And at Easter 1080 he pronounced his famous
prophecy
that Henry, if he
did not repent, would be dead or deposed before August.
did not repent, would be dead or deposed before August.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
cit.
pp.
93 sqq.
).
CH. 1.
## p. 48 (#94) ##############################################
48
The commune at Milan
1
1
1
seeking his excommunication; a worse tumult than before arose, and the
city was again in uproar. But the day after the riot the mass of citizens
took better thought and repented. The archbishop placed the city under
an interdict so long as Ariald abode in it. For the sake of peace the
threatened preacher left, and (27 June) was mysteriously murdered, at
Guido's instigation as his followers said. Ten months later his body was,
strangely and it was said miraculously, recovered. He had perished by the
sword of violence which he had taken, but the splendid popular ceremonies
of his funeral restored his fame, and so in death he served his cause.
Once again two legates came to still the storm (August 1067): Mainard,
Cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida, and the Cardinal-priest John'. The
settlement they made went back to that of Damian, and so recognised
the position of Guido, but years of violence had by now changed the city.
The legatine settlement attempted to re-establish Church order and
Damian's reforms, and the revenue of the Church was to be left untouched.
Violence was forbidden, but things had gone too far; revolution had
crystallised, and neither side liked the settlement; Guido thought of re-
signing
Erlembald, supported from Rome, thought he could increase his
power by enforcing canonical election on the resignation of Guido, setting
aside the imperial investiture and gaining the approval of the Pope. But
Guido now chose the sub-deacon Godfrey, a man of good family, in his con-
fidence, eloquent, as even his later enemies confessed, and therefore likely
to be influential. Guido formally although privately resigned, and
Godfrey went to the imperial Court where he was already known through
services rendered; he returned with his ring and staff, but was driven
away. Alexander II condemned not only Godfrey but also Guido, who
had resigned without papal leave; Guido took up his duties again, and
remained in power; disorder passed into war. Erlembald, with an army
made up of his followers and some nobles, attacked Godfrey. Revolution
had become war against a claimant chosen by the Emperor but in
defiance of ecclesiastical law and the Papacy. During Lent 1071 part of
the city was set on fire, causing great destruction and misery; Guido
withdrew to the country and there on 23 August 1071 his life and
trouble ended. Not until 6 January 1072 did Erlembald find it possible
to elect a successor; by a large assembly from the city, its neighbourhood,
and even farther afield, in the presence of a legate Cardinal Bernard,
Atto, a young cathedral clerk of good family but little known, was
elected. Erlembald, the real ruler of the city, was behind and over
all; and many, laymen and ecclesiastics, disliked the choice. The dis-
contented took to arms, the legate escaped with rent robes, and Atto,
torn from the intended feast at the palace, was borne to the cathedral,
where in mortal fear he was made to swear never to ascend the throne of
St Ambrose. But next day Erlembald regained control; he "ruled the
1 The embassy, often slurred over in narratives, is described by Arnulf, Chap. 21.
## p. 49 (#95) ##############################################
Death of Alexander II
49
both men
city as a Pope to judge the priests, as a king to grind down the people,
now with steel and now with gold, with sworn leagues and covenants
many and varied. ” It mattered little that at Rome a synod declared
Atto rightly elected, and condemned Godfrey and his adherents as
enemies of God. Meanwhile the Patarines held the field, and their success
at Milan encouraged their fellows in Lombardy as a whole. But the new
turn of affairs had involved the Pope; he wrote (c. February 1072) to
Henry IV, as a father to a son, to cast away hatred of the servants of God
and allow the Church of Milan to have a bishop according to God. A
local difficulty, amid vested interests, principles of Church reform, and
civic revolution, had merged into a struggle between Emperor and Pope.
Henry IV sent an embassy to the suffragans of Milan announcing his
will that Godfrey, already invested, should be consecrated; they met at
Novara where the consecration took place.
At the Easter Synod (1073) the Pope, now failing in strength,
excommunicated the counsellors of Henry IV who were, it was said,
striving to alienate him from the Church. This was one of Alexander's
last acts. Death had already removed many prominent leaders, Duke
Godfrey at Christmas 1069, the anti-Pope Cadalus at the end of 1072
(the exact day is not recorded). Peter Damian died on 22 February
1072, and Adalbert of Bremen on 16 March of the same year,
of the past although of very different pasts. Cardinal Humbert had died
long before, on 5 May 1061. Hildebrand was thus left almost alone
out of the old circle of Leo IX.
On 21 April 1073 Alexander died, worn out by his work and responsi-
bilities; even as Pope he had never ceased the care of his see of Lucca;
by frequent visits, repeated letters, and minute regulations he fulfilled his
duty as its bishop! It was so with him also as Pope. The mass of great
matters dealt with was equalled by that of smaller things. Even the
devolution of duties, notably to cardinals and especially to the archdeacon,
did not ease the Pope himself. He seems to us a man intent mainly upon
religious issues, always striving (as we should expect from a former leader
at Milan) for the ends of clerical reform, able now to work towards them
through the Papacy itself. Reform, directed from Rome and based upon
papal authority, was the note of his reign. A man of duty more than of)
disposition or temperament, he gained respect, if not the reverent love
which had gathered around Leo IX. His measure of greatness he reached
more because he was filled with the leading, probably the best, ideas of
his day than because of any individual greatness of conception or power.
But he had faced dark days and death itself with devotion and unswerving
hope. It was something to have passed from his earlier trials to his later
prosperity and firm position, and yet to have shewn himself the same man
1 The history of the Chancery under him is "peculiarly anomalous. " And this
was because he not only was, but acted as, Bishop of Lucca. See Poole, The Papal
Chancery, p. 69.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
4
## p. 50 (#96) ##############################################
50
The new Papacy
throughout, with the same beliefs, the same aims, and the same care for
his task. If he left his successors many difficulties, and some things even
for Gregory VII to criticise, he also left them a working model of a con-
scientious, world-embracing Papacy, filled, as it seems to us, with the
spirit of the day rather than inspiring the day from above. The Papacy
had risen to a height and a power which would have seemed impossible
in the time of Benedict IX. But the power, strong in its theory and
conception, had a fragile foundation in the politics of the Empire, of Italy,
and of Rome itself.
## p. 51 (#97) ##############################################
51
CHAPTER II.
GREGORY VII AND THE FIRST CONTEST
BETWEEN EMPIRE AND PAPACY.
I.
On 21 April 1073 Pope Alexander II died. The strained relations
between the Papacy and the ruler of the Empire made the occasion more
than usually critical; moreover, the Election Decree of Nicholas II, for
which so narrow a victory had been won at the previous vacancy, was to be
put to a second test. Fortunately for the Papacy, there was no division of
opinion within the Curia; the outstanding personality of the Archdeacon
Hildebrand made it certain on whom the choice of the cardinals would
fall. But their deliberations were anticipated by the impatience of the
populace. While the body of Alexander was being laid to rest in the
church of St John Lateran on the day following his death, a violent
tumult arose. The crowd seized upon the person of Hildebrand, hurried
him to the church of St Peter ad Vincula, and enthusiastically acclaimed
him as Pope. The formalities of the Election Decree were hastily com-
plied with; the cardinals elected, the clergy and people gave their assent,
and Hildebrand was solemnly enthroned as Pope Gregory VII'. Popular
violence had compromised the election, and provided a handle for the
accusations of his enemies. But the main purpose of the Election Decree
had been fulfilled. The Pope was the nominee neither of the Emperor
nor of the Roman nobles; the choice of the cardinals had been anticipated
indeed, but not controlled, by the enthusiasm of the multitude. Hildebrand
only held deacon's orders; a month later he was ordained priest, and on
30 June” consecrated bishop. In the interval, he seems, in accordance
with the Election Decree, to have announced his election to the king and
to have obtained the royal assent.
We have little certain information of the origin and early life of this
great Pope. He is said to have been the son of one Bonizo and to have
been born at Sovana in Tuscany; the date of his birth is uncertain, but he
was probably about fifty years old at the time of his accession. The im-
portant fact, to which he himself bears emphatic testimony, is that his
early days were passed in Rome and that it was there that he received his
The choice of name is significant. It seems most probable that he took it in
memory of his predecessor and master, Gregory VI.
? Or 29 June. But as 30 June was a Sunday, the regular day for episcopal con-
secrations, it is the more likely date, although 29 June was a great festival.
3 But see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI (from Proc. Brit. Acad. Vol. vııı).
CH. II.
4-2
## p. 52 (#98) ##############################################
52
Early life of Pope Gregory VII
education. So he saw the Papacy in its degradation and was to partici-
pate in every stage of its recovery. He received minor orders (reluctantly,
he tells us) and was attached in some capacity to the service of Gregory VI,
the Pope who bought the Papacy in order to reform it. With him he
went into exile in 1047, and spent two impressionable years in the Rhine
district, then the centre of the advanced reform movement of the day, and
probably it was at this time that he received the monastic habit? In
1049 Leo IX, nominated Pope by Henry III, was filling the chief places
in the Papal Curia with leading reformers especially from this district; on
his way to Rome he took with him the young Hildebrand, whose life was
for the future to be devoted entirely to Rome and the Papacy. With
every detail of papal activity he was associated, in every leading incident
he played his part; his share in the papal councils became increasingly
important, until at the last he was the outstanding figure whose qualifica-
tions for the papal throne none could contest.
By Leo IX he was made sub-deacon and entrusted with the task of
restoring both the buildings and the discipline of the monastery of St
Paul without the walls. Later he was sent to France to deal with heresy
in the person of Berengar of Tours, whose views he condemned but whose
person he protected. By Victor II he was given the important task of
enforcing the decrees against simony and clerical marriage in France,
where in company with Abbot Hugh of Cluny he held synods at Lyons
and elsewhere. With Bishop Anselm of Lucca he was sent by Pope
Stephen IX to Milan, where the alliance of Pope and Pataria was for the
first time cemented; and from Milan to Germany to obtain the royal
assent to Stephen's election. He had a share in vindicating the indepen-
dence of papal elections against the turbulence of the Roman nobles at
the election of Nicholas II, and again in the papal Election Decree which
was designed to establish this independence for the future. By Nicholas he
was employed in initiating the negotiations which led to the first alliance
of the Papacy with the Normans in South Italy. In the same year (1059)
his appointment as Archdeacon of the Roman Church gave him an
important administrative position; shortly afterwards occurred the death
of Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, and Hildebrand took his place as
the leading figure in the Papal Curia. To his energy and resolution was
due the victory of Alexander II over the rival imperial nominee, and he
held the first place in the Pope's councils during the twelve years
Alexander's papacy. The extent of his influence has been exaggerated by
the flattery of his admirers and by the abuse of his enemies. He was the
right-hand man, not the master, of the Pope; he influenced, but did not
of
1 His statement to Archbishop Anno of Cologne (Reg. 1, 79)—ob recordationem
disciplinae, qua tempore antecessoris vestri in ecclesia Coloniensi enutriti sumus-
seems to bear this interpretation, and can only be referred to this period. In view of
the testimony of friends and enemies alike, I find it impossible to accept the cou-
tention of Dr W. Martens that Hildebrand never became a monk.
