, to supply their wants by
seizures of the property of the neighbouring inhabit
ants^. The discontent excited in Saxony by this
outrageous proceeding may be imagined: and when,
in addition to this, we find that he continued to em
bitter against himself the gallant people of Thuringia,
by asserting and enforcing the rapacious Siegfried's
demand of their tithes ; — that by fresh demonstrations
of sus,picion, he drove Rudolf to the point of throwing
off his allegiance, and resisting his sovereign with the
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.— Annalista Saxo.

282 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK II.
sword'; and that Berthold of Carinthia was also,' on
suspicion unconfirmed by any proof declared by him,
deprived of his duchy ^ ; we learn to understand how
completely, in a few years, this rash and misguided
youth had sapped the foundations of that authority,
which the talents of Conrad the Salic had established,
and the prudence of Henry III. had consolidated in
his house.
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ Id.

BOOK IL— CHAPTER IX.
A.D. 1070 TO A. D. 1073.
TRAFFIC IN ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFICES — RAPACITY OP HANNO  TRIUMPH OF ST.
EEMACLDS — POSITION, IN RELATION TO EACH OTHER, OF THE IMPERIAL AND PAPAL
POWERS  HANNO, AND OTHER PRELATES, SUMMONED TO ROME — VACILLATING CON-
' DUCT OF SIEGFRIED OF MENTZ  VISIT OF ENGLISH ARCHBISHOPS TO ROME — DEATH
OF GODFREY — MARRIAGE OF GODFREY, HIS SON, TO MATILDA  CHARACTER OF
" THE GREAT COUNIESS"  DEATH OF DAMIANI — HENRY SUMMONED BY ALEXANDER
TO ROME — DEATH OF ALEXANDER II.
In his dealings with the Church of Germany, the mis
guided Henry did not display more principle, or more
prudence, than in the management of his secular affairs.
The manners of those churchmen with whom, on his
abduction from his mother, he had been brought into
contact, was not such as to inspire him with any
reverential feeling for the commission which they bore :
and the general character of the priestly and monastic
orders throughout his dominions could not fail to con
firm in his mind the lowest and most degrading notions
of the clerical body in general. With regard to the
monks, who, though not in fact clerical, were con
stantly classed by public opinion with the authorized
ministers of religion, Lambert of Aschaffenburg, himself
a monk, admits that the monastic character through
out Germany had fallen into ignominy'. Unworthy
' Nam quorundam pseudomonachorum privata ignominia nomen
monaehorum vehementer infamaverat. — Lamb. Schafnab,
9

284 LIFE OF [book II,
brethren of the conventual orders incessantly beset
the ears of princes and magnates, who possessed the
right of presentation to abbeys and benefices, and
endeavoured to obtain these prizes from them, by means
the most disgraceful. In their rivalry with each other
they proffered, according to Lambert, mountains of gold ;
secular competitors were excluded by the vastness of
their offers, nor did the vendor dare to ask so much as the
purchaser was prepared to pay. The world wondered,
continues the same historian, from what springs these
rivers of money could flow ; and understood not how
the riches of Croesus and of Tantalus could have been
amassed by private men ; by those more especially who
had taken upon themselves the scandal of the cross,
and the profession of poverty, — and who disclaimed a
right of property in aught beside their daily sustenance
and clothing '. And though Lambert, it is probable,
asserts no more than the truth, when he declares that
these unprincipled monks bore but a small proportion
to those of more exemplary manners, yet he is forced
to admit that, as far as public opinion was concerned,
this leaven had so leavened the whole mass, that, when
any prince or noble attempted to found a school of holy
living and divine exercises, he usually sent for monks
from beyond the Alps to form and regulate it ; those of
Germany being put aside as unworthy.
The rapacity of the great prelates of the empire has
been already commented upon. Hanno, strict as he
was in some respects, and considered, amid the general
laxity of the time, as a reformer, had not shown less
eagerness than his brethren in appropriating to himself
such possessions as he could persuade the young king
' Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. IX,J GREGORY VH. 285
to grant, or could extort from the minor and less
powerful abbeys; though it should be said in his de
fence, that it was rather his church, than himself, which
he desired to enrich, and that he disposed of much of
the wealth, which he thus acquired, in the foundation
or augmentation of religious institutions. In 1063, he
had procured from the crown, the annexation, to his
diocese, of the monastery of Malmedy, a foundation
which he, by this arbitrary proceeding, severed from its
legitimate dependence on the larger abbey, founded by
St. Remaclus, at Stable '. This infringement of ancient
rights was, however, earnestly resisted by the abbot of
the latter place ; who, during eight years, in spite of
menaces and ill-treatment, maintained his claim to the
undisturbed enjoyment of his right ; and, by his manage
ment, the affair was at length concluded by a most sin
gular, and to Hanno most disgraceful, scene. The king,
when applied to, had been afraid to move in the matter
against one of Hanno's authority. The pope had given
a decision in the abbot's favour ; but even his command
had failed to reduce the archbishop to relinquish
the coveted possession : the authority of the canonized
founder was appealed to in vain, and Hanno declared
to the abbot, who knelt before him, that he would not
resign Malmedy, even though the holy Remaclus should
himself rise from the tomb to demand it.
The last words inspired the abbot with a sudden
thought, which he availed himself of the first favourable
opportunity to put in execution. This was presented
by the king's visit, in the spring of 1071, to the neigh-
' Lamb. Schafnab. ad ann. 1063 et 1071, — Diploma Henrici
IY_ (Y.) Imperatoris in vet. monument. Stabulens. Monaster.
Marten, et Durand* Coll. Ampliss. t. ii. p. 82,

286 LIFE OF [book II.
bouring city of Liege', As Henry sat at a solemn
banquet, with the archbishop at his side, the doors
were suddenly thrown open, and the abbot and monks
of Stable entered in procession, bearing with them the
coffin which contained the relics of the canonized
founder of Malmedy, which they deposited before the
astonished king upon the regal table, "Behold!"
they said, " Remaclus comes from the grave to demand
" his own ! If thou carest not for the children, re-
" verence the founder and the father, who now lives
" and reigns vrith Christ, and daily lays the wrongs
" which he suffers in us before the throne above ^." The
confusion which ensued may be imagined ; Henry was
abashed and irresolute ; his queen burst into tears ; but
the enraged archbishop called on the king to counte
nance no longer by his presence this mad proceeding ;
and the monarch and his suite retired in haste. The
populace, aware of the arrival of the venerated relics,
now thronged the deserted banquet-room; the sick and
the infirm pushed eagerly forward to touch the sacred
depository which contained them, and deemed, as they
did so, that they felt their health and strength return.
The whole town was in a rapture of enthusiasm, and
the name of St. Remaclus resounded, amid shouts of
transport, to the skies. Informed of these proceedings,
the king sent to command the removal of the body
from the banqueting-hall to the neighbouring church.
The monks, however, declined to obey the command ;
and those who by the royal order attempted to enforce
it, — awed by the general clamour, or participating in the
general feeling, — declared themselves unable to remove
the coffin from its place. The next day its bearers
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ 2 j^j^

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 287
authorized its removal ; but in the church, as in the hall,
it was surrounded by enthusiastic votaries : the rumour
of one miracle rapidly succeeded that of another' ; the
city continued in a state of high and feverish excite
ment; and, as the archbishop, unmoved by all these
things, expressed his firm determination to retain the
property, and chastise the audacious monks who resist
ed his claim, the king at length declared to him, that
if he did not resign Malmedy, he should himself be
compelled to wrest it from him. Hanno then, though
ungraciously, yielded ; the monastery in dispute was re
stored to its original possessor; the victorious monks
bore back the relics of their founder, amidst songs of
praise and thanksgiving, and the acclamations of a
venerating people ; and the transaction has ever since
held a prominent place in legendary lore, under the
name of the Triumph of St. Remaclus^.
Amid scenes indicative of such general rapacity and
corruption, it was but too natural that the young king
should be led to join in that traffic in holy things which
seemed to him universal. He submitted to enter into
a negociation with Rupert, abbot of Bamberg ; a man,
who from his sordid habits and incessant labour in the
accumulation of money, had obtained the surname of
' Tanta circum sanctum corpus coruscabat miraculorum multi-
tudo, ut corporali quodammodo proclamatione videretur beatus
Remaclus jus suum expostulare. Lamb. — Tanta confestim sub-
secuta est gratia, ut manus ac pedes contracti solverentur, orbatae
mulieris oculi aperkentur, elecelluti cujusdam pedes distorti reloca-
rentur . . . Fit enarrabilis populi commotio, cantat ecclesia, contre-
miscit aula, rex accurrit anhelus, bona quae abstulerat sanctissimo
corpori, utrisque reprsesentat manibus. — Epistola D. Episcopi ad J.
Episcopum ap. Martene, Coll. Ampliss. t. i. p. 489.
'' Lamb. Schafnab.

288 LIFE OF [bookii.
Nummularius', of which the object was the expulsion
of the virtuous abbot Widerad, from the monastery of
Fulda, with a view to Rupert's appointment to that
station in his place. The firm resistance, however, of
some of the parties concerned, who withstood the king to
his face, rendered the execution of this project imprac
ticable. But when Meinwerd, the abbot of Reichenau^,
was induced, partly through the royal importunity, to
withdraw from the cares of his station, the king at
once nominated the unworthy Rupert his successor,
receiving from him a considerable sum as the price of
the appointment. And from this inauspicious beginning,
according to Lambert, it came to pass that abbeys, as
they became vacant, were publicly put up to sale in the
palace ^ the monarch, instead of setting himself, as his
father had done, in open opposition to the disgraceful
traffic, by which the western Church in general, and
that of Germany in particular, had been so long and so
universally corrupted, sanctioning and systematizing it
by his example *.
Bad, however, as the times of Henry IV. were, they
differed in one material respect from those in which
emperors had sold bishoprics, bishops subordinate
stations in the Church, and laymen the benefices to
which they possessed the prescriptive right of appoint-
' Lamb. Schafnab. — vulgo, " der Pfenning-Sammler." Monas
ter. German. Chronolog, a Gaspar. Brusch.
"^ or Augia Dives, near Constance. Vid. Brusch. Chronolog. ut
supra. ^ Proprio hujus invento, novo atque infausto hujus aucupio, haec
in ecclesiam introducta est consuetudo, ut abbatias publice venales
prostituantur in palatio. — Lamb. Schafnab.
" Id.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 289
ment, without fear of opposition or dread of shame '.
When St. Romuald, who died in 1027, had spoken, to
religious persons, of simony as a sin ; so deadened had
they become, through custom, to the atrocity of the
practice, that he seemed to them to speak a strange
thing, to inculcate overstrained and fanciful notions^.
But the principle, to which Romuald thus bore an ap
parently solitary testimony, had since his death been
widely, though slowly, diffusing itself. The aspirations
had now become audible, of those who — oppressed by the
gloom which had settled over the Church during the
long lapse of the tenth century, — were wont to sigh for
the dawning of a brighter day. Against simony had been
directed, as we have seen, the first steps of the advan
cing reformation ^ And the decrees of Clement's council
of 1047 at Rome, and of Henry's of the same year in
Germany *, were the types and forerunners of a series
of similar enactments by which that guilty practice
' Theutonici reges perversum dogma sequentes
Templa dabant summi Domini ssepissime nummis
Praesulibus cunctis, sed et omnis episcopus urbis
Plebes vendebat, quas sub se quisque regebat :
Exemplo quorum, manibus necnon laicorum
Ecclesias Christi vendebantur maledictis
Presbyteris, cleris, quod erat confusio plebis.
Donizo in vita Matild. i. c. xv.
^ Novam rem . . . Per totam namque illam monarchiam, usque ad
E,omualdi tempora, vulgata consuetudine, vix quisquam noverat
simoniacam haeresim esse peecatum. — Damiani Vita S. Romualdi,
c. xxxv.
f ¦' The definition of that crime was, in the language of its impugners,
80 far extended as to include the obtaining benefices by undue
pbsequiousness or adulation, as well as by positive purchase. " Ut tria
dicantur esse munerura genera, scilicet munus a manu, munus ab
obsequio, munus a lingua." — Damiani Opusc. xxii. c. 1.
' Vid. supra, pp. 121, 122. 131, 132.
VOL. I. ^

290 LIFE OF [book II.
was branded and forbidden. These enactments were,
it is true, in point of general operation, comparatively
powerless. The evil had too deeply rooted itself, too
extensively entwined itself with the habits of society,
to be easily, or suddenly, eradicated. The effects of
Henry III.'s example ceased, in great measure, upon
his death. And when his successor, misled by the
thoughtlessness of his character, and by the unhappy
circumstances of his education, reverted to the bad
precedents of earlier times, and sanctioned the unholy
barter in question by his habitual practice, the evil
seemed to rerive in all its former strength, and became,
to common observers, as firmly rooted as ever.
But this was not in truth the case. — That the prac
tice should have been publicly condemned, was in itself
a great point gained ; little as might be, for a time, the
direct result of the condemnation. In defiance of that
stigma, the practice might continue ; but it could no
longer receive, as it had previously done, the unques
tioned sanction of society ; it could no longer be classed
among transactions of a legitimate and ordinary kind,
in the received code of morality ; nor could he who
denounced it be charged, as Romuald had been, with
setting forth strange notions, or with entertaining over
strained and fanciful ideas of Christian duty.
The young king therefore, in following the unhappy
course into which circumstances led him, was not
acting, — as he probably seemed to himself to be, — in
compliance with the universal habits of his time. His
conduct accorded with the opinions and feelings of
great numbers, but could not accurately be said to
have public opinion on its side. In its adoption, he
was arraying himself in opposition to a great and
recognized principle, a principle which had now its

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VIL 291
zealous and active adherents scattered over the whole
face of his empire, and which, in addition to all this,
had that moral strength which ever attends the right.
And this circumstance, — closed as their eyes, in great
measure, were to the real nature of their position, —
may perhaps account for the wanton shamelessness, the
utter contempt of decency, with which the traffic in
holy things was at length carried on by Henry IV. and
his followers : appearances symptomatic of a conscious
ness that such a traffic was a scandal and a reproach,
which, carried on as it might be, would still be de
nounced as an offence by the strict and the pure ;
and of a consequent desire to support themselves, and
to encourage each other, by braving and defying that
public opinion, which it had become impossible to
conciliate. And such a line of conduct as this the monarch
could not adopt, without becoming, in some degree, the
avowed supporter of other practices, indulged in by the
simoniacal clergy, but reprobated by their opponents ;
without giving his countenance to the gross and licentious
habits of the worldly and the impure, as well as to the
profane cupidity of the money changers in the temple.
The ascetic strictness of the new reformers was as
much dreaded by the one of these classes, as was their
hostility to simony by the other. And both alike
sought, in the monarch's court, a support against the
reprobation, and a shelter from the persecution, of these
unwelcome innovators.
Had, therefore, the misguided prince been ordained
to triumph, in the great struggle which was now ap
proaching ; had he, while contending thus directly in
the cause of evil, been destined to subdue, as he subse
quently attempted, the opposition of the Church to his
u 2

292 LIFE OF [book n.
imperial will ; firmly to establish himself as her feudal
master ; and to make of her recognised head, — of the
sole existing representative of independent episcopal
authority, — his subservient creature ; the consequences
to Religion must have been such as it is fearful to con
template. Far worse than subjection to a barbarous and
pagan tyrant, who could but have persecuted her, would
have been the Church's thraldom to a professedly Chris
tian monarch, who was pledged systematically to corrupt
her ; whose cause was identified vrith that of simony, —
of impurity, — of opposition to all internal ecclesiastical
reform ; and whose power, in the growing vigour of the
feudal system, possessed a principle of consolidation
and permanence, unknown to the tyrannies which in
former ages had afflicted her. But the permission of a
triumph so baleful did not accord with the high coun
sels of Heaven.
The contest between Alexander and Cadalous, — a
contest which may be described as imaging forth, and
in a manner anticipating, the greater conflict which was
to follow, — ^had, among its other great, and, at the time,
imperfectly appreciated results, given much strength to
the cause of ecclesiastical reform throughout the West,
by directing the minds of men to the consideration of
the great principles, which the reformers asserted, as to
that of practical questions, intimately connected with the
events then in progress around them. Many who, from
indolence or other causes, would have turned away, with
apathy or distaste, from the contemplation of points of
a confessedly speculative nature, were led to investigate
with curiosity, and even with eagerness, principles, on
which depended the issue of a general struggle, and the
rights of contending pontiffs to the papal chair. And
when the assertor of forgotten truths or principles has

CHAP. IX.] GREGORY VII. 293
once induced mankind to recognize them as important,
and as deserving of consideration, his principal difficulty
is surmounted. Many, too, who had already given a tacit assent and
approval to the principles of reform now canvassed,
were likely to be converted, by the same contest, into
their active and determined assertors. A man not
accustomed, — as a large portion of mankind are not,
— to contemplate his principles in the abstract, does
not, for the most part, feel himself really committed to
a cause, until he has acted upon it. It then assumes a
reality, — a tangibility, — in his eyes, with which years of
passive speculation would never have invested it. He
has, in acting, illustrated to himself that which he has
asserted to others. He has connected himself with
others likeminded vrith him, and strengthened himself
by discovering the correspondence of their sentiments
with his own. His reputation, too, for consistency, has
now, as he may perceive, come to depend in some
degree on the continuance of his exertions ; and having
become, in a pubUc way, the member of a species of
party, he begins to entertain, though perhaps uncon
sciously, the feeling that from that party's success or
faUure some portion of honour or of shame will, in the
opinion of those around him, redound to himself.
A further consequence of the same struggle, was the
concentration of the reformers of the period into one
body, under one common head. During the reign of
Henry III., among those who saw the abuses of the
time, and panted for their removal, some looked to the
papal counsels and authority for the conduct of the
reformation, but others anticipated the accomplishment
of their wishes from the principles and energy of the
German sovereign. Henry had, in fact, been the

