Siegfried
was forced to comply, especially as the submission of
the Saxons took away from him his chief excuse for delay.
the Saxons took away from him his chief excuse for delay.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
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. Revolt against the Pope was spreading in North Italy,
and Archbishop Guibert of Ravenna once more took the opportunity of
proclaiming the independence of his see. In Milan, Erlembald, the leader
of the Pataria and practical ruler of the city, had, in accordance with the
Pope's appeal to the laity, forbidden the offending clergy to exercise their
functions, which were usurped by a priest of his own party, Liutprand.
A riot ensued in which Erlembald was killed and Liutprand mutilated.
Their enemies in triumph reported the facts to Henry, and asked him to
appoint a new archbishop in place of his previous nominee Godfrey, from
whom he had practically withdrawn support. That Henry for some time
ignored this request may have encouraged the Pope in the confidence
that he expressed in August. But, with the situation in Germany be-
## p. 65 (#111) #############################################
The events of the autumn of 1075
65
coming increasingly favourable, Henry seems to have felt himself strong
enough to follow his own inclinations, and to listen again to those coun-
cillors from whom Gregory had been most anxious to separate him. His
two ambassadors, who were still waiting instructions from him in Rome,
suddenly received a message at the beginning of September to make public
what he had previously wished to be a close secret, a discourtesy to the
Pope which the latter rightly felt to be ominous. And at the same time
he sent an embassy into Italy which revealed a complete change in his
policy. It was headed by Count Eberhard of Nellenburg, who was almost
certainly one of the councillors placed under a ban by the Pope. Its first
object was to make an alliance with the Lombard bishops and to attempt
to ally the king with the excommunicated Norman duke, Robert Guiscard.
Further, by royal authority, bishops were appointed to the vacant sees of
Fermo and Spoleto, sees which lay within the provincia Romana'. But
the main purpose of the embassy was to make a settlement of affairs at
Milan, so as completely to re-establish the old imperial authority.
Acceding to the request of the anti-Patarian party, Henry ignored both
his own nominee Godfrey and also Atto, whom the Pope recognised as
archbishop, and proceeded to invest one Tedald, who was consecrated
archbishop by the suffragans of Milan. As in 1072, Henry so long
compliant deliberately provoked a rupture on the question of Milan. It
was an issue in which imperial and papal interests vitally conflicted, and
now that he was master once more in Germany it was an issue that he
felt himself strong enough to raise. Henry had revealed himself in his
true colours. The Pope's eyes were opened. He realised at last the meaning
of Henry's submission in 1073, and that it was due not to sincerity but
to defeat. It was clear that compliance could be expected from Henry
only when his fortunes were at a low ebb, and that at such times no re-
liance could be placed on his promises. The Pope's dream is at an end;
he is now awake to the realities of the situation, the bitter frustration of
all his hopes.
His tone to the usurper Tedald and his orders to the suffragan bishops
of Milan were sharp and uncompromising. With the king he tried the
effect of threats to see if they would succeed where persuasion had failed.
By the king's own ambassadors he sent him a letter in which he summed
up the leading offences of Henry-he is reported to be associating with
his excommunicated councillors, and if this be true must do penance and
seek absolution; he is certainly guilty with regard to Fermo and Spoleto
and most culpable of all in his action at Milan, which was a direct breach
of all his promises and a proof of the falseness of his pretended humility
and obedience to Rome. A more mild rebuke follows for Henry's silence
to his overtures regarding the investiture decree; if the king felt himself
aggrieved he ought to have stated his grievances. Until he has given satis-
faction on all these points, the king must expect no answer to his previous
1 Hence Gregory's complaint that they were men unknown to him.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. II.
5
## p. 66 (#112) #############################################
66
The Council of Worms, 24 January 1076
enquiry (again, doubtless, on the question of his coronation at Rome).
He concludes with a warning to the king to remember the fate of Saul,
who, like Henry, had displayed pride and disobedience after his victory;
it is the humility of David that a righteous king must imitate. The letter
was stern, but not uncompromising; the message given to the ambassadors
to deliver by word of mouth was more direct. It amounted to a distinct
threat that, failing compliance, Henry must expect the sentence of
excommunication, and possibly of deposition also, to be pronounced
against him from the papal chair. This verbal message was in effect an
ultimatum.