## p. 53 (#99) ##############################################
His position under Alexander II
53
dominate Alexander. That other counsels often prevailed we know.
When he became Pope he revoked more than one privilege granted by his
predecessor, suggesting that Alexander was too prone to be led away by
evil counsellors. Even when, as in the case of the papal support given to
the Norman conquest of England, his policy prevailed, it is clear from his
own statement that he had to contend against considerable opposition
within the Curia. On all the major issues, however, Pope and archdeacon
must have been in complete agreement, especially with regard to Milan,
the greatest question of all. They had been associated together in the
embassy that inaugurated the new papal policy with regard to the
Pataria, and, as Bishop of Lucca, Alexander had been more than once
employed as papal legate to Milan. This was the critical issue that led to
the breach between Pope and king, and it was the extension of the same
policy to Germany that produced the ill-will of the German episcopate
which is so noticeable at the beginning of Gregory's papacy. That there
is a change of masters when Gregory VII becomes Pope is clear. The
policy is the same, but the method of its execution is quite different.
Hildebrand must have chafed at the slowness and caution of his prede-
cessor. When he becomes Pope, he is urgent to see the policy carried
into immediate effect. The hand on the reins is now a firm one, the con-
trolling mind is ardent and impatient. Soon the issue is joined, and rents
move rapidly to the catastrophe.
Superficially the new Pope was not attractive. He was small of
stature, his voice was weak, his appearance unprepossessing. In learning
he fell short of many of his contemporaries; the knowledge of which he
gives evidence is limited, though very practical for his purpose. Thus he
had a close acquaintance with the collections of Decretals current in his
time! Besides them he depended mainly on Gregory the Great, with
several of whose works he was obviously familiar. Otherwise there is
practically no indication of
no indication of any first-hand acquaintance with the works of
the Fathers or other Church writers. He adduces the authority of a few
passages from Ambrose and John Chrysostom in urging on Countess
Matilda of Tuscany the importance of frequent communion. Once only
does he quote from Augustine’, and then the reference is to the De
doctrina christiana; the Civitas Dei, quoted so frequently by his sup-
porters and opponents alike, is not mentioned by him at all.
The chief authority with him was naturally the Bible. The words of
Scripture, both Old and New Testament, were constantly on his lips.
1 That many of these Decretals were forged is well known, but of course to
Gregory, as to all his contemporaries, they were not known to be other than genuine.
? It has been shewn by Mirbt, Bernheim, and others that he follows closely the
views of Augustine, especially as expressed in the Civitas Dei; but when he quotes
his authority for these views it is the authority of Gregory the Great that he ad-
duces. It seems to me therefore that it is from Gregory that he absorbs Augustine,
not from a selection of Augustine as Mirbt thinks.
сн. п.
## p. 54 (#100) #############################################
54
His temperament and character
But, though quotations from the New Testament are the more numerous,
it is the spirit of the Old Testament that prevails. His doctrine is of
righteousness as shewn in duty and obedience, rather than as expressed in
the gospel of love. The language of the Old Testament came most
naturally to him; he was fond of military metaphors, and his language
is that of a general engaged in a constant campaign against a vigilant
enemy. A favourite quotation was from Jeremiah, “Cursed be the man
that keepeth back his sword from blood,” though he usually added with
Gregory the Great “that is to say, the word of preaching from the rebuk-
ing of carnal men. " He was, in fact, in temperament not unlike a prophet
of the Old Testament—fierce in denunciation of wrong, confident in
prophecy, vigorous in action, unshaken in adversity. It is not surprising
to find that contemporaries compared him with the prophet Elijah. His
enthusiasm and his ardent imagination drew men to him; that he attracted
men is well attested. One feature his contemporaries remarked—the
brightness and keenness of his glance. This was the outward sign of the
fiery spirit within that insignificant frame, which by the Hame of its
enthusiasm could provoke the unwilling to acquiescence and stimulate
even the fickle Roman population to devotion. It was kindled by his
conviction of the righteousness of his aims and his determination, in
which self-interest did not participate, to carry them into effect.
This had its weak side. He was always too ready to judge of men by
their outward acquiescence in his aims, without regarding their motives.
It is remarkable that with his experience he could have been deceived by
the professions of Cardinal Hugo Candidus, or have failed to realise the
insincerity of Henry IV's repentance in 1073. Here he was deceived to
his own prejudice. It is not easy, however, to condone his readiness in
1080 to accept the alliance of Robert Guiscard, who had been under ex-
communication until that date, or of the Saxons, whom he had spoken
of as rebels in 1075, and who were actuated by no worthier motives in
1076 and 1080. In the heat of action he grievously compromised his
ideal. Another and a more inevitable result of his temperament was the
frequent reaction into depression. Like Elijah, again, on Mount Carmel
we find him crying out that there is not a righteous man left. Probably
these moods were not infrequent, though they could only find expression
in his letters to intimate friends such as Countess Matilda of Tuscany and
Abbot Hugh of Cluny. And the gentler tone of these letters shews him
in a softer light-oppressed by his burden, dependent solely on the help-
ing hand of the “pauper Jesus. ” It was a genuine reluctance of which he
spoke when he emphasised his unwillingness at every stage of his life to
have fresh burdens, even of honour, imposed upon him. There is no
reason to doubt that he was unwilling to become Pope; the event itself
prostrated him, and his first letters, announcing his election and appeal-
ing for support, had to be dictated from his bed.
This was a temporary weakness, soon overcome. And it would be a
## p. 55 (#101) #############################################
The Petrine authority
55
mistake to regard him merely, or even mainly, as an enthusiast and a
visionary. He had a strong will and could curb his imagination with an
iron self-control. As a result he has been pictured most strangely as cold
and inflexible, untouched by human weakness, unmoved by human
sym-
pathies. It is not in that light that we should view him at the Lenten
Synod of 1076, where he alone remained calm and his will availed to
quell the uproar; it was self-control that checked his impatience in the
period following Canossa, and that was responsible for his firmness and
serenity amid defeat and disappointment, so that he remained unconquered
in spirit almost to the end. But there was another influence too, the
experience of the years that preceded his papacy. As cardinal-deacon for
over twenty years, and Archdeacon of the Roman Church for thirteen,
his work had lain particularly among the secular affairs of the Papacy;
from this he had acquired great practical knowledge and a keen sense of
the actual. It coloured his whole outlook, and produced the contrast
between the theories he expressed and the limitation of them that he was
willing to accept. He had a clear vision both of what was essential and
of what was possible; it was later clouded by the dust of conflict, after
he had joined issue with the Emperor.
His early life had been spent in the service of the Church and the
Papacy. This service remained his single aim, and he was actuated, as he
justly claimed, by no feeling of worldly pride or self-glorification. He
naturally had a full sense of the importance of his office, and realised
both its potentialities and its responsibilities. To St Peter, who had
watched over the training of his youth, he owed his earliest allegiance;
as Bishop of Rome he had become the successor and representative of
St Peter. It was not the least of his achievements that he realised the
logical inferences that could be drawn from the Petrine authority; he was
careful to sink his own individuality, and to picture himself as the channel
through which the will of the Apostle was expressed to mankind. Every
communication addressed to the Pope by letter or by word of mouth is
received by St Peter himself; and, while the Pope only reads the words
or listens to the message, St Peter can read the heart of the sender. Any
injury done, even in thought, to the Pope is thus an injury to the Prince
of the Apostles himself. He acts as the mouthpiece of St Peter, his sen-
tences are the sentences of St Peter, and from St Peter has descended to
him the supreme power of binding and of loosing in heaven and on earth.
So his power of excommunication is unlimited: he can excommunicate,
as in the case of six bishops with all their supporters at the Lenten
Synod of 1079, sine spe recuperationis. Similarly his power of absolution
is unlimited, whether it be absolution to the penitent, absolution from
all their sins to those who fight the battles of the Church against her
enemies, or absolution of the subjects of an excommunicated ruler from
the oath of allegiance they had taken to him. These are not the asser-
tions of a claim; they are the simple expression of his absolute belief.
CH. II.
## p. 56 (#102) #############################################
56
His use of this authority
How supreme was his confidence is shewn in his prophecies. The authority
descended from St Peter extends over material prosperity in this life; yes,
and over life itself. Glory and honour in this life, as well as in the life to
come, depend on obedience to him, he assured the magistrates of Sardinia
in 1073. In 1078 he proclaimed that all who hindered the holding of a
synod in Germany would suffer not only in soul but also in body and
property, would win no success in war and no triumph in their lifetime.
And at Easter 1080 he pronounced his famous prophecy that Henry, if he
did not repent, would be dead or deposed before August. This is the
confidence of complete conviction.
But it was a delegated authority that he was exercising, and therefore
it must not be exercised arbitrarily. The obedience to God which he en-
forced on all Christians must be rendered by himself first of all. Obedience
to God implies obedience to the Church and to the law of the Church, to
the decrees of the Fathers, the canonical tradition. He shews no dis-
position to over-ride this; in fact he is careful to explain that he is
subject to its authority. Frequently he protested that there was nothing
new in his decrees. His decree against lay investiture was not new, not
of his own invention; in promulgating it he had merely returned to the
teaching and decrees of the Early Fathers and followed the prime unique
rule of ecclesiastical discipline. He did not make new laws; he issued
edicts which interpreted the law or prohibited the illegal practices that
had grown up in course of time. The Holy Roman Church, he says, has
always had and will always have the right of issuing new decrees to deal
with particular abuses as they arise. Its custom has always been to be
merciful, to temper the rigour of the law with discretion, to tolerate some
things after careful consideration, but never to do anything which con-
flicts with the harmony of canonical tradition.