294 LIFE OF [book II.
liberator of the holy see itself from a preceding tyranny.
The pontiffs, whom he had selected to fiU it, had borne
testimony, by their exemplary characters, to the purity
of his intentions ; and when they laboured in the cause
of reform, he had been generally ready to second and
support them with the full weight of his authority.
This disposition, coupled with the extent and solidity of
his power, might well induce many to think they saw,
in his supremacy, the firmest basis for the fabric of
reformation which they wished to raise. While, there
fore, some churchmen were striring to strengthen, by
all practicable means, the hands of the prelate in whom
the Western Church had, as it were, concentrated the
whole of her inherent, self-regulating, authority, others,
influenced by motives as pure, were labouring in an
opposite direction, and lending their aid to consolidate
the system, which bound her in unqualified subjec
tion to a secular master. But the turn taken by
events on Henry's death did much to change the
views of this latter class of reformers, and to open
their eyes to the error which they had committed
in grounding their confidence rather on the per
sonal character of an individual than on the endur
ing agency of a principle. The moment which closed
the well-intentioned monarch's eyes, put a stop to the
progress of ecclesiastical reform under the auspices of
the throne. And the great contest, by which that event
was so speedily followed, showed that the almost des
potic power over the Church, which he had acquired for
his family, might be used in opposition to, as well as in
advancement of, her holiness and purity. The cause of
Cadalous, as we have seen, was that of the lax prelates
of northern Italy, and of all those, wherever situated,
to whom the progress of ecclesiastical reform was a

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VIL 295
subject of aversion or dread. The great body of these,
the imperial court arrayed around itself, as the sup
porters of its quarrel ; nor could it do this, without
driving, as though by a natural repulsion, the assertors
of opposite principles from its side. From this time,
therefore, no great discordancy of opinion could separate
from each other the sincere reformers of the West.
All who wished to extirpate the vice of simony from
the sacred precincts of the Church ; all who desired to
substitute, for the licentiousness by which the clerical
body was so generally disgraced, an ascetic purity ;
found themselves thenceforward compelled to look for
guidance and support from the Lateran, and from the
Lateran alone. And the contest had no sooner been
concluded, than Alexander, strong in the moral support
of a party so extended and so influential, found himself
able, in his intercourse with the great prelates of the
empire, to address them in a tone of authority, to which
his predecessors had for many years been unaccustomed.
The projected dissolution of Henry's marriage had given
him, as we have seen, a cause for exerting that autho
rity under most favourable circumstances ; and the de
ference paid on that occasion to his envoy, and the
weight accorded by public feeling to his decision, en
couraged him to proceed in asserting and illustrating
the prerogatives of his station. In the year following
that of Damiani's embassage to Germany, he ventured
to summon to Rome, Hanno himself and Siegfried, who
had both been accused before him of simoniacal, or
irregular, conduct ;' nor did either of these metropo-
Utans venture to disregard the summons; the arch
bishop of Cologne thus presenting himself, as a sus-
' Lamb.

296 LIFE OF [book IL
pected criminal, before him, upon whose title he had
so lately sat himself in judgment, at Mantua. The
uncanonical proceedings of both the archbishops were
too notorious to admit of denial. Hanno, in aiming
at what appeared to him virtuous ends, had too often
forgotten to restrict himself to lawful means of attaining
them ; and Siegfried, weak in principle, and unsteady
in character, was not a man to form, or to adopt for
himself, a standard of morality different from that which
was generally recognized by society around him. It
was not, however, either the wish or the policy of
Alexander to treat with severity the exalted criminals,
who, by their appearance, when summoned, had paid
a most acceptable homage to the apostolic see. Having,
therefore, sharply censured them for the past, and de
manded from them an oath to abstain from all si
moniacal practice for the future, he treated them with
many signs of favour, and at length honourably dis
missed them'.
Siegfried, roused to a momentary impulse of good
feeling, by the manner in which Alexander brought
the memory of his past transgressions before him, and
taught to view those transgressions in a new light, by
his intercourse with those by whom they were gene
rally reprobated, gave utterance to the wish, that he
might resign the dignified station which he held, and
retire to a life of penitence and seclusion^. The pope,
^ According to Lambert, the bishop of Bamberg, who accom
panied the metropolitans under the same charges with themselves,
found means, by costly presents, not only to appease the anger of his
judge, but to obtain the pallium and other honours of an archbishop.
from the holy see. But the story, in its details at least, scarcely
consists with the general account of the transaction, or with the
usual conduct of Alexander or his advisers,
' Lamb, Schafnab.

-C!HAP. IX.J GREGORY VH. 297
however, and all others who were present, strenuously
opposed the execution of the project; and Siegfried
returned to Germany, and to the duties of his station'.
In that country, the impressions which he had received
at Rome soon became less vivid on his mind. Return
ing to the associations and connections, he resumed
also the habits, of bis former years ; and though, amid
this relapse, the ideg, which he had expressed at
Rome sometimes recurred to his mind, and induced
him, in 1072, suddenly to fly from the city which he
governed, and to take refuge by stealth within the
walls of Cluni, yet he was soon prevailed upon by the
entreaty of his flock to return to the world ^. Nor
does it appear that these transient emotions of peni
tence or shame produced any marked effect, either upon
his personal habits, or upon the course of his public
policy. He still pursued, with unabated eagerness, the
enforcement of his demands upon Thuringia; though
in this, as in all other proceedings, he now felt the ex
pediency, or rather the necessity, of acting in apparent
concert with the Roman pontiff, and showing all possi
ble public deference to his apostolical nuthority.
The letter addressed by him, in consequence of this
dispute, to Alexander, in 1073, is curious, both as
showing the state of full developement at which the
theory of papal supremacy had now arrived, and as
illustrating the true nature of the causes by which the
reception of that theory throughout Europe had been
most effectually advanced. FeeUng that his antagonists
would more readily defer to the authority of the
apostolic see than to his own, Siegfried addresses
' Lamb. Schafnab.
2 Id.  Marian. Scot. — Udalric. Babenberg. Codex, N. cxxxiv.

298 LIFE OF [book IfT
/
Alexander as one in whose gift, as in that of St.-^ Peter,
were the crowns both of Germany and of the empire.
He beseeches the Pontiff to assist him vs'ith the sword
of the Holy Spirit, and, if possible, to send legates from
Rome, to a synod then about to be holden, that they
might preside over it, and close the business in a canonical
way ; or, if that might not be, that he would by an
official act give the synod his sanction, and pronounce
against the rebellious Thuringians the censures of the
Church '.
It would be tedious here, to recapitulate all the other
instances, which might be cited, of papal interference
with the German Church, between the years 1069, and
that in which Alexander II. died, 1073. The reader
may well suppose, that the authority which the mighty
metropolitans of Cologne and Mentz were afraid to
disobey, would not often be slighted by prelates or
churchmen of minor dignity and influence. While,
therefore, the king, in his reckless career, was offending
his nobles, alienating his friends, and disgusting the
great mass of his subjects, that pontifical authority, upon
which he looked with contempt, was acquiring fresh
strength and consolidation with every year ; and creat
ing, indeed, for itself such elements of vigour as, till
the yet future moment of crisis came, neither its sup
porters nor its antagonists could adequately appreciate.
In the year following that of the visit of the German
metropolitans to Rome, two archbishops from another,
and a more distant, land, did homage by their presence
and obeisance to the apostolic see ^. The celebrated
Lanfranc, one of the most distinguished men of his day
for talent and literary attainments, had been placed by
' Udalric. Babenberg. Codex, N. cxxiv.
^ Will. Malmesb.— Roger de Hoveden. Annal. pt. prior.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 299
WiUiam the Conqueror on the archiepiscopal throne of
Canterbury ' ; and according to usage applied to Rome
for that confirmation of his appointment which the
pontiffs were wont to confer by the gift of the paUium^
or vest of archiepiscopal dignity. In old times the
archbishops elect had solicited this favour in person of
the apostolic see, and though the practice of late — except
in special cases, like that of Aldred, — had been discon
tinued, Hildebrand saw too well its importance to the
papal interests, not to resolve upon attempting its resto
ration. He therefore undertook the charge of replying
to Lanfranc's request, and, in a letter to that prelate,
expressed, in the strongest terms, his regret that it could
not be complied with. Could any case, he said, have
authorized a departure from the proper practice, Lan
franc, deserving as he was of the regard ofthe papal see,
should undoubtedly have received the favour in question,
without having to solicit it. But it was most essential
that the old rule should be restored and maintained.
The holy see was anxious too, on various points, for the
benefit of the English archbishop's counsels. It was
' Lanfranc was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, Aug. 29,
1070. Vid. Canonic. Lichfeldens. indicul. de succession, archiep.
Cantuar. Anglia Sacra, t. i. p. 108. Vid. Willielm. Malmesb. de
Gest. Pontif. lib. i.
^ For an account of the pallium see Ziegler. de Episcop. c. x.
Clement II., in giving it to an archbishop of Salerno said, " Quia de
vellere ovis est, intellige te ovium pastorem. Et quia eo circumcingeris,
et etiam circa humeros portas, cognoscas et undique circumspicias ne
aliqua erret, et in morsus incidat luporum. Quod si aliquando, quod
absit, contigerit, earn habeas in humeros ad caulam reportare, et
pristinae societati coadunare. Quod vero ante et retro crux Domini
habetur : illud apostolicum semper docet ante oculos tuas mentis
habere : mihi mundus crucifixus est, et ego mundo." Hard. t. vi.
pt. i. p. 923.

300 LIFE OF [BOOK II.
hoped, therefore, that, by complying with the directions
which papal envoys were commissioned to bear to him,
he would adopt a line of conduct meet for a dear son of
the Church and a pious member of the clerical order '.
This epistle produced its intended effect ; and in 107 1
Lanfranc, vrith Thomas, who had been promoted, in
1070 ^ to the metropolitan see of York, presented him
self in due form before the apostolic threshold, where
Alexander received him with most distinguished honour.
As Lanfranc approached, the pontiff paid him the un
usual compliment of rising from his seat to meet him,
declaring at the same time that he did so in honour,
not of his archiepiscopal dignity, but of his character
as a master in literature ^ " And now," he continued,
" that I have paid its due to honour, do thou the same
to justice, and prostrate thyself, after the manner of all
archbishops, before the feet of the vicar of St. Peter *."
Lanfranc hesitated not to comply ; — and Alexander not
only bestowed upon him the pallium, which he had
come to seek, but also presented him, as a mark of
his private friendship, with another vestment of the
same kind, in which he had been accustomed himself
to officiate at the holy Eucharist '. And, as some
question arose with respect to the validity of the con
secration of Thon^as of York, as well as of Remigius of
Lincoln, by whom the English metropolitans had been
accompanied on their journey, tbe pontiff, as the highest
possible compliment to the favoured Lanfranc, placed
' Baron. Annal. ad an. 1070.
' Will. Malmesb.
' Hanc venerationem non se illius archiepiscopatui, sed magisterio
literarum deferre. Willielm. Malmesb. de Gestis Pontif. lib. i. p. 117.
edit. Savil.
* Will. Malmesb. 1. c. ' Id.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 301
the destiny of his companions in his hands. From him
they received again the rings and staves which they had
surrendered; and then returned in his company to
their native country. And though Alexander declined
to decide the long controverted question of precedence
betM-'een the sees of York and Canterbury ; which he
referred to the arbitration of the sovereign and pre
lates of England ' ; he conferred such powers on Lan
franc, as rendered him the virtual head of the English
Church, and the permanent representative of the ponti
fical authority ^.
Of that authority Lanfranc continued, as might have
been expected, the firm adherent and assertor. The
following passages, in which this English primate
speaks of the Roman patriarch's power, may well be
alluded to, in connexion with the letter, just cited, of
the metropoUtan of Germany, as showing how ready
the most exalted members of the Western hierarchy
now were, to consider that the proper prerogatives of the
episcopate were concentred, by divine appointment, in
the Roman patriarch, as sole successor of St. Peter : —
" When our Lord and Saviour," says Lanfranc, " said
" to St. Peter, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
" will build my Church ; and I will give unto thee the
" keys of the kingdom of heaven,' he might, had it so
" pleased Him, have added, ' the Uke power I grant to
" thy successors.' But the omission of such words in
" no wise diminishes the dignity of the successors of
" that apostle. Do you gainsay this ? Do you advance
" any thing in opposition to it ? It is impressed on the
' By whom it was subsequently decided in a council at Windsor,
Vid. Will. Malmesb. de Gestis Regum, lib. iii.
^ Vid. Alex. II. ep. x. ap. Harduin. — Will. Malmesb. de Gestis
Regum, lib. iii.

302 LIFE OF [BOOK IL
" consciences of all Christians that, no less than if the
" acts were those of St. Peter himself, they should
" tremble when his successors threaten, and reverently
" rejoice when they show themselves serene '. And
" then only is the arrangement of any ecclesiastical
" matters ratified and binding, when the successors of
" St. Peter have given it their sanction. And what
" causes this but the power of the divine grace, diffiised,
" through the Lord Jesus, from St. Peter among his
" vicars ^ ?"
In France, in Spain, and in other countries, Alex
ander endeavoured, by the mission of legates and other
means, to advance his plans of ecclesiastical reform, and
to maintain his authority ; and, while the papacy thus
grew in strength abroad, the death, — in December 1069,
— of Godfrey of Tuscany ^ may be considered an event
favourable to the consolidation of its power in Italy ;
the sovereignty of an important province thus passing
from the hands of an uncertain and temporizing sup
porter of the papal cause, — whose zeal was ever sus
pected, and whose friendship itself was dangerous, —
into those of firm and devoted adherents to the Church
and her recognized head ; for such were Beatrice and
her daughter Matilda, to whom the government of
Tuscany now mainly reverted. By his first marriage,
Godfrey had a son, named like himself; a prince, who,
' Ut nihilominus quam B. Petro, successoribus ejus etminantibus
attremant, et serenam dignitatem indulgentibus gaudenter applau-
dant. ^ " Quid illud agit, nisi vis divinas liberalitatis per Dominum
Jesum a beato Petro in vicarios ejus difiiisa ?" — Baron. Annal. ad
an. 1072. N. ix.
' Hist. Andaginens. Monaster, ap. Marten, et Durand. Coll.
Ampliss. t. iv. p. 941.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 303
though small in stature, and disfigured by the personal
defect from which he derived the surname " il Gobbo ',"
possessed in a high degree the talents requisite for civil
and military command. Godfrey the younger succeeded
his father in the duchy of Lorraine ; and, by virtue of
a marriage contracted, under his father's auspices, with
Matilda ^, to his Tuscan titles also. But the union thus
formed, was an ill-assorted and unhappy one. It is
doubtful whether Godfrey was ever more to Matilda
than a husband in name ; and it is certain that, after
some little time, differences arose between the two,
which estranged them from each other, and which
ended in Godfrey's chiefly occupying himself in Lor
raine, and abandoning to his wife and her mother the
exclusive administration of the Cisalpine territories of
their house '.
Matilda, subsequently known to her contemporaries
and to posterity by the appellation of " the Great
Countess," was one of the most remarkable characters
of the middle ages. She adorned her high station by
her distinguished talents, and by the results of her
learned education. Amid the various occupations, con
nected with the administration of her extensive territo
ries, she found time and opportunity to become the
encourager, and in some degree the restorer, of ancient
literature. She was acquainted with the more recent
languages spoken in France and Germany, as well as in
her own country. She was active and energetic in the
enforcement of justice, and the maintenance of her
' Godefridus Gibbosus, etsi corpore exiguus, tamen animo eximius.
Sigeb. Gemblac.
^ Hist. Andaginens. Monaster, ap. Marten, et Durand. Coll.
Ampliss. t. iv. p. 940. Vid. Baron, ad an. 1074. nn. 20 et seqq.
' Vid. Hist. Andaginensis Monast. p. 943.
9

304 LIFE OF [book II.
authority over her subjects ; nor was she unequal to
the task of eliciting the military resources of her terri
tory, and bringing well-disciplined armies into the field.
She was munificently charitable to the poor; syste
matically kind and hospitable to the exile and to the
stranger ; and the foundress, or benefactress, of a variety
of churches or conventual institutions. Through all
the various scenes of her eventful life, she never suf
fered secular affairs to interfere with the frequency, or
regularity, of her exercises of devotion; and, in the
hours of darkness and adversity, which were destined
to form no inconsiderable portion of her period of
earthly probation, she found her truest consolation in
the society of holy men, and in the perusal of the holy
Scriptures ; which she is said to have understood better
than many bishops of her time.
Such was " the Great Countess ;" such was she who,
too proud or too humble to recapitulate the roll of her
titles, was wont to subscribe herself, " Matilda, by the
grace of God what I am '." Educated as she had been,
by her mother's care, in habits of devotion, her ardent
spirit, as the great conflict of her time deepened around
her, embraced the quarrel of the menaced Church with
a chivalrous enthusiasm. The moral dignity of HUde
brand, as he came forward as the great champion of that
quarrel, commanded her admiration ; she conceived for
his high character a deep reverential feeUng, such as
none but characters proportionably exalted could enter
tain ; and her talents, her energies, her influence, her

MA DA

GRA QD

TIL J ^^
j)Ej " Matilda Dei gratia id quod sum ;" The last
SI vroids being sometimes substituted, " quidquid
EST est," and sometimes " si quid est."— Fiorentini,
4- Memorie della gran Contessa Matilda, 1. ii. p. 340.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 305
treasures, were, throughout her life, devoted to the sup
port of his power, or to the furtherance of the principles
which he maintained.
The year 1072 was destined to close the labori
ous and ascetic career of Peter Damiani'. Henry,
archbishop of Ravenna, a partizan of the pretender
Cadalous, had died in a state of excommunication,
and had left his church in a state of lamentable con
fusion. The mission of a legate thither was therefore
deemed expedient by the conclave of the Lateran ;
and Damiani, though aged and worn with austerities,
readily undertook the laborious commission, and ex
ecuted it with success. But, on his return, while
halting at a monastery just without the gates of
Faenza, he was seized by a fever, which rapidly sub
dued his already exhausted strength, and finally termi
nated his earthly existence on the 22d of February^.
Dying at this epoch, Damiani had lived long enough
to see the cause, to which his life had been devoted,
crowned with a degree of success which, in the early
portion of his career, he could scarcely have contem
plated. He had seen the great abuses of his time
publicly and repeatedly condemned, and, — by the down
fall of Cadalous, — in a manner overthrown : while,
through the same event, the papacy, — to the power of
which he had ever looked, as to the surest guarantee
for a complete reformation, — had been established in a
condition of strength and independence, to which it had
long been a stranger. But, had the life of this great
reformer been prolonged but a few months, he would
* Berthold. Constant, ad an. — Baronii Annales. — Constantini
Abbatis Caietani in Regulam Petri de Honestis prasfatio.
^ Vita B. Petri Damiani per Joannem Monachum, c. xxii.
VOL. I, X

306 LIFE OF [BOOKII.
have seen that authority exerted in a yet bolder manner,
than it had ever been permitted to him to witness.
For some part of the early summer of 1072 was
spent by Alexander IL at Lucca, in the company of
Beatrice and her daughter Matilda. These princesses,
nearly connected with Henry by blood, lamented his
course of life ', on the grounds at once of public prin
ciple and of personal affection ; and were anxious for
the trial of any experiment, which held out a chance
of bringing him to reflection and amendment. And
the pontiff, influenced by their entreaties, and confiding,
as well in their assured support, as in the general
reverence now paid to his authority, resolved to venture
upon speaking, in the most solemn tone of warning and
reproof, to the monarch himself^. At a council, there
fore, holden at Rome, in February, 1073, he pro
nounced the sentence of excommunication, against such
of Henry's favoured companions as were the most noto
riously contaminated by the vicious practices of the
day ' ; and charged the German prelates who were pre
sent, to bear a letter to the king, to the effect, — accord
ing to some authorities, — that he should forthwith ap
pear before the throne of St. Peter, and defend him
self against the charges of simony and other offences,
which had been brought against him*. This letter,
however, has not been preserved to us ; and the silence

' Tristes inde satis Mathildis erantque Beatrix
Quae sub Alexandro Papa stabant venerando.
Donizo de vita Mathild. 1. i. c. 18.
^ Fiorentini, an. 1072. — Donizo. ' Bonizo.
* Anno et Hermannus . . , , legatione peracta, reversi, literas
Alexandri apostolici detulerunt regem vocantes Romam ad satis
faciendum pro simoniaca hseresi. Abbas Ursp.— Otto Frising. —
Chronograph. SaxQ.

