A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Bayard Taylor

In this emergency the cities along the Rhine, which were very weary of priestly rule, and now saw a chance to strengthen themselves by assisting the Emperor, openly befriended him. They were able, however, to give him but little military support, and in February, 1074, he was compelled to conclude a treaty with the Saxons, which granted them almost everything they demanded, even to the demolition of the fortresses he had built on their territory. But, in the flush of victory, they also tore down the Imperial palace at Goslar, the Church, and the sepulchre wherein Henry III. was buried. This placed them in the wrong, and Henry IV. marched into Saxony with an immense army which he had called together for the purpose of invading Hungary. The Saxons armed themselves to resist, but they were attacked when unprepared, defeated after a terrible battle, and their land laid waste with fire and sword. Thus were again verified, a thousand years later, the words of Tiberius—that it was not necessary to attempt the conquest of the Germans, for, if let alone, they would destroy themselves.

1074. POPE GREGORY VII.

The power of Henry IV. seemed now to be assured; but the lowest humiliation which ever befell a monarch was in store for him. The monk of Cluny, Hildebrand of Savona, who had inspired the policy of four Popes during twenty-four years, became Pope himself in 1073, under the name of Gregory VII. He was a man of iron will and inexhaustible energy, wise and far-seeing beyond any of his contemporaries, and unquestionably sincere in his aims. He remodelled the Papal office, gave it a new character and importance, and left his own indelible mark on the Church of Rome from that day to this. For the first five hundred years after Christ the Pope had been merely the Bishop of Rome; for the second five hundred years he had been the nominal head of the Church, but subordinate to the political rulers, and dependent upon them. Gregory VII. determined to make the office a spiritual power, above all other powers, with sole and final authority over the bishops, priests and other servants of the Church. It was to be a religious Empire, existing by Divine right, independent of the fate of nations or the will of kings.

He relied mainly upon two measures to accomplish this change,—the suppression of simony and the celibacy of the priesthood. He determined that the priests should belong wholly to the Church; that the human ties of wife and children should be denied to them. This measure had been proposed before, but never carried into effect, on account of the opposition of the married Bishops and priests; but the increase of the monastic orders and their greater influence at this time favored Gregory's design. Even after celibacy was proclaimed as a law of the Church, in 1074, it encountered the most violent opposition, and the law was not universally obeyed by the priests until two or three centuries later.

1075.

In 1075, Gregory promulgated a law against simony, in which he not only prohibited the sale of all offices of the Church, but claimed that the Bishops could only receive the ring and crozier, the symbols of their authority, from the hands of the Pope. The same year, he sent messengers to Henry IV. calling upon him to enforce this law in Germany, under penalty of excommunication. The surprise and anger of the King may easily be imagined: it was a language which no Pope had ever before dared to use toward the Imperial power. Indeed, when we consider that Gregory at this time was quarrelling with the Normans, the Lombard cities and the king of France, and that a party in Rome was becoming hostile to his rule, the act seems almost that of a madman.

Henry IV. called a Synod, which met at Worms. The Bishops, at his request, unanimously declared that Gregory VII. was deposed from the Papacy, and a message was sent to the people at Rome, ordering them to drive him from the city. But, just at that time, Gregory had put down a conspiracy of the nobles to assassinate him, by calling the people to his aid, and he was temporarily popular with the latter. He answered Henry IV. with the ban of excommunication,—which would have been harmless enough, but for the deep-seated discontent of the Germans with the king's rule. The Saxons, whom he had treated with the greatest harshness and indignity since their subjection, immediately found a pretext to throw off their allegiance: the other German States showed a cold and mistrustful temper, and their princes failed to come together when Henry called a National Diet. In the meantime the ambassadors of Gregory were busy, and the petty courts were filled with secret intrigues for dethroning the king and electing a new one.

1077. THE HUMILIATION AT CANOSSA.

In October, 1076, finally, a Convention of princes was held on the Rhine, near Mayence. Henry was not allowed to be present, but he sent messengers, offering to yield to their demands if they would only guard the dignity of the crown. The princes rejected all his offers, and finally adjourned to meet in Augsburg early in 1077, when the Pope was asked to be present. As soon as Henry IV. learned that Gregory had accepted the invitation, he was seized with a panic as unkingly as his former violence. Accompanied only by a small retinue, he hastened to Burgundy, crossed Mont Cenis in the dead of winter, encountering many sufferings and dangers on the way, and entered Italy with the single intention of meeting Pope Gregory and persuading him to remove the ban of the Church.

At the news of his arrival in Lombardy, the Bishops and nobles from all the cities flocked to his support, and demanded only that he should lead them against the Pope. The movement was so threatening that Gregory himself, already on his way to Germany, halted, and retired for a time to the Castle of Canossa (in the Apennines, not far from Parma), which belonged to his devoted friend, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Victory was assured to Henry, if he had but grasped it; but he seems to have possessed no courage except when inspired by hate. He neglected the offered help, went to Canossa, and, presenting himself before the gate barefoot and clad only in a shirt of sackcloth, he asked to be admitted and pardoned as a repentant sinner. Gregory, so unexpectedly triumphant, prolonged for three whole days the satisfaction which he enjoyed in the king's humiliation: for three days the latter waited at the gate in snow and rain, before he was received. Then, after promising to obey the Pope, he received the kiss of peace, and the two took communion together in the castle-chapel! This was the first great victory of the Papal power: Gregory VII. paid dearly for it, but it was an event which could not be erased from History. It has fed the pride and supported the claims of the Roman Church, from that day to this.