Now the prime importance of this consideration of Gregory VII's
views is in its bearing on his relations with the temporal authority. He
started with the orthodox Gelasian view of the two
powers
each
supreme
in its own department, and it is clear that at first he sees no conflict of
his ideas with this. In the ecclesiastical department of course he must be
absolute master. Archbishops, bishops, and abbots must acknowledge his
complete authority, obey his summons to Rome, submit to his over-riding
of their actions, and not interfere with direct appeals to Rome. The
legates he sends act in his name. Anywhere they can call synods, preside
over them, and issue decrees on his behalf. But, as his own office is
divinely ordained, so he recognises is the royal office. In 1073 he speaks
of the two powers and compares them with the two eyes of the human
body; as these give light to the body, so the sacerdotium and imperium
should illumine with spiritual light the body of the Church. They should
work together in the harmony of pure religion for the spiritual good of
Christianity; the spiritual end is the final object of both, in accordance
with the accepted medieval view. Obedience, therefore, is due to kings;
## p. 57 (#103) #############################################
Sacerdotium and imperium. Iustitia
57
he shews no indulgence with the Saxon revolt in 1073, and congratulates
Henry on his victory over the rebels in 1075. Over churches he continually
repeats that the lay power has a protective not a possessive function, but
he is anxious not to appear to be encroaching on imperial prerogative.
Though he is convinced that the practice of lay investiture is an abuse
that has arisen in the course of time, he recognises that it has come to
be regarded almost as a prescriptive right? ; he is careful not to pro-
mulgate his decree against it in 1075 until he has consulted the king,
upon whose rights, he declares, he is anxious not to encroach. The
language of these early days is markedly different from that of his later
years. The normal contrast between medieval theory and practice is notice-
able at the beginning, when he is content to subordinate his theory to
practical considerations; in later years he is striving to bring his practice
up to the level of his theory. The difference lies not so much in a change
in his point of view? , as in a recognition of its real implications and of its
actual incompatibility with the orthodox Gelasian theory. This recogni-
tion was forced upon him by the circumstances of the struggle with the
king, without which he might never have adopted the extreme attitude
of his later years. His methods help to mark the difference. At first he
attempts to promote his aims by mutual agreement and negotiation;
afterwards he acts by decree, issuing his orders and demanding implicit
obedience.
The key to his development is to be found in his insistence on right-
eousness: as the criterion by which he tests his own actions and those of
all with whom he has to deal. Righteousness, with him as with Augustine,
consists in obedience to the commandments of God. Truth, obedience,
humility, are the marks of the righteous man, the servant of God, as
falsehood, disobedience, pride, are the marks of the wicked man, whose
master is the devil. If this is merely medieval commonplace, it becomes
something more in its application. It is when he has to deal with an
unrighteous king that he discovers the logical results of his opinions.
The Pope, as St Peter's successor, has authority over the souls of men;
he has in consequence an awful responsibility as he will have to answer
for them before the tribunal of God. It is incumbent upon him to rebuke
those that err; it is he, in fact, that must be the judge of right and wrong,
and to this judgment all men, even kings, must be subject. Every act of
a king must have the test of right and wrong applied to it, for it is a
In a letter to Bishop Anselm of Lucca in 1073 he indirectly recognises the royal
right of investiture.
The recent work of Father Peitz and others has demonstrated that the Registrum
Gregorii VII is the actual Register of the Pope's letters kept by the papal Chancery
(which must have done its work rather casually). This establishes the authenticity
of the Dictatus Papae of 1075, with its extreme claims, as a genuine expression of
papal theory at that time.
3 I prefer to translate iustitia by “righteousness” rather than "justice,” as I
think it conveys a more accurate rendering of Gregory VII's meaning.
CA. 11.
## p. 58 (#104) #############################################
58
The supremacy of the spiritual power
king's duty to govern for the spiritual welfare of his subjects. Obedience
to God is the sign of the iustus homo, how much more of the iustus rex!
And so, if a king does not act as a iustus homo he at once becomes amen-
able to papal jurisdiction. The head of the spiritual department is
entitled accordingly to obedience from secular rulers. “As I have to
answer for you at the awful Judgment,” he writes to William I of Eng-
land', “in the interests of your own salvation, ought you, can you avoid
immediate obedience to me? " The implication is that the obedience which
is expected from all Christians is obedience to himself.
When the great question came as to the sentence of a king who was,
in his view, manifestly unrighteous, there could be no doubt with him as
to the authority he could exercise. The theory of passive obedience to a
wicked king could not influence him or his supporters for a moment; a
king who aimed at his own glory had ceased to be the servant of God
and become the servant of the devil; he was no longer a king but a tyrant.
With the Pope, the judge of right and wrong, lay the sentence. Saul,
ordained by God for his humility, was deposed by Samuel, the representa-
tive of God, for his pride and disobedience. The Pope is through St Peter
the representative of God; as he has power to bind and loose in spiritual
things, how much more in secular! Henry had not merely been disobe-
dient; his pride had led him to attempt the overthrow of the Pope, a
direct outrage on St Peter himself. St Peter, therefore, through the Pope's
mouth, pronounces sentence of excommunication and deposition. Gregory
has faced the logical outcome of his point of view. The two powers are
not equal and independent; the head of the ecclesiastical department is
dominant over the head of the temporal. And so, when the enemies of
Henry in Germany were contemplating the election of an anti-king to
succeed Rudolf, he sends them the wording of the oath that their new
choice must take to him—the oath of fealty of a vassal to his over-
lord.
Gregory found himself faced at his accession with a situation that
gave him every cause for anxiety, but much real ground for optimism.
In the twenty-four years following his recall to Rome by Pope Leo IX a
great advance had been made. The reformed Papacy had assumed its
natural position as leader and director of the reform movement. It had
vindicated the independence of its own elections against the usurpation
of the Roman nobles and the practice of imperial nomination, it was
asserting its absolute authority in ecclesiastical matters over all archbishops
and bishops, and it was beginning to recover its temporal power in Italy.
But its progress was hampered by difficulties and opposition from every
1 Reg. vii, 25. This is the letter in which he expresses the relations between
the two powers by the simile of the sun and moon. As in 1073 they both give light,
but no longer equal light.
## p. 59 (#105) #############################################
The situation in 1073
59
quarter. Papal decrees had been promulgated against simony and clerical
marriage, but there was more opposition to these decrees than obedience.
The absolute authority of the Pope over all metropolitans was not denied
in theory, but it had not been maintained in practice, and much resent-
ment was aroused by its exercise. The temporal possessions of the Pope
were continually exposed to the encroachments of the Normans, who would
acknowledge themselves vassals of the Papacy but paid no heed to its
instructions. And all these difficulties were complicated and controlled
by the relations of the Pope with the King of Germany, and by the clash of
their conflicting interests. The situation would have been easier had
Henry III been on the throne. He at any rate was an earnest promoter
of ecclesiastical reform. Henry IV was not even in sympathy with the
reform movement, and simony in episcopal elections had become frequent
once more; while he was as firmly resolved as his father that royal control
over all his subjects, lay and ecclesiastical, should be maintained, and this
implied royal control of nominations to bishoprics and abbeys both in
Germany and North Italy. Hence the crisis that had arisen with regard
to Milan just before Alexander II's death. In the establishment of his
authority in the ecclesiastical department, Gregory was thus faced by the
opposition of the higher clergy (except in Saxony where the bishops as
a whole allied themselves with the local opposition to Henry), supported
by the king, and also of the lower ranks of the secular clergy, who con-
sidered that clerical celibacy was an ideal of perfection to which they
ought not to be expected to aspire. He was supported on the whole by
the regulars and often by the mass of the common people, who were
readily aroused to action, as at Milan, against the laxity of the secular
clergy.
It was evident to the Pope that his best chance of success lay in
obtaining the king's support. Without it he could not coerce the higher
clergy; with it the decrees for Church reform could be made efficacious.
He regarded the royal power as the natural supporter of the Papacy, and
the protector of its temporal authority in South Italy against Norman
aggression. His imagination led him to visualise the magnificent concep-
tion of a united Empire and Papacy working together in harmony for the
same spiritual objects, and he was sanguine enough to believe that Henry
could be induced to take the same view. And so the first task he under-
took was to bring about a reconciliation with the king. To effect this
he sought assistance from every quarter—the Empress-mother Agnes,
Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany, Dukes Rudolf of Swabia and Godfrey
of Lower Lorraine, Bishop Rainald of Como—from anyone in short who
might exercise influence over the king, and who might be expected to
influence him in the right direction. Henry yielded, but he yielded to
necessity, not to persuasion. In August he had with difficulty evaded the
Saxons by flight and had made his way south, where he was remaining
isolated and almost without support. The situation was in many respects
CH. II.
## p. 60 (#106) #############################################
60
Reconciliation with Henry IV
similar to that at Canossa, and the king's policy was the same on both
occasions—as his enemies in Germany had the upper hand, he must
propitiate the anger of the Pope, and this could only be done by a com-
plete outward submission. The letter Gregory VII received from the king
in September 1073 was as abject as the humiliation of 1077, without the
personal degradation of Canossa. The king confesses that he is guilty of
all the charges brought against him and asks for papal absolution; he
promises obedience to Gregory's bidding in the matter of reform, especially
in regard to Milan, and expresses his keen desire for the harmonious co-
operation of the spiritual and temporal powers. The delight of Gregory
was unbounded when he received this letter, so full, he says, of sweetness
and obedience, such as no Pope had ever received from Emperor before.
He failed to realise, though he saw it clearly enough later, that the Saxon
situation was entirely responsible, and that Henry's humility depended
on his position in Germany; he even did his best to bring Henry and the
Saxons to terms. To Henry's appeal for absolution he responded with
enthusiasm, and early in the following year it was effected by an embassy
headed by two cardinal-bishops and accompanied by Henry's mother
Agnes.
Assured of royal support, or at any rate relieved from the embarrass-
ment of royal opposition, he now took in hand the important questions
of Church reform and the assertion of his ecclesiastical authority. He
knew the hostility he had to face. In North Italy, Archbishop Guibert
of Ravenna had submitted himself to Alexander II and promised obedience,
but little reliance could be placed on his promises; in general, the morals
of the clergy were lax, the episcopate was mutinous. In Germany, there
was an atmosphere of sullen resentment against the measures already taken
by Alexander, and of ill-will towards his successor. It was not until 1074
that the two leading metropolitans—Siegfried of Mayence, the German
Arch-Chancellor, and Anno of Cologne (ex-regent of Germany, now living
in rement and devoted to good works)-wrote to congratulate Gregory
on his election; and there is no evidence to shew that any of the others
were more forward in this respect. Siegfried took the opportunity of
expressing his pleasure and congratulations in a letter which he wrote on
the subject of the dispute between the Bishops of Prague and Olmütz,
Bohemian sees within his province. In this letter he complained of the
intervention of the late Pope in a matter which came within his own
jurisdiction; particularly that Alexander had allowed the Bishop of
Olmütz to appeal direct to Rome, and had sent legates to Bohemia who
without reference to Siegfried had suspended the Bishop of Prague from
his office. This was a test case, and Gregory replied with great vigour.