The embassy reached Henry early in January 1076. He could not
brook threats of this nature when policy no longer required him to yield
to them. He had been humble to the Pope only until he had defeated
his other foe; now that he was victorious, the need for humility was past,
and he could deal directly with the other enemy that was menacing the
imperial rights. His previous humiliation only made his desire for revenge
more keen, and his indignation demanded a speedy revenge. The bishops
he knew to be as bitter against the Pope as himself; and he summoned
them to a Council at Worms on 24 January. The short notice given in
the summons must have prevented the attendance of several, such as
Archbishop Liemar, who would gladly have been present; even so, two
archbishops, Siegfried of Mayence and Udo of Trèves, and twenty-four
bishops, subscribed their names to the proceedings. There was no need
for persuasion or deliberation. They readilyrenounced allegiance to the
Pope, and concocted a letter addressed to him in which they brought
forward various charges (of adultery, perjury, and the like) to blacken his
character, but laid their principal stress on the only serious charge they
could bring—his treatment of the episcopate. The king composed a letter
on his own account, making the bishops' cause his own, and indignantly
repudiating Gregory's claim to exercise authority over himself, who as
the Lord's anointed was above all earthly judgment, ordered him to de-
scend from the papal throne and yield it to a more worthy occupant. The
next step was to obtain the adhesion of the North Italian bishops,
which was very readily given at a council at Piacenza, and to Roland
of Parma was entrusted the mission of delivering to the Pope the
sentence of deposition pronounced by the king and the bishops of the
Empire.
At Christmas 1075 had occurred the outrage of Cencius, who laid
violent hands on the Pope and hurried him, a prisoner, into a fortress of
his own. Gregory was rescued by the Roman populace, and had to inter-
vene to prevent them from tearing his captor in pieces. The horror
aroused at this incident gave an added reverence to the person of the Pope,
and it was in these circumstances, and while the Lenten Synod was about
to commence its deliberations, that Roland of Parma arrived. The message
1 Except Bishop Herman of Metz, who was doubtless coerced into siguing.
## p. 67 (#113) #############################################
Lenten Synod at Rome. Excommunication of Henry IV 67
which he delivered to the assembled synod was an outrage beside which
that of Cencius paled into insignificance. It shocked the general feeling
of the day, which was accordingly prejudiced on the Pope's side at the
commencement of the struggle. At the synod itself there was a scene of
wild disorder and uproar. The Pope, depressed at the final ruin of his
hopes and at the prospect of the struggle before him, alone remained calm;
he intervened to protect Roland from their fury, and succeeded at last in
quieting the assembly and recalling it to its deliberations. The verdict
was assured and he proceeded to pass sentence on his aggressors. Arch-
bishop Siegfried and the other German bishops that subscribed are
sentenced to deposition and separated from communion with the Church;
a proviso is added giving the opportunity to those who had been coerced
into signing to make their peace before 1 August. The same sentence is
passed on the Lombard bishops. Finally he deals with the king in an
impressive utterance addressed to St Peter, in whose name he declares
him deposed and absolves his subjects from their oath of allegiance; and
then he bans him from the communion of the Church, recounting his
various offences-communicating with the excommunicated councillors;
his many iniquities; his contempt of papal warnings; his breach of the
unity of the Church by his attack on the Pope.
The hasty violence and the fantastic charges of the king and the bishops
contrasted very strikingly with the solemn and deliberate sentence of the
Pope. Confident himself in the justice of his action, there were some who
doubted, and for these he wrote a circular letter detailing the events that
led to Henry's excommunication. The facts spoke for themselves, but
there were still some who continued to doubt whether in any circum-
stances the Pope had the right to excommunicate the king; to convince
these he wrote a letter to Bishop Herman of Metz (who had hastened to
make his peace with the Pope for his enforced signature at Worms), in
which he justifies himself by precedents, by the power given to St Peter,
and by the authority of Scripture and the Fathers. It is rather a hurried
letter, in which he answers briefly and somewhat impatiently several
questions put to him by Herman. He makes it quite clear, however,
that he regards the spiritual power as superior to the temporal, and that
his authority extends over all temporal rulers. Henceforward there is no
sign of his earlier attitude which seemed to imply adherence to the
Gelasian standpoint; he is now the judge who decides whether the king
is doing that which is right (i. e. is worthy to be king), and the test of
right-doing is obedience to the papal commands. One point calls for re-
mark. It is only the excommunication that he justifies. The sentence of
deposition plays little part in 1076; it is not a final sentence as in 1080,
and even by Henry's enemies in Germany, who considered this to be a
question rather for them to decide, little attention is paid to this part of
the sentence. Probably in the Pope's eyes it was subsidiary; deposition
and the absolving of the king's subjects from their oath of allegiance was
CH. II.