CHAP. IX.J GREGORY VII. 307
of other writers respecting a document so extraordinary,
seems to contradict the detaUs, at least, of this state
ment ; though we can hardly suppose, that such a step
as the excommunication of his counsellors, would be
unaccompanied by a direct and severe message of re
buke to the monarch himself, whose reformation was
avowedly the main object of the proceeding.
Even such a step as this, — unused as the minds of
men now were to such exertions of pontifical authority,
— could not, under ordinary circumstances, have been
taken, without arousing, in Germany, a strong feeling
of indignant loyalty in the monarch's support, guilty as
he might be. But Henry had now proceeded so far, in
the work of alienating from himself the affections of all
classes of his subjects, that the pontifical rebuke to
himself, and public excommunication of his most
familiar friends, was received with apathy, and excited
no re-action of any kind in his favour ; a circumstance
which, — if he gave himself the time to reflect upon it,
— could scarce fail to show him the magnitude of the
dangers to which he stood exposed, and the critical
nature of his situation.
But, whatever may have been his thoughts or inten
tions, when first informed of these proceedings of the
pontiff, an event soon occurred, which relieved him,
for the moment, from the necessity of further consider
ation of them, Alexander II,, on the 21st of April,
1073, breathed his last'. His summons, if such indeed
had been issued, fell consequently to the ground ; his
rebukes were no longer supported by his personal in
fluence or authority ; and Henry, in his joy at what he
considered his deliverance from an embarrassment, soon
' Marian. Scot. — Vid. Pagi, in Baron, ad an. 1073. § iii.
X 2

308 LIFE OF [BOOK IL
forgot whatever resolutions of amendment his momen
tary difficulties might have forced upon his mind.
Alexander II., thus closing his career, left behind
him a truly honourable name. During the whole of
his pontificate, he had maintained the character of a
true churchman, and of a consistent reformer of the
evils of his time. In conjunction with Hildebrand, he
had steadily and perseveringly laboured, in the gradual
developement of those principles of ecclesiastical liberty
and unity, to which that ardent mind had devoted its
extraordinary powers. And, if the fact of his habitual
deference to so highly-gifted an adviser, should diminish
in some degree our conceptions of the firmness and ori
ginality of Alexander's character, we should not refuse
its due meed of praise to the discernment, which led
the pontiff to see, and to avail himself of, the talents
and energies of that distinguished guide.
It would, at the same time, be an injustice to the
memory of Alexander, were we to regard him as the
mere tool or instrument of Hildebrand or his party.
He was, rather, the participator in their views ; their
associate in the great work to which their labours were
directed ; nor could he have forwarded that work as he
did, had he not possessed a fervent zeal, an active
mind, and a determined spirit. He was pure in his
habits of life, courteous and amiable in his manners,
and of a gentle and benevolent disposition. The last
quality he evinced by the manner in which, on more
occasions than one, he pleaded the cause of mercy
toward the Jews'; a people who were then in too
many parts of Europe the objects of systematic perse
cution and slaughter. He sank, ultimately, to the
' Alex. II. epp. apud Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. pp. 1100 et 1116.

CHAP, IX,J GREGORY VII, 309
grave, beloved by all around him ; it was said of him,
that he found the Church a hand-maid, and left her
free ; and the veneration with which he was generally
regarded by his contemporaries, is testified by the
legends which they have left us, of miracles which
honoured his tomb.

BOOK III,— CHAPTER I.
A. D. 1073.
DIFFERENT VIEWS Cj^ THE PAPAL AND IMPERIAL PARTIES — ELECTION OF GREGORY
VII. — HIS REPORTED MESSAGE TO HENET IV.  HIS EPISTLE TO LANFRANC —
COUNT eberhard's embassy to ROME — .HENRY'S APPROVAL OF THE ELECTION —
SENTIMENTS OF CHURCHMEN ON THE SITBJECT OF INVESTITURE — MISSION OP HUGO
CANDIDUS TO SPAIN  GREGORY'S EPISTLE TO THE GRANDEES OF THAT COUNTRY —
TO GODFREY THE YOUNGER OF TUSCANY — TO BEATRICE AND MATILDA — HENRY'S
EPISTLE TO GREGORY.
Looking, as we may now do, upon the times which have
been treated of, with the light thrown upon them by
subsequent events, we may easily see, though the fact
may perhaps have escaped the notice of contempo
rary eyes, that the struggle with Cadalous, — ending as
it had done, — contained in itself the seeds of a future
and more momentous conflict. By the general recog
nition of Alexander IL, the papal party had, in their
own eyes, established the principles for which they had
contended ; but the imperial counsellors, in conceding
the point in dispute, had, in all probability, seemed to
themselves to be making a merely personal concession
or compromise, by acquiescing in the pretensions of
one individual claimant of the papal name to the dero
gation of those of another. The young Henry IV., and
his courtiers, still conceived the general prerogatives of
the crown over the Church and her pastors, to be those
which Henry III. had established, or enjoyed. The

CHAP. L J LIFE OF GREGORY VIL 311
rule of things, in their eyes, was still that which the
last mentioned monarch had iUustrated at Sutri ; and
they were ready, by consequence, to regard as offences,
or insults to the imperial dignity, all movements of
the papacy inconsistent with that arrangement. The
Roman conclave, on the other hand, appreciating, at
least in part, the advantage which it had obtained, by
its victory over the pretender of Parma, and by other oc
currences of the last years, was now shaping its course,
and fashioning its ideas, by rules adapted to this, its
newly acquired position of comparative independence :
so that, — to its members, — the monarch, even when pro
ceeding in the accustomed course of his father, and of
his grandsire, appeared as though attempting a series of
unauthorized innovations and encroachments. Such a
discrepancy of impressions as this could rof itself scarcely
fail to lead, ere long, these two great powers of western
Christendom into hostile collision. And, while the
wantonness with which the impetuous Henry asserted,
in the most arbitrary manner, the imagined prerogatives
of his crown, was calculated alike to accelerate, and to
embitter, the struggle ; the last modifications which the
Church's constitution, in the hands of the pontiffs, had
received, tended to place them in an attitude of more
direct opposition to the imperial authority than they
had previously occupied.
The process by which the papacy had originally at
tained its monarchical pre-eminence, — involving, as it
did, a disregard to the rights and honours due to the epi
scopate in general, — ^naturally, or it may be said necessa
rily, led to the growth, in the Roman school, of another
irreverence of a kindred nature ; to an enfeeblement of
the high spirit of Christian loyalty toward the secular
sovereign. And, while every step by which, in com-

312 LIFE OF [book in.
pliance with the feudalizing spirit of the time, the
character of the Redeemer's unearthly kingdom was
assimilated to that of a temporal, visible, monarchy,
tended of course to confirm this evil bias, and to corro
borate, in the successors of St. Peter, the habit of re
garding themselves jrather as riyalSj^ than assubjects, of
the anointed bearers of the civil sword"; the result of
Leo's campaign against the Normans had now ex
hibited to the world, in a public manner, the realiza
tion of that papal view of feudalism and of the Church,
which represented the latter as the superior, and not
the vassal, in the constitutional system of political
gradations. That view, strange as it deservedly appears to us,
should in fact, advanced when it was, be rather regarded
as the modification of an erroneous doctrine already in
vogue, than as the introduction of a new error into the
popular creed. Nay, as opposed to the theory which
was in fact its opponent in the times of which we treat,
it may be regarded as the expression of a truth. AU
parties, in those times, seemed to concur in the notionSj
that the collective episcopal authority of the Church
was primarily lodged in the single hands of the Roman
bishop ; and that such authority, being in great measure
a power of the same kind with earthly sovereignty,
was, of necessity, to occupy a definite place in that con
stitutional system of the empire, the leading principle
of which was the derivation of all privilege in each
subordinate rank, from the rank or ranks above it.
And the modification, which these tenets received in
the hands of assertors of the papal power, was this,
that, according to them, the place of the prelate in
question, if he were indeed to take his place on a step
of the feudal scale, must be that of supremacy, not of

CHAP. lJ GREGORY VII. 313
subordination ; that the Church, — if she were not to be
recognized as the possessor of a distinct, an indepen
dent, authority, — if she were to be linked, intimately
and inseparably, vrith the state, so that the one of
these two powers must needs, in the language of that
day, hold its prerogatives of the other, — might, with
justice, claim to be the mistress, not the vassal ; the
sovereign, not the subject. Their assertions, in short,
were conclusions which were legitimately deduced from
premises admitted by their opponents as well as by
themselves ; and the blots by which their system, as it
developed itself, was disfigured and disgraced, were the
results rather of these general misconceptions, than of
their own peculiar deductions from them. It was not
for these defects that they fought, or that they con
quered; and the imperfect, the unsatisfactory, con
sequences of their final victory, far from inclining us to
regard them as champions of falsehood or error, should
of right serve as an illustration, to us, of the extreme
peril of a time, in which the Church's only defenders
against an overwhelming danger, were themselves so
deeply infected with the vicious principles, from which
that peril arose, that their very success tended, in some
respects, to perpetuate, rather than to abolish, the evUs
which they opposed. By their efforts, the Church was
saved, " yet so as by fire ;" and the brands and scars,
which continued to disfigure her outward lineaments,
were enduring memorials of the fury of the furnace
from which she had been delivered.
But to return to our narration. Alexander II. had
no sooner breathed his last, than his archdeacon, in
concert with the other leading ecclesiastics of the city,
directed that the three following days should be
devoted to fasting, to deeds of charity, and to prayer ;

314 life of [book hi.
after which the proper authorities were to proceed, — ^in
the hope of the dirine blessing upon their counsels, — to
the election of a successor. But, long before the period
thus prescribed had elapsed, that election was decided.
On the day following that of Alexander's decease,
the dignified clergy of the Roman Church ' stood, with
the archdeacon, round the bier of the departed pon
tiff, in the patriarchal church of the Lateran^. The
funeral rites were in progress; and Hildebrand, it is
probable, was taking a leading part in the celebration of
' Sanctae Romanae catholicae ecclesiae cardinales, clerici, acolyti,
subdiaconi, diaconi, presbyteri, prsesentibus venerabilibus episcopis
et abbatibus, clericis et monachis consentientibus, plurimis turbis
utriusque sexus diversique ordinis acclamantibus. — Act. election.
Greg. VII. citat. a Baron, ad an. 1073. n. 24 ; et vid. Harduin.
t. vi.pt. i. p. 1195,
' According to the act quoted in the last note, which is also
cited by Paulus Bernriedensis and Pandulphus Pisanus, this scene
took place in the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula, Baronius how
ever, from authorities found by him in the Vatican, describes it as
having occurred in the Lateran, and he is followed by the Cardinal de
Aragonia. But the most important evidence on the point is Gregory
himself, who describes the transaction as taking place " in ecclesia
Salvatoris" (Greg. Ep. lib. i. epp. 1-3.) an established synonyme of
the Lateran. " Constantinus," says Damiani, " patriarchium Late
ranense in beati Salvatoris honore construxit." — Discept. Synodal.
ap. Cone. Osbor. Hard, t. vi. pt. i. p. 1122. "Ecclesia Latera-
nensis, quae et Constantiniana et basilica Salvatoris diverso nomine
nuncupatur." Ex antiquo codice in Vaticano, ap. Baron, ad an. 1057.
It may be that, at the close of the tumultuous proceeding in the
Lateran, the cardinal clergy adjourned to St. Peter ad Vincula, for
mally to ratify and register the election ; or perhaps, the idea of
fixing the scene at the latter Church arose from the statement of
Bonizo (p. 811), that Gregory was enthroned " ad Vincula Beati
Petri, non ad Brixianorium ;" by which the author meant, it seems,
only to contrast the legality of this pontiff's election in the city of
St. Peter, with the irregularity of that of an anti-pope then recently
elected at Brixen, in the Tyrol.

CHAP, I, J GREGORY VII. 315
these solemn ceremonies. But suddenly, from the
body of the building, which had been filled to overflow
ing by the lower clergy and people, burst forth the
cry of "Hildebrand," A thousand voices instantly
swelled the sound, "Hildebrand shall be Pope."
"St. Peter chuses our archdeacon Hildebrand." These,
and cries like these, rang wildly along the Church ;
the ceremonies were interrupted, and the officiating
clergy paused in suspense. The subject of this tumult,
recovering from a momentary stupor, rushed into a
pulpit, and thence, while his gestures implored silence,
attempted to address the agitated assembly. But the
attempt was vain ; the uproar continued ; and it was
not until they perceived the cardinal presbyter Hugo
Candidus ' coming forward, and soliciting their atten
tion, that the multitude suffered their cries to subside ^.
" Brethren," said the Cardinal, " ye know, and, as it
" appears, ye acknowledge, that, from the time of our
" holy Father Leo, HUdebrand our archdeacon has
" proved himself a man of discretion and probity ; that
" he has exalted the dignity of our Roman Church, and
" rescued our Roman city from most imminent dangers.
" We can find no man more fitting to be entrusted with
" the future defence of our Church or state ; and we,
" the cardinal bishops ^, do, with one voice, elect Hil-
" debrand to be henceforth your spiritual pastor and
" our own *."
The joyous cries of the populace arose anew. The
' He was sometimes called "Albus," Vid, Dacher. Spicileg, t. i,
625. and sometimes " Blancus," Vid. Lamb, ad an. 1076.
^ Card. Aragon. ap. Murator, Rerum Ital, Script, t, iii, pt. i.
p. 304.
' " Cardinales Episcopi," but Hugo was himself only a presbyter,
' Card. Airagon. 9

316 life of [book hi.
cardinal bishops, and clergy, approached the object of
their choice to lead him toward the apostolic throne.
" We chuse," they cried to the people, " for our pastor
" and pontiff, a devout man ; a man skilled in interpret-
" ing the Scriptures ; a distinguished lover of equity and
" justice ; a man firm in adversity, and temperate in pros-
" perity ; a man, according to the saying of the Apostle, of
" good behaviour, blameless, modest, sober, chaste, given
" to hospitality, and one that ruleth well his own house.
" A man from his childhood generously brought up in
" the bosom of this mother Church, and for the merit
" of his life already raised to the archidiaconal dignity.
" We chuse, namely, our archdeacon, Hildebrand, to be
" pope and successor to the apostle, and to bear hence-
" forward and for ever, the name of Gregory," The
pope elect, upon this, was forthwith invested by eager
hands with the scarlet robe and tiara of pontifical dig
nity, and placed, notwithstanding his gestures of reluc
tance, and even his tears, upon the throne of the
Apostle ', The cardinals approached him with obei
sance, and the people with shouts yet louder and more
' Indutus rubea chlamyde, sicut moris est, et Fapali mythra
insignitus, invitus et mcerens, in Beati Petri cathedra fuit inthroni-
zatus. — Card. Aragon. ut supra.
The ceremony of inthronization always took place in the Lateran
Church, though that of consecration was performed at St. Peter's,
Pagi in Baron, ad an. 1049 ; and see the same critic, ad an. 1073,
§ V. According to Benzo, Panegyr. in Hen. III. lib. vii. c. ii. the
tiara with which Nicholas II. was crowned at Rome, and which was
probably still in use in Gregory's pontificate, was in the form of a
double crown, round the lower circle of which was engraved the
motto " Corona regni de manu Dei ;" and round the upper, " Dia-
dema imperii de manu Dei." Hence, says Mansi, we learn that
the use of the double circle in the papal crown is more ancient
tljan learned men have thought. See note from Cantelius, above,
book i. c. i. p. 60.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 317
joyous than before, repeated the designation of their
new pontiff, and tumultuously testified their approba
tion '.
And thus, on Monday, the 22nd of April, 1073 % was
Hildebrand, or, as we must henceforward style him,
Gregory, elevated to the pinnacle of ecclesiastical dig
nity and power. Whether he had beforehand contem
plated or wished such an event as his own election,
must of course be, to us, a matter of uncertainty. It is,
however, clear that he did not anticipate, what may be
styled -its premature occurrence, on the day on which it
happened. The events of that day were of too irregu
lar a nature to have accorded, precisely, with his wishes,
or to permit us to suppose them, even if the supposition
were otherwise admissible, the results of his previous
arrangement. Nor on such a demonstration of popular
feeling on his behalf, could he have, beforehand, any right
to reckon. The stern austerity of his life and manners
was not calculated to win for him the habitual favour
of the multitude, even while it commanded their
respect ; and their conduct on this occasion was, it
' Quem amodo usque in sempiternum et esse et dici Gregorium
Papam et Apostolicum volumus et approbamus. Placet vobis ?
Placet. Vultis eum ? Volumus. Laudatis eum ? Laudamus. — Act.
Election. Vid. Baron, et Harduin. at stipra. — Continuo universitate
cleri et populi acclamante, " Domnum Gregorium Papam S. Petrus
elegit." Card. Aragon.
' Benno, a historian hostile to Gregory, avails himself of this date
to assert that his election was uncanonical; because, according to
him, the canons required three days to intervene between the death
of one pope and the election of his successor. But to this charge
Baronius replies, that the decree of Nicholas IL, which was intended
and understood completely to define the essentials of a valid election,
contained no such enactment.