He rebutted the arguments from Canon Law which Siegfried had urged,
and accused him of neglect of his office and of arrogance towards the
Apostolic See. Siegfried's timid attempt to assert himself was overwhelmed
by the Pope's vehemence, and he made no further effort to interfere with
## p. 61 (#107) #############################################
Contest with the German episcopate
61
the papal settlement of the question. The Bishop of Prague obeyed the
Pope's summons to Rome, and Gregory, by his lenient treatment of him,
gave the episcopate a lesson in the value of ready obedience.
This was a signal victory. He passed on to deal with the questions
of simony and clerical marriage. In the first synod he held in Rome, in
Lent 1074, he repeated the decrees of his predecessors against these abuses,
and proceeded to take measures for their enforcement in Germany. The
two cardinal-bishops, who had given absolution to the king and to his
excommunicated councillors at Easter 1074, had the further task imposed
upon them of summoning a synod of German clergy, promulgating the
decrees at this synod, and enforcing acquiescence in their execution. This
was a difficult task, rendered impossible by the overbearing manner of the
papal legates. They addressed themselves first to two of the leading arch-
bishops, Siegfried of Mayence and Liemar of Bremen, with a haughty
injunction to them to hold a synod. They met their match in Liemar.
A supporter of the reform movement, the methods of the Pope and his
legates roused his pride and independence. He refused to do anything
without previous consultation with the episcopate as a whole, and sneered
at the impracticable suggestion that he should hold a synod to which his
suffragans far distant in North Germany or in Denmark would not be
able to come! Siegfried deprecated the whole business, but from timidity
rather than pride. He temporised for six months and at last called a
synod at Erfurt in October. As he expected, he was faced by a violent
outburst from the secular clergy, who fortified themselves against the
decree enforcing celibacy by the words of St Paul, and the synod broke up
in confusion. Another incident that happened at the same time well
illustrates the temper of the episcopate. Archbishop Udo of Trèves was
ordered by the Pope to investigate the charges brought against the Bishop
of Toul by one of his clergy. He held a synod at which more than twenty
bishops were present. They commenced by a unanimous protest against
the Pope's action in submitting a bishop to the indignity of having to
answer before a synod to charges that any of his clergy might please to
bring against him. Needless to say, the bishop was unanimously acquitted.
In only one quarter, in fact, could the Pope find support—in Saxony.
Here the episcopate was allied with the lay nobility in opposition to
Henry, and it was part of its policy to keep on good terms with the Pope.
It is not surprising, then, to learn that Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt,
one of the chief leaders of the Saxons, wrote to Gregory to deplore the
unworthy treatment of the papal legates in Germany, and received his
reward in a warm letter of commendation from the Pope.
Gregory now began to take vigorous action to enforce his will. Arch-
bishop Liemar, defiant to the legates who had summoned him to appear
in Rome in November, was ordered by the Pope himself to come to the
Liemar gives a lively account of his altercation with the legates in a letter to the
Bishop of Hildesheim (Sudendorf, Reg. 1, 5).
CH. 11,
## p. 62 (#108) #############################################
62
The Pope's efforts to enforce obedience in Germany
Lenten Synod of 1075. The same summons was sent to Archbishop
Siegfried, and to six of his suffragan bishops as well. The Pope further
issued circulars appealing especially to prominent laymen to assist him in
executing his decrees. Siegfried's answer to Gregory's summons was typical
of the timid man striving to extricate himself from the contest between
two violently hostile parties. Afraid to oppose the Pope's will, and equally
afraid to enforce it, he excused himself from coming to Rome on the
ground of ill-health, pleaded lack of time for his inability to examine the
conduct of the six suffragans mentioned in Gregory's letter, but declared
that he had sent on the Pope's order with instructions to them to obey
it. He expressed his compliance with the decrees against simony and
clerical marriage, but urged moderation and discretion in their execution.
The synod sat at Rome from 24 to 28 February 1075. At this synod
the Pope suspended the absent and disobedient Liemar, and passed the
same sentence on the Bishops of Bamberg, Strasbourg, and Spires, three
of the six suffragans of Mayence whose attendance he had ordered; the
other three seem to have satisfied him, temporarily at any rate, by their
appearance or through representatives. Decrees were also passed against
simony and clerical marriage, with the special addition, in conformity with
Gregory's policy, of a clause calling on the laity to assist by refraining
from attending the mass celebrated by an offending priest. In sending
the text of these decrees to Archbishop Siegfried', he shewed that the
moderation urged by Siegfried was not in his mind at all. The decrees
are to be issued and enforced in their full rigour. Instructions to the same
effect were sent to other metropolitans and bishops, for instance to the
Archbishops of Cologne and Magdeburg, with injunctions to hold synods
to enforce the decrees. This was again pressed on Siegfried and distressed
him still further. He eventually replied to the Pope in July or August,
in a letter intended to be tactful and to shift responsibility from his
own shoulders. It was no use; Gregory was quite firm. He replied on
3 September, acknowledging the weight of Siegfried's arguments but
declaring them of no effect when set in the balance against his pastoral
duty. Siegfried was forced to comply, especially as the submission of
the Saxons took away from him his chief excuse for delay. He held a
synod at Mayence in October, and, as before, it was broken up by the
turbulence of the secular clergy. But the whole question was now to be
transferred to a larger stage, and the next act in the drama is the
Council of Worms.
In this struggle with the German episcopate, in which matters were
rapidly coming to a crisis, Gregory had been able to act unhampered by
royal interference, and so far his policy of effecting a reconciliation with
1 Jaffé, Mon. Greg. ep. coll. 3. The same letter was sent as well to Archbishop
Werner of Magdeburg (ep. coll. 4) and to Bishop Otto of Constance (ep. coll. 5). There
seems little doubt that these letters should be dated February 1075 and not, as by Jaffé,
March 1074.
## p. 63 (#109) #############################################
and in North Italy
63
Henry had justified itself. But in North Italy, where he required the
active co-operation rather than the non-interference of the king, the
policy had not been so successful. Little, however, could be expected
from Henry when his position in Germany itself was so difficult, and for
two years Gregory seems to have persisted in his confidence in the king's
sincerity. He did complain, indeed, in December 1074 that Henry had
not yet taken any action with regard to Milan, and he administered a
gentle warning as to the councillors he had around him. But the more
personal letter he wrote at the same time gives expression to his confi-
dence in the king. In this letter he detailed his plan of leading a vast
expedition to the East both to protect the Eastern Christians and to
bring them back to the orthodox faith; he is careful to seek Henry's
advice and assistance in this, because in the event of his going he intends
to leave the Roman Church under Henry's care and protection. If he
could trust the king to this extent, he was profoundly suspicious of his
councillors and of their confederates the Lombard bishops. At the Lenten
Synod of 1075, three Italian bishops were suspended for disobedience to
his summons, and five of Henry's councillors, promoters of simony, are to
be excommunicated if they have not appeared in Rome and given satis-
faction by 1 June. At the same synod was passed the first decree against
lay investiture.
Against the practice of lay ownership of churches, great and small,
the reformed Papacy had already raised its protest, and the necessity of
obtaining suitable agents for the work of reform had turned its attention
to the method of appointment. While denying the right of the king to
control appointments, the Popes allowed him a considerable though un-
defined rôle, both as head of the laity and as the natural protector of
the Church. In this Gregory VII acquiesced, and where the appointments
were good from the spiritual point of view, as was the case in England
under William I, he was little disposed to question the method. It was
the insubordination of the episcopate in Germany and North Italy, and
especially the clash of papal and imperial claims at Milan, that led him
to take definite action against a royal control that led to bad appoint-
ments. The king, for his part, regarded bishoprics as being in his gift, į
and allowed no bishop to exercise his functions until he had invested him
with ring and staff. To the Church party the use of these symbols be-
tokened the conferring by the king of spiritual functions; this was an
abuse the removal of which might lead to the restoration of true canonical
election. In Gregory VII's eyes it was clearly not an end in itself, but
only a step towards the end, which was through free election by clergy
and people to obtain a personnel adequate for its spiritual functions and
amenable to papal authority.
The importance of lay investiture had been early recognised by
Cardinal Humbert in his Liber adversus Symoniacos, but Gregory VII was
the first Pope to legislate directly on the subject. The first decree
CH. II.
## p. 64 (#110) #############################################
64
The first decree against lay investiture
prohibiting lay investiture (though not imposing any penalty on laymen
who invested) was passed at this synod in 1075. But it was never properly
published. Bishops elected and invested in 1075 and 1076 could plead
ignorance of its existence and the Pope accepted their plea. No German
writer seems to know of it, and we are indebted for its wording solely
to a Milanese writer, Arnulf, which gives weight to the suggestion that
the Milanese situation was principally responsible for the framing of the
decree. The fact was that Gregory knew that he was dealing with a long-
established custom, regarded by the king as a prescriptive right, and he
knew that he must walk warily. He first of all sent the text of the decree
to the king accompanied by a message to explain that it was no new step
that he was taking but a restoration of canonical practice, and urging
the king, if he felt his rights to be in any way infringed, to communicate
with him, so that the matter could be arranged on a just and amicable
footing. Gregory attempted to establish his point by negotiation, and
he seems to have imagined that the king would recognise the fairness of
his claim. Henry made no reply to these overtures, and the Pope does
not seem to have been immediately perturbed by this ominous silence. In
July he warmly praised the king for his zeal in resisting simony and
clerical marriage, which gives him reason, he says, to hope for still higher
and better things—acquiescence, doubtless, in the new decree. Just after
this, two ambassadors from Henry arrived in Rome with a strictly con-
fidential message to the Pope to be communicated to no one except the
king's mother Agnes, or Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany. This has been
conjectured, with great probability, to have had reference to the king's
desire to be crowned Emperor by the Pope; if this be so we have a ready
explanation of his willingness to keep on good terms with the Pope, even
after his great victory over the Saxons in June. Gregory took some time
to reply, owing to illness; but, when he did, he warmly congratulated
the king on his victory over the rebels, and wrote in a tone of confidence
that they were going to work together in harmony.
This was the last time that he expressed any such confidence, and in
the meantime the situation in Italy, especially at Milan, had been getting
steadily worse.
