king was then admitted to communion and sumptuously feasted by the Pope, after which he was dismissed to rejoin his followers awaiting him at the castle gate. The trying ordeal of Canossa was over. The mighty Pope of small, wiry stature and physically weak had compelled, by the sheer force of the spiritual weapons in his hands, the powerful German ruler to humbly bow before him and beg forgiveness and absolution. Apparently it was a great victory for the Pope, but the sequel makes the result look like a defeat.[466:1]
Henry's humiliation alienated his Lombard adherents. By opposing Rome he had lost one kingdom; by submitting to Rome he was about to lose another. No sooner was he beyond the castle walls of Canossa with the heavy curse removed from his head than he began to plot to remove the effects of his apparently disgraceful defeat. From now on the king becomes the aggressive champion of secular supremacy, while the Pope assumes the defensive. A trap was laid to catch the Pope at the Council of Mantua and he was practically held as a prisoner at Canossa. Meanwhile Henry openly violated his agreement, by assuming the rule of Lombardy, and denounced the Pope in strong terms. The rebellious princes in Germany, urged on by the papal party and taking advantage of this situation, called the convention of Forscheim, and there elected Rudolph of Swabia as King of Germany. He promised to abolish simony, to renounce the right of investing bishops, and to recognise the law of heredity, so was crowned March 26, 1077. Under these circumstances Henry IV., supported by the Lombard party and the strong imperial party in Germany, returned to his kingdom to regain his crown through civil war.
Gregory VII., hoping to profit by the situation, demanded that both kings refer their cause to him as arbiter and, finally, when Henry proved obstinate, in a council held at Rome in 1080 the Pope renewed the excommunication of Henry, and again deposed him.[467:1] The German crown was bestowed by apostolic authority upon Rudolph. In the same council the edict against lay investiture was renewed in a harsher spirit than ever. War to the knife was now inevitable. Rigid party lines were again formed. Henry gradually recovered his mastery of Germany. The German clergy in June, 1080, blaming Gregory VII. for the ruinous civil war, once more retaliated by deposing the Pope.[467:2] A council held at Brescia the same year elected Clement III. as anti-Pope. Gregory's efforts to raise up allies were all in vain. Henry IV. laid siege to Rome with a big army and at last after a long struggle was master of it. Clement III. was installed as Pope and on Easter Day, 1084, Henry IV. received as his reward the imperial crown. Gregory VII., defeated by the German warrior and rescued from the Eternal City with difficulty by the trusty Normans, withdrew to Salerno to die with the curse of the Emperor on his lips, saying: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile" (May 25, 1085).
Gregory VII. was a man of unquestionable ascetic purity. The charges made against him by his enemies are probably untrue. His relations with Matilda, Beatrice, and Empress Agnes were of the purest character. In his efforts and ideas he was undoubtedly sincere and firmly believed that he really was the representative of God on earth. It must be
remembered, however, that his conceptions of veracity, justice, honour, and charity were those of a mediæval despot. He was one of the greatest politicians of the Middle Ages, but a policy man controlled by the loftiest purpose. To attain his ecclesiastical ideal, policy and principle were one and he almost acted as though the end justified the means. After Charles the Great and Otto the Great before him and Innocent III. after him he had the greatest organising mind of the Middle Ages. Few other men can compare with him. He comprehended the grand Civitas Dei of Augustine and through the false decretals he attempted to create the great universal papal theocracy in which the state should be subject to the Church, the Church purified and subjected to the Pope, and the whole Church ruled by Lex Christi. Nature endowed him with an indomitable will, a restless energy, a clear perception, a dauntless courage, an imperious temper, an instinct for leadership, a stern inflexible disposition, a haughty insolent bearing, and a power to draw and to repulse. These native talents were intensified by monastic education which taught him both the virtue and necessity of obedience, trained him to subordinate all affections, opinions, and interest to the one great object, and made him a true child of the mediæval Church with the highest ideas of her prerogatives and mission on earth. The churchman completely swallowed up the man.
Hildebrand was a wily religious autocrat and not a theologian or a moralist. His ideas came from Augustine and Pseudo-Isidore. His Christianity was based on tradition and historical evolution rather than on the Bible. He denounced simony and advocated celibacy, but not on moral grounds so much as because of his sincere conviction about their effect on his
great ecclesiastical machine. The Church to him was a grand secular power, resting on spiritual foundations, which had to employ worldly means against the other secular powers. Europe was a chessboard and with the hand of a skilled master he moved kings, queens, knights, and bishops. His schemes were worthy of the plotter—his courage became defiance in danger—his forces were handled with consummate skill—his fatal thrusts were driven home with his teeth clenched—if he seemed to yield it was only to gain a greater advantage. As Pope he was over all, the source of all law, judged by none, and responsible to God alone. Under this conviction, intensified as the years passed, he lived in perpetual conflict, and died a refugee from the capital of his great ecclesiastical Empire.
Napoleon once said: "Si je n'etais Napoleon, je voudrais être Gregoire VII." There were many points of resemblance between these two great characters. Both were of obscure birth and low origin. Both possessed the same indomitable character and threatening ambition. Both were reformers. Gregory established a hierarchy which still lives; Napoleon created an administration which still survives. Gregory wanted to make the Church the master of the world; Napoleon, France. Gregory made the Lex Christi the basis of all; Napoleon, the revolution. Both wanted to make feudal vassals of the world's rulers. Both had an indomitable enemy—Henry IV. and England. Both used the power of excommunication. Gregory had his Canossa; Napoleon his Moscow. Italy was invaded and Rome sacked; France was invaded and Paris taken. Salerno and St. Helena in each case closed the drama.
Gregory VII. was the creator of the political Papacy of the Middle Ages because he was the first who dared to completely enforce the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. He found the Pope elected by the Emperor, the Roman clergy, and the people; he left the election in the hands of an ecclesiastical College of Cardinals. He found the Papacy dependent upon the Empire; he made it independent of the Empire and above it. He declared the states of Europe to be fiefs of St. Peter and demanded the oath of fealty from their rulers. He found the clergy, high and low, dependent allies of secular princes and kings; he emancipated them and subjected them to his own will. He reorganised the Church from top to bottom by remodelling the papal curia, by establishing the College of Cardinals, by employing papal legates, by thwarting national churches, by controlling synods and councils, and by managing all Church property directly. He was the first to enforce the theory that the Pope could depose and confirm or reject kings and Emperors. He attempted to reform the abuses in the Church and to purify the clergy. Only partial success attended these efforts, but triumph was to come later on as a result of his labours. His endeavour to realise his theocracy was grand but impracticable as proved by its failure. It was like forcing a dream to be true; yet Innocent III. almost succeeded in western Europe a little more than a century later. The impress of Gregory VII.'s gigantic ability was left upon his own age and upon all succeeding ages.
The strife over lay investiture was carried on by the successors of Gregory VII. Victor III. (1086-1087) renewed the investiture decrees but died too soon to accomplish anything. Urban II. (1088-1099), imbued