5-2
## p. 68 (#114) #############################################
68
Results of the excommunication
a necessary consequence of excommunication in order to save from the
same penalty the subjects of the excommunicated king. As is clear from
his letter to Bishop Herman, he contemplated the absolution of the
king as a possibility in the near future, and he did not at present
contemplate the appointment of a successor to Henry.
The king received intelligence of the papal sentence at Easter, and im-
mediately summoned a council to meet at Worms on Whitsunday. The
crisis had been reached. The king had ordered the Pope to descend from
St Peter's chair; the Pope treated the king as contumacious, excommuni-
cated him, and declared him to be no longer king. Which was to prevail?
The answer to this was quickly given. The papal ban was seen to be
speedily efficacious. It frightened the more timid of Henry's adherents,
it impressed moderate men who had been horrified by the king's attack on
the Pope. Moreover it gave the excuse for revolt to raise its head in
Saxony once more, and to win adherents from among the higher nobility
in the rest of Germany, alienated by the high-handed measures of the
king in his moment of triumph and resenting their own lack of influence
in the affairs of the kingdom. The situation in Germany is dealt with in
another chapter. Here it is enough to say that Henry found himself iso-
lated, and faced by a coalition far more dangerous to his power than the
revolt of 1073. His summons to councils at Worms and Mayence were
ignored, and the bishops of Germany were hastening to make their peace
with the Pope, either directly or indirectly through the papal legate,
Bishop Altmann of Passau. Only in North Italy were his adherents still
faithful, and with them it was not possible for him to join forces. The
imperial authority was humiliated between the encroachments of the
spiritual power on the one hand, and the decentralising policy of the
leading nobles on the other. At the Diet of princes held at Tribur in
October these two powers came to terms for mutual action.
Two papal
legates were present, and the Pope's letter of the previous month, in
which for the first time he contemplates the possibility of a successor to
Henry, was probably before the diet. He insists in that event on being
consulted as to their choice, requiring careful information as to per-
sonal character; he claims that the Apostolic See has the right of confirm-
ing the election made by the nobles. Such a right was not likely to be
conceded by them, but to obtain papal support they were willing to
satisfy him essentially. Henry was forced to send a solemn promise of
obedience to the Pope and of satisfaction for his offences, and to pro-
mulgate his change of mind to all the nobles, lay and ecclesiastical, of the
kingdom. The diet then arrived at two important decisions. Accepting
the justice of Henry's excommunication, they agreed that if he had not
obtained absolution by 22 February they would no longer recognise him
as king. Secondly, they summoned a council to be held at Augsburg on
2 February, at which they invited the Pope to be present and to preside;
at this council the question of Henry's worthiness to reign was to be
## p. 69 (#115) #############################################
Henry's journey to Canossa
69
decided and, if necessary, the choice of a successor was to be made. These
decisions were communicated to the Pope, and also to Henry, who was
remaining on the other side of the river at Oppenheim, carefully watched,
with only a few attendants, almost a prisoner.
The Pope received the news with delight and accepted the invitation
with alacrity. It meant for him the realisation of his aims and the
exhibition to the world of the relative importance of the spiritual and
temporal powers; Pope Gregory VII sitting in judgment on King
Henry IV would efface the unhappy memory of King Henry III sitting
in judgment on Pope Gregory VI thirty years before. He left Rome in
December and travelled north into Lombardy. But the escort promised
him from Germany did not arrive, and the news reached him that Henry
had crossed the Alps and was in Italy. Uncertain as to the king's inten-
tions and fully aware of the hostility of the Lombards, he took refuge
in Countess Matilda's castle of Canossa.