318 LIFE OF [book II]
would seem, to be traced rather to an unusual, and a
it were extorted, burst of the latter feeling, than to i
natural effusion of the former.
The event of his election, unexpected as, at the mo
ment, it unquestionably was, seems to have over
whelmed for a while even his intrepid spirit. Ii
letters written from the couch on which, exhausted ii
mind and body, he passed the following day ', he speaki
of it in terms of terror, and, using the poetical languag(
of the psalms, exclaims, " I am come into deep waters
" where the floods overflow me. I am weary of m]
" crying : my throat is dried ^ Fearfulness and trem.
" bling are come upon me, and horror hath over
" whelmed me '." And he concludes by anxiously im
ploring the intercessions of his friends, vrith Heaven, ir
his behalf ; expressing a hope that their prayers, thougl
they had not sufficed to prevent his being caUed to thai
post of danger, might yet avail to defend him when
placed there.
The greatness and, — in the actual state ofthe world, —
the daring nature, ofthe desires which animated him, and
those with whom he had for some time been acting.
now stood, perhaps, more fully displayed before him
than ever, at the moment in which he felt himself irre
vocably pledged to be the leading instrument in theii
fulfilment. His election called him to occupy the
foremost post, in the great conflict of principle then
pending ; a conflict, on his part, against long-rooted
customs, against long-established authority ; a conflict
against the wishes, the prejudices, and even, in some
respects, the affections natural to mankind ; a conflict
' Lib. i. ep, 1, 2. — " In lecto jacens valde fatigatus."
' Ps. Ixix. V. 3, 4. » Ps. lv. v. 5.

CHAP, I, J GREGORY VII, 319
in which to fail was ruin and disgrace ; from which to
retire would be a sinful abandonment of duty. An
irresistible necessity, as it would appear to him, sud
denly brought him close to those gigantic events, those
fearful moments of crisis, which he had tUl then been
permitted to contemplate through the mists of a com
paratively dim and distant futurity ; and his spirit may
well have shrunk, for a moment, from more nearly and
more directly confronting them.
It is stated by a contemporary historian', that
Gregory, in these agitating moments, dispatched a
letter to King Henry; in which, after narrating the
event of his election, he intreated him not to sanction
the nomination by his consent, " If," he is reported to
have thus addressed the monarch : — " If I be, indeed,
" made pope, my first business must be, to see that
" your many sins and trespasses meet with the punish-
" ment which they deserve."
But, no such epistle appears among Gregory's ex
tant writings, nor does the story well consist with the
tone, either of his epistles above alluded to, or of others,
written also at this point of his career, which show him,
from the very first, to have systematically proceeded in
the administration of the papal office. The transmis
sion too of such a letter, had it indeed taken place,
could scarcely fail to have been certified to us, by the
testimony of more than one of Gregory's contempo
rary annalists : Lambert of Aschaffenburg, in particular,
might have been expected to corroborate, in this point,
the statement of Bonizo. But, as this is not the
case, we are, it would seem, hardly warranted in
giving implicit credit to the statement. Yet it may
' Bonizo, p. 811. See also Cardinal. Aragon.

320 LIFE OF [book ih,
well have been founded on truth. Upon the election,
a messenger would, of course, be dispatched without
loss of time to the imperial court ; in which the power
of confirming or annulling such proceedings was, as we
have seen, admitted to exist; nor is it probable that
the principal actor in the scene would suffer him to
depart, without charging him with some communication
to the emperor directly from himself. And thus, partly
in the way of compliment, and partly through the
momentary confusion of his mind, he may have for
warded some letter or message, the tenor of which,
being too gravely and formally considered, has given
rise to the story which the writer in question has re
corded. Gregory could scarcely, in the actual circumstances
of the Church and of the empire, have so widely de
parted from the principles which he had long laboured
to establish, as in any more formal vray to solicit
the annulment, by an imperial veto, of the proceedings
of the Roman clergy and people. And, though, having
subscribed the decree of Nicholas IL, he was not in a
position to dispute, as a matter of form, the question
of the emperor's interference ; yet the notion, that any
line of conduct which Henry could have adopted on the
occasion, would have induced Gregory to renounce the
high station to which he had been elected, is contra
dicted by the whole tenor of his conduct, from the mo
ment of his election.
But that he continued, even when the first violence
of his feelings had subsided, to regard the duties and
responsibilities of that station, with a deep sentiment of
awe, appears, from an epistle' written by him some short
' Quoted by Baronius, ad an. 1073, and stated to be extant among
Lanfranc's epistles, preserved at Paris.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII, 321
time after his election, to Lanfranc : a prelate to whom
he appears to have confided, more fully than to others,
the emotions of his heart, "The greater," he says,
" the peril in which we are placed, the greater our need
" of the prayers of all good men. For we, if we would
" escape the sentence of the divine wrath, must arise
" against many, and must incense them against our
" own soul. For, whilst nearly all, as saith the Apostle,
" seek their own things, and not the things of Jesus
" Christ, the princes and governors of the world, for
" the gratification of their own passions, not only desert
" the law of God, and the dictates of justice, through
" carelessness, but strive with all their might to oppose
" them. So that we appear to see, even with our own
" eyes, the fulfilment of the prophetic passage. ' The
" kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take
" counsel together, against the Lord, and against his
" Christ.' While the bishops, and those who should
" be the shepherds of souls, pursuing with unsatiable
" desire the glory of the world, and the pleasures of
" the flesh, not only confound, in themselves, all that
" is religious and holy, but lead those committed to
" their charge into every species of wickedness by their
" example. And thy prudence will alike see, how fear-
" ful it must be for us to abstain from opposing such
" persons, and how difficult for us to oppose them."
Had Henry's position, at the moment, been more
favourable, the young monarch would doubtless have
been glad to exert, on this occasion, the prerogative so
often exercised by his ancestors, by issuing, without
delay, his mandate annulUng the election. With the
character and principles of Hildebrand, the history of the
past twenty years had made him well acquainted ; and
the rise of that energetic churchman to greater power,
VOL. X. ^

322 LIFE OF [book III.
could not but be regarded by him vrith dread. The
profligate and simoniacal prelates, too, who surrounded
his court, were eager to increase, in the monarch's
mind, this feeling of alarm. They presaged, and truly,
what was coming ; they felt how firmly the power of
Gregory would be exerted in forcing them from their
licentious and irregular courses, or in punishing them
for their continuance in habits so unpriestly ; and they
knew how much the authority of the papal name would,
in his case, be increased, by the respect commanded by
his acknowledged probity of character, and purity of
manners'. They endeavoured, accordingly, to prevail
on the king, at all risks, to set himself in opposition to
the Roman conclave, and to nullify their proceedings.
But, fortunately for Henry, his court contained more
honest, or more prudent, advisers ; he was made aware
of the extreme danger, in his critical circumstances, of
an open rupture with the ecclesiastical power, and
induced to adopt a more safe and moderate course.
Count Eberhard of Nellenburg, a nobleman already
mentioned as standing high in his confidence, was
despatched as his ambassador to Rome ; and directed
to learn, from the authorities of that city, the parti
culars of the election, and their reasons for making
it without waiting, as had been usual, for the imperial
sanction. And it was only in the event of ai» unsatis
factory answer being returned to these inquiries, that
the count was instructed to declare the nullity of the
proceedings, and the consequent vacancy of the papal
chair^. But such an answer, it was, by no means, the wish of
Gregory that he should receive. The new pontiff, as
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 323
we have seen, was already committed to a recognition
of the sovereign's authority with respect to the point in
question; and, even had it been otherwise, he would
probably have been unwilling to furnish Henry vrith
so fair a pretext, as any opppsition on this point would
have afforded him, for at once denying the papal autho
rity, and for resisting, in future, whatever measures
might emanate from the Lateran.
Circumstanced as the young king was, and evi
dently too feeble to refuse, — if a refusal could possibly
be avoided, — his assent to the election, that assent could
but be regarded by Gregory as a form ; and the times
were no longer such, as that the Church's freedom could
be materially endangered by the compliment of acknow
ledging it. A system had now grown into comparative
maturity, essentially incompatible with the continuance
of that ecclesiastical subjection, which the ceremony of
imperial confirmation had formerly implied '.
Gregory received, therefore, the imperial envoy with
courtesy and deference, God, he said, was his witness,
that he had, by no practices of his own, wrought his
elevation to the exalted station, which he had been
called upon to fill. The Romans, by their unsolicited
election, had forced upon him, as though by violence,
the burden of the ecclesiastical government. " But my
consecration," he continued, " I have hitherto refused,
" awaiting the approval, by the king, and his princes,
" of the election ; and I shall still refuse it, until that
" approval be certified to me by an accredited mes-
" senger ^," Satisfied with this answer. Count Eberhard
' And, in fact, we learn from the annals of subsequent times, that
this was the last occasion in which such a confirmation was sought
for or granted.
" Lamb. Schafnab.
Y 2

324 LIFE OF [book hi.
returned to Germany, and Henry felt that his only
course was to confirm the election. Gregory, the
bishop of Vercelli, and imperial chancellor of Italy,
appeared accordingly, as the sovereign's accredited
representative, at Rome, And the pontiff elect, having
been admitted to priest's orders during the week of
Pentecost ', was consecrated, in that prelate's presence,
on the festival of St, Peter and St, PauF, with all
rites and ceremonies from time immemorial observed
upon such occasions ',
The name " Gregory" appears to have been chosen
by, or for, Hildebrand *, at the moment of his sudden
election, in compliment to his unfortunate teacher
and friend Gratianus, who, it will be recollected, had
been elevated to the chair of St. Peter by that name.
By styling himself " the seventh," the new pontiff
vindicated, as it were, the right of that unhappy man
to the papacy, and secured his insertion in the canon
ical list of the popes by the designation, which he had
assumed, of Gregory the Sixth.
No immediate change, of course, was effected in the
' Infra Octavam Pentecostes. Cardinal. Aragon. Whitsunday,
1073, fell on the 19th of May.
' June 29, 1073. So most authorities. Lambert of Aschaffenburg
postpones the ceremony till the feast of the Purification in the ensu
ing year. But the former date is not only more probable in itself,
but appears to be established by the circumstance that, Gregory's
epistles written prior to the 29th of June, are headed " Gregorius
in Pontificem Electus," while, of those subsequent to that day, the
heading is "Gregorius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei." Vid. Mansi,
Harduin, &c.
' Except that another bishop acted as representative of the bishop
of Ostia, who should, in virtue of his office, have taken the principal
part in the ceremony. But that prelate had been employed by
Alexander as his legate, and was still absent.
* In point of form, it does not seem to have rested with a pontiff

CHAP, I.J GREGORY VII. 325
counsels of the papacy, by the election, to the pontifical
station, of one by whom those counsels had so long
been virtually guided. In waging unintermitted war
against what he considered the two great corruptions
of his time, simony ' and clerical marriage, Gregory did
but imitate the example of his predecessors in the
chair of St, Peter ; though the weight of his name and
energy of his character — aided by the gradually increas
ing effect of his, and their, past labours — now gave a
new force to the papal exertions in this momentous
struggle. These proscribed practices, like all other real
or apprehended religious corruptions of the day, he
traced, as to their proximate cause, to that state of sub
jection, to which the Church had been brought, under
the secular princes and rulers of the world ; — to the rise
and progress of that system of secularization which,
confounding things hallowed with things common, was
daily drawing her, more and more completely, within
the vortex of feudalism, and merging her essential and
spiritual character in her external and apparent one.
The lay nobles, who had become her most influential
governors, were unfettered by those restraints which
must, in the worst of times, impose some check upon
elect, himself to assume his future designation, though of course any
intimation of his wish upon the point would be reverently attended
to, " Non ipse electus nomen sibi assumebat, sed a protoscriniariis
" et aliis illi imponebatur : vid, Platin, in Paschal, II, ' Sanctus
" ' Petrus Rainerium virum optimum pontificem elegit, cui postea
" ' primiscrinii et scribae regionarii Paschalis nomen indidere,' " Not,
in Chron. Cassin. ap. Murator. t. iv, p, 476.
' A word, which by the reformers of the time was used with great
comprehensiveness of meaning. " Tria," says Damiani, " dicuntur
esse munerum genera, scilicet munus a manu (i. e. pecunia), munus
ab obsequio (i. e. obedientia subjectionis), et munus a lingua (i, e,
favor adulationis),"

326 LIFE OF [book III,
the corruption of ecclesiastics. And her bishops and
other spiritual dignitaries, bound to those laymen by the
strict ties of feudal vassalage, sought rather to please
their haughty lords and masters than to guide them ;
rather to court their favour by an imitation of their
manners, than to risk their displeasure by venturing to
set a contrary example. While this state of things
continued, whatever might be achieved at intervals, or
in particular spots, by the influence of energetic indi
viduals, it was vain to hope for a general or permanent
effect from the reforming enactments of popes or coun
cils. Powerless would be the most solemn denounce
ment of simony in the Lateran, while the sovereign
and his nobles should continue to offer for sale each
ecclesiastical office as it fell vacant ; nor less impotent
the pontifical call upon the clerical body to abandon
their luxurious habits for lives of ascetic purity, while
they continued the tools and dependents of a licentious
and gross-minded aristocracy. Gregory felt, therefore,
that the great plans of purification which had so long
engaged the thoughts of himself and his coadjutors, to
be efficaciously pursued, must be accompanied by some
step, directly tending to the severance of those feudal
ties, by which the Church was thus, as it were, bound
down to earth ; some measure calculated to assert, and
at the same time to realize, her essential independence
of earthly dignities, and of constitutions human in their
construction and temporary in their duration.
And the opportunity for such a measure was subse
quently furnished to him, by a practice which, sanctioned
as it had become by usage, had for some time excited
the indignation of thoughtful churchmen. The effect
of Charlemagne's policy upon the episcopate of his
empire has been already adverted to. It has been

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 327
pointed out how,^ under that monarch and his descen
dants, prelates became identified with barons, the
hierarchical governors of tiie Church with the feudal
dignitaries of the empire ; as well as how, in this blend
ing of dissimilar characters, the sacred and unearthly
<iignity,, which was the object of faith, became merged,
to the public eye, in that which was tangible and con
spicuous. Under this state of things, — the sovereign,
naturally conceiving himself entitled to a preponde
rating voice in the nomination of his representative and
vassal, — the custom silently became universal, that
episcopal elections should be ratified by what was
styled regal investiture. Though, in eariier and purer
ages of the Church, the binding a bishop by any kind
of formal oath, would have been thought a degradation
of the episcopal character', the prelates nominated by
Charlemagne or his descendants, saw no impropriety,
when becoming the beneficed vassals of the throne,
in pledging themselves, in the ordinary way, to fidelity
and devotion, or in receiving the emblems of their
appointment from the regal hand. The symbols
adopted for this purpose were the sacerdotal ring and
the pastoral staff; symbols which, naturally as they in
the first instance suggested themselves, could scarcely
fail to escape the indignant criticism of churchmen in
a more thoughtful age. For, when their purport was
weighed, they could scarcely be regarded as indicative
of those civil rights, royalties, and privileges, which,
emanating as they did from the fountain of secular
honours, bishops might fairly be admitted to hold in
subservience to, and as derivative from, the regal
' It was on that account forbidden by Justinian in his Laws.
Vid. Thomassin. Vet. et Nov. Eccles. Discipl. pt. ii. 1. ii.
c. xlvii. § 2.