CH. 1.
## p. 48 (#94) ##############################################
48
The commune at Milan
1
1
1
seeking his excommunication; a worse tumult than before arose, and the
city was again in uproar. But the day after the riot the mass of citizens
took better thought and repented. The archbishop placed the city under
an interdict so long as Ariald abode in it. For the sake of peace the
threatened preacher left, and (27 June) was mysteriously murdered, at
Guido's instigation as his followers said. Ten months later his body was,
strangely and it was said miraculously, recovered. He had perished by the
sword of violence which he had taken, but the splendid popular ceremonies
of his funeral restored his fame, and so in death he served his cause.
Once again two legates came to still the storm (August 1067): Mainard,
Cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida, and the Cardinal-priest John'. The
settlement they made went back to that of Damian, and so recognised
the position of Guido, but years of violence had by now changed the city.
The legatine settlement attempted to re-establish Church order and
Damian's reforms, and the revenue of the Church was to be left untouched.
Violence was forbidden, but things had gone too far; revolution had
crystallised, and neither side liked the settlement; Guido thought of re-
signing
Erlembald, supported from Rome, thought he could increase his
power by enforcing canonical election on the resignation of Guido, setting
aside the imperial investiture and gaining the approval of the Pope. But
Guido now chose the sub-deacon Godfrey, a man of good family, in his con-
fidence, eloquent, as even his later enemies confessed, and therefore likely
to be influential. Guido formally although privately resigned, and
Godfrey went to the imperial Court where he was already known through
services rendered; he returned with his ring and staff, but was driven
away. Alexander II condemned not only Godfrey but also Guido, who
had resigned without papal leave; Guido took up his duties again, and
remained in power; disorder passed into war. Erlembald, with an army
made up of his followers and some nobles, attacked Godfrey. Revolution
had become war against a claimant chosen by the Emperor but in
defiance of ecclesiastical law and the Papacy. During Lent 1071 part of
the city was set on fire, causing great destruction and misery; Guido
withdrew to the country and there on 23 August 1071 his life and
trouble ended. Not until 6 January 1072 did Erlembald find it possible
to elect a successor; by a large assembly from the city, its neighbourhood,
and even farther afield, in the presence of a legate Cardinal Bernard,
Atto, a young cathedral clerk of good family but little known, was
elected. Erlembald, the real ruler of the city, was behind and over
all; and many, laymen and ecclesiastics, disliked the choice. The dis-
contented took to arms, the legate escaped with rent robes, and Atto,
torn from the intended feast at the palace, was borne to the cathedral,
where in mortal fear he was made to swear never to ascend the throne of
St Ambrose. But next day Erlembald regained control; he "ruled the
1 The embassy, often slurred over in narratives, is described by Arnulf, Chap. 21.
## p. 49 (#95) ##############################################
Death of Alexander II
49
both men
city as a Pope to judge the priests, as a king to grind down the people,
now with steel and now with gold, with sworn leagues and covenants
many and varied. ” It mattered little that at Rome a synod declared
Atto rightly elected, and condemned Godfrey and his adherents as
enemies of God. Meanwhile the Patarines held the field, and their success
at Milan encouraged their fellows in Lombardy as a whole. But the new
turn of affairs had involved the Pope; he wrote (c. February 1072) to
Henry IV, as a father to a son, to cast away hatred of the servants of God
and allow the Church of Milan to have a bishop according to God. A
local difficulty, amid vested interests, principles of Church reform, and
civic revolution, had merged into a struggle between Emperor and Pope.
Henry IV sent an embassy to the suffragans of Milan announcing his
will that Godfrey, already invested, should be consecrated; they met at
Novara where the consecration took place.
At the Easter Synod (1073) the Pope, now failing in strength,
excommunicated the counsellors of Henry IV who were, it was said,
striving to alienate him from the Church. This was one of Alexander's
last acts. Death had already removed many prominent leaders, Duke
Godfrey at Christmas 1069, the anti-Pope Cadalus at the end of 1072
(the exact day is not recorded). Peter Damian died on 22 February
1072, and Adalbert of Bremen on 16 March of the same year,
of the past although of very different pasts. Cardinal Humbert had died
long before, on 5 May 1061. Hildebrand was thus left almost alone
out of the old circle of Leo IX.
On 21 April 1073 Alexander died, worn out by his work and responsi-
bilities; even as Pope he had never ceased the care of his see of Lucca;
by frequent visits, repeated letters, and minute regulations he fulfilled his
duty as its bishop! It was so with him also as Pope. The mass of great
matters dealt with was equalled by that of smaller things. Even the
devolution of duties, notably to cardinals and especially to the archdeacon,
did not ease the Pope himself. He seems to us a man intent mainly upon
religious issues, always striving (as we should expect from a former leader
at Milan) for the ends of clerical reform, able now to work towards them
through the Papacy itself. Reform, directed from Rome and based upon
papal authority, was the note of his reign. A man of duty more than of)
disposition or temperament, he gained respect, if not the reverent love
which had gathered around Leo IX. His measure of greatness he reached
more because he was filled with the leading, probably the best, ideas of
his day than because of any individual greatness of conception or power.
But he had faced dark days and death itself with devotion and unswerving
hope. It was something to have passed from his earlier trials to his later
prosperity and firm position, and yet to have shewn himself the same man
1 The history of the Chancery under him is "peculiarly anomalous. " And this
was because he not only was, but acted as, Bishop of Lucca. See Poole, The Papal
Chancery, p. 69.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. I.
4
## p. 50 (#96) ##############################################
50
The new Papacy
throughout, with the same beliefs, the same aims, and the same care for
his task. If he left his successors many difficulties, and some things even
for Gregory VII to criticise, he also left them a working model of a con-
scientious, world-embracing Papacy, filled, as it seems to us, with the
spirit of the day rather than inspiring the day from above. The Papacy
had risen to a height and a power which would have seemed impossible
in the time of Benedict IX. But the power, strong in its theory and
conception, had a fragile foundation in the politics of the Empire, of Italy,
and of Rome itself.
## p. 51 (#97) ##############################################
51
CHAPTER II.
GREGORY VII AND THE FIRST CONTEST
BETWEEN EMPIRE AND PAPACY.
I.
On 21 April 1073 Pope Alexander II died. The strained relations
between the Papacy and the ruler of the Empire made the occasion more
than usually critical; moreover, the Election Decree of Nicholas II, for
which so narrow a victory had been won at the previous vacancy, was to be
put to a second test. Fortunately for the Papacy, there was no division of
opinion within the Curia; the outstanding personality of the Archdeacon
Hildebrand made it certain on whom the choice of the cardinals would
fall. But their deliberations were anticipated by the impatience of the
populace. While the body of Alexander was being laid to rest in the
church of St John Lateran on the day following his death, a violent
tumult arose. The crowd seized upon the person of Hildebrand, hurried
him to the church of St Peter ad Vincula, and enthusiastically acclaimed
him as Pope. The formalities of the Election Decree were hastily com-
plied with; the cardinals elected, the clergy and people gave their assent,
and Hildebrand was solemnly enthroned as Pope Gregory VII'. Popular
violence had compromised the election, and provided a handle for the
accusations of his enemies. But the main purpose of the Election Decree
had been fulfilled. The Pope was the nominee neither of the Emperor
nor of the Roman nobles; the choice of the cardinals had been anticipated
indeed, but not controlled, by the enthusiasm of the multitude. Hildebrand
only held deacon's orders; a month later he was ordained priest, and on
30 June” consecrated bishop. In the interval, he seems, in accordance
with the Election Decree, to have announced his election to the king and
to have obtained the royal assent.
We have little certain information of the origin and early life of this
great Pope. He is said to have been the son of one Bonizo and to have
been born at Sovana in Tuscany; the date of his birth is uncertain, but he
was probably about fifty years old at the time of his accession. The im-
portant fact, to which he himself bears emphatic testimony, is that his
early days were passed in Rome and that it was there that he received his
The choice of name is significant. It seems most probable that he took it in
memory of his predecessor and master, Gregory VI.
? Or 29 June. But as 30 June was a Sunday, the regular day for episcopal con-
secrations, it is the more likely date, although 29 June was a great festival.
3 But see R. L. Poole, Benedict IX and Gregory VI (from Proc. Brit. Acad. Vol. vııı).
CH. II.
4-2
## p. 52 (#98) ##############################################
52
Early life of Pope Gregory VII
education. So he saw the Papacy in its degradation and was to partici-
pate in every stage of its recovery. He received minor orders (reluctantly,
he tells us) and was attached in some capacity to the service of Gregory VI,
the Pope who bought the Papacy in order to reform it. With him he
went into exile in 1047, and spent two impressionable years in the Rhine
district, then the centre of the advanced reform movement of the day, and
probably it was at this time that he received the monastic habit? In
1049 Leo IX, nominated Pope by Henry III, was filling the chief places
in the Papal Curia with leading reformers especially from this district; on
his way to Rome he took with him the young Hildebrand, whose life was
for the future to be devoted entirely to Rome and the Papacy. With
every detail of papal activity he was associated, in every leading incident
he played his part; his share in the papal councils became increasingly
important, until at the last he was the outstanding figure whose qualifica-
tions for the papal throne none could contest.
By Leo IX he was made sub-deacon and entrusted with the task of
restoring both the buildings and the discipline of the monastery of St
Paul without the walls. Later he was sent to France to deal with heresy
in the person of Berengar of Tours, whose views he condemned but whose
person he protected. By Victor II he was given the important task of
enforcing the decrees against simony and clerical marriage in France,
where in company with Abbot Hugh of Cluny he held synods at Lyons
and elsewhere. With Bishop Anselm of Lucca he was sent by Pope
Stephen IX to Milan, where the alliance of Pope and Pataria was for the
first time cemented; and from Milan to Germany to obtain the royal
assent to Stephen's election. He had a share in vindicating the indepen-
dence of papal elections against the turbulence of the Roman nobles at
the election of Nicholas II, and again in the papal Election Decree which
was designed to establish this independence for the future. By Nicholas he
was employed in initiating the negotiations which led to the first alliance
of the Papacy with the Normans in South Italy. In the same year (1059)
his appointment as Archdeacon of the Roman Church gave him an
important administrative position; shortly afterwards occurred the death
of Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, and Hildebrand took his place as
the leading figure in the Papal Curia. To his energy and resolution was
due the victory of Alexander II over the rival imperial nominee, and he
held the first place in the Pope's councils during the twelve years
Alexander's papacy. The extent of his influence has been exaggerated by
the flattery of his admirers and by the abuse of his enemies. He was the
right-hand man, not the master, of the Pope; he influenced, but did not
of
1 His statement to Archbishop Anno of Cologne (Reg. 1, 79)—ob recordationem
disciplinae, qua tempore antecessoris vestri in ecclesia Coloniensi enutriti sumus-
seems to bear this interpretation, and can only be referred to this period. In view of
the testimony of friends and enemies alike, I find it impossible to accept the cou-
tention of Dr W. Martens that Hildebrand never became a monk.