The king was in a desperate position. He could expect little mercy
from the council of his enemies at Augsburg in February. The conjunc-
tion of the Pope and the German nobles was above all things to be
avoided. The only resource left to him was to obtain absolution, and to
obtain it from the Pope in Italy, before he arrived in Germany. To effect
this a humiliation even more abject than that of 1073 was necessary: he
must appear in person before the Pope not as a king but as a penitent
sinner; it would be hard for the Pope to refuse absolution to a humble
penitent. His decision arrived at, he acted with singular courage and
resolution. He had to elude the close vigilance of the nobles and escape
from his present confinement; as they were guarding the other passes into
Italy, only the Mont Cenis pass was left to him, which was in the control
of his wife's family, the counts of Savoy; but the winter was one of the
most severe on record, and the passage of the Mont Cenis pass was an
undertaking that might have daunted the hardiest mountaineer. All
these difficulties Henry overcame, and with his wife, his infant son, and
a few personal attendants he reached the plains of Lombardy. Here he
found numerous supporters, militant anti-Papalists, eager to flock to his
banner. It was a serious temptation, but his good sense shewed him that
it would ultimately have been fatal, and he resisted it. With his meagre
retinue he continued his journey until he arrived at the gates of Canossa,
where the final difficulty was to be overcome, the obtaining of the papal
absolution. To this end he strove to obtain the intercession of his god-
father Abbot Hugh of Cluny, of the Countess Matilda, of any of those
present whose influence might prevail with the Pope. And he carried
out to the full his design of throwing off the king and appearing as
the sinner seeking absolution; bare-footed, in the woollen garb of the
penitent, for three days he stood humbly in the outer courtyard of
Canossa.
There are few moments in history that have impressed later genera-
CH. II.
## p. 70 (#116) #############################################
70
Canossa
tions so much as this spectacle of the heir to the Empire standing in the
courtyard of Canossa, a humble suppliant for papal absolution. But it
is within the castle that we must look for the real drama of Canossa.
Paradoxical as it sounds, it was the king who had planned and achieved
this situation; the plans of the Pope were upset by this sudden appear-
ance, his mind was unprepared for the emergency. The three days of
waiting are not so much the measure of Henry's humiliation as of
Gregory's irresolution. Could he refuse absolution to one so humble and
apparently so penitent? The influence of those on whom he was wont to
lean for spiritual help, especially the Abbot of Cluny, urged him to
mercy; the appeal of the beloved Countess Matilda moved him in the
same direction. But they only saw a king in penitential garb; he had
the bitter experience of the last two years to guide him, and what confi-
dence could he feel that the penitence of Henry was more sincere now,
when his need was greater, than it had been in 1073? He saw before him
too the prospect of the wrecking of all his hopes, the breach of his
engagement with the German nobles, which would probably result
from an absolution given in circumstances that neither he nor they had
contemplated. His long hesitation was due, then, to the conflict in his
mind; it was not a deliberate delay designed to increase to the utmost the
degradation of the king.
But at last the appeal to the divine mercy prevailed over all other
considerations. The doors were opened and Henry admitted to the Pope's
presence; the ban was removed, and the king was received once more
into communion with the Church. From him the Pope extracted such
assurances of his penitence and guarantees for his future conduct as would
justify the absolution and at the same time leave the situation as far as
possible unaltered from the papal point of view. With his hand on the
Gospels the king took an oath to follow the Pope's directions with regard
to the charges of the German nobles against him, whichever way they
might tend, and further by no act or instigation of his to impede
Gregory from coming into Germany or to interfere with his safe-conduct
while there. The Pope sent a copy of this oath to the German nobles
with a letter describing the events at Canossa. He realised that the
absolution of Henry in Italy would appear to them in the light of a be-
trayal of the compact he had entered into with them. His letter is an
explanation, almost an apology of his action; while he points out that
1 Or contemporary opinion so little. Bismarck's famous words “zu Canossa gehen
wir nicht" indicate the aspect of Canossa that impresses the modern mind. But the
brief allusions to Canossa in contemporary writers only refer to the king's absolution
and its political results; it did not occur to them that the monarchy had been
degraded by Henry's action. His seat on the throne had been shaken by the ex-
communication; he righted himself by his penance at Canossa.
2 This letter ! ( Reg. iv, 12) is our only real authority for the details of Canossa.
Lampert of Hersfeld's account is clearly based on the Pope's letter, with characteristic
embellishments of his own invention.
## p. 71 (#117) #############################################
The election of Rudolf as anti-king
71
the non-appearance of the promised escort had prevented him from
reaching Germany, he is careful to insist firstly that it was impossible for
him to refuse absolution, secondly that he has entered into no engagement
with the king and that his purpose is as before to be present at a council
in Germany. He lingered, in fact, for some months in North Italy,
waiting for the escort that never came; at last he resigned himself to the
inevitable and slowly retraced his steps to Rome, which he reached at the
beginning of September.
Henry's plan had been precisely fulfilled. He had counted the cost-
a public humiliation—and was prepared to pay the additional price in the
form of promises; he had obtained his end-absolution-and the results
he had anticipated from this were to prove the success of his policy? . In
Lombardy he resumed his royal rights, but resisted the clamour of his
Italian adherents, whose ardour he most thoroughly disappointed; he
must still walk with great discretion, and Germany, not Italy, was his
immediate objective.