328 LIFE OF [BOOK IU.
authority. They were episcopal, not baronial, adorn-
ings. They typified, the one the espousals which the
bishop, in Christ's stead, contracted with his Church',
the other, the pastoral superintendence which, as re
presenting the great Shepherd, he was authorized ::to
exercise over his flock. And, under the influence of
that primitive feeling which sought to trace, in things
of a holy nature, the unseen in the seen ; — to watch
for glimpses and shadowy indications of the cor
respondencies which connect the earthly and tangible
accidents of the Church with her essential and hidden
glories, — the more religious contemporaries of Gregory
VII. regarded, as though fraught with a mysterious
potency of meaning, these honoured instruments and
appendages of her ministry. In the rod, they beheld
the antitype of that, which in the hand of Moses
had brought water from the rock to the relief of a
perishing people ^. And with regard to the ring, they,
with St. Ambrose, beheld in it the seal of a pure faith
and the impress of the truth. " He who hath the ring,"
the saint had thus spoken, " hath the Father, the Son,
" and the Holy Ghost. For God hath sealed us, whose
"image is Christ, and hath given His Spirit to be a
" pledge in our hearts ; that we may recognize, in the
' Dum tu (sacerdos) sis vir et sponsus ecclesiae tuae, quod utique
perhibent et annulus dispensationis et virga commissionis. Damiani
Opusc. xvii. de coelibatu saeerdotum. — Vice Christi factus es pastor
ovium, scilicet quando datus est tibi annulus desponsionis et
baculus pastoralis curae .... Nonne accepisti annulum, ut ecclesiam
tuam velut sponsam diligeres, baculum quoque, ut cam a luporum
incursione defenderes. Epistola Moguntinse ecclesiae ad Sigefridum.
Udalr. Bab. Codex, N. cxxxiv. — Sacerdotes. . . . in manibus annulos
deferebant, quatenus ecclesiae sponsos sese ostenderent. Landulph.
senior. Hist. Mediolan. t. ii. c. xxvi.
' Landulph. senior. Hist. Mediolan. 1. ii. c. xxxv.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 329
" ring which is placed upon the hand, that signet with
" which the inward parts of our hearts, and the ministry
" of our outward actions, are sealed '. Impressed with
sentiments reverential as these, they could not but
shudder to behold the practice of lay investiture, such as
it existed around them ; to behold the symbols, fraught
to their eyes with a significancy so awful, handled and
dispensed to Christ's ministers by a licentious monarch,
or, as was the case with many benefices, by his feu
datory nobles, as though in exercise of the ordinary
privileges and prerogatives of their secular dignity.
And when we reflect that a ceremony, in itself so
odious to them, was rendered still more obnoxious in
their eyes, by its connection with the existing prostra
tion of the Church before the temporal sovereignty,
as well as by its tendency to perpetuate the system of
simony which disgraced the times, we may, in some
degree, appreciate the intensity of the feeling, with
which, when once appealed to on the subject, they were
found to insist on its total and perpetual abolition.
But Gregory was not prepared, at once, to evoke
this dormant spirit. Though it is probable that, like
Damiani, he had often bitterly ruminated on the de
grading exhibition of the Church's slavery, which inves
titure, in its continual recurrence, presented to the
eyes of mankind, he was too well aware of the necessity
' Landulph. c. xxxvi. — Annulus quid est aliud nisi sincerae fidei
signaculum, et expressio veritatis ? . . . Qui autem annulum habet,
et Patrem habet, et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, quia signavit nos
Deus, cujus imago Christus, et dedit Spiritum pignus in cordibus
nostris, ut sciamus hoc annuli istius, qui in manu datur, esse
signaculum, quo cordis interiora factorumque nostrorum ministeria
signantur. S. Ambros. Comment, lib. vii. in Evangel. Luc. cap.
xvi. t. 3. p. 168, ex editione Romana, Lutet. Paris. 1661. The
quotation in Landulphus is in some points incorrect.

330 LIFE OF [book III.
of watching the times, and of selecting the fittest
moment for every meditated effort, rashly to commit
himself by an untimely demonstration against a prac
tice so firmly established.
It was, therefore, to other points that his exertions,
if not his thoughts, were in the first instance directed.
And his official act, now to be mentioned, will afford a
striking illustration of the mode in which, in the minds
of Gregory and of his school, the noblest feelings and
principles were debased by an alloy, originating in the
distorted views of the nature of Christ's kingdom which
had been generally adopted by the gross times before
them. This kingdom, brought doMm by the events
connected with its settlement under an earthly head, to
the position, in some respects, of a temporal monarchy,
could not, while thus circumstanced, make assertion of
the claims which were spiritually its due, without the
simultaneous assumption of a secular, political pre-emi
nence, but ill adapted to its primitive character. The
Christian doctrine, that the Almighty Head of the
Church " ruleth over all the kingdoms of the earth, and
giveth them to whomsoever He will," was confounded
with the idea, that His imagined sole vicar and repre
sentative below, was invested with, what the language
of the times entitled, a paramount lordship or suze
rainty, over the individual thrones of Christendom.
Standing in the place of St. Peter, his successor was
regarded as though clothed with an authority, similar
in nature to that of kings, though exceeding theirs
in extent ; as occupying, in relation to them, a posi
tion, analogous to that which they occupied in refer
ence to their feudatory nobles : the great truth of
the Church's substantive, and, in her own province,
supreme, authority, being thus borne witness to; though
9

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 331
in connexion with the then generally prevalent error,
which represented her as forming a certain definite
member, a component, necessary department, of the
system of feudal society.
The act in question was the mission of Hugo Candi
dus, — the cardinal who had taken so prominent a part in
his election, — into Spain. ITugo had already bejen em
ployed in that country as legate; having been sent
thither by Alexander IL, subsequently to his submission
to that pontiff. But he had drawn on himself, while
there, the censures of the conclave, by having accepted
bribes to restore persons convicted of simony to their
benefices. For this he had been instantly recalled, and
commanded to confine himself to Rome ; but respect
for the memory of his old patron, Leo IX., prevented
Alexander from adopting further measures against
him '. His conduct at Gregory's election shows him,
nevertheless, to have been a person of influence in
Rome; and after that event, Gregory perhaps could
not refuse his application for employment. But he
himself tells us that he only granted it upon Hugo's full
acknowledgment of his errors, and solemn promises of
amendment. He also thought it advisable that Hugo
should be accompanied, on this occasion, to Spain, by
two trusty monks of Cluni, who were to watch and
control him ^.
The Spanish peninsula had for some time been regarded
with much interest by the governors of the Roman
Church; and the efforts of Alexander II, had, through
out his pontificate, been exerted to procure the abro
gation of the Gothic, or Mozarabic, ritual, which had
from old time been in use in the Spanish Church, and
' Bonizo, p. 809. ^ Lib. i. ep. 6.

332 LIFE OF [book IIL
the introduction, into Spain, of the Roman book of
services in its place.
The unity of the Church, amid the natural distinc
tions and differences of her members, was a point upon
which the popes of that time were anxious strenu
ously to insist ; nor could it be in any way more satis
factorily illustrated to mankind, than by making her
ritual one and the same, throughout the whole extent of
her territories ; and teaching, as far as might be, all
portions of Christendom, to offer their devotions accord
ing to the forms established in the city of St, Peter,
And they were, of course, more especially desirous so
to illustrate this unity, in regions, which, like the
Spanish kingdoms, lay apart, and in a manner cut off
from, the general Christian community ; for it was in
these that the greatest danger existed, i;hat the impor
tant doctrine of Catholic unity should be forgotten, and
that the Church should acquire, in men's eyes, the cha
racter of a mere national or political institution.
The exertions of Alexander, Undertaken for this end,
in Spain, had not been unattended by success, Ramiro,
king of Arragon, had caused the enactment, by a
council assembled at Jacca, in or about the year 1063,
of a canon, abolishing the Gothic, and establishing the
Roman, ritual in his dominions ' ; and Hugo Candidus,
on his first visit to Spain, in 1068, after the council of
Mantua, had found the decision of that assembly, in
favour of Alexander, generally respected, and the ordi
nance of Jacca recognized and acted upon, by Ramiro's
son and successor, Sancho Ramirez ^ But some time
appears to have been required to wean that prince's

' F. Pagi, Breviar. Hard. t. vi. pt, i. p, 1075.
F. Pagi, Breviar. Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1159.

2

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 333
subjects from their attachment to their ancient forms
of worship ; and the completion of this work, — the
establishment, in exclusive use, of the Roman system of
services in Arragon, — was one of the principal objects
of Hugo's present mission. It was not, of course, in
tended to confine the scope of his exertions to that
small kingdom. I But Alphonso king of Castile and
Leon, and Sancho king of Navarre, do not seem to have
so readily acquiesced in the papal intentions as their
Arragonese brother ; their subjects, too, exhibited that
attachment to old customs, and that aversion to change,
which have ever distinguished the Spanish character ;
and, notwithstanding the efforts of papal legates, and the
exhortations, by letter, of pontiffs themselves, it does
not appear that the reception ofthe Roman ritual, or, as
it then began to be called, the Breviary, in the Christian
portion of Spain, was complete, until after the holding
ofthe council of Tolosa, in 1089 ', during the pontifi
cate of Urban II ^
But it was to a further object of Hugo's mission that
the general remarks above made more directly referred.
Count Eboli of Roceio \ a nobleman of great prowess
and military skill, had undertaken an expedition against
' F. Pagi, Breviar. i. 595. Hard. t. vi. pt. ii. p. 1693.
' And, even then, the Mozarabic ritual was not so completely
abolished in the Spanish Church but that it continued in use in
many monasteries and even some cathedral churches in the time of
Roderic archbishop of Toledo (13th century). It was at length
printed, by direction of cardinal Ximenes, and in that shape still
used, in Mabillon's time, in a certain chapel of Toledo cathedral,
and in some parish churches. Vid. Mabillon. Praefat. in Paul.
Bernried. Vit. Gregory VII. ap. Murat. t. iii. pt. i. et vid. Palmer.
Orig. Liturg. t. i. p. 166.
' Or Ebles de Roucy, a noble, as it should seem, from the neigh
bourhood of Rheims. Vid. Hist. Andaginens. Monaster, ap. Mar
ten, et Durand. Coll. Ampl. t. iv. p. 930.

334 LIFE OF [book III.
the Moors, and, like Guiscard in Italy, had accepted
from Rome the investiture of whatever land he might
succeed in wresting from its infidel possessors, to be
holden as a fief for ever of the apostolic see.
And Gregory, in accordance with the received sys
tem of the papacy in his time, now attempted to render
the recognition of this tenure universal, among the
Christian sovereigns of the peninsula, in the following
extraordinary epistle, addressed on the 30th of April,
1073, to the grandees of Spain, and committed to his
newly appointed legate's care. " Ye are not, as we be-
" lieve, ignorant, that the kingdom of Spain was of old
" time the property of St. Peter ; or that, notvrith-
" standing its long occupation by Pagans, the law of
" justice remaining unchanged, it still belongs of right
" to no mortal, but to the apostolic see. For that
" which has once, by God's providence, become the
" property of Churches, cannot, while it endures,
" without their formal surrender of it, be rightfully
" alienated from them ; however the lapse of time
" may interfere with their enjoyment of it. And
" therefore. Count Eboli of Roceio, whose fame we
" believe to be widely spread among you, wishing to
" occupy that land to the honour of St. Peter, and
" to seize it from the hands of the Pagans, has ob-
" tained from the apostolic see the concession, that
" whatever part of it he may gain from Pagans, by his
" own exertions, and by those of his associates in the
" enterprise, he shall possess, under the conditions ofthe
" compact which he has made with us, and by the au-
" thority of St. Peter. Let him, therefore, among you,
" who may wish to labour with the count in this under-
" taking, being now warned in aU charity, direct his de-
" sires toward the honour of St. Peter, that he may receive

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VH. 335
" from him defence in dangers, and the merited rewards
" of fideUty. And, if any of you, apart from Count
" Eboli, prepare to attack, with their own forces, any
" portion of the territory in question, let them see that
" they propose to themselves, from the devotion of
" their souls, a just cause of warfare ; vowing, and from
" their hearts determining, in their occupation of the
" land now held by infidels, to offer no injury to the
" Apostle's right. Of this we wish to warn you all,
" that, unless ye are prepared to recognize St. Peter's
" claim upon those territories, we would rather oppose
" you, by exerting our apostolical authority to forbid
" your attacking them, than permit the Church, our
" holy universal mother, suffering from her sons the
" injuries which she has already suffered from her ene-
" mies, to be afflicted by the loss, not only of her pro-
" perty, but also of her children. For which reason we
" have sent among you our beloved son Hugo, a cardi-
" nal presbyter of the Roman Church, to whom we have
" given authority more fully to explain to you, in our
" stead, our counsels and decrees respecting you '."
The immediate result of this letter, it is difficult to
trace. The claim thus advanced by Gregory was, in all
probability, entirely new to those to whom it was ad^
dressed ; the assertion of the ancient feudal subjection
of Spain to the apostolic see being, it would seem,
unsupported by documentary, or even traditionary
proof". But Gregory, acting upon the theory which
• Lib. i. Ep. 7.
" Hispaniam Romanae olim sedi vectigalem fuisse, a nullo, quod
sciam, scriptore Hispano memorise proditum est. So Cantelius,
(Metropolitan, urb. histor.) who, of course, however, assumes
that Gregory must have had good grounds for making the assertion.
Pt. i. Diss. iii.

336 LIFE OF [book ih.
we have described, would require no such proof for
making it ; the fact, that Spain had received her Chris
tianity from Rome, and recognized, with the West in
general, the spiritual pre-eminence of her bishop, would
be, according to the same theory, a sufficient proof that
the princes of that country had acknowledged the
paramount territorial rights of St. Peter, and had be
come the feudatories and tributaries of the apostolic
see. While the Spanish princes may have felt, that
some advantages would result to themselves, from the ad
mission of a claim apparently derogatory to their dignity.
They, like Guiscard, might materially strengthen their
yet unconsolidated power, by a legal and permanent
connection with the spiritual sovereigns of the West.
Engaged, too, as they were, in what may be styled a
perpetual holy war, the more complete identification of
their cause with that of the Church, would enable them,
when occasion required it, to appeal, the more con
fidently, to the zeal and to the courage of their sub
jects. And benefits Uke these they might well deem
it expedient to purchase, by the grant of a smaU annual
tribute, and the payment of what would, at that period,
appear to them little more than a nominal compliment.
For neither kings nor nations, it is probable, could yet
anticipate the working out, in practice, of the theory
thus estabUshed, — the actual exercise, by the popes, of
the extraordinary right of suzerainty thus recognized in
them, — or the deposition, by their paramount authority,
of monarchs from their thrones, as disobedient vassals
of St, Peter,
The epistle above quoted was written, as we have
already stated, on the 30th of April, On the 6th of
May, Gregory replied in the following terms, to the con
gratulatory letter addressed to him, in the event of his

CHAP. I,J GREGORY VII, 337
election, by Godfrey the younger, of Tuscany: — "The
" jojj which in your letter you express on the occasion of
" our exaltation is grateful to our feelings, not because
" any expression of pleasure on our account would be
" so ', but because we believe it to be derived from the
" source of sincere love, and from a faithful mind,
" That exaltation which, to you and to others of the
" faithful, causes affectionate thoughts of us \ and joy,
" awakens in us the bitterness of inward grief, and
" brings us to the streights of overpowering anxiety,
" We see what care surrounds us, we feel how heavy is
" the burden laid upon us ; under which, while the con-
" sciousness of our infirmity appals us, our soul rather
" desires the peace of a dissolution in Christ, than a
" life in the midst of such dangers. The consideration
" of the task imposed on us so harasses us, that unless,
" under God, some confidence in the prayers of spiritual
" men sustained us \ our mind must needs sink beneath
" the greatness of our cares. So completely, through
" the agency of sin, does the whole world lie in
" wickedness \ that all men, and those more espe-
" cially who bear rule in the Church, strive rather
" to disturb her, than by faithful devotion to de-
" fend and adorn her ; and, while straining after
" their own advantage, or the desires of present glory,
" oppose themselves as enemies to Religion and to the
" righteousness of God, Most especially must this
" grieve us, who, amid such difficulties, can neither
" duly administer the Church's government, nor safely
" desert it. But because we know that you, by the
' Non ut hoc aliqua causae nostras delectatio faciat.
' Piam de nobis existimationem. ' Vid. supr. p. 146.
* Peccatis enim facientibus ita pene totus mundus in maligno est
positus, ut, &c. Vid. 1 Job. v. 19.
VOL. I, Z

338 LIFE OF [book ih,
" grace of God, are gifted with the virtues of faith and
" constancy, — because we have in you the confidence
" which it becomes us to repose in a beloved son of
" St. Peter, — we wish you by no means to doubt either
" our most constant love, or our most ready good-will
" toward your honours. Respecting the king, you may
" know our mind and desire at full ; that, to the best
" of our knowledge in the Lord ', we believe no one to
" be more solicitous than ourselves, for either his pre-
" sent or his future glory. And it is our vrish, upon
" the first opportunity that offers itself, to confer with
" him, by our legates, upon the things which appear to
" us to relate to the advantage of the Church, and to
" the honour of his own royal dignity. If he shall
" hear us, we shall rejoice in his welfare as in our own ;
" and well, surely, will it be with him, if, in main-
" taining righteousness, he shall heed our warnings and
" acquiesce in our counsels. But if, — which we pray
" that he may not, — ^lie shall return to us ' hatred for
" our good-wilP,' and to the Almighty God, — by depart-
" ing from His righteousness, — contempt for the hon-
" ours which He has heaped upon him ; the maledic-
" tion of the prophet, ' Cursed be he that keepeth back
" his sword from blood ',' shall in no wise, God willing,
" fall upon us. We may not set aside the law of God
" through respect of persons, or swerve from the path of
" right for the sake of human favour. As the Apostle
" says, ' If I yet pleased men, I should not be the ser-
" vantofGodV" The same wish for the continuance of peaceful rela
tions with Henry, coupled vrith the same anticipation
^ Quod quantum in Domino sapiraus. ' Ps. cix. 4.
^ Jerem. xlviii. 10. ¦" Lib. i. Ep. 9.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 339
of a coming struggle, and with the same resolution
against any compromise of principle in the event of its
occurring, was thus expressed by the pontiff in an
epistle written, on the 25th of May, to Beatrice and
Matilda. " Respecting the king, it is our wish to send to him
" religious men, by whose admonitions, through the
" inspiration of God, we may succeed in recalling him
" to the love of his Mother, the holy Roman Church,
" and to a becoming mode of administering the govern-
" ment of his empire. But if, — which we deprecate,
" — he shall scornfully refuse to listen to us, we neither
" can, nor may, abandon her, our holy Mother, the
" Church of Rome, who hath nurtured us, and who
" hath often, by the blood of her sons, given birth
" to other children. Assuredly it were more safe
" for us to resist him, if necessary, even to the pour-
" ing forth of our blood for the sake of his salvation,
" than, by wickedly yielding to the accomplishment of
" his will, — which God forbid, — to rush with him into
" destruction '."
The princesses to whom this epistle was addressed,
laboured, undoubtedly, with all zeal in the good work
of cementing the union between the representatives of
the civil and of the ecclesiastical power. And Henry,
— who, since the retirement of Hanno, had embroiled
himself more and more with the tnalcontents of
Saxony, — did not venture at the moment openly to
slight their counsels. He saw himself beset with
difficulties on every side. A slight cause of disgust
might, he was aware, induce the already dissatisfied
princes of Southern Germany to make common cause
' Lib. i. Ep. 11.
z 2

340 LIFE OF [book III.
with his oppressed subjects in the North ; and such a
coalition, if aided by the papal influence and name,
would in all probability overwhelm the exhausted
forces of the crown. The last message, too, of Alex
ander was fresh in his recollection. The relations of
amity with the Lateran, to which the death of that
pontiff at a critical moment had restored him, had been
too recently and unexpectedly recovered, to be, as yet,
despised. And even without regard to the worldly
advantages of such concord, Henry was probably dis
posed by good feeling to desire its continuance ; though
he had not sufficient self-command to abandon the
courses which rendered that continuance impossible.
He responded, therefore, to the pacific overtures of
Gregory in the following terms :
" To the most vigilant and most desired ' Lord,
" Pope Gregory, vested by Heaven with apostolic
" dignity, Henry, by the grace of God, king of the
" Romans, sends this most sincere exhibition of his
" bounden service.
" Since the kingdom and the priesthood, that they
" may continue well administered in Christ, require the
"assistance of each other, it is most important, my
" most loving Lord and Father, that they should be as
" little as possible divided against each other, and that
" they should cling, in the bond of Christ, indissolubly
"together. For thus, and in no other manner, the
" concord of Christian unity and the state of ecclesias-
"tical religion are preserved in the bond of perfect
" charity and peace ^.
' Vigilantissimo et desiderantissimo.
" Namque sic et non aliter conservatur in vinculo perfects caritatis
et pacis, et Christianae concordia unitatis et ecclesiasticae status
religionis.

