If any one shall from henceforth receive any bishopric or abbey from any layman, let him not be received among the bishops or abbots, nor let the privilege of audience be granted him as to a bishop or abbot. We, moreover, deny to such person the favour of St. Peter and an entrance into the Church, until he shall have resigned the dignity which he has obtained both by the crime of ambition and disobedience which is idolatry. And similarly do we decree concerning the lesser dignities of the Church. Also if any Emperor, Duke, Marquis, Count, secular person or power, shall presume to give investiture of any bishopric
or ecclesiastical dignity let him know himself to be bound by the same sentence.[459:1]
This edict was immediately sent to all the bishops of the Empire and no doubt all over Christendom. It began the struggle which rent both the Empire and the Church into two hostile parties and continued long after Gregory VII. died in exile. It was unquestionably revolutionary, because Pope after Pope had recognised the right of investiture by laymen and the matter was generally treated as authorised by public law.[459:2]
The Pope opened the skirmish through the council by citing many bishops from Germany, England, France, and Italy to answer to him for ecclesiastical offences, chiefly simoniacal; by continuing the curse laid on Robert of Apulia; by threatening the King of France with interdict, unless he repented and made reparation; by deposing the bishops of Pavia, Turin, and Piacenza; by treating the German prelates with unusual severity; in repeating the excommunication of the German King's ministers; and in putting under the ban the bishops of Speyer and Strassburg and the Archbishop of Bremen.
The conflict centred about Henry IV., who entirely disregarded the law of lay investiture.[459:3] He looked upon investiture as a royal prerogative, hence he invested the Bishop of Liege (July, 1075), appointed his chaplain Archbishop of Milan against the Pope's nominee (Sept., 1075), named a Bishop of Bomberg without consulting Gregory VII.,[459:4] chose the Abbot of Fulda (Dec.,
1075) and also for Lorsch,[460:1] disposed of the churches of Fermo and Spolita in the same way, and reached the climax when he attempted to force his own candidate into the archiepiscopal seat of Cologne.[460:2] Gregory viewed these acts as an infraction of the King's promises and as showing contempt for the law of the Holy See and its prerogatives. Hence he summoned the Archbishop of Milan to Rome to answer for his intrusion.[460:3] After the next appointments were made by the King (Dec., 1075), he wrote a stern letter of admonition to the king.[460:4] Finally, after the Cologne affair, the Pope cited the king to answer for his sins at Rome before a certain date or "Be cut off from the body of the Lord and be smitten with the curse of the anathema." The legates who carried this information to the king were insultingly dismissed.[460:5]
Henry IV., backed up by the German clergy and nobility and joined by the anti-sacerdotal and anti-reform parties in Italy, felt powerful enough to defy the command of the Pope.[460:6] To offset the summons to Rome Henry called the Diet of Worms (Jan. 25, 1076), at which twenty-four bishops and two archbishops were present. Cardinal Hugo, who had helped to make Hildebrand Pope but who was now under the ecclesiastical ban, brought forged complaints from Italy and read a false life of Gregory VII. The Emperor and
the bishops renounced their allegiance to the Pope and formally impeached him on seven grave charges ranging from the grossest licentiousness to the assumption of the functions of God Himself.[461:1] The king immediately sent letters announcing this action to the prelates and cities of Lombardy, where the news was received with joy; to the Romans calling upon them to expel "The enemy of the Empire," "The false Monk Hildebrand," the "Usurper of the Holy See"; and to the Pope himself to whom the letter was delivered in the very Lateran Council to which the king had been summoned.
The royal herald addressed the Pope in these words: "My lord, the King, and the bishops of the Empire, do by mouth command you, Hildebrand, without delay to resign the Chair of Peter, for it is unlawful for you to aspire to so lofty a place without the royal consent and investiture." Incensed by this insolent address, the lay attendants of the Pope would have drawn their swords upon the herald had the Pope not covered him with his mantle.[461:2] When the tumult had subsided Gregory spoke to the council in these words:
Let us not, brethren, disturb the Church of God by noise and tumult. Doth not the holy scripture teach us to expect perilous times—seasons in which men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to fathers, unthankful, unholy, not rendering obedience to their teachers? . . . The word of God calleth to us, "It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." And unto us it is said, in order to instruct us how we ought to demean ourselves in the sight of our enemies: "Behold,