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. Revolt against the Pope was spreading in North Italy,
and Archbishop Guibert of Ravenna once more took the opportunity of
proclaiming the independence of his see. In Milan, Erlembald, the leader
of the Pataria and practical ruler of the city, had, in accordance with the
Pope's appeal to the laity, forbidden the offending clergy to exercise their
functions, which were usurped by a priest of his own party, Liutprand.
A riot ensued in which Erlembald was killed and Liutprand mutilated.
Their enemies in triumph reported the facts to Henry, and asked him to
appoint a new archbishop in place of his previous nominee Godfrey, from
whom he had practically withdrawn support. That Henry for some time
ignored this request may have encouraged the Pope in the confidence
that he expressed in August. But, with the situation in Germany be-
## p. 65 (#111) #############################################
The events of the autumn of 1075
65
coming increasingly favourable, Henry seems to have felt himself strong
enough to follow his own inclinations, and to listen again to those coun-
cillors from whom Gregory had been most anxious to separate him. His
two ambassadors, who were still waiting instructions from him in Rome,
suddenly received a message at the beginning of September to make public
what he had previously wished to be a close secret, a discourtesy to the
Pope which the latter rightly felt to be ominous. And at the same time
he sent an embassy into Italy which revealed a complete change in his
policy. It was headed by Count Eberhard of Nellenburg, who was almost
certainly one of the councillors placed under a ban by the Pope. Its first
object was to make an alliance with the Lombard bishops and to attempt
to ally the king with the excommunicated Norman duke, Robert Guiscard.
Further, by royal authority, bishops were appointed to the vacant sees of
Fermo and Spoleto, sees which lay within the provincia Romana'. But
the main purpose of the embassy was to make a settlement of affairs at
Milan, so as completely to re-establish the old imperial authority.
Acceding to the request of the anti-Patarian party, Henry ignored both
his own nominee Godfrey and also Atto, whom the Pope recognised as
archbishop, and proceeded to invest one Tedald, who was consecrated
archbishop by the suffragans of Milan. As in 1072, Henry so long
compliant deliberately provoked a rupture on the question of Milan. It
was an issue in which imperial and papal interests vitally conflicted, and
now that he was master once more in Germany it was an issue that he
felt himself strong enough to raise. Henry had revealed himself in his
true colours. The Pope's eyes were opened. He realised at last the meaning
of Henry's submission in 1073, and that it was due not to sincerity but
to defeat. It was clear that compliance could be expected from Henry
only when his fortunes were at a low ebb, and that at such times no re-
liance could be placed on his promises. The Pope's dream is at an end;
he is now awake to the realities of the situation, the bitter frustration of
all his hopes.
His tone to the usurper Tedald and his orders to the suffragan bishops
of Milan were sharp and uncompromising. With the king he tried the
effect of threats to see if they would succeed where persuasion had failed.
By the king's own ambassadors he sent him a letter in which he summed
up the leading offences of Henry-he is reported to be associating with
his excommunicated councillors, and if this be true must do penance and
seek absolution; he is certainly guilty with regard to Fermo and Spoleto
and most culpable of all in his action at Milan, which was a direct breach
of all his promises and a proof of the falseness of his pretended humility
and obedience to Rome. A more mild rebuke follows for Henry's silence
to his overtures regarding the investiture decree; if the king felt himself
aggrieved he ought to have stated his grievances. Until he has given satis-
faction on all these points, the king must expect no answer to his previous
1 Hence Gregory's complaint that they were men unknown to him.
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. II.
5
## p. 66 (#112) #############################################
66
The Council of Worms, 24 January 1076
enquiry (again, doubtless, on the question of his coronation at Rome).
He concludes with a warning to the king to remember the fate of Saul,
who, like Henry, had displayed pride and disobedience after his victory;
it is the humility of David that a righteous king must imitate. The letter
was stern, but not uncompromising; the message given to the ambassadors
to deliver by word of mouth was more direct. It amounted to a distinct
threat that, failing compliance, Henry must expect the sentence of
excommunication, and possibly of deposition also, to be pronounced
against him from the papal chair. This verbal message was in effect an
ultimatum.