CHAP, I, J GREGORY VII, 341
"But we, who by God's grace are now entrusted with
"the regal power, have not respected, in all things, as we
" ought, the rights and legitimate honour of the priest-
"hood. The sword which it was given us, not in vain,
" to bear, in assertion of the power bestowed upon us by
" Heaven, we have not always drawn from its scabbard
" against criminals, in accordance with the dictates of
"justice '. But now, smitten in some degree, through
" God's mercy, vrith compunction, and returning to our-
" selves, we confess our past transgressions, and throw
"ourselves on your paternal indulgence ; hoping in the
" Lord to obtain the boon of absolution from your aposto-
" lical authority ^, Criminal have we been, and unhappy !
" partly through the alluring instincts of youth, — partly
" through the license of unbridled power, — and partly
" through the seductive guidance of those whose counsels
" we have too readily followed, — we have sinned against
" heaven and before you, and are no more worthy to be
" called your son. We have not only invaded the pro-
" perty of churches, but have sold, to persons infected
" with the gall of simony, — to those who entered not in
" by the door, but by other ways, — the churches them-
" selves ; instead of defending them, as we ought to have
" done, against their approaches. But now, unable, with-
" out the support of your authority, to reform the abuses
" of the churches, we implore alike your counsel and
" your aid, in this as in all things : your command is, in
" all things, of authority. And — in the first place, —
" with regard to the Church of Milan, which is, through
" our fault, in error ; we pray that it may, by the exertion
" of your apostolical power, be canonically reformed ; and

' Judiciaria censura.
' Ut apostolica vestra auctoritate absoluti justificari mereamur.
9

342 LIFE OF [book III.
" thence let the sentence of your authority proceed to
" the reformation of other churches. We will, by God's
" grace, be wanting to you in nothing ; and we humbly
" solicit from you, in return, the exercise of a paternal
" care over us in all things. You shall shortly receive
" further letters from us, conveyed by most faithful mes-
" sengers; and you shall thus, if God so please, learn those
" things which yet remain to be recounted to you ',"
A letter expressive of so much anxiety for his con
tinued favour, and of so much reverence for his aposto
lical authority, was of course received by Gregory with
delight. In an epistle addressed, on the 27th of Sep
tember, to his Milanese supporter Herlembald, he speaks
of it as a letter "full of sweetness and obedience;"
and such a one as had never before, by Henry or by his
ancestors, been transmitted to the heads of the Roman
Church ^. If, indeed, the pontiff looked at that letter
with those paternal sentiments toward its writer, which
he so often and so strongly expressed, the apparent depth
of feeling and sincerity of compunction which it displayed
might lead him to forget, for the time, the levity and
irresolution of the monarch's character, and to indulge
the hope, that the peace which he so anxiously desired
to maintain, might yet prove something more than a
dream. And if, on the perusal, considerations of jjolicy
in any degree occupied his mind, he could not fail to
read, in this recognition of his authority, its virtual
confirmation. Henry might subsequently disobey that
authority, but could not thenceforward deny it, without
exposing himself to the charge of glaring inconsistency,
and standing self-condemned. But we can scarcely
doubt that, for the moment at least, Gregory was dis-
' Ap. Harduin. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1219. ' Lib. i. Ep. 25.

CHAP. I.J GREGORY VII. 343
posed to hope for better things, and to look forward to
the future accomplishment of his high aims, with the
friendly concurrence of the sovereign, and not in direct
opposition to that sovereign's imperial authority.

BOOK HI,— CHAPTER II.
A. D, 1073,
henry's cruelty toward the SAXONS — THEIR DEPHTATION TO HIM AT GOSLAB
 THEIR SECRET MEETINO AT NOCKMESLAC  HENRY BESIEGED IN HARZBURG 
HIS ESCAPE, AND MEETING WITH HIS NOBLES NEAR HERSFELD  INTERVIEW
BETWEEN SIEGFRIED AND THE SAXON DELEGATES AT CORVEY — DIET AT GERS
TUNGEN — -ACCUSATION BROUGHT AGAINST HENRY BY REGINGER  HENRy's ILLNESS
AND RECOVERY  HIS TRIUMPHANT ENTRY INTO WORMS  KEGINGER'S DEATH.
Henry's position, during the latter part of the year
1073, was indeed critical. From the time of Hanno's
retirement, the king had demeaned himself toward
the Saxons and Thuringians, in a manner calculated
to produce among them a general repugnance to his
government. Unable to resist his forces, they had been
compelled to accept, with respect to their tithes, such
terms ', as the rapacity of Siegfried, and of Henry him
self, — for the monarch was, by compact with the arch
bishop, to share in the prize ^ — would accord to them.
Their remonstrances had been disregarded, and their
purpose of appeal to the holy see frustrated, by the
king's menace of capital punishment to any who should
attempt to put such a measure in practice. And, to
keep them in check for the future, castles or forts had
been, by Henry's orders, erected on every important
' At Erfurt in March, 1073, Lamb. Schafnab.— Annalista Saxo.
^ Ed tamen pactione, ut ipsarum decimationum partem sibi, quae
et regia magnificentia et tanto labore suo digna fuit, tribueret.
— Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. II.J LIFE OF GREGORY VII. 345
height or commanding spot throughout their provinces,
and filled with royal garrisons '.
But these undisciplined troops, by their unbridled
rapine and licentiousness, soon produced a general feel
ing of exasperation, throughout the province which they
were intended to preserve. Continually issuing from
their strong-holds, they relentlessly plundered the
villages and fields ; they carried off whole flocks, under
the pretext of tithing them ; seizing natives, even of a
free condition, they employed them in the work of the
meanest slaves ; and women they either shamefully
abused, almost in the very presence of their husbands
and fathers, or else dragged them into their castles, to
detain them there as long as it pleased their fancy, and
then to drive them back dishonoured to their homes ^.
Indignant appeals from this intolerable tyranny
shortly reached Henry's ears ; but in vain. That vin
dictive prince replied to the complainants, that these
miseries had been brought upon them by themselves,
through their resistance to the payment of the tithe ;
and that he, in keeping them in subjection with the
armed hand, was vindicating the cause of God against
the violators of His laws. And so far was the repre
sentation of their miseries from moving him to com
passionate their condition, that the knowledge, how
much they would bear without resistance, became an
inducement to him to strain his power yet further. He
conceived, it would appear, the atrocious scheme ' of
reducing the whole Saxon population to the condition of
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Norberti vita Bennonis, Archiep. Osnab.
c. xi. ap, Eccard. Corp, Historic. Med. Mv. t. ii. p. 2168.
' Lamb. Schafnab.
' Magnum quiddam, et a nullo majorum suorum antehac tentatum,
machinari ccepit. — Lamb. Schafnab.

346 LIFE OF [book hi.
slaves, of seizing their land and property, and annulling
their privileges, and of establishing in their desolated
province a colony of Swabians. With this end in view,
he entered into secret negociations with the Danish
king ; who was, for his assistance in the accomplish
ment of the project, to be rewarded with a portion
of the Saxon territory, contiguous to his dominions.
Similar arrangements were made with other princes,
whose domains bordered upon Saxony; and the re
maining feudatories of his empire were summoned to
meet him, with their contingents, at Hersfeld, on the
22nd of the ensuing August ' ; for the alleged purpose
of a campaign against the Poles, but, in truth, that
they might support the monarch in his nefarious de
sign against their fellow-subjects.
But the patience of the Saxons was exhausted, long
before the arrival of the period thus prescribed. They
still pressed their grievances urgently on Henry's at
tention, and at length compelled him to name a day
for a council, which their leading prelates and nobles
should attend, and in which their condition should be
taken into consideration. These dignitaries assembled,
consequently, on the 29th of June, — the day of Gregory's
consecration at Rome, — at the palace of Goslar ^. But
when the appointed hour had arrived, the childish king,
happening to be engaged in playing at some game of
hazard, sent to intreat their patience till the termina
tion of his amusement. The day went on, and still he
appeared not ; and on the approach of night they were
informed by one of his attendants that he had quitted
the palace I Naturally incensed by this conduct, or
' On the Octave of the Assumption. Lamb. Schafnab.
'' Bruno de Bell. Saxon.
' Annalista Saxo. — Bruno de Bell. Saxon.

CHAP. H.J GREGORY VH. 347
conceiving it, — as perhaps in truth it was, — a studied
indication of the contempt with which Henry was pre
pared to treat their representations, the Saxon chiefs
departed from Goslar, and felt that no alternative
remained, but the attempt to re-assert their rights
and liberties by the sword.
A great meeting consequently took place, by secret
appointment among them, at a retired spot named
Nockmeslau'. Otho of Nordheim opened the pro
ceedings ; Werner archbishop of Magdeburg, Burchard
bishop of Halberstadt, and others, inflamed in succes
sion the passions of the assembly, hy the detail of their
respective injuries from the royal hand ; and all present
bound themselves by a solemn vow to maintain to the
last their liberties and laws ^
In consequence of these proceedings, three of their
nobles approached Henry once more at Goslar about
the first of August, and, being admitted to an inter
view, used all their eloquence to induce him alike to
redress the grievances of their province, and to correct
the vices which habitually disgraced his life and govern
ment. The king's answer was evasive and contemptuous,
and the delegates retired. But Henry was almost im
mediately startled by the intelligence, that the whole pro
vince of Saxony was in arms, and that a multitude ex
ceeding in number 60,000 men ^ was close upon Goslar.
He fled in dismay to the castle of Harzburg *, a place
strong by nature, and which had recently been fortified,
by his orders, with peculiar care; and there he was im-
' "Nockmeslovo." Bruno. — or " Noleinesleve." Annalista Saxo.
Stenzel (Geschichte der Frankischen Kaiser) imagines that the place
meant is Haldersleben.
^ Bruno de Bell. Saxon. ' Lamb. Schafnab.
4 Id.— Paul. Lang. Chronic. Citizens, ap. Pistor. t. i.

348 LIFE OF [book iu.
mediately blockaded by a portion of the Saxon force '.
Thus cooped up, he felt the necessity of treating vrith
his besiegers, in a tone very different from that which
he had of late thought fit to use toward them ; and he
employed Duke Berthold of Carinthia, who had accom
panied^ him from Goslar, to speak them fair, and to
urge them to desist from the siege, by holding out the
hope, that their grievances might speedily be redressed
by less irregular means '. But the Saxons would listen
to no terms of accommodation, which did not include
the immediate demolition of Harzburg itself, and of all
the other fortresses which Henry had erected through
out their province, to awe and control them ; and this
point the king was not, even under his existing dif
ficulties, disposed to concede*. The blockade, there
fore, was continued ; but Henry contrived, after a few
days, to elude the vigilance of the Saxon watches, and
to escape, one dark night °, in company with Berthold,
with two prelates, and several followers, from the be
leaguered castle, into the woods which surrounded it.
Guided by a hunter, the fugitives pursued their journey
for three days amid the depths of the Hercynian forest,
faint for want of sustenance, and agitated by continual
alarm ^. On the fourth day, they reached a village
named Eschewege, where they obtained some refresh-
' Lamb. Schafnab. — Bruno.
' Casu . . . nuper advenerat, nescio quid privates causae acturus.
Lamb. Schafnab.
^ Lamb. Schafnab. — Bruno. * Lamb. Schafnab.
' August 8. Lamb. Schafnab. — Annalista Saxo. — When, as it
appears from the Terminus Paschalis of the year 1073, the moon
was new, or nearly so, and consequently invisible.
* Undique circumspectantes gladium, et ad quemlibet perstre-
pentis aurae sonitum incursus hostium, jamque jugulo incumbentem
interitum formidantes.- — Lamb. Schafnab.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. '349
ment and repose'; and, on the fifth, — the 13th of
August, — they arrived at Hersfeld, toward which place,
the nobles, whom he had summoned thither, were, with
their forces, already in motion. They met, in pur
suance of his final directions, at a place in the imme
diate vicinity of tiersfeld, called, by Lambert, Capella ^ ;
and there, when he saw his chiefs about him, Henry
fell at their feet ', and, detaiUng the gross injuries and
indignities which he conceived himself to have suffered
from the Saxons, besought them to follow him imme
diately to the exemplary chastisement of that rebellious
people *.
Some of the assembled princes, moved by the eager
ness of his intreaties, declared in favour of an immediate
march against his enemies, with the forces which they
had prepared for the Polish expedition '. But others,
more prudent, or less warm in the cause, pointed out
the inexpediency of commencing, without more ex
tensive preparations, an encounter with a people of so
martial and determined a character, and now so exas
perated, as that of Saxony. And, upon the advice of
these more cautious counsellors, approved as it appeared
to be by all, the king was induced to acquiesce in the
postponement, for a short time, of his contemplated
vengeance. He appointed, consequently, the octave of
St. Michael ^ as the day on which the princes should
meet him, at Breitenbach ', in the Hersfeld territory, with

' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ A locality identified, by Stenzel, with Spiescappel.
' Pedibus eorum provolutus, orabat. — Lamb. Schafnab.
* Annalista Saxo. ' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ Septimo die post festum S. Michaelis. — Lamb. Schafnab.
' Stenzel (Geschichte der Frankischen Kaiser) thus renders the
" Bredingen" of Lambert.

350 LIFE OF [book III,
increased contingents, to commence the campaign; and
he, then accompanied by the chief among them, set out
for Tribur, with the intention of visiting that and other
places, in the neighbourhood of the Rhine,
His envoys were, in the mean time, despatched in all
directions through the empire, commissioned to keep,
if possible, both nobles and people firm in their ad
herence to the royal cause, to make great largesses, to
promise more, and to restore to their possessions those
whose rights he had, in his more prosperous times,
wantonly infringed '. Henry thus hoped to soothe the
growing discontent which, as he began to be aware,
pervaded his dominions, and to secure the appearance
of a respectable force at the meeting at Breitenbach.
But that meeting was not destined to take place.
Even when fresh from his flight, and most eager to
avenge the disgrace of that event, by the destruction of
the Saxon nation, it seems that the king thought it
advisable to request the good offices of the prelates of
Cologne and Mentz, in settling, if possible, the quarrel
by negociation. Though he would, of course, have de
precated, at the moment, such a termination of it, he
might have been taught, by recent events, to feel the
expediency of keeping open, in the midst of his warlike
schemes, a way to peace. It was, perhaps, necessary, for
the sake of appearances, that he should thus put on
the show of moderation. He might feel that, without
his taking some such step, the princes would not readily
believe in the justice of his cause ; or he might wish to
deceive the enemy, by holding out the appearance of
conciliation, at the moment in which he contemplated
striking his most decisive blow.
' Lamb, Schafnab.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII, 351
Be this as it may, it appears that an interview took
place, between Siegfried and some deputies of the
Saxon nation, at Corvey, on the 24th of August ',
But the worldly archbishop of Mentz was now no
trustworthy representative of his master's cause. He
had already held communication with the insurgents
at Erfurt ; where, making probably such stipulations
with regard to his own interest in the quarrel as his
position would permit, he had pledged himself to take
no part in the king's proceedings against them. And
it is said, that both he and the archbishop of Cologne,
aware of the disgust which the violence and indecorum
of Henry's life had generally excited among the princes
of the empire, were already prepared to co-operate in
the execution of any scheme, to which that disgust
might give birth. Under Siegfried's hands, therefore,
the negociations at Corvey assumed a more serious
character than Henry could have contemplated giving
them. The Saxons pleaded not so much for the
restoration of their own provincial rights and liberties,
as for the removal of the monarch from a throne on
which, as they asserted, he could not longer remain
without manifest injury to the cause of the Christian
religion, his crimes being such that, were he judged
according to the canons, he would be separated from
his queen, deprived of his knighthood, and compelled
to renounce, not his throne only, but all secular station
and employment. And Siegfried, after much discus
sion with them, agreed that they should have an
opportunity of bringing forward their charges against
their sovereign in his presence, and in that of the
leading princes of the empire, assembled for the ocea-
' Lamb. Schafnab.