## p. 53 (#99) ##############################################
His position under Alexander II
53
dominate Alexander. That other counsels often prevailed we know.
When he became Pope he revoked more than one privilege granted by his
predecessor, suggesting that Alexander was too prone to be led away by
evil counsellors. Even when, as in the case of the papal support given to
the Norman conquest of England, his policy prevailed, it is clear from his
own statement that he had to contend against considerable opposition
within the Curia. On all the major issues, however, Pope and archdeacon
must have been in complete agreement, especially with regard to Milan,
the greatest question of all. They had been associated together in the
embassy that inaugurated the new papal policy with regard to the
Pataria, and, as Bishop of Lucca, Alexander had been more than once
employed as papal legate to Milan. This was the critical issue that led to
the breach between Pope and king, and it was the extension of the same
policy to Germany that produced the ill-will of the German episcopate
which is so noticeable at the beginning of Gregory's papacy. That there
is a change of masters when Gregory VII becomes Pope is clear. The
policy is the same, but the method of its execution is quite different.
Hildebrand must have chafed at the slowness and caution of his prede-
cessor. When he becomes Pope, he is urgent to see the policy carried
into immediate effect. The hand on the reins is now a firm one, the con-
trolling mind is ardent and impatient. Soon the issue is joined, and rents
move rapidly to the catastrophe.
Superficially the new Pope was not attractive. He was small of
stature, his voice was weak, his appearance unprepossessing. In learning
he fell short of many of his contemporaries; the knowledge of which he
gives evidence is limited, though very practical for his purpose. Thus he
had a close acquaintance with the collections of Decretals current in his
time! Besides them he depended mainly on Gregory the Great, with
several of whose works he was obviously familiar. Otherwise there is
practically no indication of
no indication of any first-hand acquaintance with the works of
the Fathers or other Church writers. He adduces the authority of a few
passages from Ambrose and John Chrysostom in urging on Countess
Matilda of Tuscany the importance of frequent communion. Once only
does he quote from Augustine’, and then the reference is to the De
doctrina christiana; the Civitas Dei, quoted so frequently by his sup-
porters and opponents alike, is not mentioned by him at all.
The chief authority with him was naturally the Bible. The words of
Scripture, both Old and New Testament, were constantly on his lips.
1 That many of these Decretals were forged is well known, but of course to
Gregory, as to all his contemporaries, they were not known to be other than genuine.
? It has been shewn by Mirbt, Bernheim, and others that he follows closely the
views of Augustine, especially as expressed in the Civitas Dei; but when he quotes
his authority for these views it is the authority of Gregory the Great that he ad-
duces. It seems to me therefore that it is from Gregory that he absorbs Augustine,
not from a selection of Augustine as Mirbt thinks.
сн. п.
## p. 54 (#100) #############################################
54
His temperament and character
But, though quotations from the New Testament are the more numerous,
it is the spirit of the Old Testament that prevails. His doctrine is of
righteousness as shewn in duty and obedience, rather than as expressed in
the gospel of love. The language of the Old Testament came most
naturally to him; he was fond of military metaphors, and his language
is that of a general engaged in a constant campaign against a vigilant
enemy. A favourite quotation was from Jeremiah, “Cursed be the man
that keepeth back his sword from blood,” though he usually added with
Gregory the Great “that is to say, the word of preaching from the rebuk-
ing of carnal men. " He was, in fact, in temperament not unlike a prophet
of the Old Testament—fierce in denunciation of wrong, confident in
prophecy, vigorous in action, unshaken in adversity. It is not surprising
to find that contemporaries compared him with the prophet Elijah. His
enthusiasm and his ardent imagination drew men to him; that he attracted
men is well attested. One feature his contemporaries remarked—the
brightness and keenness of his glance. This was the outward sign of the
fiery spirit within that insignificant frame, which by the Hame of its
enthusiasm could provoke the unwilling to acquiescence and stimulate
even the fickle Roman population to devotion. It was kindled by his
conviction of the righteousness of his aims and his determination, in
which self-interest did not participate, to carry them into effect.
This had its weak side. He was always too ready to judge of men by
their outward acquiescence in his aims, without regarding their motives.
It is remarkable that with his experience he could have been deceived by
the professions of Cardinal Hugo Candidus, or have failed to realise the
insincerity of Henry IV's repentance in 1073. Here he was deceived to
his own prejudice. It is not easy, however, to condone his readiness in
1080 to accept the alliance of Robert Guiscard, who had been under ex-
communication until that date, or of the Saxons, whom he had spoken
of as rebels in 1075, and who were actuated by no worthier motives in
1076 and 1080. In the heat of action he grievously compromised his
ideal. Another and a more inevitable result of his temperament was the
frequent reaction into depression. Like Elijah, again, on Mount Carmel
we find him crying out that there is not a righteous man left. Probably
these moods were not infrequent, though they could only find expression
in his letters to intimate friends such as Countess Matilda of Tuscany and
Abbot Hugh of Cluny. And the gentler tone of these letters shews him
in a softer light-oppressed by his burden, dependent solely on the help-
ing hand of the “pauper Jesus. ” It was a genuine reluctance of which he
spoke when he emphasised his unwillingness at every stage of his life to
have fresh burdens, even of honour, imposed upon him. There is no
reason to doubt that he was unwilling to become Pope; the event itself
prostrated him, and his first letters, announcing his election and appeal-
ing for support, had to be dictated from his bed.
This was a temporary weakness, soon overcome. And it would be a
## p. 55 (#101) #############################################
The Petrine authority
55
mistake to regard him merely, or even mainly, as an enthusiast and a
visionary. He had a strong will and could curb his imagination with an
iron self-control. As a result he has been pictured most strangely as cold
and inflexible, untouched by human weakness, unmoved by human
sym-
pathies. It is not in that light that we should view him at the Lenten
Synod of 1076, where he alone remained calm and his will availed to
quell the uproar; it was self-control that checked his impatience in the
period following Canossa, and that was responsible for his firmness and
serenity amid defeat and disappointment, so that he remained unconquered
in spirit almost to the end. But there was another influence too, the
experience of the years that preceded his papacy. As cardinal-deacon for
over twenty years, and Archdeacon of the Roman Church for thirteen,
his work had lain particularly among the secular affairs of the Papacy;
from this he had acquired great practical knowledge and a keen sense of
the actual. It coloured his whole outlook, and produced the contrast
between the theories he expressed and the limitation of them that he was
willing to accept. He had a clear vision both of what was essential and
of what was possible; it was later clouded by the dust of conflict, after
he had joined issue with the Emperor.
His early life had been spent in the service of the Church and the
Papacy. This service remained his single aim, and he was actuated, as he
justly claimed, by no feeling of worldly pride or self-glorification. He
naturally had a full sense of the importance of his office, and realised
both its potentialities and its responsibilities. To St Peter, who had
watched over the training of his youth, he owed his earliest allegiance;
as Bishop of Rome he had become the successor and representative of
St Peter. It was not the least of his achievements that he realised the
logical inferences that could be drawn from the Petrine authority; he was
careful to sink his own individuality, and to picture himself as the channel
through which the will of the Apostle was expressed to mankind. Every
communication addressed to the Pope by letter or by word of mouth is
received by St Peter himself; and, while the Pope only reads the words
or listens to the message, St Peter can read the heart of the sender. Any
injury done, even in thought, to the Pope is thus an injury to the Prince
of the Apostles himself. He acts as the mouthpiece of St Peter, his sen-
tences are the sentences of St Peter, and from St Peter has descended to
him the supreme power of binding and of loosing in heaven and on earth.
So his power of excommunication is unlimited: he can excommunicate,
as in the case of six bishops with all their supporters at the Lenten
Synod of 1079, sine spe recuperationis. Similarly his power of absolution
is unlimited, whether it be absolution to the penitent, absolution from
all their sins to those who fight the battles of the Church against her
enemies, or absolution of the subjects of an excommunicated ruler from
the oath of allegiance they had taken to him. These are not the asser-
tions of a claim; they are the simple expression of his absolute belief.
CH. II.
## p. 56 (#102) #############################################
56
His use of this authority
How supreme was his confidence is shewn in his prophecies. The authority
descended from St Peter extends over material prosperity in this life; yes,
and over life itself. Glory and honour in this life, as well as in the life to
come, depend on obedience to him, he assured the magistrates of Sardinia
in 1073. In 1078 he proclaimed that all who hindered the holding of a
synod in Germany would suffer not only in soul but also in body and
property, would win no success in war and no triumph in their lifetime.
And at Easter 1080 he pronounced his famous prophecy that Henry, if he
did not repent, would be dead or deposed before August. This is the
confidence of complete conviction.
But it was a delegated authority that he was exercising, and therefore
it must not be exercised arbitrarily. The obedience to God which he en-
forced on all Christians must be rendered by himself first of all. Obedience
to God implies obedience to the Church and to the law of the Church, to
the decrees of the Fathers, the canonical tradition. He shews no dis-
position to over-ride this; in fact he is careful to explain that he is
subject to its authority. Frequently he protested that there was nothing
new in his decrees. His decree against lay investiture was not new, not
of his own invention; in promulgating it he had merely returned to the
teaching and decrees of the Early Fathers and followed the prime unique
rule of ecclesiastical discipline. He did not make new laws; he issued
edicts which interpreted the law or prohibited the illegal practices that
had grown up in course of time. The Holy Roman Church, he says, has
always had and will always have the right of issuing new decrees to deal
with particular abuses as they arise. Its custom has always been to be
merciful, to temper the rigour of the law with discretion, to tolerate some
things after careful consideration, but never to do anything which con-
flicts with the harmony of canonical tradition.