The embassy reached Henry early in January 1076. He could not
brook threats of this nature when policy no longer required him to yield
to them. He had been humble to the Pope only until he had defeated
his other foe; now that he was victorious, the need for humility was past,
and he could deal directly with the other enemy that was menacing the
imperial rights. His previous humiliation only made his desire for revenge
more keen, and his indignation demanded a speedy revenge. The bishops
he knew to be as bitter against the Pope as himself; and he summoned
them to a Council at Worms on 24 January. The short notice given in
the summons must have prevented the attendance of several, such as
Archbishop Liemar, who would gladly have been present; even so, two
archbishops, Siegfried of Mayence and Udo of Trèves, and twenty-four
bishops, subscribed their names to the proceedings. There was no need
for persuasion or deliberation. They readilyrenounced allegiance to the
Pope, and concocted a letter addressed to him in which they brought
forward various charges (of adultery, perjury, and the like) to blacken his
character, but laid their principal stress on the only serious charge they
could bring—his treatment of the episcopate. The king composed a letter
on his own account, making the bishops' cause his own, and indignantly
repudiating Gregory's claim to exercise authority over himself, who as
the Lord's anointed was above all earthly judgment, ordered him to de-
scend from the papal throne and yield it to a more worthy occupant. The
next step was to obtain the adhesion of the North Italian bishops,
which was very readily given at a council at Piacenza, and to Roland
of Parma was entrusted the mission of delivering to the Pope the
sentence of deposition pronounced by the king and the bishops of the
Empire.
At Christmas 1075 had occurred the outrage of Cencius, who laid
violent hands on the Pope and hurried him, a prisoner, into a fortress of
his own. Gregory was rescued by the Roman populace, and had to inter-
vene to prevent them from tearing his captor in pieces. The horror
aroused at this incident gave an added reverence to the person of the Pope,
and it was in these circumstances, and while the Lenten Synod was about
to commence its deliberations, that Roland of Parma arrived. The message
1 Except Bishop Herman of Metz, who was doubtless coerced into siguing.
## p. 67 (#113) #############################################
Lenten Synod at Rome. Excommunication of Henry IV 67
which he delivered to the assembled synod was an outrage beside which
that of Cencius paled into insignificance. It shocked the general feeling
of the day, which was accordingly prejudiced on the Pope's side at the
commencement of the struggle. At the synod itself there was a scene of
wild disorder and uproar. The Pope, depressed at the final ruin of his
hopes and at the prospect of the struggle before him, alone remained calm;
he intervened to protect Roland from their fury, and succeeded at last in
quieting the assembly and recalling it to its deliberations. The verdict
was assured and he proceeded to pass sentence on his aggressors. Arch-
bishop Siegfried and the other German bishops that subscribed are
sentenced to deposition and separated from communion with the Church;
a proviso is added giving the opportunity to those who had been coerced
into signing to make their peace before 1 August. The same sentence is
passed on the Lombard bishops. Finally he deals with the king in an
impressive utterance addressed to St Peter, in whose name he declares
him deposed and absolves his subjects from their oath of allegiance; and
then he bans him from the communion of the Church, recounting his
various offences-communicating with the excommunicated councillors;
his many iniquities; his contempt of papal warnings; his breach of the
unity of the Church by his attack on the Pope.
The hasty violence and the fantastic charges of the king and the bishops
contrasted very strikingly with the solemn and deliberate sentence of the
Pope. Confident himself in the justice of his action, there were some who
doubted, and for these he wrote a circular letter detailing the events that
led to Henry's excommunication. The facts spoke for themselves, but
there were still some who continued to doubt whether in any circum-
stances the Pope had the right to excommunicate the king; to convince
these he wrote a letter to Bishop Herman of Metz (who had hastened to
make his peace with the Pope for his enforced signature at Worms), in
which he justifies himself by precedents, by the power given to St Peter,
and by the authority of Scripture and the Fathers. It is rather a hurried
letter, in which he answers briefly and somewhat impatiently several
questions put to him by Herman. He makes it quite clear, however,
that he regards the spiritual power as superior to the temporal, and that
his authority extends over all temporal rulers. Henceforward there is no
sign of his earlier attitude which seemed to imply adherence to the
Gelasian standpoint; he is now the judge who decides whether the king
is doing that which is right (i. e. is worthy to be king), and the test of
right-doing is obedience to the papal commands. One point calls for re-
mark. It is only the excommunication that he justifies. The sentence of
deposition plays little part in 1076; it is not a final sentence as in 1080,
and even by Henry's enemies in Germany, who considered this to be a
question rather for them to decide, little attention is paid to this part of
the sentence. Probably in the Pope's eyes it was subsidiary; deposition
and the absolving of the king's subjects from their oath of allegiance was
CH. II.