352 LIFE OF [book III,
sion. The 20th of October ' was, consequently, named
for a meeting at Gerstungen ; and Henry, though he
still endeavoured, by means of his alUes, the Luticians
and the king of Denmark, to annoy his enemies, was
compelled to postpone for a time his own intended
military operations. As he had indignantly refused to
ratify the compact, which Siegfried had entered into,
for the delivery, to the Saxon princes, of hostages for
their safe appearance at the assembly ; these chiefs,
with a view to their security, approached the appointed
scene of deliberation with an escort of 14,000 men ; a
force which made the monarch, in his turn, apprehensive
of danger ; who consequently, instead of presiding over
the meeting in person, awaited the issue of its delibera
tions at Wurzburg, His absence was attended vrith re
sults disastrous to his cause. Emboldened to speak freely,
the Saxons set forth, in glovring colours, the injuries of
their province, the crimes perpetrated against them,
and the disgrace brought, as they conceived it, on the
whole empire, by the conduct of its head. And the
chiefs who listened to them, freed like themselves from
restraint, expressed the warmest compassion for their
miseries, and the fullest participation in their views,
Henry had made himself equally odious to all ; and the
proposal, once suggested, was unhesitatingly adopted,
that the crown should be taken from the sovereign who
had thus disgraced it, and placed upon the worthier
head of Rudolf of Rheinfeld, duke of Swabia \ This
prince, on whom, as it will be recollected, the empress
Agnes had bestowed the duchy of Burgundy, in addi
tion to that of Swabia, was, by the union of two such
important fiefs, in a position, too powerful perhaps for
' Lamb. Schafnab. = Id.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 353
a subject ; especially when his prospect of a connexion
with the imperial house had been put an end to, by the
premature death of Henry's sister, his intended bride.
On the present occasion, however, Rudolf peremptorily
refused to accept the proffered diadem, until the more
constitutional act of a general diet of the empire should
have legalized his doing so '. Such a diet, therefore, it
was resolved speedily to convene : the assembly sepa
rated, pledged to secrecy, and Henry was amused by a
fictitious and apparently satisfactory account of its pro
ceedings ; being led to expect that the peace would be
finally concluded, on terms honourable to both parties,
at the approaching festival of Christmas ^
But of the feeling of dislike towards himself, which
now pervaded his empire, Henry received, daily, addi
tional proofs. Even the Rhenish nobles, on whom,
from their want of connexion with Saxony, the king
thought that he might the most securely depend. Mere
now observed by him to treat him with less than their
wonted respect ^ ; and, after having celebrated the
festival of All Saints at Wurzburg, he quitted their
neighbourhood, and set out for Ratisbon *. But at
Nuremberg, where he halted for a few days upon his
way, a cruel blow awaited him. Reginger, a person
long attached to his own household, here accused him
to the Dukes, Rudolf of Swabia, and Berthold of Ca
rinthia, of entertaining a design to surprise and murder, —
when removed from their followers, as though for the
purpose of confidential communication with him, — the
principal members of his disaffected aristocracy. Re-
ginger, according to his own account, had himself been
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ Lamb. Schafnab.— Bernold Constant.
^ Lamb. Schafnab. * Id-
VOL. I. A ^

354 LIFE OF [book III.
solicited by his master to aid in the accomplishment of
this guilty project ; and the truth of the charge now
made, he was prepared, he said, to maintain, against either
the king himself or his champion, in single combat '.
Whether this statement was based on a foundation
of truth, or what, if this was not the case, were the
secret motives of Regingery — a man of name and charac
ter ^, — in making it, we have not the means of deciding.
Those before whom it was made, were too well pre
pared, — too anxious, — to believe all evil of their sove
reign, to doubt its authenticity. It corroborated, indeed,
and accorded with, notions already existing in their
minds ; for it appears that Henry at that time laboured
under heavy suspicions, of having rid himself, by mur
der, of associates who had become obnoxious to him '.
The princes withdrew themselves, therefore, from his
court; they informed him, by messengers, that they
considered themselves freed from the obligation of all
vows of allegiance to one who could plot their destruc
tion, at the moment in which they were exerting them
selves for his welfare; and they bade him, unless he
could prove this charge unfounded, expect from them,
for the future, neither duty in times of tranquillity, nor
aid in those of trouble.
Henry's anger, at this accusation, knew no bounds.
Declaring it attributable to the practices of Rudolf,
he was inclined to waive the consideration of his royal
dignity, and to disprove it, by meeting that prince in
' Lamb. Schafnab.
^ Homo baud obscuri nominis in palatio, et apud suos inviolatse
existimationis. — Lamb. Schafnab.
" Lamb. Schafnab.— Annalista Saxo ad an. 1068. — Sicut ille
(Henricus) non unam Bersabe libidinosus stupravit, ita non unum
Uriam crudelis interfecit. Bruno.

CHAP. H.J GREGORY VII. 355
judicial combat'. But in this he was over-ruled, and
Ulrich, of Cosheim, one of his retainers, — ^himself
accused by Reginger, as privy to the alleged scheme,
— demanded of Rudolf the opportunity of meeting the
accuser in the lists, and of proving his falsehood with the
sword ^ The question was by Rudolf referred to the
decision of a future meeting of the princes ; and Henry
proceeded to Ratisbon, in the strong language of Lam
bert, "hated by all, suspected by all, an4 not daring
" himself to repose implicit confidence in any, when
" those bound to himself by the strictest ties of familiar
" intercourse, had been found, with the first cloud of
" the darkening tempest, to abandon him."
Siegfried of Mentz, emboldened by this state of
things, ventured to assume a power usually exercised
by the sovereign alone, and summoned a diet, to meet
in his archiepiscopal city; by which he intended that
Rudolf should be openly elected and proclaimed as
king ^ The suspicions of Henry, excited by this ex
traordinary step, were soon confirmed by authentic
accounts of the proceedings at Gerstungen ; and with
the view of defeating, if possible, the contemplated
arrangements, he set out for Worms, resolved to esta
blish himself in the immediate vicinity of the scene of
his danger. On his way, at the village of Ladenburg,
he was attacked, and for some days confined to his bed,
by a disease, the violence of which inspired his enemies
with the hope, that he would no longer be an obstacle
in their path, to the full accomplishment of their
desires *. But the strength of his constitution pre
vailed ; he entered the city of his destination, and his
' Lamb. Schafnab. ' Id. ' Id.
' Id. — Bernold Constant.
A a2

356 LIFE OF [BOOK III.
affairs took, on that day, a new and unexpected turn.
The loyal citizens of Worms marched forth, in military
pomp, to meet him ; displaying their numbers and
their arms, not, as others of his subjects had done, for
the purpose of opposing or intimidating their sovereign,
but with the view of showing him, in that crisis of his
affairs, on how many true hearts he might yet rely.
When certified of his approach, they had driven the
forces of their bishop, who had taken part with his
adversaries, from their walls, while the prelate himself
was forced to consult his safety by a hasty flight. And
when their king had arrived among them, they volun
tarily bound themselves, by vows of allegiance, to his
cause; they raised by general contribution a sum of
money for his necessities ; and pledged themselves to
contend, if needful, unto the death, in support of the
honour of his throne '. And Henry, struck with their
devotion, and feeling the importance of retaining a city
of such consequence firm in his cause, determined to
make Worms his principal abode, during the conflict
which he foresaw ; to establish it as the depository of
his resources ; and to use it as the rallying-point of his
forces, in moments of danger or distress ^.
Most important, at this eventful crisis, was the loyal
demeanour of these citizens to their sovereign. The
tidings of it spread abroad ; and most of the conspiring
princes were averse to approaching Mentz, for purposes
hostile to Henry's interests, while that monarch, from
the impregnable walls of Worms ^ could almost behold
their proceedings. Siegfried's diet was, therefore, at
tended by but few nobles, and those mostly of a minor
' Lamb. Schafnab. ^ Id.
' Wormatia . . . murorum firmitate inexpugnabilis. — Id.

CHAP. II.J GREGORY VII. 357
class ; who shrunk from adopting, in the absence of the
chiefs to whom they mainly looked for guidance and
support, measures so daring as those, which the meeting
had been summoned to effectuate. They departed,
consequently, in silence, for their respective homes ;
and the king's cause rather gained strength than other
wise, from this futile attempt at a hostUe demonstra
tion. Some of those who had formed this assembly, were
induced by Henry's entreaties, — hostages having been
given for their safety, — to meet him, on their departure
from Mentz, at Oppenheim. And it was there agreed,
that the question of the truth or falsehood of Regin
ger's accusation should be decided, by a combat between
that person and the king's champion, Ulrich, which
should take place, in an island of the Rhine near Mentz,
about the middle of the following January '. But a
few days before the arrival of the period thus deter
mined on, Reginger, the accuser, was attacked by a
violent disease, and died delirious ^ ; a circumstance in
which those, who saw in the issue of judicial combats
the manifest decisions of Heaven, could not fail to
recognize a special declaration of the will of the Al
mighty. A kind of revulsion, consequently, took place
in the popular mind. Henry, in place of being univer
sally condemned by the opinions of his subjects, was
regarded with respect as the victim of slander ; and
the year 1074 thus opened upon him, under circum
stances more favourable to the stability of his power,
than he could, a few weeks previously, have dared to
anticipate. V Post octavum Epiphaniae. — Lamb. Schafnab.
' Dirissimo daemone arreptus, horrenda morte interiit. — Id.

BOOK IIL— CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1073.
Gregory's excursion toward the south — his relations with guiscard —
epistle to wratislav — to the emperor michael — treaty with the prince
op benevento — with richard of capua  epistle to rudolf of swabia — to
rainald bishop op cum^— to anselm bishop of lucca  to the carthaginians,
and to their bishop cyriac — consecration of sardinian archbishops —
epistle to ihe lombards — to herlembald  to the same — to the bishops
op aqui and pavia  to gebhard bishop of salzburg  to lanfranc — to
remigius bishop op lincoln  to roderic bishop of chalons — to humbert
archbishop of lyons — gregory's return to rome, and epistle to the pre
lates op germany.
Within a few days of his consecration, — an event
which, as has been already stated, occurred on the 29th
of June, 1073, — Gregory left Rome, on an excursion
toward the south ; a direction in which various motives
contributed to call him. Robert Guiscard, — once thank
ful for the sanction afforded to his rising power, by his
character of a feudatory of the Church, — now, that
power having become more firmly consolidated, felt an
impatience alike at the recognition of inferiority, which
such vassalage implied, and at the impediments, which
the duties attendant upon it imposed, to the extension,
in certain directions, of his territorial possessions. He
had not appeared at the ceremony of consecration ; and
he showed, still more clearly, the alteration which had
taken place in his sentiments, by refusing, or delaying
to renew, to Gregory, the oaths which had bound him
to Nicholas and to Alexander. The pontiff felt, there-

CHAP. III.J LIFE OF GREGORY VII. 359
fore, that a struggle with Guiscard was impending, and
was solicitous to strengthen himself against its occur
rence, by cementing, as far as might be, a connexion
between the apostolic see, and the princes whose terri
tories bordered upon Apulia. But, though this mainly
occupied his mind, at no time during his progress did
he neglect the general affairs of the Church, or the
interests of the papal power : and a sketch of the suc
cessive objects, which engaged his attention, and occu
pied his pen, during his absence from Rome on this
occasion, may serve to give a tolerably accurate idea,
of the nature and extent of his correspondence in gene
ral, and of the active part which he systematically took
in the guidance and government of the Church in all
regions of the world.
From San Lorenzo, Gregory's first halting-place, he
addressed, on the 8th of July, an epistle to Wratislav,
Duke of Bohemia, under the following circumstances : —
Jaromir, the brother of Wratislav, disappointed of
inheriting, on the death of Wratislav's predecessor
Spitignew, a portion of the duchy, had, on the decease
of the bishop of Prague, in 1067, laid down the military
character, and assumed the sacerdotal ; and, through the
support of the Bohemian nobles, had wrung from his
brother a reluctant consent to his occupation of that
richly endowed diocese. Thus elevated, he viewed
with impatience the existence of an independent see in
Moravia, a province which had formerly acknowledged
the authority of his predecessors ; and finding his efforts,
for the recovery of that jurisdiction, to be vain, he con
trived to waylay the obnoxious bishop, and, with his re
tainers, to beat and insult him '. The Moravian prelate
' Longinus, Dhugloschus dictus, ap. Baron, ad an.

360 LIFE OF [BOOK IIL
appealed to the apostoUc see, and legates were de
spatched, with powers to hear and decide the question in
dispute by pontifical authority. But this mode of set
tling ecclesiastical disputes was then new in Bohemia ',
and Jaromir naturally resisted its introduction. Wra
tislav, however, was the approved supporter of the pre
rogatives of Rome ; from whence he had, in the time
of Alexander, received the privilege, — in the case of a
layman an unprecedented one, — of wearing the mitre ;
to the conclave, a symbol of subjection, but to his
countrymen, of ecclesiastical sovereignty ^. And to him
Gregory now -wrote, complaining of Jaromir's disrespect
to those to whom, as messengers of the apostolic see,
might be applied the words, " He that receiveth you re
ceiveth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me."
He entreated the duke to add his exhortations to those
of the legates, in order to bring back, to the path of obe
dience, that brother, who was now treading in the steps
of Simon Magus, in his opposition to St. Peter. " And
" if," Gregory continued, " he be still contumacious, we
" will not only confirm the sentence pronounced by our
" legates, of suspension from his office, but vrill draw
" forth yet more sternly — even for his destruction ' —
" the sword of apostolic indignation. . . . Presumption
" like his we dare overlook no longer, having before our
" eyes this warning of the prophet Ezekiel, — ' If thou
" * dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that
" ' wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood
" ' will I require at thy hand *.' "
' Quoniam, says Gregory himself, agente incuria, apostolicae sedis
nuntii ad partes vestras raro missi sunt, quidam vestrorum hoc quasi
novum aliquid existimantes . . . legates nostros contemptui habent,
&c.— Lib. i. Ep. 17.
' Lib. i. Ep. 38. ' Usque ad internecionem.
* Ezek. xxxiii. 8.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 361
From Albano, on the day following — the 9th of July
— Gregory addressed an epistle to the Grecian emperor,
Michael Parapinaces, in reply to a letter of congratula
tion, which that prince had forwarded to him, by the
hands of two monks, Thomas and Nicholas.; who were
also charged to communicate with the pontiff respect
ing matters, so important, that Gregory conceived it
right to entrust his sentiments respecting them, to an
envoy of a more ostensible character. He consequently
wrote to introduce to the emperor, as his representative,
Dominic, the patriarch of Venice, whom he immediately
despatched to Constantinople ; and he availed himself
of the opportunity, to express his anxious wish for the
restoration of that unity, which in older and happier
times had prevailed between the maternal Church of
Rome, and her daughter, the Church of Constanti
nople ',
The results of this legation are unknown ; but we
must conceive the good understanding thus evinced
between the capitals of the Eastern and of the Western
world to have continued for some little time unim
paired, from the circumstance of Gregory's interesting
himself, as we shall shortly see, in favour of the Grecian
empire, by calling on all Christians to lend it their aid
against its Saracen enemies.
Much as his attention was throughout his pontificate
engaged by business more immediately pressing, the
idea of a re-union between the two great branches of
Christ's Church seems ever, — like a bright dream, — to
have haunted his mind. In his theory, that re-union
would, of course, have been accompanied by the recog
nition, on the part of the younger capital, of the superior
' Ep. i, 18.

362 LIFE OF [BOOK III.
rank of the elder. And there are those at this day,
who might perhaps be disposed, on this account, to
attribute his anxiety for such an event to personal
ambition alone, or, at most, to a desire to promote the
interests of the papacy as such. But the supposition
were, surely, most unjust. Such anxiety, as a true
Churchman, Gregory could not fail to entertain. Even
now, when century after century has set its seal upon
the fatal schism, is it not the true Churchman's duty to
pray for and to look, if not with constant hope, with
constant desire at least, toward an event so blessed, as
would be a re-union of those two great branches of
his Master's flock, the unnaturally-divided Churches of
the East and of the West ?
From Monte Cassino, whither he next proceeded,
Gregory was accompanied, by the abbot Desiderius, to
Benevento, a city yet ruled by its Lombard sovereign,
Landulph VI, With this prince the pontiff, on the
12th of August', concluded a treaty based on the full
recognition, by the former, of his obligation of fealty
to the apostolic see. And then, removing to Capua,
Gregory established himself in that city for some
months, Richard, its prince, was the Norman chief
next in power to the enterprising Guiscard ; and the
renewal of a friendly connexion with him must of
course have been considered as a measure which, if
practicable, would prove most conducive to the secu
rity of the papal power. Nor to such a connexion did
the Capuan prince, — ^however naturally disposed to
side with his countryman, — ^long continue averse. In
the presence of Gregory, he bound himself, by an oath ^
' " Anno primo pontificatus ejus, duodecima die, intrante mense
Augusto, indictione undecima." — Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1210.
' Sept. 24, 1073.— Hard. t. vi. pt. i. p. 1213.