Now the prime importance of this consideration of Gregory VII's
views is in its bearing on his relations with the temporal authority. He
started with the orthodox Gelasian view of the two
powers
each
supreme
in its own department, and it is clear that at first he sees no conflict of
his ideas with this. In the ecclesiastical department of course he must be
absolute master. Archbishops, bishops, and abbots must acknowledge his
complete authority, obey his summons to Rome, submit to his over-riding
of their actions, and not interfere with direct appeals to Rome. The
legates he sends act in his name. Anywhere they can call synods, preside
over them, and issue decrees on his behalf. But, as his own office is
divinely ordained, so he recognises is the royal office. In 1073 he speaks
of the two powers and compares them with the two eyes of the human
body; as these give light to the body, so the sacerdotium and imperium
should illumine with spiritual light the body of the Church. They should
work together in the harmony of pure religion for the spiritual good of
Christianity; the spiritual end is the final object of both, in accordance
with the accepted medieval view. Obedience, therefore, is due to kings;
## p. 57 (#103) #############################################
Sacerdotium and imperium. Iustitia
57
he shews no indulgence with the Saxon revolt in 1073, and congratulates
Henry on his victory over the rebels in 1075. Over churches he continually
repeats that the lay power has a protective not a possessive function, but
he is anxious not to appear to be encroaching on imperial prerogative.
Though he is convinced that the practice of lay investiture is an abuse
that has arisen in the course of time, he recognises that it has come to
be regarded almost as a prescriptive right? ; he is careful not to pro-
mulgate his decree against it in 1075 until he has consulted the king,
upon whose rights, he declares, he is anxious not to encroach. The
language of these early days is markedly different from that of his later
years. The normal contrast between medieval theory and practice is notice-
able at the beginning, when he is content to subordinate his theory to
practical considerations; in later years he is striving to bring his practice
up to the level of his theory. The difference lies not so much in a change
in his point of view? , as in a recognition of its real implications and of its
actual incompatibility with the orthodox Gelasian theory. This recogni-
tion was forced upon him by the circumstances of the struggle with the
king, without which he might never have adopted the extreme attitude
of his later years. His methods help to mark the difference. At first he
attempts to promote his aims by mutual agreement and negotiation;
afterwards he acts by decree, issuing his orders and demanding implicit
obedience.
The key to his development is to be found in his insistence on right-
eousness: as the criterion by which he tests his own actions and those of
all with whom he has to deal. Righteousness, with him as with Augustine,
consists in obedience to the commandments of God. Truth, obedience,
humility, are the marks of the righteous man, the servant of God, as
falsehood, disobedience, pride, are the marks of the wicked man, whose
master is the devil. If this is merely medieval commonplace, it becomes
something more in its application. It is when he has to deal with an
unrighteous king that he discovers the logical results of his opinions.
The Pope, as St Peter's successor, has authority over the souls of men;
he has in consequence an awful responsibility as he will have to answer
for them before the tribunal of God. It is incumbent upon him to rebuke
those that err; it is he, in fact, that must be the judge of right and wrong,
and to this judgment all men, even kings, must be subject. Every act of
a king must have the test of right and wrong applied to it, for it is a
In a letter to Bishop Anselm of Lucca in 1073 he indirectly recognises the royal
right of investiture.
The recent work of Father Peitz and others has demonstrated that the Registrum
Gregorii VII is the actual Register of the Pope's letters kept by the papal Chancery
(which must have done its work rather casually). This establishes the authenticity
of the Dictatus Papae of 1075, with its extreme claims, as a genuine expression of
papal theory at that time.
3 I prefer to translate iustitia by “righteousness” rather than "justice,” as I
think it conveys a more accurate rendering of Gregory VII's meaning.
CA. 11.
## p. 58 (#104) #############################################
58
The supremacy of the spiritual power
king's duty to govern for the spiritual welfare of his subjects. Obedience
to God is the sign of the iustus homo, how much more of the iustus rex!
And so, if a king does not act as a iustus homo he at once becomes amen-
able to papal jurisdiction. The head of the spiritual department is
entitled accordingly to obedience from secular rulers. “As I have to
answer for you at the awful Judgment,” he writes to William I of Eng-
land', “in the interests of your own salvation, ought you, can you avoid
immediate obedience to me? " The implication is that the obedience which
is expected from all Christians is obedience to himself.
When the great question came as to the sentence of a king who was,
in his view, manifestly unrighteous, there could be no doubt with him as
to the authority he could exercise. The theory of passive obedience to a
wicked king could not influence him or his supporters for a moment; a
king who aimed at his own glory had ceased to be the servant of God
and become the servant of the devil; he was no longer a king but a tyrant.
With the Pope, the judge of right and wrong, lay the sentence. Saul,
ordained by God for his humility, was deposed by Samuel, the representa-
tive of God, for his pride and disobedience. The Pope is through St Peter
the representative of God; as he has power to bind and loose in spiritual
things, how much more in secular! Henry had not merely been disobe-
dient; his pride had led him to attempt the overthrow of the Pope, a
direct outrage on St Peter himself. St Peter, therefore, through the Pope's
mouth, pronounces sentence of excommunication and deposition. Gregory
has faced the logical outcome of his point of view. The two powers are
not equal and independent; the head of the ecclesiastical department is
dominant over the head of the temporal. And so, when the enemies of
Henry in Germany were contemplating the election of an anti-king to
succeed Rudolf, he sends them the wording of the oath that their new
choice must take to him—the oath of fealty of a vassal to his over-
lord.
Gregory found himself faced at his accession with a situation that
gave him every cause for anxiety, but much real ground for optimism.
In the twenty-four years following his recall to Rome by Pope Leo IX a
great advance had been made. The reformed Papacy had assumed its
natural position as leader and director of the reform movement. It had
vindicated the independence of its own elections against the usurpation
of the Roman nobles and the practice of imperial nomination, it was
asserting its absolute authority in ecclesiastical matters over all archbishops
and bishops, and it was beginning to recover its temporal power in Italy.
But its progress was hampered by difficulties and opposition from every
1 Reg. vii, 25. This is the letter in which he expresses the relations between
the two powers by the simile of the sun and moon. As in 1073 they both give light,
but no longer equal light.
## p. 59 (#105) #############################################
The situation in 1073
59
quarter. Papal decrees had been promulgated against simony and clerical
marriage, but there was more opposition to these decrees than obedience.
The absolute authority of the Pope over all metropolitans was not denied
in theory, but it had not been maintained in practice, and much resent-
ment was aroused by its exercise. The temporal possessions of the Pope
were continually exposed to the encroachments of the Normans, who would
acknowledge themselves vassals of the Papacy but paid no heed to its
instructions. And all these difficulties were complicated and controlled
by the relations of the Pope with the King of Germany, and by the clash of
their conflicting interests. The situation would have been easier had
Henry III been on the throne. He at any rate was an earnest promoter
of ecclesiastical reform. Henry IV was not even in sympathy with the
reform movement, and simony in episcopal elections had become frequent
once more; while he was as firmly resolved as his father that royal control
over all his subjects, lay and ecclesiastical, should be maintained, and this
implied royal control of nominations to bishoprics and abbeys both in
Germany and North Italy. Hence the crisis that had arisen with regard
to Milan just before Alexander II's death. In the establishment of his
authority in the ecclesiastical department, Gregory was thus faced by the
opposition of the higher clergy (except in Saxony where the bishops as
a whole allied themselves with the local opposition to Henry), supported
by the king, and also of the lower ranks of the secular clergy, who con-
sidered that clerical celibacy was an ideal of perfection to which they
ought not to be expected to aspire. He was supported on the whole by
the regulars and often by the mass of the common people, who were
readily aroused to action, as at Milan, against the laxity of the secular
clergy.
It was evident to the Pope that his best chance of success lay in
obtaining the king's support. Without it he could not coerce the higher
clergy; with it the decrees for Church reform could be made efficacious.
He regarded the royal power as the natural supporter of the Papacy, and
the protector of its temporal authority in South Italy against Norman
aggression. His imagination led him to visualise the magnificent concep-
tion of a united Empire and Papacy working together in harmony for the
same spiritual objects, and he was sanguine enough to believe that Henry
could be induced to take the same view. And so the first task he under-
took was to bring about a reconciliation with the king. To effect this
he sought assistance from every quarter—the Empress-mother Agnes,
Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany, Dukes Rudolf of Swabia and Godfrey
of Lower Lorraine, Bishop Rainald of Como—from anyone in short who
might exercise influence over the king, and who might be expected to
influence him in the right direction. Henry yielded, but he yielded to
necessity, not to persuasion. In August he had with difficulty evaded the
Saxons by flight and had made his way south, where he was remaining
isolated and almost without support. The situation was in many respects
CH. II.
## p. 60 (#106) #############################################
60
Reconciliation with Henry IV
similar to that at Canossa, and the king's policy was the same on both
occasions—as his enemies in Germany had the upper hand, he must
propitiate the anger of the Pope, and this could only be done by a com-
plete outward submission. The letter Gregory VII received from the king
in September 1073 was as abject as the humiliation of 1077, without the
personal degradation of Canossa. The king confesses that he is guilty of
all the charges brought against him and asks for papal absolution; he
promises obedience to Gregory's bidding in the matter of reform, especially
in regard to Milan, and expresses his keen desire for the harmonious co-
operation of the spiritual and temporal powers. The delight of Gregory
was unbounded when he received this letter, so full, he says, of sweetness
and obedience, such as no Pope had ever received from Emperor before.
He failed to realise, though he saw it clearly enough later, that the Saxon
situation was entirely responsible, and that Henry's humility depended
on his position in Germany; he even did his best to bring Henry and the
Saxons to terms. To Henry's appeal for absolution he responded with
enthusiasm, and early in the following year it was effected by an embassy
headed by two cardinal-bishops and accompanied by Henry's mother
Agnes.
Assured of royal support, or at any rate relieved from the embarrass-
ment of royal opposition, he now took in hand the important questions
of Church reform and the assertion of his ecclesiastical authority. He
knew the hostility he had to face. In North Italy, Archbishop Guibert
of Ravenna had submitted himself to Alexander II and promised obedience,
but little reliance could be placed on his promises; in general, the morals
of the clergy were lax, the episcopate was mutinous. In Germany, there
was an atmosphere of sullen resentment against the measures already taken
by Alexander, and of ill-will towards his successor. It was not until 1074
that the two leading metropolitans—Siegfried of Mayence, the German
Arch-Chancellor, and Anno of Cologne (ex-regent of Germany, now living
in rement and devoted to good works)-wrote to congratulate Gregory
on his election; and there is no evidence to shew that any of the others
were more forward in this respect. Siegfried took the opportunity of
expressing his pleasure and congratulations in a letter which he wrote on
the subject of the dispute between the Bishops of Prague and Olmütz,
Bohemian sees within his province. In this letter he complained of the
intervention of the late Pope in a matter which came within his own
jurisdiction; particularly that Alexander had allowed the Bishop of
Olmütz to appeal direct to Rome, and had sent legates to Bohemia who
without reference to Siegfried had suspended the Bishop of Prague from
his office. This was a test case, and Gregory replied with great vigour.