5-2
## p. 68 (#114) #############################################
68
Results of the excommunication
a necessary consequence of excommunication in order to save from the
same penalty the subjects of the excommunicated king. As is clear from
his letter to Bishop Herman, he contemplated the absolution of the
king as a possibility in the near future, and he did not at present
contemplate the appointment of a successor to Henry.
The king received intelligence of the papal sentence at Easter, and im-
mediately summoned a council to meet at Worms on Whitsunday. The
crisis had been reached. The king had ordered the Pope to descend from
St Peter's chair; the Pope treated the king as contumacious, excommuni-
cated him, and declared him to be no longer king. Which was to prevail?
The answer to this was quickly given. The papal ban was seen to be
speedily efficacious. It frightened the more timid of Henry's adherents,
it impressed moderate men who had been horrified by the king's attack on
the Pope. Moreover it gave the excuse for revolt to raise its head in
Saxony once more, and to win adherents from among the higher nobility
in the rest of Germany, alienated by the high-handed measures of the
king in his moment of triumph and resenting their own lack of influence
in the affairs of the kingdom. The situation in Germany is dealt with in
another chapter. Here it is enough to say that Henry found himself iso-
lated, and faced by a coalition far more dangerous to his power than the
revolt of 1073. His summons to councils at Worms and Mayence were
ignored, and the bishops of Germany were hastening to make their peace
with the Pope, either directly or indirectly through the papal legate,
Bishop Altmann of Passau. Only in North Italy were his adherents still
faithful, and with them it was not possible for him to join forces. The
imperial authority was humiliated between the encroachments of the
spiritual power on the one hand, and the decentralising policy of the
leading nobles on the other. At the Diet of princes held at Tribur in
October these two powers came to terms for mutual action.
Two papal
legates were present, and the Pope's letter of the previous month, in
which for the first time he contemplates the possibility of a successor to
Henry, was probably before the diet. He insists in that event on being
consulted as to their choice, requiring careful information as to per-
sonal character; he claims that the Apostolic See has the right of confirm-
ing the election made by the nobles. Such a right was not likely to be
conceded by them, but to obtain papal support they were willing to
satisfy him essentially. Henry was forced to send a solemn promise of
obedience to the Pope and of satisfaction for his offences, and to pro-
mulgate his change of mind to all the nobles, lay and ecclesiastical, of the
kingdom. The diet then arrived at two important decisions. Accepting
the justice of Henry's excommunication, they agreed that if he had not
obtained absolution by 22 February they would no longer recognise him
as king. Secondly, they summoned a council to be held at Augsburg on
2 February, at which they invited the Pope to be present and to preside;
at this council the question of Henry's worthiness to reign was to be
## p. 69 (#115) #############################################
Henry's journey to Canossa
69
decided and, if necessary, the choice of a successor was to be made. These
decisions were communicated to the Pope, and also to Henry, who was
remaining on the other side of the river at Oppenheim, carefully watched,
with only a few attendants, almost a prisoner.
The Pope received the news with delight and accepted the invitation
with alacrity. It meant for him the realisation of his aims and the
exhibition to the world of the relative importance of the spiritual and
temporal powers; Pope Gregory VII sitting in judgment on King
Henry IV would efface the unhappy memory of King Henry III sitting
in judgment on Pope Gregory VI thirty years before. He left Rome in
December and travelled north into Lombardy. But the escort promised
him from Germany did not arrive, and the news reached him that Henry
had crossed the Alps and was in Italy. Uncertain as to the king's inten-
tions and fully aware of the hostility of the Lombards, he took refuge
in Countess Matilda's castle of Canossa.
The king was in a desperate position. He could expect little mercy
from the council of his enemies at Augsburg in February. The conjunc-
tion of the Pope and the German nobles was above all things to be
avoided. The only resource left to him was to obtain absolution, and to
obtain it from the Pope in Italy, before he arrived in Germany. To effect
this a humiliation even more abject than that of 1073 was necessary: he
must appear in person before the Pope not as a king but as a penitent
sinner; it would be hard for the Pope to refuse absolution to a humble
penitent. His decision arrived at, he acted with singular courage and
resolution. He had to elude the close vigilance of the nobles and escape
from his present confinement; as they were guarding the other passes into
Italy, only the Mont Cenis pass was left to him, which was in the control
of his wife's family, the counts of Savoy; but the winter was one of the
most severe on record, and the passage of the Mont Cenis pass was an
undertaking that might have daunted the hardiest mountaineer. All
these difficulties Henry overcame, and with his wife, his infant son, and
a few personal attendants he reached the plains of Lombardy. Here he
found numerous supporters, militant anti-Papalists, eager to flock to his
banner. It was a serious temptation, but his good sense shewed him that
it would ultimately have been fatal, and he resisted it. With his meagre
retinue he continued his journey until he arrived at the gates of Canossa,
where the final difficulty was to be overcome, the obtaining of the papal
absolution. To this end he strove to obtain the intercession of his god-
father Abbot Hugh of Cluny, of the Countess Matilda, of any of those
present whose influence might prevail with the Pope. And he carried
out to the full his design of throwing off the king and appearing as
the sinner seeking absolution; bare-footed, in the woollen garb of the
penitent, for three days he stood humbly in the outer courtyard of
Canossa.