CHAP, III.J GREGORY VII. 363
similar in purport to that which he had formerly taken,
with Guiscard, before Nicholas IL, to fealty, and its
consequent duties, toward the pope and his successors
in the apostolic see ; taught, probably, by this time,
to perceive, that the benefits to be derived from his
aUiance vrith the Church were mutual ; and that, not
withstanding his participation in the Norman blood,
and connexion, by marriage, vrith Guiscard, he might
soon stand in need of such an ally as the apostolic see,
against the over-grown power of his ambitious country
man, Gregory continued the guest of Richard till the
middle of November ; lingering, perhaps, in the vici
nity of Apulia, with the hope, — a vain one, — of coming
to some accommodation with Robert, upon terms of
which the pontiff could approve ' ; but, not neglecting,
during this protracted sojourn, the general concerns of
the empire and the Church, In an epistle written, on
the 1st of September, to Rudolf of Swabia ^ a prince
whom he already regarded as the head of the reforming,
or papal, party in Germany, he expressed his earnest
desire for the continuance of unity between the civil
and the ecclesiastical power. " For as," he said, " with
" respect to temporal light, the human body is guided
" and informed by the two eyes, so should the body of
" the Church be governed, with respect to spiritual

' On his own terms, Robert, it appears was always willing to
make the required submission. — Si enim discretio nostra, said
Gregory, Ep. i, 25, sanctae ecclesise utile approbaret, ipsi jam se
nobis humiles subdidissent, et quam solent reverentiam exhibuis-
sent ; — a passage which is explained by one in a subsequent Ep.
(iii, 15.) Beato Petro . . . satisfecissent, si voluntati eorum in
quibusdam annueremus.
* Lib. i. Ep. 19.

364 LIFE OF [book III,
" light, by these two authorities, co-operating in reli-
" gious fellowship with each other." In furtherance of
this end, he declared himself anxious to confer with
the Empress Agnes, with Beatrice of Tuscany, with
Rainald, Bishop of Cumse, to vehom he on the same
day addressed an epistle ', and with Rudolf himself.
And he, therefore, invited the Swabian prince, as well
for this important purpose, as for that of devotion, to
visit ere long the threshold of St. Peter.
An epistle which Gregory addressed, on the same
day, to Anselm, Alexander's successor elect in the
bishopric of Lucca ^, is remarkable, from its connexion
with the subject of investitures, which has been already
described as occupying so prominent a place in the
pontiff's mind; and as an illustration of the caution
with which he advanced, even toward the assertion of
principles of which he most earnestly desired the
establishment. Anselm had, it seems, been called on
to receive the investiture of his bishopric from the royal
hand, and had appealed to Gregory for instructions on
the subject. And he, as might have been expected,
decidedly forbade the measure ; but, by basing his pro
hibition upon the fact of Henry's intimacy with persons
excommunicate, and of his delay to give satisfaction
for this and other offences to the Roman see, he warily
avoided committing himself, by a premature declara
tion of his general sentiments on this most important
subject. While at Capua, Gregory received letters of com
plaint from Cyriac, Bishop of Carthage, whose suf
fragan clergy had, it seems, invoked, — to control him
in the exercise of his spiritual jurisdiction, — the un-
' Lib. i. Ep, 20. = Lib. i. Ep. 21,

CHAP ni,J LIFE OF 365
authorized interference of the Saracen Emir, or gover
nor, of the place ; by whose directions the prelate had
been publicly and ignominiously beaten. On the 16th
of September, therefore, the pontiff addressed a mourn
ful and indignant letter to this unruly flock', pointing
out and deploring the fearful nature of their crime,
and warning them, in the close, of the necessity under
which he would lie, if they persisted in their con
tumacy, of unsheathing against them the sword of
apostolical anathema. " May I be silent," he said,
" upon these things ? or am I bound to speak and to
" correct, while I lament them ? It is written, ' Cry
" aloud, and 'spare not^ ;' and again, ' If thou dost not
" warn the wicked from his way, his blood will I re-
" quire at thy hand ^' I am forced, therefore, to speak,
" I am forced to correct you, lest your blood should be
" required at my hand ; lest it should one day confound
" me before the terrible, the just, the immutable Judge
" of all,"
To the ill-used prelate himself, Gregory wrote in
another tone *, " We thank God," he said, " that in
" the midst of a depraved and perverse generation, the
" constancy of your faith has so far shone forth as a
" light to all, and that you have chosen rather to suffer
" a variety of torments, than to exercise the power of
" ordination, at the unauthorized command of your
" prince, in violation of the sacred canons of the
" Church." " Great," he continued, " are the troubles
" of the righteous ; but the Lord delivereth him out
" of them all \ By such acts the Church first sprung
" into Ufe, by such she must be revivified. This
' Lib,i, Ep. 22, ' Is. 1 viii. 1.
' Ezek. xxxiii. 8. * Lib. i. Ep. 23.
' Psal. xxxiv. 19.

366 LIFE OF [book III.
" heritage our fathers in the faith have left us, through
" much tribulation to enter into the kingdom of God '.
" Fierce is the contest, but infinite is the reward : nor
" are the sufferings of this present time worthy to be
" compared with the glory which shall be revealed ^.
" Let us, absent from each other in the body, though
" present with each other in the spirit, resort, as often
" as opportunity will permit, to the mutual consolation
" of letters ^ ; and let us constantly implore Almighty
" God, that He would at length look again on the long-
" afflicted, long-agitated. Church of Africa ; saying vrith
" the Psalmist, ' Up, Lord, why sleepest Thou ? awake,
" ¦ and be not absent from us for ever ! Wherefore
" ' hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our misery and
« 'trouble*?'" At Capua Gregory consecrated and presented with
the pallium ^, Constantine, archbishop of Turris ^ and
James, archbishop of Cagliari, in Sardinia ; to the former
of whom, he entrusted a letter, to the judges or gover
nors of that island, asserting, or reminding them of, its
former connexions with Rome, and subjection to the
authority of the apostolic see. A legate, he said, should
shortly be commissioned to visit Sardinia, to whom his
directions for their guidance should more fully be con
fided, and to whose authority, as they prized either
their spiritual or their temporal safety, he required their
reverent submission '.

' Acts xiv. 22. 2 j{^ojjj_ ^jjj_ jg_
' Nos igitur licet corpore absentes, spiritu tamen praesentes,
mutuis litterarum consolationibus, quoties permittit opportunitas,
insistaraus. 4 Ps. xliv. 23, 24. ^ Baron.
" " Turrensem ;" probably " Turris Libisonis" now called " Porto
di Torre.". — Bingham, bk. ix. ch. v. 10. ' Lib. i. Ep. 29.
9

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 367 ,
Milan, and the contest there raging, had from the
moment of Gregory's assumption of the tiara, occupied
his serious attention, Atto, the youth chosen by the
party of Herlembald, had, as has been already inti
mated, been recognized by Rome as the legitimate
pastor of the city of St. Ambrose ; and Godfrey, the
nominee of the late simoniacal archbishop, had, with his
adherents, shortly before the death of Alexander been
denounced by that pontiff anew. And Henry was, at
first, disposed to resent this measure as an indignity to
himself; but he subsequently, in consistency with the
humble part which he felt it necessary to assume,
abandoned, as we have seen, the question which
agitated Milan, to the prudent counsels of Alexander's
successor. Party-spirit, however, yet raged violently
within the walls of that city ; and Herlembald, as the
supporter of the papal cause, was engaged in a per
petual contest with the corrupt and simoniacal clergy
of the place, whose influence seems still to have predo
minated over that of their opponents. On the first of
July, two days after his consecration, Gregory had ad
dressed an epistle " to all the faithful servants of Christ
in Lombardy '," promulgating the sentence lately pro
nounced against the intruding archbishop, and warn
ing them against all intercourse with that excommuni
cate person, and all recognition of his uncanonical
authority. And to his faithful supporter, Herlembald
himself, Gregory now, from Capua, addressed a letter
full of hope and encouragement^; which has been
already cited ^ as expressing the pontiiPs sentiments of
pleasure, on the receipt of the submissive epistle from
' Lib. i Ep. 15. ' Lib. i. Ep. 25.
' Supra. Vid. ch. i. p. 341.

368 LIFE OF [book HI.
Henry. Some of the king's principal counsellors, —
Gregory also informed Herlembald, — had given assur
ances in his name, that with respect to the affairs of
Milan he would in all things comply with the pon
tiff's will. The Norman interest was now divided
against itself; and the fidelity of Beatrice and Matilda
to the Church's cause, was still unquestionable. " Do
" thou, therefore," said Gregory in conclusion, " trust-
" ing in the Lord, and in thy mother, the Church of
" Rome, perform a manly part. Be strong in the Lord,
" and in the power of His might ' ; and remember, that
" the darker, the more violent, the tempest which now
" besets thee, the brighter, the more delightful, by the
" favour of Heaven, shall be the calm which shall
" succeed it."
A second letter, containing instructions which, at the
time of writing the above, he was too much hurried to
give, was shortly afterwards dispatched to Herlembald
by Gregory^ , who attempted to give further support to
his cause by addressing epistles to the bishops of Aqui
and Pavia ^ and calling upon them to make St. Peter
their debtor, by going forth, with the shield of faith and
with the helmet of salvation, against Simon Magus, who
had so deeply infected, with the poison of his venality,
the Church of the holy Ambrose.
Gregory was, on the 15th of November, still at
Capua, as he dated from thence a letter written on
that day to Gebhard, Bishop of Salzburg * ; on whom
he urged the enforcement of canons passed by Alex
ander, in a council, which Gebhard had himself at
tended, against clerical marriage. But he almost
1 Ephes. vi. 10. 2 Lib. i. Ep. 26-
' Lib. i. Ep. 27, 28. * Lib. i. ep 30.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII, 369
immediately afterwards quitted that city, and pro
ceeded to Monte Cassino, as appears by a letter writ
ten by him to Lanfranc ', and dated on the 20th of
November, from St. Germane, a village belonging to
that monastery, and situated at the foot of the hill
on which it stood ^ The object of this epistle was to
incite Lanfranc more vigorously to resist, what Gre
gory styled the presumption of a bishop named Arfas-
tus ^, who appears to have attempted the exertion
of episcopal authority with respect to an abbey, — St.
Edmund's — over which the popes claimed an imme
diate and exclusive jurisdiction. And the pontiff
naturally availed himself of the occasion, to re-assert
the favourite doctrine of Rome, to which she owed her
spiritual monarchy, that a paramount control over the
consecrations of churches, priests, and even bishops
themselves, was vested, by divine right, in the suc
cessors of St. Peter.
From Monte Cassino, Gregory moved to Terracina ;
and thence, on or about the 3rd of December, to
Piperno, From the former place, he replied* to a
letter of Remigius \ Bishop of Lincoln, forbidding him
to suffer a certain priest, who had been guilty of homi
cide, again to officiate at the altar ; but directing that

' Lib. i. Ep. 31. ' Baron.
' Probably Herfast, who filled the see of Thetford from 1070 to
1086. * Lib. i, ep, 34,
' Called, in the epistle, Remedius, He was elected bishop of
Dorchester in 1070, and, during his episcopate, transferred the seat
of his diocese to Lincoln ; where he commenced the building of a
cathedral in 1088. " In loco forti fortem, pulchro pulchram, Virgini
" virginum construxit ecclesiam." Henrici Huntindonensis Hist,
lib. vi. p. 213. ed. Savil.
VOL. I. B b

370 LIFE OF [book ih.
the offender, if sincerely contrite, should still receive
support from the funds of the Church ; lest poverty
and hopelessness should drive him to further crime.
And from Piperno, he ventured to assert what he
conceived the Church's rights, before a more powerful
sovereign than those, with whom he had recently been
thrown into contact.
Philip, king of France, of whose simony complaints
had frequently reached the apostolic see, h*ad lately, by
a confidential envoy despatched to Rome, pledged him
self to the abandonment of that vice, and to the proper
care in the future disposal of the benefices of the
Church. But it now appeared that, though the clergy
of the diocese of Macon had, with his own approval,
elected Landric, Archdeacon of Autun', to fill their
vacant see, the king declined to put him in pos
session of it, without the present which he had on such
occasions been accustomed to receive. The clergy
appealed to Rome, and Gregory resolved not to lose
this opportunity of enforcing upon Philip the obser
vance of his promise. He addressed, on the 4th of
December, an epistle^ to Roderic, Bishop of Chalons,
a prelate whom he knew to possess the confidence of
the king. He had only, he said, delayed the inflic
tion, upon Philip, of those censures which his past
presumptuous and oppressive conduct had deserved, in
consequence of the promise of reformation, given by
him through his envoy, Alberic. The sincerity of that
promise, he trusted the king would now prove, by ad
mitting the bishop. Who had been canonically chosen, to
the possession of his diocese, without fee or reward.
This if he declined to do, Gregory protested that he
' Augustodunum. '^ Lib. i. Ep. 35.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 371
would no longer patiently behold the ruin of the
Church; but that he would subdue the monarch's
contumacy, by enforcing, by the authority of St. Peter
and St. Paul, the rigour of the canons. Either the
king, renouncing the baseness of traffic in holy things,
should permit the elevation of proper persons to
situations of authority in the Church ; or the French,
threatened by a general anathema, should be com
pelled, — as the alternative of casting off the Christian
faith altogether, — to refuse all further subjection
and obedience to their unworthy sovereign. To avert
such a consummation, he besought Roderic to use all
his influence with Philip, and, while he laid the above
warning before him, to exhort, and at the same time
entreat, the monarch, that in the affair of Macon, as
in all others, he would reverence the canons of the
Church, and permit the occupation, by the proper
persons, of her benefices. And that the Bishop of
Chalons, as well as his sovereign, might see that the
strong language which he had used was something
more than an unmeaning threat, Gregory despatched,
on the same day, a letter' to Humbert, Archbishop
of Lyons ; whom, as metropolitan of the province in
which the diocese of Macon was included, he com
manded, in the event of Philip's continued perverseness,
to consecrate, by himself or his suffragans, the bishop
elect, — if no canonical objections to the appointment
should arise, — vrithout regard to the monarch's opposi
tion ; or even to that, should it be experienced, of the
bishop elect himself. " And if you neglect this," con
cluded Gregory, " let that person come to Rome, and
we will, by God's grace, consecrate him ourselves."
' Lib. i. Ep. 36.
Bb2

372 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [BOOK III.
These steps were not without effect. We learn,
from an epistle addressed by Gregory to PhiUp, in the
ensuing year ', that the French monarch had promised
full compliance with the pontiff^s directions. But his
obedience on an isolated occasion wrought in him no
reformation of principle ; Philip was a prince of too
indolent and self-indulgent a character to be easily
excited to a course of persevering amendment : there
were, also, many about him who were interested in his
continuance in the corrupt and licentious habits to
which he was addicted ; Gregory's admonitions, and
his own promises, were, therefore, soon forgotten ; and
it was not long before he was again involved in con
tention with the apostolic see.
From Piperno Gregory proceeded through Setia, and
arrived, about the middle of December ^, in the papal
city. There he, of course, received ample intelligence
of all which had been occurring in the troubled theatre
of Germany; and anxious, if possible, to prevent an
open collision between the parties there contending;
anxious to calm for a while the angry passions on either
side ; he addressed to WezeUn, Archbishop of Magde
burg, Burchard, Bishop of Halberstadt, and other per
sons of influence among the Saxons, an epistle, with the
insertion of which we will close our record of the pro
ceedings of this eventful year.
" Ye know, I believe, the violent manner in which I
" was constrained by my brethren to undertake the
" burthen and charge of the universal Church, shaken
" as she is by the waves of commotion, and almost
^ Lib. i. Ep. 75.
' He addressed an epistle (i. 37) to the Countess Aldilasia, from
Setia, on the 7th; and one (i. 38) to Duke Wratislav, of Bohemia,
on the 17th of December, from Rome.

CHAP. III.J GREGORY VII. 373
" in danger of shipwreck. My conscience bears me
" vritness, how unequal I should have judged myself to
" such a weight, and with what anxiety I should have
" sought to avoid the title of apostolic dignity. But,
" since the way of a man is not in his own hand', but is
" at His disposal, by whom all our steps are guided, it
" was impossible for me to maintain my own wishes in
" opposition to the will of Heaven. Wherefore I must
" solicitously watch and ponder how, by God's blessing,
" I may declare and faithfully administer those things
" which pertain to the advantage of true Religion,
" and to the welfare of the flock of the Lord : urged
" alike by fear, lest negligence with regard to the duties
" of my stewardship should one day accuse me before
" the supreme Judge, and by the love which is due
" from me to that prince of the Apostles, who has, from
" my infancy, nourished me under his wings with ex-
" ceeding pity, and cherished me in the bosom of his
" clemency." " Chief among our cares at this moment is our know-
" ledge of the fact, that between you and king Henry
"your sovereign such discords have arisen as have led
"to many murders, to acts of incendiarism, to the
" plunder of the Churches and of the poor, and to the
"melancholy devastation of your country. On which
" account we have sent to the king, and admonished him,
" in the name of St. Peter and St. Paul, to abstain from
" arms and from all demonstrations of war, until we may
« be able to despatch to him legates from this apostolic
" see ; who shall diligently inquire into all the causes of
" this unhappy dissension, and with God's blessing re-
" store, by a just decision, peace and concord among you.
' Jerem. x. 23.

374 LIFE OF GREGORY VII. [bOOK IH.
" And we now wish to exhort and prevail on you like-
"wise, by apostolical authority, to abstain from every
" hostile motion, and to observe the same tranquillity
" which we have enjoined upon him ; thus interposing
" no impediment to the efforts which", with God's help,
"we will make for the restoration of peace. In our
" case, ye know, falsehood were sacrilege, and injustice
" the shipwreck of the soul. Let none, therefore, of you
" doubt that, having investigated the truth in this matter,
" we will, God aiding us, strive to decree and to esta^-
" blish that which is just, upon a lasting basis. And over
" that party which we shall find to have suffered from
" the other the violence of injustice, we vrill, be sure,
" without regard to consequences, or respect of persons,
" extend the fulness of our favour, and the shield of our
" apostolical authority '."
' Lib. i. Ep. 39.

END OF VOL. I.

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