[Sidenote: His reasons for his failure.]
But we cannot ratify Gregory's own judgment on the reasons for his failure. Rather the blame is to be laid upon his lack of statesmanship. His egotism and his fanaticism worked together to make him believe that the supremacy of the spiritual power which he aimed at might be attained by very secular devices. In action he showed himself a pure opportunist, approving at one time what he condemned at another. And yet he had so little of an eye for the line which separates the practicable from the ideal that at Canossa he humiliated Henry beyond all hope of reconciliation, and he died in exile because he would not listen to any compromise which might be an acknowledgment that he had exaggerated his own claims. Thus, despite the undoubted purity of his life and the ultimate loftiness of his ideals, he is to be regarded rather as a man of immense force of character than as a great ecclesiastical statesman, rather as the stirrer-up of divine discontent than as a creative mind which gives a new turn to the desires and impulses of the human race.
[Sidenote: His activity in Europe.]
All this is borne out by his dealings outside Germany and Italy. He conducted a very extensive correspondence with princes as well as ecclesiastics all over Europe. Indeed this, as much as the despatch of legates and the annual attendance of bishops at the Lenten Synod, was one of the means by which the Papacy strove to make itself the central power of Christendom. These letters deal with all kinds of subjects and bear ample witness to his personal piety and high moral aims. But alongside of these come arrogant assertions of papal authority. He claims as fiefs of St. Peter on various grounds Hungary, Spain, Denmark, Corsica, Sardinia; he gives the title of King to the Duke of Dalmatia; he even offers to princes who belong to the Eastern Church a better title to their possessions as held from St. Peter.
[Sidenote: His policy in France.]
Gregory's great contest with the Empire has been described without interruption, as if it were the only struggle of his time, instead of being merely the most important episode in a very busy life. And if we ask in conclusion why it was fought out in the imperial dominions rather than elsewhere, the answer will be instructive of his character and methods of action. At the beginning of his pontificate his harshest phrases were directed against Philip I of France, who added to the crimes of lay investiture and shameless simony a scandalous personal immorality. Ultimately Gregory threatened him with excommunication and deposition. But he never passed beyond threats. The reason is to be found in the fact that Gregory was soon in pursuit of larger game. The French King only shared with his great nobles the investiture of the bishops in the kingdom. Moreover, the French bishops were not as a body great secular potentates like the German bishops. The opposition to reform in France was passive, not active. Crown, nobles, and Church stood together in opposition: there was no papal party. Not enough was to be gained by a victory, and there was great chance of a defeat. The result was that Philip continued his simoniacal transactions and never entirely gave up investiture, while Gregory allowed himself to be satisfied with occasional promises of better things. His dealings with the French bishops are equally inconclusive. For six years (1076-82) two of the papal legates divided France between them, practically superseded the local ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and acted with the utmost severity against all, ecclesiastics or laymen, who practised the methods now under condemnation. Great opposition was aroused and the legates went in peril of their lives. They were only carrying out strenuously the principles laid down under Gregory's guidance in many acts of synods and inculcated by Gregory in numberless private letters. And yet Gregory is found frequently undoing their acts, restoring bishops whom they have deposed, accepting excuses or explanations which cannot possibly have deceived him.
[Sidenote: In England.]
His policy towards England affords another instructive contrast. Both in Normandy and in England William the Conqueror practised investiture of his bishops and abbots and held his ecclesiastics in an iron grip. He refused the papal demand for homage for his English kingdom and he would allow no papal interference with his clergy without the King's permission. Archbishop Lanfranc also only consented to accept the decree against married clergy with a serious limitation—while married canons were to dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a dangerous enemy. Consequently no question of the lawfulness of investiture was mooted during his lifetime. Gregory contented himself with threats against Lanfranc. But the English Archbishop owed a grudge to Gregory, who had treated with a culpable indulgence the great heresiarch Berengar after Lanfranc had vanquished him and convicted him of heresy; and Lanfranc knew that under William's sheltering favour he was safe from the papal ban.
Thus, while in France Gregory would have to face an united people, in England he shrank before the personality of the King. In Germany, on the other hand, he found a blameworthy King and a discontented people. All the elements were present for the successful interference of an external power. Moreover, the peculiar relations in which this external power—the Papacy—stood towards the German King, the prospective Emperor, gave every excuse, if any were needed, for such interference. Finally and most especially, since these imperial prospects made the German King the first among the monarchs of Western Europe, a victory over him would carry a prestige which lesser potentates would be bound to acknowledge.