There are few moments in history that have impressed later genera-
CH. II.
## p. 70 (#116) #############################################
70
Canossa
tions so much as this spectacle of the heir to the Empire standing in the
courtyard of Canossa, a humble suppliant for papal absolution. But it
is within the castle that we must look for the real drama of Canossa.
Paradoxical as it sounds, it was the king who had planned and achieved
this situation; the plans of the Pope were upset by this sudden appear-
ance, his mind was unprepared for the emergency. The three days of
waiting are not so much the measure of Henry's humiliation as of
Gregory's irresolution. Could he refuse absolution to one so humble and
apparently so penitent? The influence of those on whom he was wont to
lean for spiritual help, especially the Abbot of Cluny, urged him to
mercy; the appeal of the beloved Countess Matilda moved him in the
same direction. But they only saw a king in penitential garb; he had
the bitter experience of the last two years to guide him, and what confi-
dence could he feel that the penitence of Henry was more sincere now,
when his need was greater, than it had been in 1073? He saw before him
too the prospect of the wrecking of all his hopes, the breach of his
engagement with the German nobles, which would probably result
from an absolution given in circumstances that neither he nor they had
contemplated. His long hesitation was due, then, to the conflict in his
mind; it was not a deliberate delay designed to increase to the utmost the
degradation of the king.
But at last the appeal to the divine mercy prevailed over all other
considerations. The doors were opened and Henry admitted to the Pope's
presence; the ban was removed, and the king was received once more
into communion with the Church. From him the Pope extracted such
assurances of his penitence and guarantees for his future conduct as would
justify the absolution and at the same time leave the situation as far as
possible unaltered from the papal point of view. With his hand on the
Gospels the king took an oath to follow the Pope's directions with regard
to the charges of the German nobles against him, whichever way they
might tend, and further by no act or instigation of his to impede
Gregory from coming into Germany or to interfere with his safe-conduct
while there. The Pope sent a copy of this oath to the German nobles
with a letter describing the events at Canossa. He realised that the
absolution of Henry in Italy would appear to them in the light of a be-
trayal of the compact he had entered into with them. His letter is an
explanation, almost an apology of his action; while he points out that
1 Or contemporary opinion so little. Bismarck's famous words “zu Canossa gehen
wir nicht" indicate the aspect of Canossa that impresses the modern mind. But the
brief allusions to Canossa in contemporary writers only refer to the king's absolution
and its political results; it did not occur to them that the monarchy had been
degraded by Henry's action. His seat on the throne had been shaken by the ex-
communication; he righted himself by his penance at Canossa.
2 This letter ! ( Reg. iv, 12) is our only real authority for the details of Canossa.
Lampert of Hersfeld's account is clearly based on the Pope's letter, with characteristic
embellishments of his own invention.
## p. 71 (#117) #############################################
The election of Rudolf as anti-king
71
the non-appearance of the promised escort had prevented him from
reaching Germany, he is careful to insist firstly that it was impossible for
him to refuse absolution, secondly that he has entered into no engagement
with the king and that his purpose is as before to be present at a council
in Germany. He lingered, in fact, for some months in North Italy,
waiting for the escort that never came; at last he resigned himself to the
inevitable and slowly retraced his steps to Rome, which he reached at the
beginning of September.
Henry's plan had been precisely fulfilled. He had counted the cost-
a public humiliation—and was prepared to pay the additional price in the
form of promises; he had obtained his end-absolution-and the results
he had anticipated from this were to prove the success of his policy? . In
Lombardy he resumed his royal rights, but resisted the clamour of his
Italian adherents, whose ardour he most thoroughly disappointed; he
must still walk with great discretion, and Germany, not Italy, was his
immediate objective.