He rebutted the arguments from Canon Law which Siegfried had urged,
and accused him of neglect of his office and of arrogance towards the
Apostolic See. Siegfried's timid attempt to assert himself was overwhelmed
by the Pope's vehemence, and he made no further effort to interfere with
## p. 61 (#107) #############################################
Contest with the German episcopate
61
the papal settlement of the question. The Bishop of Prague obeyed the
Pope's summons to Rome, and Gregory, by his lenient treatment of him,
gave the episcopate a lesson in the value of ready obedience.
This was a signal victory. He passed on to deal with the questions
of simony and clerical marriage. In the first synod he held in Rome, in
Lent 1074, he repeated the decrees of his predecessors against these abuses,
and proceeded to take measures for their enforcement in Germany. The
two cardinal-bishops, who had given absolution to the king and to his
excommunicated councillors at Easter 1074, had the further task imposed
upon them of summoning a synod of German clergy, promulgating the
decrees at this synod, and enforcing acquiescence in their execution. This
was a difficult task, rendered impossible by the overbearing manner of the
papal legates. They addressed themselves first to two of the leading arch-
bishops, Siegfried of Mayence and Liemar of Bremen, with a haughty
injunction to them to hold a synod. They met their match in Liemar.
A supporter of the reform movement, the methods of the Pope and his
legates roused his pride and independence. He refused to do anything
without previous consultation with the episcopate as a whole, and sneered
at the impracticable suggestion that he should hold a synod to which his
suffragans far distant in North Germany or in Denmark would not be
able to come! Siegfried deprecated the whole business, but from timidity
rather than pride. He temporised for six months and at last called a
synod at Erfurt in October. As he expected, he was faced by a violent
outburst from the secular clergy, who fortified themselves against the
decree enforcing celibacy by the words of St Paul, and the synod broke up
in confusion. Another incident that happened at the same time well
illustrates the temper of the episcopate. Archbishop Udo of Trèves was
ordered by the Pope to investigate the charges brought against the Bishop
of Toul by one of his clergy. He held a synod at which more than twenty
bishops were present. They commenced by a unanimous protest against
the Pope's action in submitting a bishop to the indignity of having to
answer before a synod to charges that any of his clergy might please to
bring against him. Needless to say, the bishop was unanimously acquitted.
In only one quarter, in fact, could the Pope find support—in Saxony.
Here the episcopate was allied with the lay nobility in opposition to
Henry, and it was part of its policy to keep on good terms with the Pope.
It is not surprising, then, to learn that Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt,
one of the chief leaders of the Saxons, wrote to Gregory to deplore the
unworthy treatment of the papal legates in Germany, and received his
reward in a warm letter of commendation from the Pope.
Gregory now began to take vigorous action to enforce his will. Arch-
bishop Liemar, defiant to the legates who had summoned him to appear
in Rome in November, was ordered by the Pope himself to come to the
Liemar gives a lively account of his altercation with the legates in a letter to the
Bishop of Hildesheim (Sudendorf, Reg. 1, 5).
CH. 11,
## p. 62 (#108) #############################################
62
The Pope's efforts to enforce obedience in Germany
Lenten Synod of 1075. The same summons was sent to Archbishop
Siegfried, and to six of his suffragan bishops as well. The Pope further
issued circulars appealing especially to prominent laymen to assist him in
executing his decrees. Siegfried's answer to Gregory's summons was typical
of the timid man striving to extricate himself from the contest between
two violently hostile parties. Afraid to oppose the Pope's will, and equally
afraid to enforce it, he excused himself from coming to Rome on the
ground of ill-health, pleaded lack of time for his inability to examine the
conduct of the six suffragans mentioned in Gregory's letter, but declared
that he had sent on the Pope's order with instructions to them to obey
it. He expressed his compliance with the decrees against simony and
clerical marriage, but urged moderation and discretion in their execution.
The synod sat at Rome from 24 to 28 February 1075. At this synod
the Pope suspended the absent and disobedient Liemar, and passed the
same sentence on the Bishops of Bamberg, Strasbourg, and Spires, three
of the six suffragans of Mayence whose attendance he had ordered; the
other three seem to have satisfied him, temporarily at any rate, by their
appearance or through representatives. Decrees were also passed against
simony and clerical marriage, with the special addition, in conformity with
Gregory's policy, of a clause calling on the laity to assist by refraining
from attending the mass celebrated by an offending priest. In sending
the text of these decrees to Archbishop Siegfried', he shewed that the
moderation urged by Siegfried was not in his mind at all. The decrees
are to be issued and enforced in their full rigour. Instructions to the same
effect were sent to other metropolitans and bishops, for instance to the
Archbishops of Cologne and Magdeburg, with injunctions to hold synods
to enforce the decrees. This was again pressed on Siegfried and distressed
him still further. He eventually replied to the Pope in July or August,
in a letter intended to be tactful and to shift responsibility from his
own shoulders. It was no use; Gregory was quite firm. He replied on
3 September, acknowledging the weight of Siegfried's arguments but
declaring them of no effect when set in the balance against his pastoral
duty. Siegfried was forced to comply, especially as the submission of
the Saxons took away from him his chief excuse for delay. He held a
synod at Mayence in October, and, as before, it was broken up by the
turbulence of the secular clergy. But the whole question was now to be
transferred to a larger stage, and the next act in the drama is the
Council of Worms.
In this struggle with the German episcopate, in which matters were
rapidly coming to a crisis, Gregory had been able to act unhampered by
royal interference, and so far his policy of effecting a reconciliation with
1 Jaffé, Mon. Greg. ep. coll. 3. The same letter was sent as well to Archbishop
Werner of Magdeburg (ep. coll. 4) and to Bishop Otto of Constance (ep. coll. 5). There
seems little doubt that these letters should be dated February 1075 and not, as by Jaffé,
March 1074.
## p. 63 (#109) #############################################
and in North Italy
63
Henry had justified itself. But in North Italy, where he required the
active co-operation rather than the non-interference of the king, the
policy had not been so successful. Little, however, could be expected
from Henry when his position in Germany itself was so difficult, and for
two years Gregory seems to have persisted in his confidence in the king's
sincerity. He did complain, indeed, in December 1074 that Henry had
not yet taken any action with regard to Milan, and he administered a
gentle warning as to the councillors he had around him. But the more
personal letter he wrote at the same time gives expression to his confi-
dence in the king. In this letter he detailed his plan of leading a vast
expedition to the East both to protect the Eastern Christians and to
bring them back to the orthodox faith; he is careful to seek Henry's
advice and assistance in this, because in the event of his going he intends
to leave the Roman Church under Henry's care and protection. If he
could trust the king to this extent, he was profoundly suspicious of his
councillors and of their confederates the Lombard bishops. At the Lenten
Synod of 1075, three Italian bishops were suspended for disobedience to
his summons, and five of Henry's councillors, promoters of simony, are to
be excommunicated if they have not appeared in Rome and given satis-
faction by 1 June. At the same synod was passed the first decree against
lay investiture.
Against the practice of lay ownership of churches, great and small,
the reformed Papacy had already raised its protest, and the necessity of
obtaining suitable agents for the work of reform had turned its attention
to the method of appointment. While denying the right of the king to
control appointments, the Popes allowed him a considerable though un-
defined rôle, both as head of the laity and as the natural protector of
the Church. In this Gregory VII acquiesced, and where the appointments
were good from the spiritual point of view, as was the case in England
under William I, he was little disposed to question the method. It was
the insubordination of the episcopate in Germany and North Italy, and
especially the clash of papal and imperial claims at Milan, that led him
to take definite action against a royal control that led to bad appoint-
ments. The king, for his part, regarded bishoprics as being in his gift, į
and allowed no bishop to exercise his functions until he had invested him
with ring and staff. To the Church party the use of these symbols be-
tokened the conferring by the king of spiritual functions; this was an
abuse the removal of which might lead to the restoration of true canonical
election. In Gregory VII's eyes it was clearly not an end in itself, but
only a step towards the end, which was through free election by clergy
and people to obtain a personnel adequate for its spiritual functions and
amenable to papal authority.
The importance of lay investiture had been early recognised by
Cardinal Humbert in his Liber adversus Symoniacos, but Gregory VII was
the first Pope to legislate directly on the subject. The first decree
CH. II.
## p. 64 (#110) #############################################
64
The first decree against lay investiture
prohibiting lay investiture (though not imposing any penalty on laymen
who invested) was passed at this synod in 1075. But it was never properly
published. Bishops elected and invested in 1075 and 1076 could plead
ignorance of its existence and the Pope accepted their plea. No German
writer seems to know of it, and we are indebted for its wording solely
to a Milanese writer, Arnulf, which gives weight to the suggestion that
the Milanese situation was principally responsible for the framing of the
decree. The fact was that Gregory knew that he was dealing with a long-
established custom, regarded by the king as a prescriptive right, and he
knew that he must walk warily. He first of all sent the text of the decree
to the king accompanied by a message to explain that it was no new step
that he was taking but a restoration of canonical practice, and urging
the king, if he felt his rights to be in any way infringed, to communicate
with him, so that the matter could be arranged on a just and amicable
footing. Gregory attempted to establish his point by negotiation, and
he seems to have imagined that the king would recognise the fairness of
his claim. Henry made no reply to these overtures, and the Pope does
not seem to have been immediately perturbed by this ominous silence. In
July he warmly praised the king for his zeal in resisting simony and
clerical marriage, which gives him reason, he says, to hope for still higher
and better things—acquiescence, doubtless, in the new decree. Just after
this, two ambassadors from Henry arrived in Rome with a strictly con-
fidential message to the Pope to be communicated to no one except the
king's mother Agnes, or Beatrice and Matilda of Tuscany. This has been
conjectured, with great probability, to have had reference to the king's
desire to be crowned Emperor by the Pope; if this be so we have a ready
explanation of his willingness to keep on good terms with the Pope, even
after his great victory over the Saxons in June. Gregory took some time
to reply, owing to illness; but, when he did, he warmly congratulated
the king on his victory over the rebels, and wrote in a tone of confidence
that they were going to work together in harmony.
This was the last time that he expressed any such confidence, and in
the meantime the situation in Italy, especially at Milan, had been getting
steadily worse.
